Fatwās for an Unprecedented Minority: Sheikh Rāʾid Badīr and the fiqh of Medical Transplantation for Muslims Living in Israel

What is it about?

This article deals with religious rulings (fatāwā) for Muslims living in Israel as a minority under non-Muslim rule. For other Muslim minorities living in the West, there is a well-developed legal doctrine known as fiqh al-aqalliyyat al-muslima (the laws of Muslim minorities). The advocates of fiqh al-aqalliyyat, Yūsuf al-Qaraḍāwī and Ṭaha Jābir al-῾Alwānī, refrained from ruling for the Muslim minority living in Israel, due to the definition of Israel as part of The Abode of War (dar al-ḥarb) as a result of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This article will examine the development of local Islamic jurisprudence in recent years for the Muslim minority living in Israel, and in this context will present the rulings of Sheikh Rāʼid Badīr, the senior religious authority of the southern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, who may be seen as the pioneer of this field.

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