The term “Muslim democracy” is an oxymoron because democracies by definition cannot take religion as a reference point. It is also unfair to the religion because in a Muslim democracy, democracy deficits will be attributed to Islam. These days it is fashionable among Westerners to brand Turkey as a model country for the Middle East. This practice not only favors the ruling AKP but also disregards an important reality of Turkey’s political evolution: without secularism, AKP would not have ever existed. So the Islamists in the Arab world would need to first adopt a secular democracy, and then take AKP as a model. A question left lingering is, are they interested in doing this?