Fatwas for European Muslims: the minority fiqh project and the integration of Islam in Europe

On one shore lies a ship about to sail, or perhaps already on its way. It is heading towards a mountainous and inhospitable territory. Leaving behind a land of mosques and minarets – ostentatiously symbolizing the lands of Islam (dar al-islam) – the ship appears to be sailing in order to bring assistance to an outstretched hand on the other shore silently crying out for help. The only visible part of a sinking body, the hand stands metonymically for those immigrant Muslims forced for some reason to live in exile in non-Muslim territory (dar al-kufr or dar al-harb). They are called al-mughtaribin – the estranged, from the same Arabic root (gh r b) from which the West (al-gharb) is also constructed. According to the title of the book from which the picture described here is drawn, they are facing an emergency situation. Entitled The Urgent Need of the Immigrants for the Fatwas of the Pious Scholars (Is‘af alMughtaribin bi-Fatawa al-‘Ulama al-Rabbaniyyin), the book presents a selection of fatwas – the assistance which is required according to its author - by a panel of famous Saudi scholars on various topics relevant for Muslims living in Western lands (Qahtani 2007). The connections between Muslim lands and non-Muslim countries, and the increasing sense of urgency that underlies orthodox Muslim conversations on the plight of the minorities living in the West highlighted by the book, are the subject of this dissertation.