Edraak is our newsletter that honours the Muslim world’s diversity, reflected in the multitude of its socio-economic conditions and political institutions spanning across the continents. Traced back to its Arabic origins, إدراك encompasses timely and thorough insights into the developments of the Muslim-majority countries.

We organise the Muslim-majority countries into four zones as per their current conditions of conflict, transition, stability, and development.

Zone I: Experiencing War, Conflict, Oppression, Genocide

UN Human Rights Office closes in Burkina Faso

After months of silence from Burkina Faso’s military junta, the United Nations Human Rights Office announced on June 30 that it would permanently close its operations in the country. The government suspended the UN office’s local operations in February, just weeks after UN High Commissioner Volker Türk urged authorities to end the repression of civic space and abandon plans to ban political parties. By the time of closure, the junta had already dissolved 118 civil society organisations, expelled or suspended 20 foreign organisations, and expelled the UN Resident Coordinator in August 2025. Foreign Minister Traoré accused international organisations of acting as “super police” overstepping sovereignty. The closure removes the last independent international presence documenting abuses in a country where HRW has confirmed ethnic cleansing of the Fulani community, war crimes by all parties, and systematic disappearances.

Zone II: Transition towards Peace and Stability

Mali suspends Allô Klédu, one of the last public forums left in the country

Last week, Mali’s High Authority for Communication ordered the two-month suspension of Allô Klédu, broadcast on private station Radio Klédu, after the media regulator said the programme had become “a platform for listeners to vent against the government.” The suspension came amid an accelerating assault on independent media: since February, the authorities have detained three journalists under a sweeping cybercrime law. Two newspaper directors, Chahana Takiou and Abdourhamane Keïta, were arrested the day after the Pan-African Media Forum in Bamako, which had been held to celebrate press freedom. A Malian journalist told HRW: “For many, it was one of the country’s last remaining spaces where people could speak out on matters of public concern.”

Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali formally withdraw from the ICC as all three face active war crimes allegations

Niger notified the UN Secretary-General on 18 June; Burkina Faso and Mali followed on 24 June, formally beginning the one-year process of withdrawing from the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The three Alliance of Sahel States juntas cited the ICC as “misused and exploited” and a “selective and politicised tool,” without mentioning the growing international condemnation they face for mass killings of civilians, ethnic cleansing of Fulani communities, and systematic disappearances. The ICC has investigated Mali since 2013, producing two convictions and reparation orders. The three countries had already left ECOWAS in January 2025, removing a second accountability mechanism. The ICC Assembly of States Parties expressed “regret,” recalled that obligations incurred during membership remain binding, and urged reconsideration. Amnesty International warned the withdrawal “consecrates impunity.” Three juntas simultaneously withdrawing from the only international court capable of prosecuting them is the institutional architecture of impunity being constructed in real time, rather than a sovereignty assertion.

Zone III: Stable but Economically Struggling

Egypt Ahmed al-Shal: death row for 12 years, brain tumour doubling in size, doctors told to say “nothing is wrong”

Ahmed al-Waleed al-Shal was arrested outside his university in March 2014, days after graduating from medical school at 24. He was disappeared, tortured with electric shocks and cigarette burns arranged in geometric shapes on his neck, and forced to confess to involvement in a political assassination. He has been on death row since. A 2026 brain scan showed the mass had doubled in size; a prison doctor told him he had “nothing” and that his symptoms were “psychological.” A prison guard told the family only “National Security” could authorise surgery. His family has never been given access to his medical records. The deliberate denial of medical care to a prisoner is an instrument of slow punishment. Egypt’s pattern is now documented across dozens of cases: disappearance, torture, confession, mass trial, death row, and medical withdrawal. Al-Shal’s case holds every element.

Pakistan’s CII rejects IHC’s matrimonial assets ruling and declares 50% share for wives “inconsistent with Islamic law”

Pakistan’s Council of Islamic Ideology, a constitutional body advising parliament on whether laws conform with the Quran and Sunnah, formally rejected the Islamabad High Court’s March 2026 landmark ruling granting wives at least a 50% share in assets acquired during marriage. The CII declared the judgment inconsistent with Islamic law and announced plans to challenge it before the appellate court. Justice Kayani’s ruling viewed marriage as an economic partnership, conducting a comparative analysis of Islamic jurisprudence, CEDAW, and family law frameworks in Malaysia, Indonesia, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, the UK, and Canada. The CII’s intervention sets up a direct confrontation between two Pakistani institutions interpreting the same Shariah tradition and arriving at opposite conclusions about women’s economic rights. Justice Kayani’s judgment established that Islamic law’s silence on matrimonial property is not a prohibition; legislation protecting women is permissible. The CII asserts the opposite.

