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Abstract
This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the findings in current research focusing on the implementation of Islamic law in Europe. It explores the concept of fiqh al-aqalliyyāt (minority jurisprudence) or context-specific jurisprudence and how it is debated and contested in Europe. While shedding light on a normative application of Islamic law, the paper focuses on the role and work of European Council for Fatwa and Research (ECFR) and how it has made an important contribution to addressing issues related to Muslim communities by issuing fatwas based on the methodology of fiqh al-aqalliyyāt. Since a wide range of actors both in Europe and the Islamic world currently voice calls in favour of integration of Muslims in Europe as opposed to assimilation and segregation, the paper attempts to understand the specific grammar of this integration talk and how it translates into fiqh discourse produced by the European Council for Fatwa and Research (ECFR).
Notes
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10 Uriya Shavit and Iyad Zahalka, “A Religious Law for Muslims in the West: The European Council for Fatwa and Research and the Evolution of Fiqh al-Aqalliyyat al-Muslima”, in Routledge Handbook of Islam in the West, ed. Roberto Totoli, London: Routledge, 2015, pp. 376.
11 Mathias Rohe, “Islamic Law in Western Europe”, in The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Law, eds. Anver M. Emon and Rumee Ahmed, London: Oxford University Press, 2018, p. 727.
12 Ibid.,p. 728.
13 John R. Bowen, Can Islam be French? Pluralism and Pragmatism in a Secularist State, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009, p. 10. John R. Bowen, Blaming Islam, Cambridge, MA: Boston Review, 2012, p. 23.
14 Katajoun Alidadi, Marie-Claire Foblets, and Jogchum Vrielink, “Introduction”, in A Test of Faith? Religious Diversity and Accommodation in the European Workplace, eds. Katajoun Alidadi, Marie-Claire Foblets, and Jogchum Vrielink, Farnham: Ashgate, 2012, p. 6.
15 Mathias Rohe, “Islamic Law in Western Europe”, op. cit., p. 12.
16 Mathias Rohe, Islamic Law in Past and Present, Leiden: Brill, 2014, p. 10.
17 Hisham A. Hellyer, Muslims of Europe: The “Other” Europeans, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009, pp. 79–99.
18 Mathias Rohe, “Islamic Law in Western Europe”, op. cit., p. 729.
19 Uriya Shavit, “Wasaṭī and Salafī Approaches to the Religious Law of Muslim Minorities”, Islamic Law and Society, Vol. 19, No. 4, 2012, pp. 416–457.
20 Said Fares Hassan, Fiqh al-Aqalliyyāt: History, Development, and Progress, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, pp. 1–2.
21 Yusuf al-Qaraḍāwī, Fī Fiqh al-Aqalliyyāt al-Muslimah, Cairo: Dār Al-Shurūq, 2001, p. 3. Abd al-Hādī al-Sayyid M. Taqi al-Dīn, Al-Fiqh lil-Mughtaribīn, London: Imam Ali Foundation, 1998, p. 4. See also Ayad Hilal, Studies in Usul al-Fiqh, Walnut Creek, CA: Islamic Cultural Workshop, 2004, p. 150.
22 Mathias Rohe, “Islamic Law in Western Europe”, op. cit., p. 730.
23 Shammai Fishman, Fiqh al-Aqalliyyat: A Legal Theory for Muslim Minorities, Research Monographs on the Muslim World, Vol. 1/2, Washington, DC: Hudson Institute, 2006, p. 1.
24 Said Fares Hassan, “Fiqh al-Aqalliyyāt and Muslim Minorities in the West”, op. cit., pp. 315–316.
25 Al-Qaraḍāwī, Fī Fiqh al-Aqalliyyāt al-Muslimah, op. cit., p. 6.
26 Ibid.
27 Taha Jabir ‘Alawani, Fi Fiqh al-Aqalliyyāt al-Muslima, Series of Islamic Enlightenment, Cairo: Nahdat Misr, 2000, pp. 5–6.
28 Ibid.
29 Hassan, Fiqh Al-Aqalliyyat, op. cit., p. 154.
30 Uriya Shavit, Shari’a and Muslim Minorities: The Wasatī and Salafı̄ Approaches to Minority Fiqh al-Muslima, New York: Oxford University Press, 2015, pp. 117–132.
31 Ibid., pp. 136–138.
32 Adis Duderija and Halim Rane, Islam and Muslims in the West: Major Issues and Debates, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019, p. 225.
