Abstract

A whirlwind of developments have unfolded in the UK since the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has subsequently instigated an intensely animated debate among British Muslim religious leaders about the contentious and sensitive topic of mosque closure, producing a rich and sophisticated spectrum of responses. These responses emerged within the dramatic global background of an imminent closure of Islam’s most cherished mosque to international pilgrims, namely the sacred precinct in Mekkah. The stakes were, therefore, high for British Muslim religious leaders considering mosque closure, facing the stark dilemma of compromising the sacrosanct status of the mosque and congregational worship in Islam or putting the lives of British Muslims in their hundreds of thousands at risk. This paper seeks to analyze the role of religious authority within the British Muslim community through the lens of the responses of the community’s religious leaders to the COVID-19 closure of mosques. It builds upon a Special Issue published by this journal on leadership, authority and representation in British Muslim communities. The issue of COVID-19 mosque closure in the UK presented an excellent case study for this paper’s analysis, manifesting as it does the dynamic way in which religious authority in the British Muslim community continues to evolve. This paper thus seeks to use this case-study to further enrich the literature on this topic.

Highlights

  • Received: 16 November 2020Accepted: 16 December 2020Published: 24 December 2020Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.license.See (5Pillars 2020a).See (Chitwood 2020).At the time of writing, England has just entered its second COVID-19 lockdown

  • Over 500 mosques under the leadership of the prominent national council of Muslim scholars “Wifaqul Ulama” have signed a letter addressed to Prime Minister Boris Johnson requesting that congregational prayers in mosques are allowed to continue during the lockdown.[1]

  • This development epitomizes the whirlwind of developments that have unfolded in the UK since the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has subsequently instigated an intensely animated debate among British Muslim religious leaders about the contentious and sensitive topic of mosque closure, producing a rich and sophisticated spectrum of responses

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Summary

Introduction

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This paper seeks to analyze the role of religious authority within the British Muslim community through the lens of the responses of the community’s religious leaders to the COVID-19 closure of mosques. It builds upon a Special Issue published by this journal on leadership, authority and representation in British Muslim communities, to which the author contributed with a paper on the quasi-judicial authority of British Shariah tribunals (Al-Astewani 2019). The issue of COVID-19 mosque closure in the UK presented an excellent case study for this paper’s analysis, manifesting as it does the dynamic way in which religious authority in the British Muslim community continues to evolve. In order to further enhance the analysis, an attempt was made whenever possible to engage in a comparative analysis of parallels that exist between Islamic law and English law in relation to the paper’s discourse on religious authority

A Colorful Crescent
The Activists
The Academics
The Influencers from Abroad
The Spirit of the Law
Legal Maxims
Navigating Scripture
Arguments of the “Activists”
The British Islamic Medical Association
The Muslim Council of Britain
The Islamic Human Rights Commission
Arguments of the “Academics”
Proponents of Mosque Closure
Opponents of Mosque Closure
Closing Reflections
18 December
Findings
Summary of the Coronavirus
Full Text
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