Indonesia, Islam and Democracy

Abstrak

A spectacular phenomenon at the level of political philosophy is the universal acknowledgement toward democracy; nowadays the political legitimacy of a nation is generally measured by its level of democracy. This article seeks to analyze whether there is incompatibility between Islam and Muslims and democracy? It looks at aspects of democracy and the Islamic principles, and analyze the case of Indonesia, a country with Muslim majority and a democratic system. Indonesia has seen much success in the transition from an authoritarian regime to a democratic system of governance, which means that the absence of democracy in countries of the Middle East does not necessarily mean incompatibility between Islam and democracy.