One nation under God? Yusuf al-qaradawi s changing Fiqh of citizenship in the light of the Islamic legal tradition

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1 DOI /s One nation under God? Yusuf al-qaradawi s changing Fiqh of citizenship in the light of the Islamic legal tradition David H. Warren & Christine Gilmore # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013 Abstract In the wake of the Arab Revolutions of 2011, countries in the Middle East are grappling with how Islamists might be included within a regime of democratic political pluralism and how their aspirations for an Islamic state could affect the citizenship status of non-muslims. While Islamic jurisprudence on this issue has traditionally classified non-muslims in Islamic society as protected peoples or dhimma, endowed with what the authors term minority citizenship, this article will examine how the transnational intellectual Wasaṫiyya or Centrist movement, of which Sheikh Yusuf al- Qaradawi is the figurehead, have sought to develop a new fiqh of citizenship in which Muslims and non-muslims have equal civil and political rights. This article will focus on Yusuf al-qaradawi on the basis that his very recent shift in 2010 on the issue is yet to be studied in depth, as well as in view of the fact that the dilemma faced by reformist Islamic scholars how to integrate modern concepts into a legal tradition while simultaneously arguing for that tradition s continuing relevance and authority is for him rendered particularly acute, given that this tradition is itself the very source of his own authority and relevance. It will therefore be argued that the legacy of the Islamic legal tradition structures his discourse in a very specific way, thereby having the potential to render it more persuasive to his audience, and worthy of a more detailed examination. Keywords Qaradawi. Islamic law. Non-Muslim minorities. Citizenship Introduction In the wake of the Arab Revolutions of 2011, countries across the Middle East are grappling with how Islamists might be included within a regime of democratic D. H. Warren (*) University of Manchester, Manchester, UK david.warren@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk C. Gilmore University of Leeds, Leeds, UK encag@leeds.ac.uk

2 political pluralism in a context of significant regional support for their political goals, as demonstrated by the electoral success of Egypt s Freedom and Justice Party and Tunisia s El-Nahda Party. In a context in which many are calling for the (re)creation of the Islamic state, questions arise in relation to the future citizenship status of non- Muslims within the more nuanced civil state with an Islamic reference (al-dawla al-madaniyya bi-marja iyya islāmiyya), particularly whether Islamist parties would seek the re-implementation of the dhimma system codified in classical Islamic jurisprudence that emphasises communal autonomy or minority citizenship for non-muslims within a Sharia regime. Although scholars like Zeidan (1999: 9) have argued previously that a radical re-interpretation of the Sharia dhimmi concept in favour of non-muslim equality is at present unlikely, important steps have been taken by thinkers such as Yusuf al-qaradawi, Rashid al-ghannushi, Tariq al-bishri, Muhammad Salim al- Awwa and Fahmi Huwaydi to develop a fiqh of citizenship for non-muslims in the Islamic state. Al-Qaradawi s importance in the development of an Islamic conception of equal citizenship for Muslims and non-muslims in the Islamic Civil State is derived from his intellectual and spiritual leadership of the broad transnational intellectual school popularly known as al-madrasa al-wasaṫiyya ( The School of the Middle Way, or simply the Wasatiyya Movement ), which has influenced the policies and outlook of moderate Islamist parties, notably Hizb al-wasat in Egypt, whose platforms advocate equal citizenship rights for non- Muslims and reject the dhimma contract of differential citizenship rights as a suitable basis for the relationship between Muslims and non-muslims in an Islamic civil state (Mady 2004). Wasaṫiyya thinkers maintain that the most important product of recent ijtihād is that all Egyptians are equal citizens (al-qaradawi 1996: 59), based first and foremost on a concept that al-qaradawi (2010a: 42, 24) terms al-ukhūwa alwaṫaniyya (patriotic brotherhood) and al-jiwār (neighbourliness), whereby Muslims and non-muslims have equal civil and political rights. While acknowledging the contribution of thinkers such as al- Awwa and Huwaydi to developing this new fiqh of citizenship this article will argue that al-qaradawi s changing perspective about the citizenship status of non-muslims in the Islamic state deserves greater critical consideration because of the symbolic power he wields both as the figure head of the wasaṫiyya movement in Egypt and as a leading figure of the global pan-islamic Reform movement among both the ulamā and the wider Arab public. Though it has been argued that in previous periods of Islamic history from the Ottoman Empire to Muslim Spain and indeed the earlier Caliphates that the dhimma contract ( aqd al-dhimma) provided the basis for social tolerance, scholars such as Tariq Ramadan (2010: 48, 168 9) and Khaled Abou El Fadl have highlighted that tolerance is not the same as equality, nor is it a suitable basis on which to ground political relationships in the nation state as it exists today. They argue that the very idea of minority citizenship based on relations of tolerance legitimizes de facto discrimination and does not provide a suitable framework for relations between free human beings whom, as the Qur an indicates, are equal in dignity and worth. As such, although the dhimma system is not entirely dismissive of the rights of non- Muslims [ ] it asserts a hierarchy of importance, and the commitment to toleration is corresponding fragile and contingent (El Fadl 2002: 13).

