(US Admin 2) Excerpt: To set Major Hasan’s World View seminar in the context of broader Muslim opinion, one does not have to turn to the American-born Yemeni Anwar al-Awlaki, Major Hasan’s spiritual mentor. One can instead look to the Islamic Fiqh Academy, a body set up by the Organization for the Islamic Conference, a veritable ‘United Nations of Islam’. The Academy’s stated purpose is to “achieve the theoretical and practical unity” of the worldwide Islamic community by providing authoritative interpretations of the teachings of Islam. In other words it seeks to guide the whole Muslim world on the right religious path. The Fiqh Academy has solicited rulings from the world’s most respected Islamic jurists on certain questions of interest. One of these questions relates directly to the Major Hasan’s issue of divided loyalties: it was asked whether it is lawful, according to Islam, for a Muslim to become a naturalized citizen of a non-Muslim nation such as America. The Fiqh Academy’s findings, reported on its website in Arabic, are salutary. The Muslim authorities were concerned about the issue of divided loyalties. Their rulings presuppose that naturalization in a non-Muslim nation, without proper justification, is unacceptable. Most considered that it could be allowed, but only under specific conditions of dire necessity, for example if Muslims have been persecuted in their own country, and they could find no Muslim society to escape to. Another condition was that the naturalized Muslim should not seek to advance the cause of their adopted nation above that of Islam. Former Supreme Court Judge of Pakistan, and vice president of the Fiqh Academy, Justice Muhammad Taqi Usmani stated that “if naturalization in a foreign nationality is for the purpose of rendering it mighty and to be proud of it, or to prefer it to the Muslim nationality, or to resemble its people in practical life, this is absolutely forbidden.”
Posted on: Mon, 05 May 2014 00:00:13 +0000
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