Al-Azhar's Grand Imam declares support for a constitutional, democratic state

From Ahram Online:

In a document that read more as a short constitutional declaration, Al-Azhar defends universal human rights and rejects 'the theocratic state' as un-Islamic and autocratic by nature.

Read the whole article.  Al Azhar is the leading Islamic school in the world today. 

I’m most interested in this statement by the Imam, “Islam has never, throughout its history, experienced such a thing as a religious or a theocratic state.”  That certainly challenges my understanding of Islam and Islamic history!

HT: JC