33 Al-Qur’an; 4:97.
34 Al-Qur’ān; 4:97.
35 Al-Qur’ān; 5:518.
36 Al-Qur’ān; 3:118.
37 Shavit, Shari’a and Muslim Minorities, op. cit., pp. 134–137.
38 Adis Duderija and Halim Rane, Islam and Muslims in the West, op. cit., 225.
39 Shavit, Shari’a and Muslim Minorities, op. cit., p. 112.
40 Karen-Lise Johansen Karman, “Interpreting Islamic Law for European Muslims: The Role and the Work of the European Council for Fatwa and Research”, in Yearbook of Muslims in Europe, Vol. 3, ed. Jorgen S. Nielsen, Leiden: Brill, 2011, p. 656.
41 Alexandre Caeiro, “The Power of European Fatwas: The Minority Fiqh Project and the Making of an Islamic Counter-Public”, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 42, No.3, 2010, pp. 435–449.
42 Ibid., p. 436.
43 Wolfhart Heinrichs, “Qawā‘id as a Genre of Legal Literature”, in Studies in Islamic Legal History, eds. Ruud Peters and Bernard Weiss, Leiden: Brill, 2002, pp. 365–383.
44 Caeiro, “The Power of European Fatwas”, op. cit., p. 437.
45 Michael Warner, “Publics and Counter-Publics”, Public Culture, Vol. 14, No. 1, 2002, pp. 49–90.
46 Caeiro, “The Power of European Fatwas”, op. cit., p. 438.
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48 Judith Butler, Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative, London: Routledge, 1997, p. 130.
49 Alexandre Caeiro, “‘The Shifting Moral Universes of the Islamic Tradition of Iftā’: A Diachronic Study of Four Adab al-Fatwa Manuals”, Muslim World, Vol. 6, No. 4, 2005, p. 672.
50 Alexandre Caeiro, “Fatwas for European Muslims: The Minority Fiqh Project and the Integration of Islam in Europe”, Ph.D. dissertation, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Germany, 2011, p. 117.
51 European Council for Fatwa and Research, First and Second Collections of Fatwas, Cairo: Islamic INC, 2002, p. 50.
52 Roger Boase, “Introduction”, in Islam and Global Dialogue: Religious Pluralism and the Pursuit of Peace, ed. Roger Boase, Burlington: Ashgate, 2005, p. 1.
53 Ahmad Husni Haji Hasan, “An Islamic Perspective of the Interfaith Dialogue Amidst Current Inter-Religious Tensions Worldwide”, Global Journal Al-Thaqafah (GJAT), Vol. 1, No. 1, 2011, p. 25.
54 Al-Qur’ān; 16:125.
55 Al-Qur’ān; 5:49.
56 Al-Qur’ān; 49:13.
57 Al-Qur’ān: 5:2.
58 Retrieved from https://www.e-cfr.org/blog/2017/11/04/fourth-ordinary-session-european-Council-fatwa-research/ (accessed 3 May 2021).
59 Mervyn K. Lewis and Latifa M. Algaoud, Islamic Banking, London: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2001, pp. 52–55.
60 World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), “The Muslim Minorities—Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference of World Assembly of Muslim Youth”, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 12–17 Jumad I, 1406 H. (22–27 January, 1986 C.E.), Vol. 1, p. 156.
61 Al-Qur’ān; 22:78.
62 Al-Qaraḍāwī, Fi Fiqh al-Aqalliyyāt al-Muslima, op. cit., pp. 174–179.
63 Tariq Ramadan, Western Muslims and the Future of Islam, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004, pp. 191–198.
64 Retrieved from http://www.islamweb.net/merath/index.php?page=ShowFatwa&lang=A&Id=48633&Option=FatwaId (accessed 3 May 2021).
65 Uriya Shavit, “A Fatwa and Its Dialectics: Contextualizing the Permissibility of Mortgages in Stockholm”, Journal of Muslims in Europe, Vol. 8, No. 3, 2019, pp. 335–358. See also, Muhammad Ṣaliḥ al-Munajjid, “Should He Go for an Interest-Based Mortgage—if that is Cheaper than Renting?”, Islam: Question and Answer (January 17, 2002), https://islamqa.info/en/21914 (accessed 5 May 2021).
66 Uriya Shavit and Iyad Zahalka, Routledge Handbook of Islam in the West, op. cit., p. 374.
67 Retrieved from https://www.islamicmortgages.co.uk/index.php?id=259 (accessed 3 May 2021).
68 Johanna Marie Buisson, “Interfaith Marriage for Muslim Women: This Day are Things Good and Pure Made Lawful Unto You”, Crosscurrents, Vol. 66, No. 4, 2016, p. 430.
69 Al-Qaradāwi, Fi Fiqh al-Aqalliyyat al-Muslima, op. cit., pp. 106–125.
70 Ibid.
71 Retrieved from https://www.e-cfr.org/blog/2017/11/04/8th-ordinary-session-european-Council-fatwa-research/ (accessed 4 May 2021).
