1 Democracy is Indispensable: A Political Philosophy of Islamic Governance This article was published in the special issue The Roundtable, Vol. 9, Issue 2 (Institute of Political Economy, University of Asia and the Pacific, 2010). M. A. Muqtedar Khan Islamists across the globe are agitating for some form of Islamic self-determinism. Some are seeking to establish Islamic states in Muslim majority states, some are seeking to establish a global caliphate, and others are fighting to break away from non-Muslim States. The underlying assumption of all these political movements is that Islamic sources postulate a blueprint for governance and being Muslim necessitates the establishment of an Islamic state. In this essay, I accept this premise in order to argue that a deeper understanding of Islamic history and sources will clarify that democracy is indispensable for Islamic governance and striving for democracy and striving for Islamic governance is one and the same thing. Therefore Islamists would better serve their cause and the cause of global harmony by working to strengthen democracy wherever they are, rather than seek separation for the sake of separation from and conflict with democracy. The democracy deficit in the Muslim World has been mitigated by efforts at democratization in Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Turkey. Nevertheless, democracy is glaringly absent from most of the Arab world, and with the rise of political Islam in the region, the compatibility of Islam and democracy has become an important issue. 1 There are commentators in the West and in the Muslim world who share common interests in asserting that Islam and democracy are incompatible. Some Western scholars argue that Islam is incompatible with modernity, and in particular democracy, and insist that Muslims must either abandon Islam or reform Islam in order to join the “modern world.” 2 Some Muslim scholars and militants reject