The Reconceptualization of the Umma and Ummatic action in Abdullah Bin Bayyah’s Discourse
Main Article Content
Keywords
Arab Spring, Ummatic action, fiqh al-wāqiʿ, Charter of Medina, Alliance of Virtue, Interfaith Dialogue
Abstract
In the post-Arab Spring period, Abdullah Bin Bayyah has emerged as one of the principal exponents of the anti-revolutionary front. Dissatisfied with the Islamist solution to the socio-political crisis in the Middle East, Bin Bayyah has called for the establishment of a new jurisprudence based on fiqh al-wāqiʿ (jurisprudence of reality), which acknowledges and accepts the dictates of modern reality. He conceived his call for renewal (tajdīd) as one of the best ways to restore peace and unity in Muslim societies. This article aims to shed light on those aspects of Bin Bayyah’s reformist discourse that directly affect how he envisions the role and function of the umma in the modern context. The essay then explores the place that ummatic unification occupies in Bin Bayyah’s discourse and the kind of Islamic politics his post-Arab Spring religious discourse entails. Particular attention is also paid to the ways Bin Bayyah theorizes the significance of religious allegiances within the modern nation-state. The essay also considers Bin Bayyah’s view of the role of the Muslim umma in the global community, its relationship with other religions, and the wider human community when responding to global challenges.
References
Endnotes
I would like to express my gratitude to Usaama al-Azami and the anonymous reviewers at AJIS for helping improve this article at various stages of its development. Any errors in this article are entirely my responsibility.
1 Among the various important positions held by Bin Bayyah over the years have been: member of the International Islamic Fiqh Academy, Jeddah; Vice President of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, Qatar and more recently President of the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies, Abu Dhabi. For more on Bin Bayyah’s biography, see https://www.peacems.com/peacemagazine/about-us/board-of-trustees/members/he-sheikh-abdullah-bin-bai/
2 Usaama al-Azami, “‘Abdullā h bin Bayyah and the Arab Revolutions: Counter-revolutionary Neo-traditionalism’s Ideological Struggle against Islamism,” The Muslim World 109, (July 2019), 343.
3 Abdullah Hamid Ali, “‘Neo-Traditionalism’ Vs ‘Traditionalism’,” Accessed, October 1, 2022, https://lamppostedu.org/neo-traditionalism-vs-
traditionalism-shaykh-abdullah-bin-hamid-ali.
4 See Mark Sedgwick, “The Modernity of Neo-Traditionalist Islam,” in Muslim Subjectivities in Global Modernity, ed. Dietrich Jung and Kristine Sinclair (Leiden: Brill, 2020), 121-147 and David H. Warren, Rivals in the Gulf: Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Abdullah Bin Bayyah, and the Qatar-UAE Contest Over the Arab Spring and the Gulf Crisis (London and New York: Routledge, 2021).
5 Abdallah Bin Bayyah, The Exercise of Islamic Juristic Reasoning by Ascertaining the Ratio Legis: The Jurisprudence of Contemporary and Future Contexts (Abu Dhabi: Tabah Foundation, 2015), 2. For more on Bin Bayyah’s emphasis on renewal (tajdīd) and its methodology see Abdullah Bin Bayyah, The Nation State in Muslim Societies, from the Third Assembly of the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies Abu Dhabi, 18–19 December 2016, trans. Habib Bewley (Abu Dhabi, UAE: Forum for Promoting Peace, 2019), 9-13; Fatāwa Fikriyya, (Jeddah, Dār al-Andalus al-Khaḍrāʾ, 2000), 88-104; Itharāt tajdīdiyya fī ḥuqūl al-uṣūl (Riyād: Dār al-Ujūh & Dār al-Tajdīd, 2013), 12-22. For Bin Bayyah’s conceptualization of renewal in Islamic legal methodology see Rezart Beka, “Maqāṣid and the Renewal of Islamic Legal Theory in ʿAbdullah Bin Bayyah’s Discourse,” American Journal of Islam and Society, No. 38, 3-4, (2022):104-145.
6 Abdullah Bin Bayyah, The Path of Peace: A Vision for a Peaceful World. The Collective Speeches of Shaykh Abdallah Bin Bayyah (Abu Dhabi: Abu Dhabi Forum For Peace, 2022), 154, 245.
7 Bin Bayyah, Tanbīh al-Murājaʿ, 181.
8 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 25-26.
9 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 28.
10 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 27.
11 Abdullah Bin Bayyah, “This is not the Path to Paradise: Response to ISIS,” Abu Dhabi, September 14, 2014, accessed September 30, 2022, http://binbayyah.net/english/fatwa-response-to-isis/.
12 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 26.
13 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 21.
14 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 29.
15 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 21.
