Islamic Law and Society: The Practice of Iftā’ and Religious Institutions

By Emine Enise Yakar

Publisher: Routledge

Publication Date: May 31, 2023

ISBN: 9781032103808

This book places context at the core of the Islamic mechanism of iftā’ to better understand the process of issuing fatwās in Muslim and non-Muslim countries, thus highlighting the connection between context and contemporaneity, on one hand, and the adaptable perception of Islamic law, on the other.

The practice of iftā’ is one of the most important mechanisms of Islamic law that keeps Islamic thought about ethical and legal issues in harmony with the demands, exigencies and developments of time. This book builds upon the existing body of work related to the practice of iftā’, but takes the discussion beyond the current debates with the intent of unveiling the interaction between Islamic legal methodologies and different environmental contexts. The book specifically addresses the three institutions (Saudi Arabia’s Dār al-Iftā’, Turkey’s Diyanet and America’s FCNA) and their Islamic legal opinions (fatwās) in a comparative framework. This demonstrates the existence of complex and diverse ideas around similar issues within contemporary Islamic legal opinions that is further complicated by the influence of international, social, political, cultural and ideological contexts. The book thus unveils a more complicated range of interactive constituents in the process of the practice of iftā’ and its outputs, fatwās.

The work will be of interest to academics and researchers working in the areas of Islamic law, Middle Eastern studies, religion and politics.

Table of Contents:

• Chapter 1: General Presidency of Scholarly Research and Iftā’ (Dār Al- Iftā’) In Saudi Arabia
• Chapter 2: Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) In Turkey
• Chapter 3: The Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA) In America
• Chapter 4: A General Comparison Related to Madhhab Affiliation and Social Values
• Chapter 5: A General Comparison from The Point of Legal and Political Systems

About the Author:

Emine Enise Yakar completed her BA in the Faculty of Theology, Ankara University, Turkey, in 2010. She received her MA and PhD from the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, the University of Exeter, UK, in 2014 and 2018, respectively. She is specifically interested in the interaction between Islamic legal methodologies and social context to provide insight into the flexible, practicable and applicable dimensions of Islamic law in both Muslim and non-Muslim countries. Currently, she is Assistant Professor of Islamic law at Recep Tayyip Erdogan University, Turkey.

Source: Routledge

The EZIRE was established on 1 January 2009 with the funding of the Fund for Innovation of the Bavarian Ministry for Sciences and is one of the main institutions within the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg. It strengthens the university’s diverse and traditional research on Islam and the Middle East.

The EZIRE examines fundamental issues on Islam and Muslims in Europe. Researchers from different disciplines, such as Law, Political Science and Islamic Studies work together on various research projects. Part of the research is carried out in the form of scientific theses (PhD, Habilitation).

Current projects

– Islamic Affairs Consultancy in Bavaria. Bridge builders between Muslim environments and municipalities
– The Struggles over Identity, Morality, and Public Space in Middle Eastern Cities
– Islamic Mission on the European Continent: Ahmadiyya in the Footsteps of Globalization (1920-1990)

Completed projects

– Islam in Bavaria
– Coordination of the module Data Situation in the Project ‘Salafism in Germany’
– Parallel Justice
– Islamic Community Life in Berlin
– PROMETEE: Understanding Property in Moslem Transitional Environments
– WIN-World Religions for Integration
– RELIGARE

The topics of the research projects at the EZIRE are:

• Legal status of Islam in Germany and Europe
• Legal Pluralism in Europe
• Islamic normativity and religious practice of Muslims in Europe
• Muslim presence and Muslim self-definition in Europe
• Development of Islamic law in the present
• Connections and interactions between European jurisdictions and legal systems of countries with a Muslim majority
• Turkish Law
• Attitudes and practices of Muslims in Europe
• Islamic missionary work in Europe, conversion to and from Islam

Contacts

• Address: Erlangen Centre for Islam and Law in Europe, Bohlenplatz 6, 91054 Erlangen, Germany
• Tel: +49 9131 85-26398
• Fax: +49 9131 85-26399
• Email: joern.thielmann@fau.de
• Website: https://www.ezire.fau.eu/

This comes six days after the Quebec Court of Appeal refused to suspend part of the law that forbids religious symbols such as hijabs, kippahs, crosses and turbans to be worn by most public servants while they are on the job. That includes teachers, nurses, police officers and bus drivers.

“We told Quebecers and Canadians that we would not stop our work until this unjust law has been defeated, said Mustafa Farooq, executive director of the NCCM, in a news release. “While teachers and other public sector workers are being forced out of their jobs, we will seek leave from the SCC (Supreme Court of Canada) to halt the serious and irreparable harm that Bill 21 causes.” Some Muslims have said they have been turned down for teaching positions because they refused to remove their hijabs.

The appeal court agreed that the new law caused harm to people, but the judges said they did not have the power to suspend the law, which was passed by publicly elected officials. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association and an individual are also part of the court challenge. Farooq said other groups and individuals are supporting the challenge. “Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Catholics and folks who aren’t part of any faith tradition have been fighting with us, standing side by side,” he said. “And it is working. Support for Bill 21 in Quebec has dropped from close to 70% to only 48% as per the most recent polls. That’s massive.”

