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Atfirst glance, the case against democracy taking hold in the Middle East is a powerful one. It is not without  reason that The Economist, a magazine not known for its anti-Muslim prejudices, asked whether there was something “hard-wired” into Islam that made it “incompatible with democracy.” In democracies, The Economist tells us, men make laws. But Islam contains in the Koran a set of God-given laws dictated to Mohammad that are not open to revision, leading many to conclude that Islam is not compatible with democratic rule. While this can be said of all orthodox faith that have “God-given” laws, it appears especially true of Islam because of its unique history. As the eminent scholar Bernard Lewis has pointed out, there is no separation of church and state in Islam, as there is in Christanity, Christians were told to render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and unto God the things which are God’s. By having this public-private distinction as part of its theology, Lewis explains, Christianity paved the way for the separation of church  and state that is generally considered a central pillar of modern, democratic life.

Excerpted from ‘The case for Democracy’ by Natan Sharansky