3 Similarly, former head of the Syrian National Council (SNC) Burhan Ghalyun (2004: 24) highlights that foremost among the issues is that, [Muslims] today still use concepts of the state, the Umma [ ] with their traditional meanings that brings to mind a medieval concept of the state. What was most important for him then was that Umma should be granted a modern meaning [ ] regardless of doctrines and without any sectarian connotations. With these points in mind, Raymond Baker (2003), Sagi Polka (2003) and most recently Rachel Scott (2010) have detailed some of the significant steps taken by a variety of Muslim intellectuals in Egypt, many of whom were either associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, the wasaṫiyya movement, or both. Although the broader issue of the development of a fiqh of equal citizenship among wasaṫiyya thinkers is noted by these scholars, no detailed studies on the development of al-qaradawi s thought since his Non Muslims in The Islamic Society (Ghayr Muslimīn fi l-mujtama al-islāmī, published in 1985) have been written, representing a gap in the critical literature that this article seeks to fill through a close reading of his later texts Religious Minorities and the Islamic Solution (al-aqalliyyāt al-dīniyya wa l-ḣal al-islāmī, 1996) and his most recent The Homeland and Citizenship in the Light of Foundational Principles and the Higher Purposes of the Law (al-waṫan wa l-muwāṫana fī Ḋaw al-uṡūl al- Aqdiyya wa l-maqāṡid al-sharī iyya, 2010a). The purpose of this article therefore is to contribute to discussions of citizenship in Islamic law with a detailed focus on the changing thought of al-qaradawi, not only because his thought shifted notably in 2010, but also to examine in detail how this one scholar s thought on citizenship has changed over time and his own efforts to integrate the concept of modern citizenship into the classical Islamic legal tradition. Introducing Yusuf al-qaradawi and the School of the Middle Way By way of historical introduction, al-qaradawi was part of a generation of Azhari scholars who, impressed by the teachings of Hassan al-banna, joined the Muslim Brotherhood. During the regular clampdowns on the Brotherhood s activities during the 1950s, al-qaradawi was among those imprisoned repeatedly before taking his family into exile in At this time al-qaradawi s first major work of jurisprudence, The Lawful and the Prohibited in Islam (al-ḣalāl wa l-ḣarām fi l-islām) had just been published, marking him out as a rising star for the future. This work was reportedly enjoyed by Shaykh Ahmad Bin Ali Al Thani (al-qaradawi 2006: 272), the new Emir of Qatar for it was in Doha, unlike many of his colleagues who travelled to Saudi Arabia as part of the then King Faisal s Islamic solidarity initiative, where al-qaradawi resides to this day. As time passed, al-qaradawi (2002, 2004a, 2006, 2011: 277, 381) quickly became established through the defence of his encyclopaedic doctoral thesis entitled The Jurisprudence of Alms-Giving (Fiqh al-zakāt) in 1973, leading to him being offered the post of General Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood 1 In total al-qaradawi was imprisoned five times by various Egyptian regimes, the first in 1948 in Hykestep prison where he wrote A Scholar and A Tyrant ( Ālim wa-taghiyya), a highly political play that was first performed in prison. It was during his second period of imprisonment under torture that was the most formative, however, and was the inspiration for his famous poem My Cell (Zinzānatī), which Husam Tamaam (2008: 9) refers to as among the most important poem[s] of the Islamist movements.

4 1976 (and again in 2004, he refused both times), going on to become Dean of the Sharia Faculty at Qatar University in Al-Qaradawi might have remained simply a respected scholar of Islamic jurisprudence, had it not been for a small satellite channel called al-jazeera founded in 1996, whose weekly religious programme Sharia and Life (al-sharī a wa l-ḣayāt) hosted Yusuf al-qaradawi as its primary religious authority. 2 Al-Qaradawi seemed a natural choice as the scholarly authority on the show, especially in the light of the recent passing of possible alternatives such as Muhammad al-ghazali and Muhammad al-sha rawi, and he quickly warmed to his role as, at the height of its popularity, al-jazeera was estimated to be reaching over 60 million regular viewers. It was similarly during this time that the tiny Emirate of Qatar began developing its vast energy reserves, propelling it to the position of nearly unrivalled wealth and subsequent geopolitical influence that it enjoys today. Even before the Arab Spring then, al-qaradawi had come to be associated with titles such as the Global Mufti and the Muslim Brotherhood s Spiritual Guide, with Gilles Kepel (2003: 60) suggesting that his regular Friday sermons at the Umar Ibn al-khattab mosque in Doha set the tone for Arabic language Sunni sermons across the world. His widely publicised return to Egypt and deliverance of his famous Tahrir Square sermon on Friday 18 February 2011 led to him being described as the Egyptian Khomeini,or even the Muslim Pope. However, it should also be noted that al-qaradawi s popular influence has waned along with the decline in popularity of al-jazeera, due to increased competition for viewers and also, more crucially, its perceived decline in neutrality due to al-jazeera s associations with the foreign policy goals of the Qatari state and close support of the Muslim Brotherhood since 2011 (and before), which have similarly harmed al-qaradawi s standing among the wider Arab public. During this time, the motif he adopted for himself was that of wasaṫiyya, which al-qaradawi (1990, 2007, 2010b: 37 38) has defined as the desire for moderation (i tidāl), balance (ta ādul, tawāzun) and the taking of a middle position between two opposing views (tawwasuṫ). Derived from the word wasaṫ (centre, mid, moderate), the term wasaṫiyya emphasises the just and middle way between extremism and religious neglect based on the Qur anic statement So we have appointed you a nation of the middle way (wa-kadhālika ja alnākum ummatan wasaṫan) (2:143). In her own essay on the subject, Gräf (2008: 6 8) describes how it also refers to an intellectual method (minhāj al-wasaṫiyya) based on the principles of tajdīd (renewal), ijtihād (independent reasoning), fiqh al-wāqi (a deep and true understanding of reality), tarshīd (guidance) and ikhtilāf (pluralism). Al-Qaradawi is both founder and figurehead then of this broad transnational intellectual school popularly known as al-madrasa al-wasaṫiyya, The School of the Middle Way, and the Wasatiyya Movement, with this aforementioned loose collection of intellectuals, scholars and activists coming primarily from outside the al- Azhar tradition and associating themselves voluntarily with al-qaradawi. In 2004, the International Union of Muslim Scholars (al-ittiḣād al- Ālamī li- Ulamā al-muslimīn) 2 Despite its apparent significance to outside observers, in a recent interview al-qaradawi did not appear to view his appointment to Sharia and Life as a matter of particular significance, though he highlighted that it was at his suggestion that it included a question and answer segment, which was a key reason for its early popularity (al-qaradawi and Warren, personal communication, February 6, 2013).

