Spirit of the Ijmak Doctrine and Its Relevance in the Democratic System in Indonesia

While the majority of Indonesia’s population is Muslim, Indonesia is neither a theocracy nor is it secular. Therefore, the authors will examine whether the spirit of the ijmak doctrine, which is the crystallization of the teachings of deliberation and consensus in Islam and a source for determining sharia law, has relevance to the democratic system in Indonesia. The results of the study show that there is a strong relevance between the ijmak doctrine and the democratic system in Indonesia. This is because Indonesia is a democratic country based on Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution, where the first principle is the “Belief in One Almighty God.” Experts explain that the precepts of the Almighty God strengthens the implementation of other precepts in every development policy. This demonstrates that the democratic system adopted by Indonesia is a religious democracy, or a theodemocracy, and that Indonesia is not simply replicating the secular Western democratic system which disregards spiritual values.