God Arises
The Challenge of The Qur’an
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oligarchy. In the 18th and 19th centuries, people
rose in great rebellion against monarchic
government. But free of the yoke of kingly rule,
they found that they were not much better off in
that they had to resign themselves to rule by a select
group of ‘representatives of the people’, while the
old monarchs had laid claim to being
‘representatives of God on earth.’ This was the only
difference between the two.
Even the so-called ‘representation’ of the people is
open to question. Take the example of the British
conservatives who, in one year, won a decisive
victory, winning an overall majority of 144 seats. In
terms of votes, however, the conservative share of
the vote (43%) has fallen since 1979, i.e. as far as
seats were concerned the conservatives had won a
massive overall majority. But, as far as votes were
concerned, they could muster only 43%. Could this
be said to be truly representative of the people?
Man’s failure in this field has been summed up in
these words: “The history of political philosophy
from Plato until the present day makes plain that
modern political philosophy is still faced with the
basic problems.’
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