5 was founded in Doha, with al-qaradawi as its President and, perhaps on the basis of al-qaradawi s advancing years (he is now aged 86), an Association of the Students of al-qaradawi (Rābiṫat Talālmīdh al-qaraḍāwī) was formed in This was formalised in 2009 with the appointment of Akram Kassab as its General Secretary and aims to convene annually, drawing between 40 and 60 scholars to meet with al-qaradawi and discuss his work. The establishment of The al- Qaradawi Center for Research in Moderate Thought at the growing Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies is similar evidence of the growing importance of al-qaradawi as a symbolic figure. 3 Rachel Scott s study in particular (2010: ) details how some of these latter Islamist intellectuals secularly trained as journalists, lawyers, or historians have started to develop a fiqh of citizenship for non-muslims in the Islamic state that has influenced the platforms of self-styled moderate Islamist parties such as the Hizb al-wasat. Hizb al-wasat was an organisation founded in Egypt by former members of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1996 and, though it failed to gain official party status at that time, it was granted official recognition on 19 February 2011 following the Egyptian Revolution. Its political platform advocates equal citizenship rights for women and non-muslims within a democratic context and rejects the dhimma contract as a suitable basis for the relationship between Muslims and non-muslims in an Islamic civil state. This position has been elaborated by Abu al- Ala Mady (2004), the party s founder, who argues that the problem of ahl al-dhimma and jizya represent two main obstacles in the way of securing equal rights for the citizens of one country, and that the aqd al-dhimma on which Islamists base the legal status of non-muslims is not an eternal religious obligation, but a political contract which came to an end with the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the fight against colonialism, and the establishment of Egypt s civil constitution which accorded equal citizenship rights to all (Wickham 2004: 10). While the party is committed to implementing a revised form of law based on the Sharia, Article 3 of its manifesto unequivocally states that Citizenship determines the rights and duties of all Egyptians and is the basis of the relations between all Egyptians. There should be no discrimination between citizens on the basis of religion, gender, colour or ethnicity in terms of their rights, including the right to hold public office (Hizb al-wasat 2004). This has led Baker (2003), Wickham (2004: 3), Norton (2005), Utvik (2005) and Scott (2010) to suggest that the Hizb al-wasaṫ represents a form of political Islam that is qualitatively different from the ideological extremism of militant Islamic groups, as a well as a more subtle, but 3 The al-qaradawi Center for Research in Moderate Thought was founded in 2009 and focuses primarily on the dissemination of al-qaradawi s wasaṫī approach both internationally and in Qatar itself, though it is often remarked that al-qaradawi has had little influence on local Qatari context not only does the Center organise lectures and seminars for foreign ulamā based in countries ranging from Azerbaijan, to Germany, to China it also has an agreement with the Qatari Supreme Council for Education whereby it organises teacher-training courses for teachers of Islamic studies in Qatari secondary schools. In those contexts, Dr Muhammad Khalifa Hasan, the director of the Center, defines wasaṫiyya primarily in relation to counterextremism efforts and the promotion of inter-religious dialogue, and so of course al-qaradawi s [work] comes through. The Center is currently preparing an edition of al-qaradawi s complete works and its other main research project (it has four members of research staff) is publishing a series of works on the pioneers of wasaṫiyya (ruwād al-wasaṫiyya) ranging from Ibn Taymiyya to al-qaradawi (Hasan and Warren, personal communication, January 28, 2013).

