Abdessamad Belhaj

Authority in Contemporary Islam

Structures, Figures and Functions


Medical epistemic authority

One of the limitations to religious authority was highlighted by the Covid-19 health crisis (2020–2022) which diminished the epistemic authority of the theologian-jurist and the imam even though some people have asked the question whether the vaccine is halal or not. For example, the Muslim Executive of Belgium intervened to say that vaccines in Belgium are halal.1 The theologian jurist did defer to medical authority during the health crisis as illustrated by the Dublin-based European Council for Fatwa and Research whose statements on Covid-19 involved medical doctors, and did not challenge medical instructions promulgated during the health crisis. In general, the rapid and recent developments in the bioethical field make theologian-jurists unable to compete with the persuasive force of medical epistemic authority.

Authority in Contemporary Islam

Tartalomjegyzék


Kiadó: Akadémiai Kiadó – Ludovika Egyetemi Kiadó

Online megjelenés éve: 2024

ISBN: 978 963 454 960 4

Authority is a key question in Islamic studies and beyond. This book examines the nature, figures, structures and functions of religious authority in contemporary Islamic ethics. It also discusses how Islamic authority and political power compete and/or cooperate in Muslim contexts and Europe. Moreover, it provides a coherent framework to understand authority as a moral foundation in relation to community, power, tradition and subversion. Various cases from Europe and the Muslim world are studied here to showcase the claims and practices of authority in their contexts. Despite its active role and resourcefulness in contemporary Islam, religious authority has to confront many limitations, including the dynamics of secularisation and individualisation. The author is a senior researcher at the Religion and Society Research Institute of the Eötvös József Research Centre at the University of Public Service (Budapest).

Hivatkozás: https://mersz.hu/belhaj-authority-in-contemporary-islam//

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