72 Ibid.
73 Charles Kurzman, “Qaradawi et al, ‘Fatwa against 9/11’, September 27, 2001”. Retrieved from http://kurzman.unc.edu/islamic-statements-against-terrorism/qaradawi/ (accessed 5 May 2021).
74 Shaheen Whyte, “Whither Minority Jurisprudence? The Case of Fiqh Al-Aqalliyat in Australia”, Australian Journal of Islamic Studies, Vol. 2, No. 3, 2017, p. 70.
75 Saud al-Sarhan, “Introduction”, in Political Quietism in Islam: Sunnī and Shīʿī Practice and Thought, ed. Saud al Sarhan, London: I.B. Tauris, 2020, p. 2.
76 Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Kari Vogt, Lena Larsen and Christian Moe, “Introduction: Muslim Family Law and the Question of Equality”, in Gender and Equality in Muslim Family Law: Justice and Ethics in the Islamic Legal Tradition, eds. Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Kari Vogt, Lena Larsen and Christian Moe, London: I.B. Tauris, 2013, p. 1.
77 Al-Qur’ān; 51:49.
78 Al-Qur’ān; 30:21.
79 Al-Qur’ān; 16:72.
80 Al-Qur’ān; 2:228.
81 Retrieved from https://www.iium.edu.my/deed/hadith/muslim/020_smt.html (accessed 9 May 2021).
82 Al-Qur’ān; 9:71.
83 Al-Qur’ān; 2:229.
84 Al-Qur’ān; 2:230.
85 Al-Qur’ān; 65:1.
86 Al-Qur’ān; 4:19.
87 Al-Qur’ān; 2:233.
88 Al-Qur’ān; 2:231.
89 Al-Qur’ān: 2:241.
90 Al-Qur’ān: 60:12.
91 Retrieved from https://www.e-cfr.org/blog/2017/11/04/fourth-ordinary-session-european-Council-fatwa-research/ (accessed 5 May 2021).
92 European Council for Fatwa and Research, First and Second Collections of Fatwas, op. cit., p. 2.
93 Michael Warner, “Publics and Counter-Publics”, op. cit., pp. 49–90.
94 Charles Hershkind, The Ethical Soundscape, New York: Columbia University Press, 2006, p. 45.
95 Michael Lambek, “Certain Knowledge, Contestable Authority: Power and Practice on the Islamic Periphery”, American Ethnologist, Vol. 17, No. 1, 1990, pp. 23–40.
96 Jeremy Stolow, “Communicating Authority, Consuming Tradition: Jewish Orthodox Outreach Literature and Its Reading Public”, in Religion, Media, and the Public Sphere, eds. Birgit Meyer and Annelies Moors, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006, pp. 73–90.
97 Caeiro, Fatwas for European Muslims, op. cit., p. 246.
98 Tariq Ramadan, Radical Reform: Islamic Ethics and Liberation, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 22.
99 Caeiro, Fatwas for European Muslims, op. cit., p. 247.
100 Ibid., 248.
101 Uriya Shavit, The Wasati and Salafi Approaches to the Religious Law of Muslim Minorities, op. cit., p. 419.
102 Whyte, “Whither Minority Jurisprudence”, op. cit., p. 69.
103 Ibid.
104 Abdullah Saeed, “Reflections on the Development of the Discourse of Fiqh for Minorities and Some of the Challenges It Faces”, in Applying Shari῾a in the West Facts, Fears and the Future of Islamic Rules on Family Relations in the West, ed. Maurits S. Berger, Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2013, p. 252.
105 Alexandre Caeiro, “The Social Construction of Sharia in Europe”, Die Welt des Islams (International Journal for the Study of Modern Islam), Vol. 44, No. 3, 2004, p. 375.
106 Shavit, “A Fatwa and Its Dialectics”, op. cit., pp. 335–338.
107 Iyad Zahalka, Shariʿa in the Modern Era: Muslim Minorities Jurisprudence, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016, p. 59.
108 Karman, “Intellectual Influences Between the West and the Muslim World”, op. cit., p. 86.
109 Uriya Shavit and Fabian Spengler, “Does the European Council for Fatwa and Research Matter? The Case of Muslims in Dortmund Germany”, Politics, Religion and Ideology, Vol. 18, No. 4, 2017, pp. 363–382.
110 Whyte, “Whither Minority Jurisprudence”, op. cit., p. 70.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Asif Mohiuddin
Asif Mohiuddin is an Academic Officer in the Department of Islamic Studies, Faculty of Human Sciences, Sultan Idris Education University (UPSI), Malaysia. E-mail: [email protected]
Abd Hadi Bin Borham
Abd Hadi Bin Borham is Lecturer and Deputy Dean, Research and Innovation, Faculty of Human Sciences, Sultan Idris Education University (UPSI), Malaysia.