Nineteenth century French political thinker and historian Alexis de Tocqueville in his 1831 work "Democracy in America" discussed what he calls the "great political problem of our times." The "organization and the establishment of democracy in Christendom," according to Tocqueville, "is the great political problem of our times." By now, this almost-two-centuries-old observation is still relevant, especially in the context of debates and discussions revolving around the relationship between religion and democracy in the Muslim world, a debate that has highly intensified in the post-9/11 era.This observation reminds us, in the words of Dr. Nader Hashemi from the Josef Korbel School of International Relations at the University of Denver, that the "problem of religion's relationship with democracy is not an exclusively Muslim phenomenon," but one of those problems that other religions and religious traditions, Christianity in particular, "have had to struggle with" in the past. Commenting on Tocqueville's observation from a 21st century Muslim point of view in, Hashemi argues that to the extent that Tocqueville's observation is correct, it could be extrapolated that in the same sense that the "great political problem" facing Europe in the 19th century was the question of democracy in Christian lands and in the same way, in the 21st century, arguably "the great problem of our time is the establishment and organization of democracy in the Muslim world."Hashemi is one of the present day Muslim intellectuals who has been actively contributing to this discourse. For example, in his 2009 "Islam, Secularism, and Liberal Democracy: Toward a Democratic Theory for Muslim Societies," he analyses the theoretical relationship between religion and democracy, specifically Islam's relationship with liberal democracy, by adopting historical and comparative methodological approaches. It discusses the relationship between Islam, Muslim-majority societies such as Iran, Turkey and Indonesia and liberal democracy in a way that advances theory and practice regarding their relations and this relationship is the immediate focus of the study, and the conclusions have a much broader applicability in illuminating the theoretical relationship between religion, secularism and democracy in general, and in contributing to the development of a liberal-democratic theory for Muslim societies in particular.He has been developing and advancing these arguments and has put forth them in one way or another. For example, in his chapter in Asma Afsaruddin's 2011 edited volume "Islam, the State, and the Political Authority: Medieval Issues and Modern Concerns," presenting Indonesia and Turkey as example case studies, Hashemi tried to overcome the "Problems of Secularism in Muslim Societies" by rethinking the relationship between "Religion and Liberal Democracy." He has tried to answer a paradox - the paradox that is at the core of the debate on Islam and democracy that "modern liberal democracy requires a form of secularism to sustain itself" (p.173). For Hashemi, in order to reconcile this paradox, "the cultivation and development of a homegrown theory of 'Muslim secularismtarget="_blank"'>," Kamran Bokhari and Farid Senzai offer a comprehensive view of the complex nature of contemporary political Islam/Islamism and its relationship to democracy by focusing on the process of democratization vis-à-vis political Islam. It provides a compelling and insightful analysis of "Islamism and the role that religion is likely to play in any future Muslim democracy." In this book they argue that one, religion will likely play an important role in Muslim politics as this democratization process unfolds and will play a role in any type of Muslim democracy that emerges from the interplay between participator and conditionalist Islamism and democratization and, two, democracy - a universal value - will manifest itself in different ways in the Muslim world because all societies have their own unique geopolitical, cultural and civilizational characteristics. It will continue on the unique path it has already forged and several types of Muslim democracies will likely take root.