minimalist definition of democracy, which embodies three elements: popular participation, equal value, and citizens' rights. I have defined religious democracy, in its Shia Islamic account, as a decision- making procedure, in which the relatively uncertain common concern of a community with a majority of Shia M uslims is explicated by all Shia adults with potentially equal eligibility; and furthermore conflicting individual interests of all members of the community are aggregated by the whole population of adults with equal weight within. the framework of the explication phase. I have argued that a religious democratic regime should guarantee for its citizens a collection of rights and liberties, which include: political rights, security rights, civil liberties and welfare rights. These rights and liberties, however, are not absolutely compatible with a particular liberal collection of rights and liberties.

A significant practical conclusion of the discussion of this paper is that the imposition of a particular conception of Western secular democracy, rights and liberties on religious societies is unjustifiable. Not only does the imposition of the Western secular form of democracy and a particular collection of rights and liberties artificially from outside on religious societies ignore inevitable diversity of cultures, but also it may postpone a natural and successful move from within these societies towards religious democracy and citizens' rights.