Sources of Moral Obligation to Non-Muslims in the “Jurisprudence of Muslim Minorities”

The main argument of this article is that many of the works of the contemporary Islamic literature on the “jurisprudence of Muslim minorities” attempt to provide an Islamic foundation for a relatively thick and rich relationship of moral obligation and solidarity with non-Muslims.

This article surveys four approaches towards moral obligation to non-Muslims found in Islamic legal thought. I refer to the first three approaches as the “revelatory deontological,” the “contractualist-constructivist” and the “consequentialist-utilitarian.” The main argument is that present in many contemporary works on the “jurisprudence of Muslim minorities” (fiqh al-aqalliyyāt) is an attempt to provide an Islamic foundation for a relatively thick and rich relationship of moral obligation and solidarity with non-Muslims. This attempt takes the form of a fourth “comprehensive-qualitative” approach to political ethics that appeals not to juridical reasoning of the type “is x permissible and in which conditions?” but rather to Islamic ideals of what it means to live a good life, of what believing, normatively-committed Muslims want to pursue in this world. This meta-ethical approach builds on and goes beyond the first three. This fourth “comprehensive-qualitative” approach to moral obligation to non-Muslims is novel, emergent and not found in the writings of outright reformers but in those of conservative, “neo-classical,” sharīʿa-minded—even Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated— Muslim scholars. What adds to the force of this argument is that the other meta-ethical discourses, particularly of contract and utility (maṣlaḥa), already get these scholars quite far towards a doctrine of “loyal resident alienage” in non-Muslim societies. That even orthodox Muslim scholars go further shows that they have some interest in giving a theological or principled foundation to a much thicker and richer form of moral obligation to non-Muslims, a relationship which involves recognizing non-Muslims qua non-Muslims and contributing to their well-being.

Bibliographic Information

Title: Sources of Moral Obligation to Non-Muslims in the “Jurisprudence of Muslim Minorities” (Fiqh al-aqalliyyāt) Discourse

Author: Andrew F. March

Published in: Islamic Law and Society 16 (2009)

 Language: English

Length: 60 pages

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