What does your vote mean?
Voting is simply a method that a group of people can express an opinion or make a collective decision.
Whether voting is permitted or not is tied to the opinion or decision being asked for.
This is like the rule “the means take the ruling of the objective” – in other words, if the objective is forbidden, then the means to fulfil that objective would also be forbidden, and vice versa.
For example – a group of people taking a trip to visit their friends elsewhere want to appoint someone as the leader for their journey. Such a trip being permitted would mean that to vote for a leader, if that was the way decided to appoint them, would also be permitted.
If on the other hand a neighbourhood was asked to vote for the new management of a local nightclub, given the nature of a nightclub being against Islamic values and rules, participating in such a vote would be forbidden.
In both cases, the mechanism to reach a decision is the same – voting. But the ruling of participating in that vote differs according to the nature of what is being voted for.
Voting in a Parliamentary Representative Democracy
Democracy is fundamentally “rule by the people”, and is based upon total and complete sovereignty residing in “the people”.
Representative democracy is when representatives are chosen by the people in order to exercise that sovereignty on their behalf.
Voting for a candidate in a representative democracy is therefore the process of selection to choose someone to exercise the sovereignty of the people on your behalf.
One of the well-known foundational and basic elements of Islam is that sovereignty belongs to God, and not the people; this can be found in practically every single book of usul-ul-fiqh written under the discussion of who is the hakim or ruler.
This is why it has always been a well known issue that the general rule regarding participating by voting for a regular candidate in a democracy is that it is a prohibited act. This is not an issue open for interpretation, and any other view is a consequence of either
- Misunderstanding the reality of representative democracy
- Ignorance of Islamic sources of law