Muslim Diasporas: The Complexity of Being Outside ‘the Land of Islam’ An Examination of family matters

Muslims in their homelands usually have an assumed way of life, which encompasses their families, food, drinks and institutions. Faith-based regulations permit and forbid personal and communal actions. When migrating to non-Muslim majority states, their faith-based assumptions and practices are challenged. They confront issues concerning dietary practices, banking, family traditions, and interaction with non-Muslims. In such a scenario, Muslim jurists (scholars with the power to issue fatwas) attempted to rethink the sources of law in order to ease the difficulties faced by Muslim diasporas in the West. This branch of law is known as ‘minority jurisprudence’, legal rulings relating to Muslims living as minorities. However, in contrast to the help the minority jurisprudence to those who work in mainstream jobs, those who are self-employed in the food industry (restaurants or fast-food shops) often do not receive the same level of religious guidance from official channels. Advice concerning family traditions often remains an issue as juristic decisions are often academic and unhelpful to many Muslims. The current paper is considerably based on the PhD awarded by Middlesex University in 2019, through the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies. I have taken the opportunity to extend my work to profit the wider readers. Dr David Singh of the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies, and Dr Mohammad Talib at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford were my two supervisors. The paper investigates some aspects of family matters reported in my research as problematic because of the social context in which Muslims live.