Rachid Ghannouchi: A Democrat within Islamism

In this volume, Azzam S. Tamimi introduces the thought of Sheikh Rachid Ghannouchi, the renowned Islamist political activist who heads Tunisia's most important - albeit banned - Islamist political opposition to the current authoritarian regime of Zine Abidine Ben Ali. Ghannouchi is the leader of a school in modern Islamic political thought that advocates democracy and pluralism. He believes that democracy is a set of mechanisms of guaranteeing the sovereignty of the people and for supplying safety valves against corruption and the hegemonic monopoly of power. While insisting on the compatibility of democracy with Islam, Ghannouchi believes that because of their secular foundations, contemporary forms of liberal democracy may not suit Muslim societies. In fact, Ghannouchi contends that civil society is an Islamic concept whereas secularism, especially in the model imported to the Muslim world under the guise of modernization, weakens it.


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