I sometimes feel as if fiqh related debates about Muslim minority issues in America are framed as if the American Muslims are the first Muslim minority in history. The recent discussion on TalkIslam about al wala wal bara reminded me of this issue. Here is my two Rimnibi on the issue.
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Mr Moo 12:47 pm on November 21, 2009 Permalink |
I loved your post. Sir, you have the issue spot on. The same concepts, namely that fiqh does not have to be adapted or reinvented, also applies to India, where Muslims are also in a minority yet they scholars would laugh at the concept of ‘minority fiqh’.
Proponents of minority fiqh tend to use ‘host cuntry’ terminology, and I use such below for illustrative purposes. Reasons for include:
Minority Fiqh to increase observance: “As folk are not practicing much, let us adapt the Islamic principles to host country to make it easier and make dawah easier”
Minority fiqh from Khilafah-walas: “We are very practising and fiqh-minded folk, and our fiqhi rulings are also based on a Muslim state. Outside of a Muslim state, we need minority fiqh because our ‘Muslim-state-fiqh’ does not apply”
Minority fiqh for the purification of heterogenous migrant communities: “We are mainly migrants. Islam and Arab/Indian subcontinental/African/Pacific Asian culture have intertwined, and influenced the scholars in our host land, hence we need a minority fiqh that is deculturalised, so it is pure Islam”
Minority fiqh for culturally accepatable Islam: “We agree with (3) above, but think a layer of the host Muslim culture needs to be applied to make Islam more palatable for existing and new Muslims”. Yes this is similair to (1) but more sophisticated.
None of these really wash, as your post shows.
aziz 1:03 pm on November 21, 2009 Permalink |
brilliant post. However, its important to note that the evolution of Chinese muslim, or Russian muslim, or X Muslim fiqh necessarily evolves in a silo of sorts. There is very little cross-muslim-diaspora communication in the Ummah; everything is typically routed via the middle east or generated locally (which is appropriate, because Chinese muslims and American muslims may face the same general problems, but will certainly have different solutions).
It would b egreat if we could have more laeral communication within the ummah. Maybe finally, we are, with the advent of the Islamsphere.
In fact brother Daiyu I’d humbly like to start by asking you speifically – how have Chinese muslims in their 1300 year history dealt with the specific issue of al wala wal bara? You allude to solutions that would be useful for American muslims – I completely agree we are a bunch of younglings here in comparison – but you dont really give us much to work with
Please do.
wangdaiyu 6:03 pm on November 21, 2009 Permalink |
Aziz, the point about fragmentation of Muslim fiqh in different communities is correct and historically given the vast distances involved it does make sense. Now that communication technologies have improved vastly it is up to us in the present age to look into our history carefully and learn lessons from there because “those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.”
As for finding relevant references, I will have to do some digging to give you an answer. To the best of my knowledge the manner in which dar-ul-Islam vs. dar-al-hard distinction was drawn in the Middle Ages in the Middle East and adjacent areas was never drawn in China so that the problem to discuss this issue never arose.
shams 2:48 pm on November 21, 2009 Permalink |
It is a brilliant post…..but al wala al bara has zero to do with Dr. Hasan’s case.
When Dr. Hasan enlisted in 1988 the US was not at war with al-Islam. When he served in Gulf I he was defending muslims (Kuwaitis) in a treatied alliance with the Saud against non-muslim hirgabi (Saddam and the secualr Baathists).
He started to try to get out of the military at the point of 911, when he at least realized the US was going to declare war on dar ul Islam, and he would be forced to participate in the killing of muslims.
Dan 2:52 pm on November 21, 2009 Permalink |
What about declaring war against Muslims who murder Muslims? Such as the Taliban who were killing Hazara Shi’as, a fact that the Taliban apologists either refuse to acknowledge or flat out justify because they are “kaffir” to them?
shams 3:22 pm on November 21, 2009 Permalink |
That is what Gulf I was. And I think that that is a hella more relevent than “Hasan shouldn’t have enlisted acuz he makes us look bad” whinage.
shams 3:24 pm on November 21, 2009 Permalink |
My understanding is that Dr. Hasan largely objected to the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians dead in the Bush “democracy promotion” effort.
thabet 12:21 am on November 22, 2009 Permalink |
Heh.
Adonna Joseph 8:08 am on November 22, 2009 Permalink |
Could you please post a list which shows which people Muslims are allowed to kill, as it is getting confusing for me. It seems to be a very long list. Is the shooting of students in the streets by the holy men of Iraq OK for you. Where is your outrage. All the explaining about how shooting and blowing up unarmed persons is somehow in the name of God or has some holy purpose is self serving. My Muslim friends that live in Mulim countries are affraid to say what they think or even that someone with misunnderstand them and jail then for free think, or even kill them. Please provide the list of the last 20 killings muslims by muslims and tell me which ones are holy and proper. Peace
bingregory 8:22 am on November 22, 2009 Permalink |
Please provide the list of the last 20 killings muslims by muslims and tell me which ones are holy and proper.
Hah! Even better is arguing over which Islamic rulers after the first four were rightly guided or not – It’s enough to make a Marxist nauseous!
shams 9:23 am on November 22, 2009 Permalink |
moron.
