Few Muslims would dispute the notion that Islam should guide the private and public lives of many Muslims through their private as well as public lives.

The Quran and the Sunna – the tradition of Prophet Muhammad – are the two primary sources of Islam’s religious law, and Shari’aprovides instructions on virtually every aspect of life. Muslims differ on interpretation of Shari’a, as the Islamic schools of jurisprudence, Fiqh schools in Sunni or Shiite Islam varies across two key dimensions: interpretation (verbatim vs. socially-conditioned interpretation) and authority (identity of those qualified to make interpretation and the nature of their political power).

The Arab Spring exposed both the hypocrisy of the established religious authorities, who issued fatwas against the pro-democracy protests in Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Yemen, and the bankruptcy of the radical militants’ ideology. Arabs who protested in the streets were motivated by aspiration for the universal values of freedom and human rights – a consensus even the staunchest of Islamists cannot ignore.

Sunni schools endorse a leader chosen by the Muslim community, while Shiite Islam assigns religious and political leadership to the decedents of the Prophet (as infallible Imams). Moderate Sunni schools (Hanafi and Maliki), as well as some Shiite schools adopt socially-conditioned interpretations based on logic deduction by scholars; while the conservative Sunni schools (Hanbali) adopt a strict version of verbatim interpretation. In reality, however, the Islamic world has been divided into three classes: secular government that consigns religion to personal life (Egypt); ostensibly-religious, but essentially secular government that sanctions intrusive authority of clerics (Saudi Arabia); and outright religious government (Iran).

Ironically, rivaling Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran invoke Shari’ato maintain their dictatorial regimes using the maxim that their authority is divinely derived and sovereignty belongs to God and not to the people. This concept also justifies discrimination against women and hereditary, non- electoral, governmental systems, supporting the notion that Islam and liberal democracy are incompatible.

Shari’a has been invoked by radical, militant Islamist groups like al-Qaeda, to justify committing terror attacks against non-Muslim civilians in the West, as well as their fellow Muslims under the guise of Jihad, understood here as a holy war against non-believers. Iran evokes Shari’a to justify its deception of the international community regarding its nuclear program using the Shiite concept of taqqiya – permission for believers to hide the truth from nonbelievers to protect the religion – which is arguably justified in the Quran (3:28; 16: 106). Even worse, Shari’a has been invoked by radical, militant Islamist groups, such as al-Qaeda, to justify committing terror attacks against non-Muslim civilians in the West, as well as their fellow Muslims under the guise of Jihad. Here, Jihad is understood as the duty of every Muslim to wage war against all non-Muslims with the ultimate aim of the ruling the world.

These patterns of abusing Shari’a by authoritarian Muslim rulers and militant groups bring us back to the two key dimensions of Fiqhschools: interpretation and authority, which have evolved over centuries to differ dramatically. Islamic scholars warned against this abusive process long time ago. Muhammad Abdu, the enlightened Islamic scholar of the 19th century, viewed reason as the ultimate virtue of Islam; therefore any dogma contradicting morals or the core values of Islam – justice, consultative governance, and mercy – should be ruled out. On authority, Ali Abdel-Raziq of the early 20th century argued persuasively in his 1925 seminal treatise that Islam does not inform creation of government, because the Prophet’s mission is to establish a community of believers, not a body politic.

The relevance of the above discussion to the ongoing, groundbreaking developments in the Arab-Islamic world and the West cannot be exaggerated. On the one hand, the Islamists have an unprecedented window of opportunity that could allow them to revive Islam in a constructive way, but also to present the world with an example to be emulated. Islamists should introduce a face of Islam that shows the deeper meaning of Jihad – one’s internal struggle to maintain faith and the struggle to improve the Muslim community. This is especially true now, as people are questioning what Islamist rule has brought to Iran, oppressed people whose nation’s resources are squandered or the Sudan, poor and subjugated people having their nation split into two after a long, bloody and losing war.

Initial signs in the right direction have already appeared in revolutionary Egypt where ideologues of Jamat al-Islamiyya, now search for a form of Islamic liberalism that is inclusive of other political forces in society. In Tunisia and Libya, where Islamists are expected to dominate the next elections, leaders and citizens tend to reject the Saudi and Taliban models – seen as sheer dictatorships – and opt instead for the Malaysian and Indonesian ones that combine Islam and modernity. If this approach is sincere it would lead to the emergence of a democratic Islamic state model that would respond to the reforms Muslim societies require. Islam and liberal democracy are essentially congruent.

The rising Arab youth want to be free and live with dignity without abandoning their Islamic roots. Thus, it is not the mere adoption of Western values that will determine the successes of the newly emerging Arab regimes but how well these values are incorporated into the Islamic way of life without violence and unending strife.