Dhimmi Citizens: Non-Muslims in the New Islamist Discourse

Ovamir Anjum Ovamir Anjum

doi:10.13169/reorient.2.1.0031

Abstract

Accounts of modern Islamic reformist currents offered by recent studies take for granted that Islamists have embraced the modern nation-state, and, relatedly, that there is consequently a rupture in Islamic discursive tradition. This article seeks to nuance these notions by examining “the new Islamist” discourse on the poignant question of non-Muslim belonging in an Islamic state. Not all Islamists have embraced the nation-state and its majoritarian and secular logics in quite the same way. Those who remain committed to making ijtihad from within the Islamic tradition, such as Yusuf al-Qaradawi, continue to offer a fundamentally different view of political authority than those republican Islamists, such as Fahmi Huwaydi and Tariq al-Bishri, who treat Islamic tradition as a mine of wisdom and source of republican values and inspiration rather than a coherent system of norm production. This difference can be detected even when they appear to substantially agree on a number of policies and aspirations, such as the accommodation of non-Muslims as not only tolerated but as nearly equal citizens in an Islamic state.

Highlights

Accounts of modern Islamic reformist currents offered by recent studies take for granted that Islamists have embraced the modern nation-state, and, relatedly, that there is a rupture in Islamic discursive tradition
“moderate” and “modern” Islam was being invoked and defended. The fight, it would seem, was not between Islam and secularism, but between two different types of accommodation to secularism. This bring us to the question broached in this study: through an exploration of the crucial issue of attitudes of reformist-Islamists toward citizenship of nonMuslims in an “Islamic state,” this study asks whether and if so how key aspects of Islam have survived through the rupture of modernization and advent of the nation-state
By reformist-Islamists or reformists,2 I mean those intellectuals, ulama, and activist organizations who accept the legitimacy of the modern state to varying extents and with different conditions – and an assessment of those extents and conditions in contemporary Egypt is the object of this study – and seek to Islamize it

Summary

Introduction

Accounts of modern Islamic reformist currents offered by recent studies take for granted that Islamists have embraced the modern nation-state, and, relatedly, that there is a rupture in Islamic discursive tradition. The explorations by these republican Islamists on the question of non-Muslims in Muslim societies represent the most extensive and sophisticated attempts to harmonize Islamic views with those of modern citizenship while at least attempting to remain loyal to Islam, drawing copiously (if selectively) on reformist scholars and traditional sources.

Results

Conclusion