Contemporary discussions on religious minorities in Islam

Brigham Young University Law Review, 2002 by Nielsen, Jorgen S

sistent with this position would guarantee the equal rights of all citizens and should thus alleviate the understandable fears of nonMuslims.

A few years later, another Egyptian Muhammad `Imara, who was closer to the center of the Muslim Brotherhood than the two previous writers, asked whether Islam was the solution. This question echoed the slogan of the Islamic radicals: "Islam is the solution."32 `Imara also referred to the "constitution" of Medina, which, within the shared community/ummah, has space for religious pluralism.33 Communities and states are founded on a shared belonging. In the case of the Islamic state, the priority of this belonging is Islam, within which there is no problem with a plurality of lesser belongings, including family, tribe, ethnic group, locality, etc.34 This belonging, says `Imara, includes non-Muslims in the Muslim world. The difference between them is that while for the Muslims the belonging includes "creed, Shari'ah, values, civilization, nationality, country, culture, history, and heritage," the belonging for the nonMuslim does not include a shared creed or Shari'ah; they have their own.35 Islam, he says, represents their shared belonging and brings together the peoples and nations of the ummah with their differing beliefs and forms of worship. In fact, the Constitution of Medina distinguishes between ummah as a religious community and ummah as a political community, citing the status of Jews as an analogy. In a direct comparison with Christians and Christianity, he asserts that the Islamicness of a Muslim majority state is an essential requirement in a way that the "Christianness" of a Christian majority state is not. The implementation of Shari'ah does not detract from the Christianness of Christian minorities, but its absence would fatally flaw Islam.36

outlined his thoughts on citizenship and the rights of non-Muslims in Muslim society.37 He bases his arguments on a few key Qur'anic verses, the most basic of which is Surah 16:90: "God commands justice, the doing of good, and liberality to kith and kin, and He forbids all shameful deeds and injustice and rebellion." Quoting the medieval commentator al-Razi, Ghannushi says that all the rest of the Qur'an is a commentary and explanation (tafsir) of this verse. The first four sermons deal with his understanding of justice (ad). On this foundation he then enters into a detailed discussion of the rights of non-Muslims, where the key Qur'anic verses are 49:13 ("O people, We created you male and female, and made you peoples and tribes, that you might know each other") and 2:256 ("There is no compulsion in religion: truth stands out clearly from error"). In the face of much traditional commentary, Ghannushi emphasizes that this last verse appeared towards the very end of the period of revelation during the lifetime of the Prophet and must therefore be regarded as a general injunction taking precedent over the number of more inimical statements that related only to specific events and circumstances.38 On this basis, Ghannushi joins the previous authors in relegating the status of dhimmah to a past history that is no longer relevant39 before proceeding to deal with the various practical implications. There is broad agreement with the other authors that nonMuslims have equal political and civil rights, including fall rights of employment, even within the government, except in posts with religious content. On the issue of the jizyah (a poll tax incumbent on non-Muslims according to classical rulings), Ghannushi takes the view that the Qur'anic statement that it should be collected "with submission" (9:29) is linked to one particular event. The crucial element is that it is paid in lieu of military service, and as the modern state is one of shared citizenship, it is more appropriate for all to share that duty. In which case the requirement to pay the jizyah falls away. 40