What is the source of democracy in the French constitution?
Soroush: France is not a good example because its secularism has become combative, which is not appealing. Furthermore when someone told me some years ago that my religious government was not much different from other systems in other countries, I agreed and said that we are not much different from others and that we must learn from them. Lastly there is figh (i.e. Islamic law). In figh there is a body of laws that we Muslims must follow, until they are in contradiction with human rights which is what Iqbal [a Muslim thinker and poet] said. Figh has been the protector of Muslim identity. What we have in figh regarding business issues etc also exists in French laws, British laws, etc but in their own ways. But we are under no compulsion to copy from the French or the British so long as these laws do not contradict or negate human rights or are detrimental to the public. But there is a series of laws that do contradict human rights and this is where ijtihad must be used to make these rul
