Role of Muslim Communities and Islamic Institutions
in Highlighting the Image of Islam
The Concept of Muslim Minorities and Communities:
At a first level, the phenomenon of Muslim communities appeared in the modern era as the emigration from Islamic countries increased towards several places in the world during the first decade of the 20th century. Whereas at a second level, these minorities and communities came to being as a result of the emergence of modern states in many of the places that used to be under the governance of Muslims, and which the European colonizing forces decided to remap politically and geographically map in order to curb the influence of Muslims and restrain their presence; so that they become minorities in societies they were controlling in the near past.
It is almost with the progressively swelling movement of emigration from the Islamic world towards several countries, particularly towards Europe and the United States of America, at a first time, then to Southern America, Canada and Australia, that the phenomenon of Muslim minorities first emerged in the history of Islam. When Muslims came to these places with their culture, civilization, customs and traditions, they found themselves among communities which have their own religions, languages and cultures, with given ways and modes of life, which are different to what they were used to and brought up to in their homelands.
The first generations of immigrants from the Islamic world towards non-Muslim countries shared several characteristics in common, of which the general popular aspect was the most distinguished trait. These people were not high intellectuals, since looking for daily bread was the ultimate motive for the first waves of emigration; which resulted in patches of Muslim groups spread on a wide surface area. As a consequence, most of these immigrants ended up by melting in their new societies, especially that the Islamic world was in a very critical situation owing to several factors of which we can mention the fact that most of the Islamic countries were at that time under the power of the Western colonizer.
The mutation witnessed by the Islamic world, particularly in the post-Second World War era, brought about an important change in the structure of immigrants who moved from the Islamic world towards the West in particular. Generations of educated people, with high degrees of intellectual and scientific competencies and of a high calibre in terms of professional skills, started to form the majority of the surging movement towards the European and American countries. This created new situations influencing the lives of Muslim communities which began to take shape in several places in the world. With consequently a number of problems weighing heavily on them, Muslim immigrants started to aspire towards finding solutions geared to improving their lives and establishing consonant and harmonious relations between their culture and identity and the generally cultural and intellectual environment surrounding them.
Further still, and as a consequence of the establishment of the modern state in some countries that were under the dominion of the European colonizer, Muslims in several places found themselves under the impact of ensuing political situations, which resulted in a very complex situation in which many Muslim communities lost their influence, sovereignty and power and turned to isolation, reclusion and withdrawal. So, these minorities emerged as an accomplished fact, like other situations the European colonizer had imposed in order to maintain its interests in the countries it had been occupying in a direct and military way.
With the expansion of Islam, whether by means of having people of other religions and faiths converting to the righteous religion of Allah or owing to the fact that immigrant Muslims mingled with their host societies and associated with them, there appeared few Muslim minorities distinguished by two cultural characteristics. First, these minorities are homogenous human groups of the same societies of origin having acquired the quality of being part of the land of which they are members. Second, these minorities did not lose their political and civil rights on account of the fact that they form a minority in the countries where they reside. This applies to both Muslims who recently converted to Islam in their non-Muslim homelands and to Muslims who came to these countries of emigration, integrated its environment and became citizens ipso jure. These two characterizing features make the situation in which Muslims live in some non-Muslim countries different from the other conditions which prevail in communities of Muslim minorities all over the world.
Through this analysis, with regard to the criterion of numbers and with reference to legal and constitutional provisions recognized worldwide, we can come to the conclusion that Muslim minorities can be classified into three categories :
First : Citizens of a non-Muslim country owing allegiance to it by birth or naturalization and are entitled to full rights and duties like their fellow citizens. This category constitutes the majority of Muslim minorities, like native Muslims of India, China, the Philippines and the Federal Republic of Russia. This category also includes nationals of non-Muslim countries who converted to Islam in their homelands. These are part and parcel of their peoples, and their conversion to Islam does not in any way affect their citizenship.
Second: Muslim Nationals residing away from their Muslim state in a non-Muslim country and are subject to the provisions of international and local Laws. This category comes in the second place in terms of the number of its population, like Muslims from Member States of the Organization of the Islamic Conference residing in several places in the world.
Third : Members of a non-Muslim country residing in another non-Muslim state. This category represents a major part of Muslim communities and minorities, like Muslims of India, who reside in numerous Western countries. It is obviously clear that this categorization is dictated by international law. But, from the Islamic perception of the issue in its depth, these differences have obviously no place, pursuant to the principle of Islamic brotherliness and according to what Almighty God says: «The believers are a band of brothers.» (1)
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