POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

The Challenge of The Qur’an ~ 331 ~ should be left to the General Will, which can be determined by plebiscite. So, in effect, government by the people becomes government by a few elected individuals. People may be free to vote as they please, but after they have voted, they are once again subjected to the rule of a select group. Rousseau explained this by saying: To follow one’s impulse is slavery, but to obey the self-prescribed law is liberty.’18 Clearly, this leaves much unanswered. Seeing how easily democratic systems deteriorated into elective monarchies, people were not satisfied with Rousseau’s explanation. Once they had secured people’s votes, democratically elected rulers began to assume the same role as monarchs had before them. All political philosophers have been caught up in contradictions of this nature. And there appears no way out of the impasse. In theory, all of them cherish the ideal of human equality. Yet human equality, in the true sense, is forthcoming neither in monarchies nor in democracies. If the one is a dynastic monarchy, the other is an elective