6 nonetheless significant, departure from the religious conservatism of the Muslim Brotherhood and other mainstream Islamic groups, as indicated by the fact that 3 of its 72 founding members were Christians, and 19 were women (Stacher 2002: 9). Polka (2003: 40), Norton (2005: 1) and Baker (2003) attribute this adherence to political pluralism and equal citizenship to a more fundamental shift in ideology brought about by reflexivity within the Islamic Reform movement, most notably the wasaṫiyya school of al-qaradawi, which did not attract a large following until the early 1990s when its manifesto A Contemporary Islamic Vision: Declaration of Principles (Ru ya Islamiyya Mu āṡira: I lān Mabādi ) was published by Ahmad Kamal Abu al-majd (1992), reflecting al-qaradawi s Twenty Characteristics of the Wasaṫiyya Method (1990). As Baker (2003: 192 4) puts it it is impossible to read the Wassat (sic) party program without hearing, in between the lines, the voices of the major new Islamist figures, particularly the concept of Civilisational Islam, which permeates its manifesto. Not only is there a strong conceptual overlap between the wasaṫiyya s (Gräf 2008: 15) ideology and methods and the platform of the Hizb al-wasa, which emphasise shumūliyya (integration), maqāṡid (the intentions of the Sharia), ḣuqūq al-aqalliyyāt (minority rights), tajdīd al-dīn (renewal of the religion) and fiqh jadīd (a new Islamic jurisprudence) but Mady (2004) publicly acknowledged that the founders of Hizb al-wasat tried to put life into the thoughts and ideas of those thinkers, particularly al-qaradawi, al-bishri, al- Awwa and Huwaydi in the formation of its position on non- Muslims and women in the Islamic state and the Islamic basis for democracy. Close involvement by members of the wasaṫiyya movement in the development of the Hizb al-wasat is further indicated by the fact that it was al-qaradawi who led calls for the formation of a centrist Islamic political force to counteract both secularism and radical Islamism, and was often invited to speak at conferences organised by the group (Utvik 2005: 10 11). Polka (2003: 48) similarly notes, the root of the problem in Qaradawi s opinion was that an all-encompassing and perfectly balanced Islam, or in other words the Centrist perception of Islam, was absent from all aspects of political activity in the 1980s and 1990s, and Norton (2005: 9) notes too how al-qaradawi felt that the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood, of which he was a longstanding member, constrains the liberal thinkers among its children and closes windows of renewal (tajdīd), interpretation (ijtihād), and stands on one side of ideas and thought while not accepting the other point of view on those holding different opinions about objectives or the means to accomplish them. While al-qaradawi s significance was noted in Scott s(2010: 143) study, at that time al-qaradawi remained squarely among the apologists for the dhimma contract and did not see a conceptual difference between it and that of citizenship. In al-qaradawi s (2004b: 76) work Our Islamic Discourse in the Era of Globalisation (Khiṫābunā al-islāmī fī Aṡral- Awlama) for example, the change appears simply as one of updating rhetoric, he tells his young Muslim brothers to be sure to refer to non-muslims in Egypt as citizens rather than dhimmis, primarily to avoid causing offence, rather than because the situation has changed. It was 2010 that his The Homeland and Citizenship was published and a shift emerged, and while some of his colleagues moves have clearly influenced al-qaradawi, his approach also has notable particularities. Al-Qaradawi has a long-standing interest in minority issues that he first broached in his treatise The Lawful and the Prohibited in Islam. Since the 1990s he has

7 developed an extensive body of fiqh for Muslim Minorities living in non-muslim majority states through his chairmanship of the European Council of Fatwa and Research (ECFR) and formalised in his 2001 book, For a Fiqh of Muslim Minorities: The Life of Muslims in Other Societies (Fī Fiqh al-aqalliyyāt al-muslima: Ḣayāt al- Muslimīn Wasaṫal-Mujtam āt al-ukhrā), which has elicited extensive scholarly attention, with Alexandre Caeiro and Mahmoud al-saify (2008: 5) observing a shift away from a stress on minority-ness (aqalliyya) towards an emphasis on the notion of citizenship (muwāṫana). However, academic engagement with al-qaradawi s thought about the citizenship status of Muslim minorities has not been matched by equivalent scrutiny of his analysis of the citizenship status of non-muslims in the Islamic World. Neither Religious Minorities and the Islamic Solution (1997) orthe Homeland and Citizenship (2010a) has been translated into English, despite revealing significant developments in his thought. This article will be base itself first then on a close-reading of Qaradawi s latest work on this subject, The Homeland and Citizenship, as well as interviews conducted in Doha during two periods of fieldwork in 2012 and The article will then track how al-qaradawi s ideas about the status of non-muslims in Islamic society have shifted and changed since over the period 1985 to 2010 in which he moves away from a purely neo-traditionalist interpretation of the civil and political rights of non-muslims based on the dhimma system codified in Islamic jurisprudence towards what might be termed a citizenship perspective in which non-muslims have the same rights as their Muslim co-citizens. Authority and tradition in the emerging Fiqh of citizenship Scott s discussion of the wasaṫiyya movement emphasises the importance of the Islamic jurisprudential tradition in the process of renewing fiqh, concluding that contemporary Islamists are under considerable pressure to authenticate their vision of Islam within the Islamic tradition, yet at the same time to respond to the pressures of modernity [ ] There is a problem with conveying medieval Islamic concepts by utilizing Western terms (Scott 2010: 120). This pressure manifests in a variety of ways, according to Scott (2010: 127), the fact that al- Awwa has chosen to associate himself with more conservative Islamic scholars [namely al-qaradawi] indicates that he is under some pressure to avoid being described as someone who departs from Islamic tradition implying it is through associating oneself with a figure like al-qaradawi that such pressure can be relieved. After the Revolution of 2011, some of these figures associated with al-qaradawi emerged in prominent positions of influence, with al-bishri being appointed by the, now defunct, Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) to the head of the Constitutional Reform Committee after the Egyptian Revolution (Scott 2012: 18), while al- Awwa was an initially popular candidate for the Presidential elections of 2012 before the eventual victory of Muhammad Mursi. In relation to the renewal of Islamic jurisprudence (tajdīd al-fiqh) this emerges more clearly in al-qaradawi s emphasis on balancing the dictates of foundational texts and a deep and true understanding of the social realities of the day (fiqh al-wāqi ), through a methodology that has also previously been described as