16 Bin Bayyah, Fatāwa Fikriyya, 17-43
17 Bin Bayyah, The Exercise of Islamic Juristic Reasoning, 54.
18 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 19. See also, Abdallah Bin Bayyah, Sināʿat al-fatwā wa-fiqh al-aqalliyyāt (Beirut: Dār al-Minhāj, 2008), 280-281.
19 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 29.
20 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 34.
21 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 35.
22 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 34
23 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 153 and 160, respectively.
24 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 153.
25 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 239.
26 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 153.
27 For more on the Marrakesh conference and the Marrakesh Declaration see, https://www.marrakeshdeclaration.org/.
28 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 149.
29 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 155.
30 For more on these elements see, Bin Bayyah, The Path, 148-155.
31 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 154
32 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 19.
33 For the relative non-importance of the Charter of Medina in the classic Islamic legal and political discourse see, Anver Emon, “Reflections on the Constitution of Medina: An Essay on Methodology and Ideology in Islamic Legal History,” UCLA Journal of Islamic and Near Eastern Law 1, no. 1 (Fall/Winter 2001-2002): 127-129.
34 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 19.
35 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 20.
36 See, Bin Bayyah, Ṣināʿat al-fatwā.
37 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 153-154. Regarding Habermas’ idea of constitutional patriotism
see, Dafydd Huw Rees, “Constitutional Patriotism,” in The Cambridge Habermas
Lexicon, ed. Amy Allen and Eduardo Mendieta (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2019), 66-69; Jan-Werner Müller, Constitutional Patriotism (Princeton and
Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2007); Vito Breda, “Constitutional Patriotism,”
in Handbook of Patriotism, ed. Mitja Sardoč (Cham, Springer, 2020), 179-193; Predrag
Zenović, “Constitutional patriotism in the context of Habermas’s political philosophy,”
Prolegomena 20, No.1 (2021): 119-136; Jan-Werner Müller, “A general theory
of constitutional patriotism,” International Journal of Constitutional Law 6, No 1,
(2008): 72–95; David Abraham, “Constitutional patriotism, citizenship, and belonging,”
International Journal of Constitutional Law 6, No. 1, (January 2008): 137–152.
38 Bin Bayyah in “A Conversation with Shaykh Abdallah Bin Bayyah,” Council on
Foreign Relations, June 4, 2015, Accessed September 30, 2022, https://www.cfr.org/
event/conversation-shaykh-abdallah-bin-bayyah.
39 Müller, Constitutional Patriotism, 27.
40 Rees, “Constitutional Patriotism,” 66.
41 Müller, Constitutional Patriotism, 75.
42 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 160.
43 Bin Bayyah in “A Conversation with Shaykh Abdallah Bin Bayyah.”
44 Ovamir Anjum, “Best-laid Schemes: How the Sahifa of Medina Discourse became
an Instrument of Modern Arab Authoritarianism,” forthcoming article.
45 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 242-243; Alliance of Virtue: An Opportunity for Global Peace
(Abu Dhabi: Forum for Promoting Peace, 2019), 16.
46 See John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 2nd edition (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknapp
Press, 1999).
47 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 243.
48 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 162, 243.
49 John Rawls, “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited,” The University of Chicago Law
Review 64 (1997): 783f. Jürgen Habermas, “Religion in the Public Sphere,” European
Journal of Philosophy 14, No. 1 (2006):1-25
50 Habermas, “Religion,” 6.
51 Habermas, “Religion,” 4.
52 For some of the critiques of the proviso and Rawls’s response to them see, James
Gordon Finlayson, “No Proviso: Habermas on Rawls, Religion and Public Reason,”
European Journal of Political Theory 20, No. 3: 443–464. For the difficulties that
the liberal proviso poses for the religious worldview see, Joseph Kaminski, Islam,
Liberalism and Ontology: A Critical Re-evaluation (London and New York: Routledge,
2021), 113-139.
53 Bin Bayyah, Sināʿat al-fatwā, 305.
54 Bin Bayyah, Sināʿat al-fatwā, 305.
55 Bin Bayyah, Sināʿat al-fatwā, 306.
56 Andrew March, Islam and Liberal Citizenship: The Search for an Overlapping Consensus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 231
57 For more on the conceptualization of the Charter of Medina by these reformist figures see, Muhammad S. El-Awa, On the Political System of the Islamic State (Indianapolis: American Trust Publications, 1980); Rashid Ghannoushi, al-Muwāṭana: naḥwa ta’ṣīl li-mafāhīm muʿāṣira (Tunis: Dār al-Ṣaḥwa, 2016); Fahmy Huwaydi, Muwātinūn la Dhimmiyyūn: Mawqiʿ Ghayr al-Muslimīn fī Mujtamaʿ al-Muslimīn, 4th ed. (Cairo: Dār al-Shurūq, 2005; Yūsuf al-Qaraḍāwī, al-Waṭan wa-l-muwāṭana fī ḍaw al-uṣūl al-ʿaqadiyya wa-l-maqāṣid al-sharʿiyya (2010). For more on the reformist interpretation of the Charter of Medina see, Ovamir Anjum, “The ‘Constitution’ of Medina: Translation, Commentary, and Meaning Today,” Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research, 4 Feb 2021, https://yaqeeninstitute.org/read/paper/the-constitution-of-medina-translation-commentary-and-meaning-today and “Conjuring Sovereignty: How the “Constitution” of Medina became an Instrument of Modern Arab Authoritarianism” forthcoming article.
