Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi — essay "Islam and Democracy" (his official website, al-qaradawi.net): democracy's essence "is from the very core of Islam," and a Muslim embraces democracy "as a form of governance that embodies the political principles of Islam" (shura, accountable rulers, commanding right/forbidding wrong) — the foundational political-Islam reconciliation of Islam and democracy.

الذي يتأمل جوهر الديمقراطية يجد أنه من صميم الإسلام

والمسلم الذي يدعو إلى الديمقراطية إنما يدعو إليها باعتبارها شكلاً للحكم، يجسد مبادئ الإسلام السياسية في اختيار الحاكم، وإقرار الشورى والنصيحة، والأمر بالمعروف والنهي عن المنكر، ومقاومة الجور، ورفض المعصية

[Source is Arabic — al-Qaradawi's OWN official website (al-qaradawi.net), his essay/fatwa "Islam and Democracy"; tier-1 authored writing, confirmed verbatim. PROVENANCE: the essay is undated on the page; al-Qaradawi died in September 2022, so it predates that; published_date left null.] English: — "Whoever contemplates the essence of democracy finds that it is from the very core of Islam." — "The Muslim who calls for democracy calls for it as a form of governance that embodies the political principles of Islam in choosing the ruler, establishing shura (consultation) and counsel, commanding right and forbidding wrong, resisting injustice, and refusing sinful commands." CONTEXT: Declared positions of Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi (1926–2022) — the most influential cleric of mainstream Sunni political Islam: an Egyptian-born, Qatar-based scholar, the de facto spiritual authority of the global Muslim Brotherhood, longtime host of Al Jazeera's "Sharia and Life," and head of the International Union of Muslim Scholars. He is the foremost theorist of WASATIYYA (Islamic "centrism / moderation") and of the position that Islam is "din wa dawla" (religion AND state) — rejecting the secularist claim that Islam is a religion without politics. In this essay he reconciles Islam with DEMOCRACY: arguing that democracy's essence (people choosing accountable, removable rulers; no ruler imposed against the people's will) is intrinsic to Islam (shura; the ruler as the umma's accountable agent), and that a Muslim embraces democracy as a FORM that embodies ISLAMIC political principles — while holding that this does not contradict "sovereignty belongs to God" (hakimiyya), since democracy here means rejecting dictatorship, not divine sovereignty. This is the foundational IDEOLOGICAL ANCHOR of mainstream political Islam — the template for the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Ennahda and the broader Islamist current — distinct from secular nationalism (Nasser), from the more pluralist / anti-caliphate Islamic-democracy of Sudan's Sadiq al-Mahdi, and from jihadist rejectionism. [Axes: religion-state (Islam as din wa dawla; Islamic — not secular — democracy; shura), democracy (embraced within an Islamic framework; anti-dictatorship; accountable rulers), palestinian-question (a central concern; he backed armed resistance). Foundational political-Islam anchor.]