8 neo-salafi (Warren and Gilmore 2012) on the grounds that it permits him to circumvent the Islamic tradition in a selective and pragmatic manner. Since the term salafī is attributed both to earlier reformist trends associated with Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida (a legacy that al-qaradawi explicitly lays claim to) and the ultra-conservative thought of Muhammad Ibn Abd al-wahhab, we will adopt Uriya Shavit s(2012:4 6) definition of salafism and wasaṫiyya to distinguish the two approaches, namely that Although proponents of both approaches claim to be the rightful followers of the first three generations of Islam [ ]awasaṫī is understood to be a follower of a liberal, flexible approach to religious law while a salafī is understood to be a follower of a strict, rigid interpretation. The difference between al-qaradawi and his secularly trained wasaṫiyya colleagues is that al-qaradawi is a jurist (faqīh) trained at al-azhar whose authority therefore rests in the legal tradition itself, and is dependent on its continued vitality and relevance to the modern day. On the one hand then, al-qaradawi s personal attempt to integrate citizenship, as well as nationalism and patriotism into the Islamic tradition is rendered far more difficult than it is for his more secularly trained colleagues but, on the other hand, therefore has the potential to be far more convincing and far-reaching, were it to be successful. In a point of departure advocated by Caeiro (2006), rather than resorting to various Weberian ideal-types here to argue for al-qaradawi s authority, influence or otherwise, the assertion here then is that al-qaradawi s authority is rooted in a discursive manipulation of the legal tradition, whereby al-qaradawi engages in the pursuit of a continual coherence in dialogue with a set of texts, particularly ambitious in that it attempts to encompass the Qur an, Sunna and even the legacy of a figure such as Hassan al-banna. This assertion is based on the premise that al-qaradawi s discourse will be convincing for those who share the a priori conviction that al-qaradawi has the right to interpret that tradition as one of the ulamā. El Fadl (2001: 31) describes this point of departure aptly in that the authority of the ulamā, in this instance al-qaradawi, is a matter of belief and conscience or an intellectual conviction in the value of tradition and precedent in forming both communities of meaning and cultures of authority. It is on this basis that Talal Asad (1993: 210) theorises tradition as intertwined with authority in a collaborative manner, through a shared achievement between narrator and audience [where] the former cannot speak in total freedom: there are conceptual and institutional conditions that must be attended to if discourses are to be persuasive. This emphasis on the collaborative element is particularly noteworthy as al-qaradawi s intended audience are not Coptic Christians or other religious minorities, but rather other Muslim scholars and readers who would accept his discourse as authoritative to a greater or lesser degree. A key feature throughout much of al-qaradawi s oeuvre has been guiding the Islamic Awakening (Ṡaḣwa al-islāmiyya) and, though this concern places his discourse under particular constraints not shared by his more innovative and secularly trained Islamist intellectuals, it also renders it more persuasive. With this theoretical point in mind, al-qaradawi s approach as a scholar of Islamic jurisprudence to nation and citizenship differs from his intellectual colleagues in that this discourse must first and foremost be seen to be in dialogue with the Qur an and Sunna and continually relate back to these two sources, foundational as they are to the

9 Islamic legal tradition s system of jurisprudence (uṡūl al-fiqh). In contrast to the original introduction of the concept of homeland and citizenship into the region s discourse on behalf of Egyptian scholar Rifa a Rafi al-tahtawi ( ) whereby a term simply was needed and was found (Lewis 1988: 63) al-qaradawi s first move then must be to integrate the terms waṫan (homeland) and muwāṫana (citizenship) into the conceptual universe of the Qur an. Nation and citizenship in the Sharia Al-Qaradawi s (2010a: 13) introduction to Nation and Citizenship thereby begins with an etymological discussion, emphasising that the verbal noun muwāṫana has no corresponding verb in the third form (wāṫana) from which it might be derived, and must therefore be derived from the noun waṫan in apparently the same manner that the word for patriotism (qawmiyya) is derived from the noun qawm, meaning people, or the concept humanity (insāniyya) is derived from insān, meaning mankind. Al-Qaradawi (2010a: 18) then argues that the Qur an speaks to the concept of a homeland in its portrayal of the leaving or being evicted from [one s country] as a great crime, a terrible ordeal, which is equivalent to killing someone, since leaving one s home is like the soul leaving the body. Al-Qaradawi says the Qur anic expresses this concept through the word diyār (sing., dār) occurring in verse 4:66, If We had ordered them to sacrifice their lives or to leave their homes (diyār), very few of them would have done it: but if they had done what they were (actually) told, it would have been best for them, and would have gone farthest to strengthen their (faith). 4 Another distinctive key motif in al-qaradawi s (2010a: 14 16) discourse that emerges here is the Qur an s concordance with human nature (fiṫra) and reality. Having established the presence of homeland conceptually in the Qur an, he then highlights that a bond to between humans and a certain area is natural. After Adam and Eve s expulsion from heaven, the whole world was like a homeland to them and their descendants, while in later human history an attachment to a particular place was formed through settlement in villages and towns, showing al-qaradawi that it is an integral part of human nature. Attachment to a homeland is therefore a human need (ḣājat al-insān), with al-qaradawi s (2010a: 14 19) citations of pre-islamic poetry, a similarly common facet of his rhetorical style, emphasising the apparent unnaturalness of the pre-islamic Bedouin s nomadism, evidenced by their mourning of their state of rootlessness, and in more recent Arab history by the ordeal of the Algerians under French colonialism or the displacement of the Palestinians. Even at this point however, hints of coming inconsistencies start to emerge. Having affirmed humans essential need to be attached to a specific homeland, and that just as one cannot choose their family they cannot choose their homeland ( whoever is born in Egypt and brought into being there becomes Egyptian, and Egypt becomes their homeland ), it is also apparently clear to al-qaradawi (2010a: 19 20) that someone can change their homeland, since this is the reality for many 4 The translation is from Yusuf Ali.