58 In the following analysis of the Charter of Medina we are indebted to Ovamir Anjum’s “The ‘Constitution’ of Medina,” and “Conjuring Sovereignty.”
59 For a general overview of the different opinions see, Michael Lecker, The “Constitution of Medina”: Muḥammad’s First Legal Document (Princeton, New Jersey: The Darwin Press, 2004), 183-191; R. Stephen Humphreys, Islamic History: A Framework for Inquiry, revised edition (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1991), 92-98.
60 For the various dating of the document see Lecker, The “Constitution of Medina,” 182 and Anjum, “The “Constitution” of Medina.”
61 Anjum, “The “Constitution” of Medina.”
62 Muḥammad b. Idrīs al-Shāfiʿī, al-Umm, 8 vols. (Beirut: Dār al-Maʿrifa, 1990), 4:222. Quoted in Anjum “The ‘Constitution’ of Medina.”
63 Emon, “Reflections,” 129.
64 Lecker, The “Constitution of Medina,” 205. For a broader discussion on the meaning of these two terms, see Lecker, ibid, 204-205.
65 See, R. B. Serjeant, “The ‘Constitution of Medina,’” Islamic Quarterly no. 8 (1964): 3–16; idem, “The Sunnah Jāmiʿa, Pacts with the Yathrib Jews, and the Tahrim of Yathrib: Analysis and Translation of the Documents Comprised in the So-called ‘Constitution of Medina,’” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 41 (1978): 1–41; Paul Lawrence Rose, “Muhammad, The Jews and the Constitution of Medina: Retrieving the historical Kernel,” Der Islam 86, no. 1 (2011): 19
66 Emon, “Reflections,” 129.
67 Emon, “Reflections,” 133.
68 Anjum, “The ‘Constitution’ of Medina.”
69 Anjum, “The ‘Constitution’ of Medina.”
70 Anjum, “Conjuring Sovereignty.”
71 For the appearance of this statement in Bin Bayyah’s works, see Bin Bayyah, In Pursuit of Peace: Framework Speech for the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies: Abu Dhabi, 9-10 March, 2014 , trans. Tarek El Gawhary, (Abu Dhabi, UAE: Forum for Promoting Peace, 2014), 22; Fatāwa, 30; Hiwār ḥawla ḥuqūq al-insān fī al-islām (Riyadh, Obëikan, 2006), 92.
72 Bin Bayyah, Ḥiwār, 90; Fatāwa, 29.
73 Bin Bayyah, Ḥiwār, 89; Fatāwa, 29.
74 Bin Bayyah, In Pursuit, 22. In this regard, in his book The Culture of Terrorism, Bin Bayyah says, “A pretense of democracy in an immature and undeveloped environment could actually open the door to terrorism in its worst form.” Dr. ‘Abd Allāh Bin el-Sheikh Mahfūẓ al-Bayyah, The Culture of Terrorism: Tenets and Treatments, Trans. Hamza Yusuf (n.p., Sandala and the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslims Societies, 2014), 22.
75 Abdullah al-Shaykh al-Maḥfūz Walad Bayyah, Khitāb al-amnī fī al-Islām wa thaqāfat al-tasāmuḥ wa al-waʾ ām (Riyadh, Al-Akādīmiyya Nāyaf al-Arabiyya lī al-ʿulūm al-amniyya, 1999), 39-42; In Pursuit, 17, 22-23; Tanbīh al-Marājaʿ, 240-246.
76 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 241.
77 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 251.
78 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 235.
79 Shaykh Abdallah Bin Bayyah, Alliance of Virtue: An Opportunity for Global Peace (Abu Dhabi: Forum for Promoting Peace, 2019), 9.
80 Bin Bayyah, The Path 197.
81 For more on Ḥilf al-Fuḍūl see, Pellat, Ch., “Ḥilf al-Fuḍūl”, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs. First published online: 2012. Consulted online on 25 April 2023 https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/hilf-al-fudul-SIM_2865?s.num=36&s.start=20.
82 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 196-197.
83 Bin Bayyah, The New Alliance of Virtue, 10.
84 Bin Bayyah, The New Alliance of Virtue, 10.
85 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 220.