Quebec Premier François Legault insists the new law, passed this past summer, separates religion and state, promoting secularism, and that it has the support of a majority of Quebecers. When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the state had no business telling citizens how to dress, he left the door open to federal intervention in the case. Legault warned the prime minister to stay out it.

Plaintiffs have to receive court permission to take an issue before the Supreme Court of Canada. But in this instance, that is considered a formality, and the case is expected to be heard in October 2020.

Source: Anadolu Agency

The bill, which passed cabinet on Wednesday, means that foreign preachers will only be granted work visas if they can demonstrate basic German. They would then need to show improvements in their language skills after a year in order to prolong their stay.

Although it applies to all religious preachers, the coalition treaty signed by the German government – which includes the rule – specifically refers to imams.

Interior Minister Horst Seehofer hailed it as “a vital contribution for successful integration in Germany.” The government justified the move by saying that imams have a central role to play as models of integration for other immigrants, who often turn to mosques for help when they first arrive. However, the media has reported concerns about clerics preaching in other languages for several years.

There are no official figures on the number of mosques in Germany, nor on where their funding comes from. But authorities suspect that(Persian) Gulf states including Saudi Arabia have been financing the construction of some mosques in order to spread the fundamentalist Wahhabi Islam practiced on the Arabian peninsula. Conservatives complain that, as long as imams preach in other languages, they will feel free to espouse views hostile to democracy.

But Germany’s Green party attacked the draft law, saying it will exacerbate the already acute shortage of imams to serve the country’s growing Muslim population. According to a recent study, over 90 percent of imams active in Germany come from abroad.

Criticism also came from the Islamic community. Bekir Altaş, head of the Millî Görüş mosque association, said that many Muslim associations had made German language skills a requirement for preaching in their mosques years ago.

Source: The Telegraph

François Legault, the right-leaning Quebec premier, had called the bill a necessary measure to ensure the separation between religion and state in an abidingly secular province. It applies to Muslim head scarves, Jewish skullcaps, Sikh turbans and Catholic crosses, among other symbols.

Mr. Legault had also argued that the bill, which passed 73 to 35, was supported by a majority of Quebecers. Members of the opposition called Sunday a dark day for the province. Critics say that the legislation will effectively exclude religious Muslims, Sikhs and Jews from positions of authority in education and law enforcement, and that it runs roughshod over the freedom of religion and expression at the heart of Canada’s model of multiculturalism.

They also argue that it threatens to foment Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and fear of other minorities. Public officials, including several mayors and school boards in Montreal, have vowed to ignore the law, setting up a potential clash with the law enforcement authorities charged with enforcing it…The Quebec government has been seeking to tighten immigration, and has also raised the idea of testing immigrants to ensure they espouse Quebec’s values as a prerequisite for gaining permanent residency in the province.

Source: New York Times

The mission of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion is to produce and promote path-breaking scholarship, teaching, and public programs on the interaction of law and religion around the world.

The vision of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion is to be a thought leader dedicated to producing innovative scholarship, facilitating challenging conversations, convening the best minds, and training the next generation of academics, lawyers, and religious leaders to advance the global conversation on law and religion.

Emory University founded its program in law and religion in 1982 as part of a larger goal of building a fully interdisciplinary university. The program’s mission was to increase understanding of the fundamental role of religion in shaping law, politics, and society. At the time, no other major U.S. law school devoted serious scholarship or teaching to the field of law and religion. In fact, Emory’s vision of studying religion alongside law and other professional disciplines met with suspicion, even hostility, in some quarters.

From its modest beginning, however, the program has grown into the Center for the Study of Law and Religion (CSLR), offering six degree programs, a score of cross-listed courses, several multiyear research projects, student and visiting fellowships, more than 350 books and symposia, and regular international

Staff

– Director: John Witte, Jr.
– Managing Director: Silas W. Allard

Conferences and lectures

The founders of the program, then-president James T. Laney and Emory law professor Frank S. Alexander, believed in the vital need for focused scholarship and teaching in this new field. Here, students and scholars could probe the tension between church and state, religion and politics. Here they could come to understand the nuances of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic laws and their place in modern nations.

Strategic Framework

The Center’s work is three-dimensional, focused on Religious Perspectives, Legal Perspectives, and Interdisciplinary Methods.

Fom 2018 – 2025, CSLR will continue its focus on Law and Judaism; Law and Christianity; Law and Islam; and Law, Religion, and Human Rights. Additionally, It will establish two new focus areas on Law, Religion, and Jurisprudence; Law, Religion, and Social Justice and Law, Religion, and Health. To view CSLR’s strategic plan, go here.