10 people either by choice or by force, moving from one homeland to another, exchanging one people for another, and one brotherhood for another. Not only that, al-qaradawi s response to the phenomena of migration, specifically Muslim migration to the West, necessitates his acceptance of the multiplicity of one s homelands (ta addud al-waṫan) too. Here the concept starts to become blurred with that of jinsiyya, conceptually closer to nationality in that it refers to certain specific citizenship rights such as the rights to a passport and abode and, in this instance he is in fact speaking first from his own experience as an Egyptian exile in Qatar, where by Qatari law one is only allowed to hold the citizenship of one country, and so al-qaradawi states that this adoption of the passport of another state does not negate one s (or perhaps his) link to their previous homeland. The closest example however to this human experience is the Prophetic Sunna, which in al-qaradawi s methodology must speak to both situations, and it does so on the basis that, just as the migration (Hijra) of Muhammad and his companions from Mecca to Medina did not entail their renouncement of Mecca, or their longing to return there, nor did it either detract from their loyalty or bond of citizenship with their new compatriots in the polity of Medina. Here then it is the treaty enacted by Muhammad between the new Muslim arrivals and the Jewish and polytheistic residents of what was then Yathrib, popularly known as the Constitution (dustūr) or Compact of Medina (ṡaḣīfat al-madīna) that becomes integral to the unfolding discussion. As it was for al- Awwa (1980: 15), it is in the Compact of Medina that for al- Qaradawi (2010a: 25) that this relationship is first formalised and expressed politically. To contextualise the Compact as it is recalled in the Islamic tradition, in the year 622 CE the city of Medina was on the verge of anarchy due to infighting among the local Jewish and polytheistic tribes, with an invitation known as the Second Pledge of al- Aqaba (Hamidullah 1985: 47 8) being extended by a group of Muslim converts already in Medina to Muhammad who, along with his followers, had been suffering from ever-increasing persecution in Mecca, to travel to Medina to mediate and reconcile the various groups. This they did, with the Compact of Medina seen as the declaration of non-aggression between the warring tribes and management of what was veritably a city-state, with the agreed upon procedures including mutual aid, defence of the city, prescribed actions to be taken against those who commit crimes and so on (Yildrim 2009: 2 3). Though a more detailed discussion of the historicity of the document is beyond the bounds of this particular study, it is worth highlighting that in orientalist scholarship the historical integrity of such an early text has been the subject of much scrutiny even since the nineteenth century, with Julius Wellhausen in 1889 suggesting that it was written in the first year of the Hijra before the Battle of Badr (Yildrim 2009: 9fn 3), while Montgomery Watt (1956) argued that it was amended afterwards. By contrast, Serjeant (1964: 4) suggested that in actual fact the Compact was an amalgamation of eight separate agreements with varying tribes, all of them occurring soon after the completion of the Hijra. It is on this basis that more recently scholars such as Anver Emon ( : 1) assert that indeed there is no original document or archaeological evidence testifying to [the Compact], but here it is the version compiled by the Indian scholar Muhammad Hamidullah ( ) that is the source for al-qaradawi (2010: 25). It was during his doctoral study at the Sorbonne in 1935 that Hamidullah (1985: 26) first published his

11 compilation of over 50 documents and treaties from the time of Muhammad and his Companions. In particular it is the Arabic translation of this work first published in Egypt in 1941 under the title Majmū al-wathā iq al-siyāsiyya li l- Ahad al-nabawī wa l-khilāfa al-rāshida (A Collection of Political Documents from the Time of the Prophet and Rightly-Guided Caliphate) that al-qaradawi and his fellow Islamists such as al- Awwa (1980: 15fn 3), Ali Bulaç (1998: 3fn 6) and Hayreddin Karaman (Guida 2010: 13fn 38) credit with turning their attention to the potential of the Compact as a political source. While the academic debates surrounding the integrity of the Compact are undoubtedly significant, Hamidullah (1994) argues that the document became an object of historical study by Muslim historians Ibn Ishaq, Abu Ubayd and Ibn Abi Khaythama approximately 100 years after Muhammad s death and it was they who preserved it word for word. The Compact s significance here therefore is related less to its debated historicity but rather its accepted place for al-qaradawi and his fellow Islamists, as well as Muslims more broadly, as an integral part of the Prophetic tradition. Al-Qaradawi s version of the document (2010a: 26 30) lists 47 clauses and, in his reading what is most significant is how term Umma occurs with four meanings. The first accords to how the term is popularly understood, as a communal bond that is shared between believing Muslims, as seen in clause 15 ( the believers are friends to one another to the exclusion of all men ). The second refers to Umma s political meaning, perhaps the most significant given that is also argued for by Huwaydi (1990: 124) and al- Awwa (1980: 20). By this al-qaradawi understands that the separate Muslim and Jewish communities (ummatān) also share joint membership of a single political Umma, identities that do not clash but rather exist in parallel. For al-qaradawi the sharing in the political Umma is exemplified by the clauses he numbers that list the various Jewish tribes of Medina and describe them as an umma ma al-mu minīn (one community with the believers), which he describes as markedly different from an umma min al-mu minīn (one community from the believers) along with the prescription that the Jews have their religion, and the Muslims have theirs. The third meaning of Umma is geographical, and al-qaradawi states geography is the basis of political identity and citizenship in the modern age. This point is derived from the first clause, stating