44 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ISL AM AND SOCIE T Y 41:2
86 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 220. On this level, Bin Bayyah lists the values of human dignity,
freedom, justice, tolerance, peace, mercy, solidarity, and inclusive citizenship.
87 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 233.
88 Bin Bayyah, The New Alliance of Virtue, 14.
89 Bin Bayyah, The New Alliance of Virtue, 13.
90 Bin Bayyah, The New Alliance of Virtue, 13.
91 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 203.
92 See A. Maclntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (London: Duckworth, 1988);
S. Hauerwas, A Community of Character. Towards a Constructive Christian Social
Ethic (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981).
93 Bin Bayyah, Global Peace, 16-17
94 Bin Bayyah, Global Peace, 17; Alliance of Virtue, 14.
95 The only source that Bin Bayyah quotes with regard to Kant’s philosophical discourse
is ʿAţayāt Abū Al-Saʿūd, Kant wa al-Salām al-Islamī. See, Bin Bayyah, In
Pursuit, 9.
96 Martin Diaz, “The Alliance of Virtue: Towards an Islamic Natural Law?”, 30/03/2020.
97 Diaz, “The Alliance of Virtue.” For more on the Noahide Covenant see, David Novak,
The Image of the Non-Jew in Judaism (New York and Toronto: Edward Mellen Press,
1983). Some Jewish thinkers have compared the Noahic Covenant approach with
the natural law. See, Nahum Rakover, “Law and the Noahides: Law as a Universal
Value (Jerusalem: The Library of Jewish Law, 1998).
98 For a brief account of these developments, see Wolfhart Pannenberg, Christianity
in a Secularized World (Crossroad, New York, 1989).
99 For Bin Bayyah’s elaboration on the hadith and its relationship with the New
Alliance of Virtue see, Bin Bayyah, The Path, 228-235.
100 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 233.
101 Bin Bayyah, The New Alliance of Virtue, 15.
102 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 234.
103 For the classic interpretation of this hadith see, Muḥammad Anwar al-Kashmīrī,
Fayḍ al-bārī sharḥ ṣaḥīḥ al-bukhārī, ed. Aḥmad Azzu Inayah, 4th volume (Beirut:
Dār al-Iḥyāʾ al-Turāth al-ʿArabī, 2000), 431-432; Shihāb al-Dīn al-Qasṭalānī, Irshād
al-sārī lī sharḥ ṣaḥīḥ al-bukhārī, ed. Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Azīz al-Khālidī, 6th volume
(Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1996), 145-146.
104 In fact, the sixth Assembly of the Abu Dhabi Forum for Peace, in 2019, was dedicated
to the topic of tolerance and religious freedom.
105 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 214.
106 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 214.
107 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 213.
108 Diaz, “The Alliance of Virtue,”; Ahmed Salisu Garba, “The Prospects and Problems of the Marrakesh Declaration on the Rights of Religious Minorities in Muslim Majority Communities,” The Review of Faith & International Affairs 16, No. 4 (2018): 47-59 and Vebjørn L Horsfjord, “The Marrakesh Declaration on Rights of Religious Minorities: Opportunity or Dead End?” Nordic Journal of Human Rights 36, No. 2:151-166
109 Bin Bayyah, Hiwār, 173.
110 See, Abdullah Bin Bayyah, “Taʿlīq ʿala al-kitāb: Ishqaliyyāt al-ridda wa al-murtadīn li al-ʿalāmat Ṭāha al-ʿUlwānī”, accessed May 1, 2023, https://binbayyah.net/arabic/archives/400.
111 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 213-214.
112 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 216.
113 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 216.
114 Bin Bayyah, Alliance of Virtue, 204.
115 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 216.
116 Islam as the solution is an important feature of the Islamist discourse. In the 1970s, al-Qaraḍāwī started the series, “The Inevitability of the Islamic Solution” (Ḥatmiyyat al-ḥal al-Islāmī). In this context, he wrote the book Al-Ḥal al-Islāmī: Farīḍā wa ḍarūra (Beirut: Mu’assasa al-Risāla, 1974)
117 For more on the use of use of tolerance and “moderate Islam” as a religious soft power by the counter-revolutionary camp, see Baycar, Hamdullah, and Mehmet Rakipoglu, “The United Arab Emirates’ Religious Soft Power through Ulema and Organizations,” Religions 13 (2022): 646; John Fahy, “The international politics of tolerance in the Persian Gulf,” Religion, State & Society 46, No. 4 (August, 2018): 311-327; Panos Kourgiotis, “‘Moderate Islam’ Made in the United Arab Emirates: Public Diplomacy and the Politics of Containment” Religions 11, no. 1: 43. Stéphane Lacroix, “The United Arab Emirates: When Religious Tolerance Serves Political Intolerance,” Site du Centre de Recherches Internationales (CERI) de Sciences Po, March 21st 2019; Last accessed, 15th September 2022; https://www.sciencespo.fr/ceri/en/content/united-arab-emirates-when-religious-tolerance-serves-political-intolerance.html.; Dhiya Boubtane, “From soft power to sharp power? The United Arab Emirates’ religious policy and the promotion of a moderate Islam,” Site du Centre de Recherches Internationales (CERI) de Sciences Po, Spring, 2021. Last accessed September, 21, 2022, https://www.sciencespo.fr/kuwait-program/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/sciencespo-kuwait-program-2021-boutane-dhiya.pdf.
