In light of the recent conflict in Iraq and America’s efforts to rebuild it, an important question is facing the Arab world at large today: Can Islam and democracy mix?

Khaled Abou El Fadl, Islamic scholar and professor of law at UCLA, believes that a country’s democracy cannot be established if the values, traditions and the culture of that country’s people are ignored.

Fawaz Gerges, professor of International Relations at Sarah Lawrence College, points out that democracy is impossible to build in a matter of months, and that only its own people can be instrumental in establishing a country’s democratic regime. In his opinion, Muslims will accept democracy as a political system only if it embraces and accepts Islam’s value system.

Click the “Listen” link above to hear more on whether Islam and democracy can co-exist and the challenges each pose for the peoples of the Arab world.

Guests:

Khaled Abou El Fadl, eminent Islamic scholar, professor of law at UCLA, and author of “Islam and the Challenge of Democracy” in the April/May Boston Review

Fawaz Gerges, professor of International Relations at Sarah Lawrence College, author of “The Islamists and the West: Ideology vs. Pragmatism”

Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst and senior editor at the Atlantic Monthly