Abdessamad Belhaj

Authority in Contemporary Islam

Structures, Figures and Functions


The Muslim executive of Belgium: relevant facts

The Muslim Executive of Belgium was created by the Royal Decree of 3 July 1996; this executive was envisaged by Belgian law as: (1) the institution in charge of managing the temporal aspects of the Muslim religion; (2) the representative of the whole Muslim community; (3) the place where various problems related to the Islamic religion are settled.1 However, it should be noted that the representation of “the Muslim community” is perceived here as a “religious community”, even though the concept of community in Islam goes beyond the temporal framework of the religious dimension, since Islam is not only a spiritual faith, but also a set of social and political relations between the members of a community. It can therefore be said that the Belgian state envisaged an executive with a dual function: to lead the Islamic religion and to represent the community of Muslims in Belgium to the state, without taking into account the “extra-religious” dimensions of Muslims. As a result, it can be said that the Muslim Executive of Belgium was born in ambivalence.

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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