Toleration in a Modern Islamic Polity: Contemporary Islamist Views

The debate on tolerance in contemporary Western literature is rich and vigorous, yet in flux. Few would disagree that tolerance and toleration are necessary "val-ues" that should be intrinsic parts of our modern attitudes. Remarkably, there are clear disagreements on the fundamentals of the concept. The protagonists often disagree on essentials such as the nature of toleration, the definition of the con-cept, its components, and limits. Some have viewed the term to be "elusive,"
"vague," "unstable," and "impossible" to attain (Heyd, 1996, 3; Williams, 1996,
18; Horton, 1996, 28; Fletcher, 1996, 158); while others consider tolerance and toleration as desired virtues that should be embedded in the general paradigm of liberalism and in individuals' attitudes (Oberdiek, 2001). Despite the many serious attempts to link toleration to the evolution of western intellectual and political traditions of pluralism and democratic practices, the questions as to what motivates toleration, what to tolerate, and how to establish toleration, remain elusive. Even the correlation between toleration and democracy or liberalism is not that clear or evident. Two examples readily come to mind: the intolerant attitude that the majority in the United States held during the mid 1950s of American communists; and most recently, the intolerant position that France has taken against the head dress in public schools. These show that mass intolerance can be sustained in democratic systems, and that contemporary arguments on political or religious toleration seem to echo the initial debated associated with religious toleration.