인도네시아 이슬람 조직 무함마디야의 민주주의적 전통

Democratic tradition of an Indonesian Islamic organization Muhammadiyah: Leadership and election systems

Debates on democracy in Muslim societies tend to be centered on the problem of compatibility between Islam and democracy. Some argue for the compatibility, while others, against it. There is the third way arguing for an alternative approach to the issue, namely to examine democratic traditions developed and practiced in Islamic countries. Researches based on the third view put forward that it is difficult to find out democratic traditions working properly in Muslim-dominated countries. By neglecting the presence of democratic practices at the local level, however, this view presents somewhat biased picture on the relationship between Islam and democracy. The purpose of this paper is to examine democratic practices of an Indonesian Islamic organization, Muhammadiyah. Muhammadiyah has established traditions of collegial leadership and recruitment of leaders by election. Given that a change of leaders by free election is one of the keys to democracy and that collegial leadership is a form of leadership structures which is harmonious with an Islamic democratic tradition of syura, Muhammadiyah provides us a valuable case to demonstrate how democratic traditions can be applied to the management of modern Islamic organization. Examining how collegial leadership and election system have been practiced by Muhammadiyah members, this paper stresses the need to carry out comparative studies on democratic traditions which have been devised and maintained by Muslims at the local and organizational levels.