Here's a great resource that tackles this question. Following the recent events in the arab world, do you think countries led by islamic leaders (Egypt, most recently) can adhere to the values of democracy?
No they can't.. Since any law voted should not contradict their holy book, so forget about democracy. But then, who cares about democracy, when you see that one person is one vote, and that the mass is easily manipulated by who controls the media, then it's flawed. At least in dictatorships they *can* get things done, they can have long terms plans and do them, if the dictators want of course.
The Democracy what you people are preaching is some times the worst type of government. In democracy, 51% of the people can take away the rights of the other 49%. It doesn't matter those 51% are right or wrong, true or false. Whoever gets a majority decide the fate of the whole people. You can see that even UN is not democratic. They have to end the veto system and let the majority decide international problems. US is NOT democratic - United States is the only country to use its veto to override the votes of every other member. This country has already used its veto power over 40 times to protect Israel no matter how many settlements it builds, people it killed, homes it destroyed. The one country to say no to democracy by vetoing the majority in the UN assembly. But they always claiming the best protector of democracy all over the world and at the same time protecting the Monarchs in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Oman and Kuwait. Now you people are searching for whether Islam and Muslims are compatible with democracy. This is what we call hypocrisy. Ishaq.
You give a nice example of hypocrisy - you. LOL. You ranting against democracy: You in the next paragraph demanding democracy: And you nailed the reason why the US vetoes things in the UN: So when 51% of the countries want to treat Israel unfairly, single them out for things that no other nation is singled out for, you think that is awesome. But it is the US that is defending Israel because it is wrong, regardless of how many Muslim countries vote to try and harm Israel via the UN. The UN is a fucking joke anyway. They elect countries with horrid human rights records to chair human rights commissions. The parts you probably admire are the very things that make it a mockery.
Don't attack Ishaq for what he is saying, he makes perfect sense. Even a perfect democracy (which doesn't exist) would be flawed because of mass manipulation. But the question is Islam compatible with democracy, of course not. It's like asking is communism compatible with democracy, it is not. Islam (sharia) and communism have some fundamental laws that can't be messed with or it is not sharia / communism anymore. So the answer is no, end of debate really.
Who said that democracy is the best voting system, just because some people believe it is the best system for electing someone, that does not make it the best voting system. Actually in democracy the vote of: 1. Knowledgeable, well educated people are equal to the vote of non knowledgeable and no educated people. And I reject this system because simply if a vote of highly educated and knowledgeable person either in politics, science, etc is like the vote of someone who is uneducated and unaware person, then this is a not really a perfect system from my point of view or even close. Although it might superficially seems as a fair system or perfect system, but when thinking about it and about the consensuses, the truth it is far from being a fair or correct system to use. As for Islam, The Shura system, the voting is made by the representatives of the people. It is similar to the parliament. And the representatives are specialists and not just from the mass of people. At the end, every country like it's people is free to implement the system they see best, just because you think democracy is the best system that does not mean we see it as the best system and that does not mean we have to implement it.
Generally, people are stupid. Even the one's in power. We know what we learn and that's it. Spend your life doing accounting and you probably won't know how to fix a car or install a door on a new house and the same in reverse. Who gets to decide which stupid person leads is based upon a consensus of what we all decide. Even dictators get things wrong. There is probably no perfect system but in my mind democracy provides room for everyone to take part in their own future and this is the fairest and most logical way forward.