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Islam and constitutionalism: A modest introduction

By Alliance Alert

Patrick S. O'Donnell writing at Ratio Juris: Minimally, constitutionalism means government can and should be legally limited in its powers, and that authority is derived from and depends upon those limitations. Such constitutionalism, in principle when not in practice, is part and parcel of Islamic history. Indeed, in this minimal sense, all nation-states are ?constitutional? states. In the Muslim world today, however, the baseline for discussion is liberal and, therefore, democratic constitutionalism, including the exemplary relevance of the archetype of Islamic constitutionalism: namely, the Charter of Medina, Muhammad?s compact with the Muslim and Jewish communities that constituted the first Islamic polity.

Full post as published by Constitutionally Correct on June 17, 2009 (boomark / email).