I would like to express my gratitude to Usaama al-Azami and the anonymous reviewers at AJIS for helping improve this article at various stages of its development. Any errors in this article are entirely my responsibility.
1 Among the various important positions held by Bin Bayyah over the years have been: member of the International Islamic Fiqh Academy, Jeddah; Vice President of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, Qatar and more recently President of the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies, Abu Dhabi. For more on Bin Bayyah’s biography, see https://www.peacems.com/peacemagazine/about-us/board-of-trustees/members/he-sheikh-abdullah-bin-bai/
2 Usaama al-Azami, “‘Abdullā h bin Bayyah and the Arab Revolutions: Counter-revolutionary Neo-traditionalism’s Ideological Struggle against Islamism,” The Muslim World 109, (July 2019), 343.
3 Abdullah Hamid Ali, “‘Neo-Traditionalism’ Vs ‘Traditionalism’,” Accessed, October 1, 2022, https://lamppostedu.org/neo-traditionalism-vs-
traditionalism-shaykh-abdullah-bin-hamid-ali.
4 See Mark Sedgwick, “The Modernity of Neo-Traditionalist Islam,” in Muslim Subjectivities in Global Modernity, ed. Dietrich Jung and Kristine Sinclair (Leiden: Brill, 2020), 121-147 and David H. Warren, Rivals in the Gulf: Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Abdullah Bin Bayyah, and the Qatar-UAE Contest Over the Arab Spring and the Gulf Crisis (London and New York: Routledge, 2021).
5 Abdallah Bin Bayyah, The Exercise of Islamic Juristic Reasoning by Ascertaining the Ratio Legis: The Jurisprudence of Contemporary and Future Contexts (Abu Dhabi: Tabah Foundation, 2015), 2. For more on Bin Bayyah’s emphasis on renewal (tajdīd) and its methodology see Abdullah Bin Bayyah, The Nation State in Muslim Societies, from the Third Assembly of the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies Abu Dhabi, 18–19 December 2016, trans. Habib Bewley (Abu Dhabi, UAE: Forum for Promoting Peace, 2019), 9-13; Fatāwa Fikriyya, (Jeddah, Dār al-Andalus al-Khaḍrāʾ, 2000), 88-104; Itharāt tajdīdiyya fī ḥuqūl al-uṣūl (Riyād: Dār al-Ujūh & Dār al-Tajdīd, 2013), 12-22. For Bin Bayyah’s conceptualization of renewal in Islamic legal methodology see Rezart Beka, “Maqāṣid and the Renewal of Islamic Legal Theory in ʿAbdullah Bin Bayyah’s Discourse,” American Journal of Islam and Society, No. 38, 3-4, (2022):104-145.
6 Abdullah Bin Bayyah, The Path of Peace: A Vision for a Peaceful World. The Collective Speeches of Shaykh Abdallah Bin Bayyah (Abu Dhabi: Abu Dhabi Forum For Peace, 2022), 154, 245.
7 Bin Bayyah, Tanbīh al-Murājaʿ, 181.
8 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 25-26.
9 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 28.
10 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 27.
11 Abdullah Bin Bayyah, “This is not the Path to Paradise: Response to ISIS,” Abu Dhabi, September 14, 2014, accessed September 30, 2022, http://binbayyah.net/english/fatwa-response-to-isis/.
12 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 26.
13 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 21.
14 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 29.
15 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 21.
16 Bin Bayyah, Fatāwa Fikriyya, 17-43
17 Bin Bayyah, The Exercise of Islamic Juristic Reasoning, 54.
18 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 19. See also, Abdallah Bin Bayyah, Sināʿat al-fatwā wa-fiqh al-aqalliyyāt (Beirut: Dār al-Minhāj, 2008), 280-281.
19 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 29.
20 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 34.
21 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 35.
22 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 34
23 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 153 and 160, respectively.
24 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 153.
25 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 239.
26 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 153.
27 For more on the Marrakesh conference and the Marrakesh Declaration see, https://www.marrakeshdeclaration.org/.
28 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 149.
29 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 155.
30 For more on these elements see, Bin Bayyah, The Path, 148-155.
31 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 154
32 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 19.
