Abstract:
Political participation is seen as the backbone of a political state and an element ensuring the efficiency and reliability of a political system. Political participation varies according to every reading of political system, approach, contraction and expansion, as difference in the genre and scope of political participation in these systems is consistent with the principles and structure of that political order. This research investigates three genres of a democratic order used in Islamic nations'' namely new caliphate, constitutional monarchy, and religious democracy. Consistent with the queries about the political participation capacities of a religious democratic system, the paper, based on a descriptive, analytical, comparative, and critical method, maintains that political participation in this political order profits from a wider scope and capacity, plus the reliance on religious principles; and it also can ensure a desirable supervision of agents as well as the efficiency of the political system, in addition to providing a pervasive political participation between the elites and the masses. It can also be introduced as a political order, which is an alternative to democracy in the modern world.
Machine summary:
As opposed to the theory of the old caliphate drawn up in the wake of Prophet’s death based on the reality and the approach of caliphate’s sovereignty, in that the public position is reduced to the domain of Bay’ah (an oath of allegiance to a leader), a reading of caliphate system has been proposed, which conforms to indigenous Islamic components like Shura (consultation) and Ijma (consensus), and takes advantage of the maximum support by creating democracy, as it dismisses any special appointment of a person by God for ruling people.
Critical analysis: although the theory of new caliphate has disallowed the inclusive author based on the theory of old caliphate in the political participation arena due to the democratic approach, letting the masses and political elites to participate, what the approach of political participation in this reading of democracy, advocated by Sunni community, has impaired is that in the theory of new caliphate the legitimacy of the state just like material political systems is attributed to the people and is devoid of a divine approach in spite of using the traditional components of Faqih (Islamic jurisprudence) such as Shura, Bay’ah and Ijma (consensus), yet in this theory some inter-religious components were used and justified to associate the theory with the Islam by maintaining democracy as a requirement for the current age, because this reading of a democratic order is not a genuine and indigenous reading attributed to the fundamentals of Islam, but it is an updated approach to political order that calls for its development in Muslim societies by upholding Western democracy models.