Introduction

In the face of recurring authoritarian setbacks and the limited currency of liberal norms, the specter of Muslim democracy remains a defining feature of contemporary Muslim politics. A growing body of scholarship, along with continued popular mobilization since the Arab Spring, has affirmed that Muslims across diverse contexts, from Iran and Turkey to Tunisia and Bangladesh, are striving for political openness and democratic change. Informed by these insights, research on democracy and Islam has increasingly come to a consensus that, contrary to the injunctions of political secularism, Islam can play a supportive role in bringing democracy to Muslim societies. What is required, nonetheless, is an in-depth understanding of the conditions under which religious actors could become partners in democratic development. To this end, scholars have highlighted the crucial role of religiously inspired political ideals, understood as political theology. Variance in political theology, they contend, explains why some religious actors support democratization while others advocate theocratic or authoritarian rule. A prodemocratic political theology, in other words, increases the chances of democratization by changing religious actors’ outlook toward democracy. This book, therefore, investigates the mechanisms underlying transformations in Islamic political theology through a comparative analysis of two of the largest Muslim-majority countries, Indonesia and Pakistan.