33 For the relative non-importance of the Charter of Medina in the classic Islamic legal and political discourse see, Anver Emon, “Reflections on the Constitution of Medina: An Essay on Methodology and Ideology in Islamic Legal History,” UCLA Journal of Islamic and Near Eastern Law 1, no. 1 (Fall/Winter 2001-2002): 127-129.
34 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 19.
35 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 20.
36 See, Bin Bayyah, Ṣināʿat al-fatwā.
37 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 153-154. Regarding Habermas’ idea of constitutional patriotism
see, Dafydd Huw Rees, “Constitutional Patriotism,” in The Cambridge Habermas
Lexicon, ed. Amy Allen and Eduardo Mendieta (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2019), 66-69; Jan-Werner Müller, Constitutional Patriotism (Princeton and
Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2007); Vito Breda, “Constitutional Patriotism,”
in Handbook of Patriotism, ed. Mitja Sardoč (Cham, Springer, 2020), 179-193; Predrag
Zenović, “Constitutional patriotism in the context of Habermas’s political philosophy,”
Prolegomena 20, No.1 (2021): 119-136; Jan-Werner Müller, “A general theory
of constitutional patriotism,” International Journal of Constitutional Law 6, No 1,
(2008): 72–95; David Abraham, “Constitutional patriotism, citizenship, and belonging,”
International Journal of Constitutional Law 6, No. 1, (January 2008): 137–152.
38 Bin Bayyah in “A Conversation with Shaykh Abdallah Bin Bayyah,” Council on
Foreign Relations, June 4, 2015, Accessed September 30, 2022, https://www.cfr.org/
event/conversation-shaykh-abdallah-bin-bayyah.
39 Müller, Constitutional Patriotism, 27.
40 Rees, “Constitutional Patriotism,” 66.
41 Müller, Constitutional Patriotism, 75.
42 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 160.
43 Bin Bayyah in “A Conversation with Shaykh Abdallah Bin Bayyah.”
44 Ovamir Anjum, “Best-laid Schemes: How the Sahifa of Medina Discourse became
an Instrument of Modern Arab Authoritarianism,” forthcoming article.
45 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 242-243; Alliance of Virtue: An Opportunity for Global Peace
(Abu Dhabi: Forum for Promoting Peace, 2019), 16.
46 See John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 2nd edition (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknapp
Press, 1999).
47 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 243.
48 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 162, 243.
49 John Rawls, “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited,” The University of Chicago Law
Review 64 (1997): 783f. Jürgen Habermas, “Religion in the Public Sphere,” European
Journal of Philosophy 14, No. 1 (2006):1-25
50 Habermas, “Religion,” 6.
51 Habermas, “Religion,” 4.
52 For some of the critiques of the proviso and Rawls’s response to them see, James
Gordon Finlayson, “No Proviso: Habermas on Rawls, Religion and Public Reason,”
European Journal of Political Theory 20, No. 3: 443–464. For the difficulties that
the liberal proviso poses for the religious worldview see, Joseph Kaminski, Islam,
Liberalism and Ontology: A Critical Re-evaluation (London and New York: Routledge,
2021), 113-139.
53 Bin Bayyah, Sināʿat al-fatwā, 305.
54 Bin Bayyah, Sināʿat al-fatwā, 305.
55 Bin Bayyah, Sināʿat al-fatwā, 306.
56 Andrew March, Islam and Liberal Citizenship: The Search for an Overlapping Consensus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 231
57 For more on the conceptualization of the Charter of Medina by these reformist figures see, Muhammad S. El-Awa, On the Political System of the Islamic State (Indianapolis: American Trust Publications, 1980); Rashid Ghannoushi, al-Muwāṭana: naḥwa ta’ṣīl li-mafāhīm muʿāṣira (Tunis: Dār al-Ṣaḥwa, 2016); Fahmy Huwaydi, Muwātinūn la Dhimmiyyūn: Mawqiʿ Ghayr al-Muslimīn fī Mujtamaʿ al-Muslimīn, 4th ed. (Cairo: Dār al-Shurūq, 2005; Yūsuf al-Qaraḍāwī, al-Waṭan wa-l-muwāṭana fī ḍaw al-uṣūl al-ʿaqadiyya wa-l-maqāṣid al-sharʿiyya (2010). For more on the reformist interpretation of the Charter of Medina see, Ovamir Anjum, “The ‘Constitution’ of Medina: Translation, Commentary, and Meaning Today,” Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research, 4 Feb 2021, https://yaqeeninstitute.org/read/paper/the-constitution-of-medina-translation-commentary-and-meaning-today and “Conjuring Sovereignty: How the “Constitution” of Medina became an Instrument of Modern Arab Authoritarianism” forthcoming article.
58 In the following analysis of the Charter of Medina we are indebted to Ovamir Anjum’s “The ‘Constitution’ of Medina,” and “Conjuring Sovereignty.”
