Towards a Fiqh for Minorities

Some Basic Reflections

Towards a Fiqh for Minorities is an important subject and a much needed contribution to an area of fiqh that has become essential for the wellbeing and development of Muslim communities living in the West. The author stresses that the problems of Muslim minorities can only be tackled with a fresh juristic vision based on the principles, objectives and higher values of the Qur’an in conjunction with the ultimate aims and intents (maqasid) of the Shariah. In essence Dr. Al-Alwani’s paper is a call for Muslim minorities to have a sense of themselves as citizens and develop a positive, confident view of their place and value in society, moving away from notions of immigrant status and governed by a humanistic vision focusing on the betterment of society.

Al-Māwardī says: “If a Muslim is able to practice his religion openly in a non-
Muslim land, that land becomes dār al-Islām by virtue of his settling there. Settling
in such a country is preferable to moving away from it as other people would be
likely to convert to Islam.” Imam Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī was notably correct in
citing al-Shāshī's views and taking them as a basis for introducing an excellent
alternative to the classification of lands. Instead of dār al-harb, he describes the
whole ...