FIQH TODAY
(London, 21.2.2004)

By
Mustafa Ceric, Raisu-l-ulama
Grand Mufti of Bosnia

When I had been approached to attend this Conference, it was too late for me to write a comprehensive paper about the Fiqh in the periphery of Islam, or in Europe, or in the environment where Muslims are minority.

Let me say at the start that I do not believe in the Fiqh of Minority because I do not accept to be treated as a halfway Muslim because I live in the status of political minority, but not in the status of majority within the Universal Ummah. The Prophet Muhammad (a.s.) had provided me the full equality of my status in the Universal Ummah wherever I live.

On the contrary, sometimes I am able to fulfill some of my religious duties because I live in Europe, despite the fact of my status of the political minority, better than some of my fellow Muslims who live in the Muslim majority environment. For instance, many Muslims who live in the West have better health and financial conditions to fulfill the FARD-I AYN of ZAKAT and HAJJ than many Muslims who live in the majority status in the East.

Of course, I am not naive to say that we Muslims in Europe do not need the support of the Ummah of the Center, especially after the failure of the European Army, which is in terms of religion a Christian Army, to protect Muslim population in Srebrenice in 1995 with the clear resolution of the Security Council of the UN that Srebrenica is "Safe Zone", i.e., under the full protection of the International Community.

Nevertheless, we Muslims here in Europe must take full responsibility, including our faith responsibility, before God, the Ummah and Europe in developing a peaceful relationship with our Christian and Jewish nationhood in Europe based on our Islamic universal morality and our particular civil interests so that one day we may be of help to the Universal Ummah, rather than to be in need of its help.

I believe that it is now time that we in Europe offer a genuine and, if I may say, an alternative interpretation of Islam that would lead us to a cultural creativity that is recognizable as Islamic-European and European-Islamic. I do not see the difference between, let say Egyptian patriotism in the name of Islam, and European patriotism with an assumption of a strong Islamic identity. After all Islam is the cosmopolitan religion more than any other religion and, therefore, I dare to say that it is a crime to reduce Islam to the tribal, ethnical, regional, national or professional level. Islam is like a sun with countless rays visible and invisible that bring blessings to all, those who see it and love it as well as those who do not see it and hate it. Don't you see that even those who hate Islam live from it because they are paid to spread Islamophobia around the world. So, Islam is a blessing for them too, because without Islam they would have difficulty to earn their livelihood.  There is no need to talk about those who live from Islam because they claim to defend it. May God guide us all not to live from, but for Islam because that is worthwhile to live at all.

The real enemy of Islam is neither West nor East. The real enemy of Islam is our Muslim Jahl or Jahiliyyah. It is not by chance that the Muslim historians have designated the time before Islam as the time of Jahiliyya and not, pay attention please, the time of either Kafiriyya or Širkiyyah. I highly trust the wisdom of our historians and their sense of realism. Our Jahl or Jahiliyyah is manifested today in the sense that we present Islam to the world not as a universal message, as it were, but  as a tribal culture and national pride. Then, we wonder why the Europeans do not appreciate the universal values of Islam which are great benefit to the whole humanity, but rather see Islam, as in fact we present it, as a specific culture from the East that has nothing to do here in Europe. I believe that Europe, and the West in general, is an ideal place for Muslims to work out a universal World View that will bring the Ummah closer to itself as well as to the whole world.

My view, regarding the Fiqh for Muslim Minority, should not minimize the sincere efforts of our honorable scholars to proceed with a search for genuine Fiqh solutions for Muslims who live in a minority status, particularly in the West. It is exactly because of the efforts of some Muslim scholars, like the honorable Shaikh Yusuf Qardawy, that we in the West feel responsible to do more in search for the Fiqh solutions that will satisfy both the sense of the continuity of our faith and the necessity of the change in our understanding of the time and space we live in.  
Therefore, allow me to be free not to speak about the Fiqh Today in a concrete sense of the word, but to offer you some of my reflections on the question of the phenomenon of Islamic civilization and its possible ramifications in the contexts of the Center and the Periphery of Islam, we here in Europe being, of course, the Periphery.

I would like to ask you kindly for one more concession. Please, excuse me for not being able to write an original paper for this occasion due to the short time I had, but to use the paper that I presented in October last year in Alexandria, Cairo, at the Conference under the title of Contemporary Islamic Syntheses.  If  I succeed to persuade you with my arguments here as I did in Alexandria, it will be worthwhile of coming to this Conference. So, thank you in advance for your cooperation.