that the Compact governs relations between the believers and Muslims of the Quraysh, the people of Yathrib, and (emphasised by al-qaradawi in bold type) those who followed them, joined with them, and struggled alongside them as well as the second clause, which states that the inhabitants of Medina are one Umma apart from the other people that is to say, those residing outside the geographical polity of Medina, be they Muslim or non- Muslim. The fourth and final meaning then refers to the bond of social solidarity and kinship, for al-qaradawi argues that their joint ratification of the Compact meant that the Jewish, Muslim and Polytheistic inhabitants of Medina shared in bonds of kinship like the members of one tribe (al-qaradawi 2010a: 30 33). In the following section entitled important observations, what is appears to be most significant for al-qaradawi (2010a: 32 33) is that the state established by the Compact is not synonymous with a state for Muslims, but rather is an Islamic State in its majority and its terms of reference (taghlīban wa-marja iyyatan). Similarly important is the geographical bias of the citizenship that the Compact establishes, and therefore the bond of citizenship is foremost linked to the Medinans shared ties to the city, and other Muslims who did not migrate to Medina at the time

12 of the Hijra were therefore not citizens, but brothers in doctrine. The point that will be most useful in al-qaradawi s argument as it develops is his suggestion that the Compact accepts the multiplicity of human identity (ta addud al-hūwiyya al-insāniyya) and types of brotherhood [that exist] between people. This shift on behalf of al-qaradawi comes primarily through dialogue with one of the founding members of his Rābiṫat al-talāmīdh, the Mauritanian scholar Muhammad al-moctar al-shingiti, based in Doha alongside al-qaradawi at the al-qaradawi Center for Research in Moderate Thought at the Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies. Al-Shingiti was the reviewer of al-qaradawi s original manuscript and describes how during the reviewing process and in discussions with al-qaradawi at his home that, I did some corrections, of grammatical mistakes and things like that, and I also inserted [pages thirty through thirty three, relating to the multiple meanings of Umma and the recognition of citizens multiple identities in the Compact] in red and wrote that I suggested he add this [ ] I told him that even in the time of the prophet people were not only defined by their faith, but also politically and socially (al-shingiti and Warren, personal communication, January 24, 2013). One of the most notable and contentious issues relating to the dhimma contract is the paying of the jizya (poll tax), levied on non-muslims and derived primarily from the Qur anic verse 9:29. The meaning emphasised by al-qaradawi previously, as well as al-bishri, Huwaydi and al- Awwa was that the jizya was a tax extended over non- Muslims in lieu of their exemption from military service in defence of Muslim lands (Scott 2010: ). While the more recent response of al-bishri, Huwaydi and al- Awwa has been to argue that the dhimma contract is an historical institution that, along with the jizya, can now be discarded in the view of the reality of non- Muslim conscription into the Egyptian army, al-qaradawi s(2010a:33 34) approach is somewhat different in that he contrasts the model of citizenship relations established under the Compact of Medina with that of the Treaty concluded by Muhammad with the Christians of Najran. Though historical sources conflict, it is traditionally accepted that in CE, a delegation was sent to the region of Najran (in southwestern Saudi Arabia, near the modern border with Yemen) and that, ultimately, the area was conquered. While it is similarly accepted in the tradition that no one was forced to convert, those who did not were required to pay a tribute to Medina or rather, the jizya (Scott 2010: 19). Al-Qaradawi s (2010a: 33 34) key distinction between the status of non-muslims in the Medinan city state and under the original dhimma compact is therefore the conditions under which these citizenship models were established. While the Compact of Medina was ratified in a political environment where Muslims and non- Muslims lived side by side in a shared homeland, and stressing equal participation in government, social welfare and national defence, the dhimma contract refers specifically to a peace agreement concluded with a foreign nation beyond the state s borders, the Treaty with the Christians of Najran focuses on protecting the lives, money, property, livestock, and religious liberty of a conquered people. Here then, in an effort to maintain the integrity of the Islamic jurisprudential tradition while also integrating the citizenship model of the nation-state into it, al-qaradawi has clearly not historicised the dhimma contract and jizya tax in the same manner as his colleagues, but instead emphasises, in al-shingiti s (personal communication, January 24, 2013) words,

13 that both the Muslims and Jews of Medina were founders of the State and minor Jewish tribes remaining in Medina who were not dhimmis when the Najran Treaty was enacted. This latter point is an attempt to counter the argument of some jurists that the Compact of Medina was abrogated by the Treaty of Najran, which occurred afterwards. There is a clear conceptual tension arising with al-qaradawi s attempted integration of citizenship into the tradition, while preserving the moral valence of the dhimma contract, and this is seen similarly in al-qaradawi s attempted inclusion of Arab nation-state nationalism without discarding or historicising Muslims traditional belonging to a greater Land of Islam (dār al-islām). While one s belonging to a homeland is cast as divinely ordained and pre-determined (qadrī wa-jabarī) but also local (maḣalī), Muslims belonging to the dār al-islām is greater, deeper, and by choice. Here then, alongside al-qaradawi s discussion of nation states, he also includes the statement that dār al-islām is the homeland of every Muslim, highlighting the apparent difficulty he has in attempting to incorporate new concepts while simultaneously emphasising the continuing relevance of those in the