59 For a general overview of the different opinions see, Michael Lecker, The “Constitution of Medina”: Muḥammad’s First Legal Document (Princeton, New Jersey: The Darwin Press, 2004), 183-191; R. Stephen Humphreys, Islamic History: A Framework for Inquiry, revised edition (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1991), 92-98.
60 For the various dating of the document see Lecker, The “Constitution of Medina,” 182 and Anjum, “The “Constitution” of Medina.”
61 Anjum, “The “Constitution” of Medina.”
62 Muḥammad b. Idrīs al-Shāfiʿī, al-Umm, 8 vols. (Beirut: Dār al-Maʿrifa, 1990), 4:222. Quoted in Anjum “The ‘Constitution’ of Medina.”
63 Emon, “Reflections,” 129.
64 Lecker, The “Constitution of Medina,” 205. For a broader discussion on the meaning of these two terms, see Lecker, ibid, 204-205.
65 See, R. B. Serjeant, “The ‘Constitution of Medina,’” Islamic Quarterly no. 8 (1964): 3–16; idem, “The Sunnah Jāmiʿa, Pacts with the Yathrib Jews, and the Tahrim of Yathrib: Analysis and Translation of the Documents Comprised in the So-called ‘Constitution of Medina,’” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 41 (1978): 1–41; Paul Lawrence Rose, “Muhammad, The Jews and the Constitution of Medina: Retrieving the historical Kernel,” Der Islam 86, no. 1 (2011): 19
66 Emon, “Reflections,” 129.
67 Emon, “Reflections,” 133.
68 Anjum, “The ‘Constitution’ of Medina.”
69 Anjum, “The ‘Constitution’ of Medina.”
70 Anjum, “Conjuring Sovereignty.”
71 For the appearance of this statement in Bin Bayyah’s works, see Bin Bayyah, In Pursuit of Peace: Framework Speech for the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies: Abu Dhabi, 9-10 March, 2014 , trans. Tarek El Gawhary, (Abu Dhabi, UAE: Forum for Promoting Peace, 2014), 22; Fatāwa, 30; Hiwār ḥawla ḥuqūq al-insān fī al-islām (Riyadh, Obëikan, 2006), 92.
72 Bin Bayyah, Ḥiwār, 90; Fatāwa, 29.
73 Bin Bayyah, Ḥiwār, 89; Fatāwa, 29.
74 Bin Bayyah, In Pursuit, 22. In this regard, in his book The Culture of Terrorism, Bin Bayyah says, “A pretense of democracy in an immature and undeveloped environment could actually open the door to terrorism in its worst form.” Dr. ‘Abd Allāh Bin el-Sheikh Mahfūẓ al-Bayyah, The Culture of Terrorism: Tenets and Treatments, Trans. Hamza Yusuf (n.p., Sandala and the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslims Societies, 2014), 22.
75 Abdullah al-Shaykh al-Maḥfūz Walad Bayyah, Khitāb al-amnī fī al-Islām wa thaqāfat al-tasāmuḥ wa al-waʾ ām (Riyadh, Al-Akādīmiyya Nāyaf al-Arabiyya lī al-ʿulūm al-amniyya, 1999), 39-42; In Pursuit, 17, 22-23; Tanbīh al-Marājaʿ, 240-246.
76 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 241.
77 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 251.
78 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 235.
79 Shaykh Abdallah Bin Bayyah, Alliance of Virtue: An Opportunity for Global Peace (Abu Dhabi: Forum for Promoting Peace, 2019), 9.
80 Bin Bayyah, The Path 197.
81 For more on Ḥilf al-Fuḍūl see, Pellat, Ch., “Ḥilf al-Fuḍūl”, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs. First published online: 2012. Consulted online on 25 April 2023 https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/hilf-al-fudul-SIM_2865?s.num=36&s.start=20.
82 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 196-197.
83 Bin Bayyah, The New Alliance of Virtue, 10.
84 Bin Bayyah, The New Alliance of Virtue, 10.
85 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 220.
44 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ISL AM AND SOCIE T Y 41:2
86 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 220. On this level, Bin Bayyah lists the values of human dignity,
freedom, justice, tolerance, peace, mercy, solidarity, and inclusive citizenship.
87 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 233.
88 Bin Bayyah, The New Alliance of Virtue, 14.
89 Bin Bayyah, The New Alliance of Virtue, 13.
90 Bin Bayyah, The New Alliance of Virtue, 13.
91 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 203.
92 See A. Maclntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (London: Duckworth, 1988);
S. Hauerwas, A Community of Character. Towards a Constructive Christian Social
Ethic (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981).
93 Bin Bayyah, Global Peace, 16-17
94 Bin Bayyah, Global Peace, 17; Alliance of Virtue, 14.
95 The only source that Bin Bayyah quotes with regard to Kant’s philosophical discourse
is ʿAţayāt Abū Al-Saʿūd, Kant wa al-Salām al-Islamī. See, Bin Bayyah, In
Pursuit, 9.