Qom is backing the Green Wave.
How I wish WEC virtues included literacy.
I guess the bible is all they need.
lawls
Pretty Pink Unicorns 1:13 pm on November 22, 2009 Permalink |
Could you please post a list which shows which people Christians are allowed to kill, as it is getting confusing for me.
thabet 2:29 am on November 23, 2009 Permalink |
100 x 1000s died in Iraq thanks to US-led invasion.
$billions of your money was stolen, aided and abetted by some of your politicians.
Your reputation was damaged almost beyond repair in most of the world.
Yet you’re here preaching to people about “Muslim violence”?
Adonna Joseph 1:36 pm on November 22, 2009 Permalink |
None
Dan 2:20 pm on November 22, 2009 Permalink |
Go join Blackwater then.
Adonna Joseph 2:54 pm on November 22, 2009 Permalink |
You dont get it. Its all wrong. I think all Americans should leave the Middle East and come home. That will not stop the killling. You guys will kill plenty of your brothers and sisters in the name of Alla or the right brand of Islam.
shams 3:31 pm on November 22, 2009 Permalink |
Too late.
America helped build the Reaver Factory in MENA. Even after the US slinks off home with its tail tucked under its belly from the Graveyard of Empires, the processes set in motion by Big White Christian Bwana missionariism, colonialism, Operation Ajax, etc, will continue to grind out Reavers for a long, long time. It is like a perpetual motion machine machine of revanchism and greivance. The only way to stop it to acknowledge responsibility.
Like that will happen.
.
Rabiya 12:22 am on November 28, 2009 Permalink |
So Muslims are unable to e responsible for their own actions, their own policies, their own behaviors? If a Muslim kills another Muslim because of gender or race or sect, it’s the big bad white American’s fault? How is that not totally paternalistic? How is that not victim mentality? When a man held a gun to my uncle’s head and pulled the trigger because he was Shia, the other man was Muslim. He was not white, and no white man held a gun to his head and told him to do it. Fuck that theory. It’s fucking offensive. Seriously.
Adonna Joseph 4:07 pm on November 22, 2009 Permalink |
oh yeh its my fault. I also found a note in my old Uncle Georges basement. It said its his fault also. You guys are just victums forever. It makes me tired. And its wrong. So keep up the killing of innocent civilians as your SOA’s are not very good at killling real soldiers. The idea of being a good soldier is not to die for your cause but to make some other poor slob die for his.
shams 6:36 pm on November 22, 2009 Permalink |
I am just calling it like it is.
The US sowed the dragon’s teeth with Operation Ajax and the Tyrant Puppet-Shah.
Do you deny that?
The West tore up the fabric of MENA society, and now the WATBs are pissing and moaning because the Reavers are coming through the tears to attack them.
Society and culture contain and restrain the worst aspects of homo sapiens sapiens.
When that is destroyed….reavers happen.
Hundreds of thousands of muslim civilians have DIED because of moronic WEC GW’s Gog/Magog war of choice…..for nothing. Iraq is another Islamic state with sharia in their constitution, and the Iraqis declared a national holiday when the US troops pulled out of the cities. Nearly 5,000 American troops have died in Iraq……GW has killed more americans than OBL did in 911…….and all for nothing.
The reavers will keep a-coming.
The drones sow dragon’s teeth everyday.
Adonna Joseph 9:51 am on November 23, 2009 Permalink |
I declared a Holiday when we left Iraq cities also. I dont think any young man should die over there. Let Iraq and Iran go at it the way they like to. They are perfectly able to kill each other without interference. But if you think poetic speach about dragons teeth is ’scary’ to Americans you dont understand American history. We are good at war and killling Americans only will only bring down hell onto whatever cave launches the attack. Oh yes what is the kill ratio ?
shams 9:58 am on November 23, 2009 Permalink |
my that is….so very very xian of you Adonna….at least you admit the hundreds of thousands of muslim deaths are your responsibility.
it might not be scary, but it should be.
like I said, it won’t stop.
and you are a faker.
the sum of the black chicks i know that dig the dixie chix is exactly zero.
run along and troll elsewhere.
Adonna Joseph 10:50 am on November 23, 2009 Permalink |
I say what i think and if my oposition to GW makes me like Dixie Chix and blows your sterotype Im truly sorry. You just keep thinking everyone thinks your so important that someone cares what you think or say. I enjoy the conversation. Perhaps you prefer a women to jjust agree and have your baby?
shams 11:22 am on November 23, 2009 Permalink |
you moron im a muslimah.
can’t you read?
Adonna Joseph 11:40 am on November 23, 2009 Permalink |
Sorry! Im sure you dont want your baby (that is if somene had the nerve to go under the vail and give you a baby) going to any wars.
Reaver-Repeater 12:20 pm on November 23, 2009 Permalink |
Oh Snap! That’s cold.
shams 12:23 pm on November 23, 2009 Permalink |
actually not.
I’m a sufi convert.
I don’t veil.
shams 12:24 pm on November 23, 2009 Permalink |
pardon, revert.