tradition. Al-Qaradawi (2010b: 39) maintains a clear affection for the greater dār al-islām of traditional Islamic jurisprudence and the historical Caliphate, and the catastrophe of its replacement with statelets (dawliyyāt) here and there and Muslims putting their country before their religion. Indeed this affection is so much so that al-qaradawi (2010a: 40) also emphasises that non-muslims belong to this greater dār al-islām and writes that, while the jurists of the various legal schools designated the non-muslims dhimmis, they actually considered them to be among the people of dār al-islām. As far as al-qaradawi is concerned this represents the key to the problem for it means that the classical jurists did not consider non-muslims to be aliens or foreigners, but members of the nation, and they are now therefore citizens just like their fellow Muslims. While Scott (2010: 143) noted the clear inconsistency on behalf of al-qaradawi, in this instance the argument here is a constraint on his discourse is that al-qaradawi (2010a: 37) must continue assert the relevance to his audience of the splendid examples of Islamic jurisprudence and the classical jurists whose legacy he lays claim to, for they are the source of his authority and own continuing relevance. Therefore al-qaradawi has to assert that, the problem [of citizenship] has been solved from within Islamic jurisprudence, without having to import the concept of citizenship from the Western market place of ideas, inappropriate for Muslims in al- Qaradawi s view because it requires their separation from their religious belonging through secularism. While al-qaradawi (2010a: 41) writes that he recognises the fear of non-muslims that they might be discriminated against, he argues that the concept of citizenship requires equality between all citizens and therefore it is necessary that we delete historical words and concepts from the dictionary of contemporary [communal] relations, like the word dhimma and ahl al-dhimma that are no longer acceptable to non-muslims. For al-qaradawi (2010a: 43 44) the reason that citizenship requires equality is because of patriotic brotherhood (al-ukhūwa al-waṫaniyya) whereby each citizen is the brother of the other. The next passage shows that al-qaradawi s audience are not Copts, but rather Muslim extremists and literalists over whom he sees himself as a guide. He includes a clearly pedagogic dialogue with an unnamed literalist, who the reader is told objected to al-qaradawi s use of the term our Coptic brothers on the

14 basis that there could be no brotherhood outside the religious framework. Al- Qaradawi responds by saying that such a position is absurd, and that all kinds of brotherliness can exist alongside the religious ( patriotic, nationalistic, professional, human etc. ), though the brotherhood of Muslims is deepest of all. When asked to present his legal proof for this position, al-qaradawi says the proof is found not only in human reality but also in the text itself and tells his opponent, and the reader, to read four Qur anic passages from sūrat al-shu arā with him (26: , , , ). Each passage describes four tribes rejection of the prophets sent to them but, most significantly for al-qaradawi is that despite this rejection the Qur an still describes the bond between these early prophets and the tribes who rejected them as one of brotherliness. In attempting to navigate these various loyalties and belongings al-qaradawi (2010a: 45 47) emphasises that they do not conflict, though ultimately as was seen he did emphasise that loyalty to religion trumped all the others. In emphasising this patriotic brotherliness found in the geographical bias of the Compact of Medina and noting that nationalism and patriotism are commonly associated with secularism, and many of the twentieth-century liberation movements, in Algeria for example, contained secularists, liberals and Marxists, al-qaradawi argues instead that nationalism and patriotism in fact do not carry any ideology or religion [ ] it is never a necessity that patriotism or nationalism be secular. The difficulty of maintaining the importance of Muslims traditional Islamic belonging to dār al-islām while stripping Arab-nationalism of its popular secularist connotations is again apparent in al-qaradawi s resortion to ambiguous or even somewhat muddled phrases such as saying that nationalism, is not non-religious (secular), but rather it is neutral. The discourse is confused further by al-qaradawi s occasional use the of term alwaṫaniyya interchangeably with al-qawmiyya so, while an Arabic dictionary would translate the former as nationalism and the latter as patriotism, it is clear that al- Qaradawi sees both concepts as existing in both terms, and the major point his argument is to promote the patriotic meaning of the terms, and attenuate their more divisive, nationalistic aspects. Al-Qaradawi s affection (2010a: 51) for dār al-islām rests in no small part on the legacy of the early reformers; while Muhammad Abduh supported the Egyptian independence movement against the British occupation he, along with al-afghani and their peers as a group believed in a greater homeland: dār al-islām. The overriding concern of these scholars was the potential ethnic or racial flavour of nationalism, as well as its links with secularism. Given that al-qaradawi does not confine the concepts of nationalism and patriotism to individual terms, he instead distinguishes between an acceptable and unacceptable patriotism (al-waṫaniyya al-maqbūla wa lwaṫaniyya al-mardūda), and any possible ethnic or sectarian connotations are rejected by al-qaradawi (2010a: 57) via the Qur an s (28:4) description of formenting sectarianism as one of the crimes of the Pharaoh during the time of Moses. A similarly significant issue for al-qaradawi (2010a: 52 53) here, as for many Islamists close to the Muslim Brotherhood, is navigating the legacy of Hassan al- Banna (Scott 2010: 120). Al-Banna was particularly critical not only of nationalism, but also rejected multi-party democracy itself in favour of ideological unity. For al- Banna (1965: 166), secularism and nationalism were closely interlinked and had such potential to divide the Umma that he said we are at war with this perspective as a