Contacts

• Address: 310 Gambrell Hall, 1301 Clifton Road NE, Atlanta, GA 30322-2770, USA
• Phone: +1 404 712 8710
• Fax: +1 404 712 8605
• Email: lawcslr@emory.edu
• Website: http://cslr.law.emory.edu/

Most non-Muslim adults in Western Europe favor at least some restrictions on the religious clothing of Muslim women who live in their country, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey of 15 countries in the region.

The prevailing view (a regional median of 50%) is that Muslim women should be allowed to wear religious clothing as long as it does not cover their face. Fewer (regional median of 23%) say Muslim women should not be allowed to wear any religious clothing. And a regional median of 25% take the more permissive view that Muslim women should be allowed to wear any religious clothing they choose.

In the United Kingdom, for example, 53% of non-Muslim adults say Muslim women in the UK should be allowed to wear religious clothing as long as it does not cover their face, while 19% favor restricting all religious clothing. Roughly a quarter (27%) support allowing Muslim women to wear the religious clothing of their choosing.

The recently enacted laws in European countries do not explicitly target Muslim women’s dress.  In the case of Denmark, for instance, the statute prohibits face coverings except for “recognizable purposes,” such as cold weather…

Source: Pew Research Center

Editors: Nora Berend, Youna Hameau-Masset, Capucine Nemo-Pekelman and John Victor Tolan

Publisher: Brepols Publishers (May 23, 2017)

Book series: Religion and law in Medieval Christian and Muslim Societies

The fruit of a sustained and close collaboration between historians, linguists and jurists working on the Christian, Muslim and Jewish societies of the Middle Ages, this book explores the theme of religious coexistence (and the problems it poses) from a resolutely comparative perspective.  The authors concentrate on a key aspect of this coexistence: the legal status attributed to Jews and Muslims in Christendom and to dhimmīs in Islamic lands.

What are the similarities and differences, from the point of view of the law, between the indigenous religious minority and the foreigner?

What specific treatments and procedures in the courtroom were reserved for plaintiffs, defendants or witnesses belonging to religious minorities?

What role did the law play in the segregation of religious groups?

In limiting, combating, or on the contrary justifying violence against them?

Through these questions, and through the innovative comparative method applied to them, this book offers a fresh new synthesis to these questions and a spur to new research.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Part I. The Juridical Framework for Multiconfessional Societes in The Middle Ages

– The Relative Authorities of Text and Tradition in Medieval Jewish Jurisprudence: Geonic Exceptionalism in its Islamic Context, Talya Fishman

– The Legal Regulation of Minorities in Pre-modern Islamic Law, Anver M. Emon

– Western Legal Collections in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, Ken Pennington

– Scripture, Legal Interpretation, and Social Praxis in the Islamic Tradition: The Cases of Polygamy and Slavery, Jonathan Brown

• Part II. Comparative Studies

• Section I, Rights of residence

– Les conditions de la résidence du ḏimmī : entre règles absolues et relatives, Ahmed Oulddali

– Les ḏimmī-s et leurs lieux de culte en occident musulman : églises et synagogues en droit musulman (point de vue mālikite), Farid Bouchiba

– La ğizya dans la « loi divine » selon le commentaire coranique d’al-Qurṭubī (m. 671/1272), Géraldine Jenvrin

– Muslims, Jews, and the Question of Municipal Membership in Twelfth- to Fifteenth-Century Portugal, Anna Matheson

– Jewish Citizens versus Jewish Foreigners: The Legal Status of a Minority within the Minority in Medieval Catalonia, Nadezda Koryakina

– Les murs de la foi: les frontières identitaires dans les quartiers musulmans et juifs de la Castille médiévale, Marisa Bueno Sánchez

• Section II, Distinguishing Minorities: Segregation, Violence, Protection

– Segregatory Legislation and Jewish Religious Influence on Christians in the Thirteenth Century, Paola Tartakoff

– Legal Responses to Crusade Violence against Jews, Jessie Sherwood

– Minority Dress Codes and the Law: A Jewish-Christian Comparison, Elisheva Baumgarten

– Prohibiting Sexual Relations across Religious Boundaries in Fifteenth-Century Portugal: Severity and Pragmatism in Legal Theory and Practice, Francois Soyer

– Protection des chrétiens en terre d’Islam et discussion entre papes et souverains musulmans : le cas singulier des mercenaires du Maroc, Clara Maillard

• Section III, Tribunals and Trials

– Muslim Involvement in Non-Muslim Political Affairs in the Early Islamic Period, Uriel Simonsohn

– Jewish Business Contracts from Late Medieval Austria as Crossroads of Law and Business Practice, Martha Keil

– The Treatment of Minorities in the Legal System of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Adam M. Bishop

– The Women of the Trent Trial (1475-1478), Aleida Paudice

– La yajuz li-hukm al-muslimin an yahkum bayna- huma: Ibn Rushd al-Jadd (Cordoba, d. 1126 ce) and the Restriction on Dhimmis Shopping for Islamic Judicial Forums in al-Andalus, Delfina Serrano

– Hebrew Documents and Justice: Forged Quitclaims from Medieval England, Judith Olszowy-Schlanger

Source: Brepols Online