96 Martin Diaz, “The Alliance of Virtue: Towards an Islamic Natural Law?”, 30/03/2020.
97 Diaz, “The Alliance of Virtue.” For more on the Noahide Covenant see, David Novak,
The Image of the Non-Jew in Judaism (New York and Toronto: Edward Mellen Press,
1983). Some Jewish thinkers have compared the Noahic Covenant approach with
the natural law. See, Nahum Rakover, “Law and the Noahides: Law as a Universal
Value (Jerusalem: The Library of Jewish Law, 1998).
98 For a brief account of these developments, see Wolfhart Pannenberg, Christianity
in a Secularized World (Crossroad, New York, 1989).
99 For Bin Bayyah’s elaboration on the hadith and its relationship with the New
Alliance of Virtue see, Bin Bayyah, The Path, 228-235.
100 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 233.
101 Bin Bayyah, The New Alliance of Virtue, 15.
102 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 234.
103 For the classic interpretation of this hadith see, Muḥammad Anwar al-Kashmīrī,
Fayḍ al-bārī sharḥ ṣaḥīḥ al-bukhārī, ed. Aḥmad Azzu Inayah, 4th volume (Beirut:
Dār al-Iḥyāʾ al-Turāth al-ʿArabī, 2000), 431-432; Shihāb al-Dīn al-Qasṭalānī, Irshād
al-sārī lī sharḥ ṣaḥīḥ al-bukhārī, ed. Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Azīz al-Khālidī, 6th volume
(Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1996), 145-146.
104 In fact, the sixth Assembly of the Abu Dhabi Forum for Peace, in 2019, was dedicated
to the topic of tolerance and religious freedom.
105 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 214.
106 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 214.
107 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 213.
108 Diaz, “The Alliance of Virtue,”; Ahmed Salisu Garba, “The Prospects and Problems of the Marrakesh Declaration on the Rights of Religious Minorities in Muslim Majority Communities,” The Review of Faith & International Affairs 16, No. 4 (2018): 47-59 and Vebjørn L Horsfjord, “The Marrakesh Declaration on Rights of Religious Minorities: Opportunity or Dead End?” Nordic Journal of Human Rights 36, No. 2:151-166
109 Bin Bayyah, Hiwār, 173.
110 See, Abdullah Bin Bayyah, “Taʿlīq ʿala al-kitāb: Ishqaliyyāt al-ridda wa al-murtadīn li al-ʿalāmat Ṭāha al-ʿUlwānī”, accessed May 1, 2023, https://binbayyah.net/arabic/archives/400.
111 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 213-214.
112 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 216.
113 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 216.
114 Bin Bayyah, Alliance of Virtue, 204.
115 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 216.
116 Islam as the solution is an important feature of the Islamist discourse. In the 1970s, al-Qaraḍāwī started the series, “The Inevitability of the Islamic Solution” (Ḥatmiyyat al-ḥal al-Islāmī). In this context, he wrote the book Al-Ḥal al-Islāmī: Farīḍā wa ḍarūra (Beirut: Mu’assasa al-Risāla, 1974)
117 For more on the use of use of tolerance and “moderate Islam” as a religious soft power by the counter-revolutionary camp, see Baycar, Hamdullah, and Mehmet Rakipoglu, “The United Arab Emirates’ Religious Soft Power through Ulema and Organizations,” Religions 13 (2022): 646; John Fahy, “The international politics of tolerance in the Persian Gulf,” Religion, State & Society 46, No. 4 (August, 2018): 311-327; Panos Kourgiotis, “‘Moderate Islam’ Made in the United Arab Emirates: Public Diplomacy and the Politics of Containment” Religions 11, no. 1: 43. Stéphane Lacroix, “The United Arab Emirates: When Religious Tolerance Serves Political Intolerance,” Site du Centre de Recherches Internationales (CERI) de Sciences Po, March 21st 2019; Last accessed, 15th September 2022; https://www.sciencespo.fr/ceri/en/content/united-arab-emirates-when-religious-tolerance-serves-political-intolerance.html.; Dhiya Boubtane, “From soft power to sharp power? The United Arab Emirates’ religious policy and the promotion of a moderate Islam,” Site du Centre de Recherches Internationales (CERI) de Sciences Po, Spring, 2021. Last accessed September, 21, 2022, https://www.sciencespo.fr/kuwait-program/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/sciencespo-kuwait-program-2021-boutane-dhiya.pdf.
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Aug 1, 2024
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Beka, R. (2024). The Reconceptualization of the Umma and Ummatic action in Abdullah Bin Bayyah’s Discourse. American Journal of Islam and Society, 41(2), 6–45. https://doi.org/10.35632/ajis.v41i2.3438
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