DefinePK

Abstract

The European Council for Fatwa and Research, the authoritative Sunni reformist scholarly institution (based in Dublin, Ireland), has so far published three fatwas and legal declarations concerning Muslims' allegiance to European states; these were released in 2006, 2007 and 2015, mainly by ʿAbdallāh b. Bayya and Yūsuf al-Qaraḍāwī. I suggest studying each of these discourses' arguments and theses in chronological order. Next, the resources and limitations of loyalty in the ECFR’s fatwas will be examined in relation to the idea of multiple loyalties, liberal citizenship, and allegiance to non-Muslim states. Specifically, emphasis will be placed on how, in the European setting, loyalty to secular states and Islam can coexist, complement each other, or conflict. The legal statements on political loyalty issued by the European Council for Fatwa and Research are analyzed to show the organization's dedication to the ideas of multiple loyalties and the harmony and complementarity of political citizenship with religious loyalty to Islam. It is argued here that the ECFR's fatwas take an ethical turn in Islamic law and consider virtues, the public interest, human rights, and higher goals of law as a framework for their legal statements, as opposed to just repeating strict rulings of traditionalist fiqh.