Minorities in Islam/Muslims as minorities

Contemporary Islam, Apr 2014

Michaelle Browers

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Minorities in Islam/Muslims as minorities

Michaelle Browers 0 ) Wake Forest University , Winston-Salem, NC 27109, USA The author would like to thank the following Wake Forest University departments, programs, and offices for making the conference out of which these articles were drawn possible: the Middle East and South Asia Studies, the C.H. Richards Fund of the Department of Politics and International Affairs, the Center for International Studies, the Carswell Fund of the Department of Philosophy, the Humanities Institute, and the Provost's Global Affairs Funds. The author would further like to thank the editors of Contemporary Islam and the many anonymous reviewers whose comments and feedback contributed to the further development of these articles. In October 2012, Wake Forest University brought together 25 scholars from across the globe and across the disciplines of religion, anthropology, politics, literature, and sociology for a 3-day conference entitled Minorities in Islam/Muslims as Minorities. The conference theme was premised on bringing together two rich and burgeoning areas of inquiry that often seem to be working or thinking through their topic separately: one which aims to enrich our understanding of the experience of Muslims as minorities and another which examines the engagement of Muslims with minorities. The themes of this conference are central to Contemporary Islam, as it demonstrates the interaction between local and global inand the dynamic character of-contemporary Islamic thought and practice. Some papers (such as Warren and Gilmore's) deal more with theory, others focus a bit more on practice (such as Leichman's), and some treat theory and practice in near equal measure (such as Shavit's and Burhani's). However, the four papers from that conference, published here for the first time, each speak in various ways to the intersection of Islamic thought and practice on the topicas well as the ways in which Islamic thought and practice is today a translocal phenomenon, crossing boundaries of Sunni and Shi'i, and expanding from the Middle East to Africa to Asia to Europe and beyond. The status of Muslim minorities residing in non-Muslim contexts is not a new topic for Islamic thinkers. Abu-Salieh's study of The Islamic Concept of Migration demonstrates how such classical Islamic jurists such as Muhammad Ibn Idris al-Shafi'i (767-820) and Muwaffaq al-Din Ibn Qudama (1147-1223) both maintained that, in general, Muslims living in dar al-harb [the land of war; land not governed by - Muslims] must immigrate to dar al-Islam [the land of Islam] while allowing various exceptions in cases of illness and hardship and for the purposes of engaging in jihad against infidels and missionary activity (dawa) (1996: 43). However, the classical injunction for jurists to study the question with attention to its context and with consideration of its implications before offering an answer traditionally was undertaken with the notion of that the circumstances (migration) remained transitory. Some modern Muslim jurists are beginning to treat the situation of Muslim minorities as (exceptional) cases that require special consideration. The result is a growth in writings falling under the appellation of a jurisprudence of minorities (fiqh al-aqalliyyat). Yusuf al-Qaradawi (1926), a figure discussed at length in the articles by Warren and Gilmore and Shavit, garners considerable interest in this regard, as he is widely regarded as having popularized, if not coined, the concept of fiqh al-aqalliyyat, the main aims of which are to provide guidance for Muslims living in non-Muslim contexts in maintaining a life according to the sharia while maintaining positive interactions with non-Muslims and to help them navigate the particular questions and struggles they encounter in the process (Al-Qaradawi 2001: 23). Qaradawi characterizes fiqh alaqalliyyat as a branch of jurisprudence similar to medical, economic, or political jurisprudence. Taha Jabir al-Alwani, Chair of the North America Fiqh Council in Virginia further delineates fiqh al-aqalliyyat as a specific discipline which takes into account the relationship between the religious ruling and the conditions of the community and the location where it exists and meant to apply to a specific group of people living under particular conditions with special needs (2003: 3). These two figures have variously been cited as the founders or fathers of fiqh al-aqalliyyat. Qaradawi and Alwani both participated in the founding of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, a private association of muftis who issue fatwas addressing the conditions of Muslims in Europe. Although the phrase fiqh al-aqalliyyat is not common among Shii jurists, who tend to speak of fiqh al-mughtaribin (jurisprudence of immigrants) or even fiqh almahjar (jurisprudence of emigration) rather than fiqh al-aqalliyyat (jurisprudence of minorities), Shii scholars have also shown an increased interest in writing Islamic laws for Muslims who have set (...truncated)


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Michaelle Browers. Minorities in Islam/Muslims as minorities, Contemporary Islam, 2014, pp. 211-215, Volume 8, Issue 3, DOI: 10.1007/s11562-014-0299-6