Zone IV: Developed or Emerging Economies with Peace and Stability

Indonesia’s BPJPH sanctions framework for the October 2026 mandatory halal expansion is now operational

Last week, BPJPH Regulation No. 2 of 2026 on Imposition of Administrative Sanctions for Violations of Halal Product Assurance Implementation came into force, setting out structured mappings between violations and sanctions, as well as detailed rules on authority, procedures, and timelines. The October 2026 phase will extend mandatory halal certification beyond food and beverages to include cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, traditional medicines, health supplements, and certain consumer goods. Sanctions escalate from written warnings to administrative fines, revocation of halal certificates, product recall, temporary closure of premises, and public disclosure. BPJPH intends to enforce the JPH regime across the full compliance chain, not only against the certificate holder. Indonesia’s halal certification framework is one of the most consequential exercises of Islamic governance in the global economy; it regulates what 280 million Muslims consume and what 230 million Muslim consumers can access from international markets. The sanctions regulation operationalises that framework with enforcement teeth.

Article Pick

On June 13, 2026, human rights lawyers Imaan Mazari and Hadi Ali Chattha were awarded the Ludovic Trarieux Prize, the world’s oldest and most prestigious human rights prize for lawyers, while imprisoned in Pakistan. The prize recognised their work defending victims of forced disappearances, blasphemy charges, and sexual violence. The social media posts that led to their conviction addressed the enforced disappearances that have long defined their legal work. The sentences were imposed under Sections 9 (glorification of an offence), 10 (cyberterrorism), and 26-A (false and fake information) of Pakistan’s Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA) 2016: a law whose vague language allows the same act to be read as a lawful expression or serious crime, depending only on who is interpreting it.

On 23 January 2026, Imaan and Hadi were arrested by Islamabad police while travelling in the Islamabad High Court Bar Association’s (IHCBA) vehicle to a hearing in the District Sessions Court for the controversial “tweets case.” They were arrested without an FIR or arrest warrant, violating a prior IHC bail protection order issued two days earlier. Immediately after their arrest, backdated FIRs were revived, including a July 2025 terrorism charge. On January 24, the day of sentencing, Mazari and Chattha appeared via video link from Adiala Jail before Judge Muhammad Afzal Majoka. According to a report by the International Commission of Jurists, the hearing lasted less than a minute before the couple, alleging mistreatment and denial of food and water in custody, boycotted the proceedings.

That conviction rested on PECA’s own statutory language, which is itself not precisely defined. Section 9 defines “glorification” as “depiction of any form of praise or celebration in a desirable manner”. Cyberterrorism under Section 10 requires only intent to “create a sense of fear, panic or insecurity... in society,” a threshold any pointed criticism of state institutions could meet. Under this framework, the couple were sentenced to five years under Section 9, ten years under Section 10, and two years under Section 26-A, each with separate fines; running concurrently, their effective term is ten years.

The same proceeding that produced this sentence was itself marked by procedural breaches. A transfer application remained pending before the Islamabad High Court when the Sessions Court proceeded to sentencing. The couple were also denied the opportunity to complete cross-examination of prosecution witnesses. The process was condemned by the UN Special Rapporteurs, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Amnesty International, and three bar associations: the Islamabad High Court Bar Association (IHCBA), Sindh High Court Bar Association, and Islamabad Bar Council.

This was not Mazari’s first encounter with Pakistan’s legal system. According to a joint statement by five UN Special Rapporteurs, Mazari and Chattha have faced ten criminal complaints since 2022, none of which had previously resulted in a conviction. The experts described this as ‘an arbitrary use of the legal system as an instrument of harassment and intimidation’ aimed at punishing the couple for their human rights advocacy.

Taken together, these proceedings sit at the centre of a broader tension between Pakistan’s domestic laws and international standards on free expression making it a tension reflected in the condemnations of the UN Special Rapporteurs, Amnesty International, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, and Pakistan’s own bar associations.

When the same work that earns international recognition is treated as a crime at home, the gap raises a question that outlasts this single case: which standard reflects the practice of law, and which reflects its punishment?

When the constitution of a politically fragmented country requires a supermajority for electing a president to ensure a broad consensus, it does not lead to consensus; rather, it leads to an institutional deadlock.

Kosovo’s third election in eighteen months illustrates this. On June 7, 2026, Kosovo held its third parliamentary snap election, in which Prime Minister Albin Kurti’s Vetëvendosje party won 43% of the vote, while the opposition Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) and Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) secured 21% and 17%, respectively.

The vote followed the main parties’ failure to elect a new president within the required timeframe after the December 2025 elections. Although after the June 7 elections, Vetëvendosje is on course to secure 53 seats, this falls short of the 61 needed to form a government. To govern, Kurti must build a coalition with either LDK or PDK — both of which have shown reluctance to join him — or secure support from minority community MPs, an outcome which is not guaranteed this time. Turnout fell to just 37%, and Kosovo finds itself back where it stood after the February 2025 election.

This institutional paralysis is primarily caused by a constitutional mechanism. According to Articles 85 and 86 of the Constitution of Kosovo, after the elections are concluded, a two-thirds majority of all 120 deputies of the parliament in the first two rounds and a simple majority in the third round are required for the election of the new President. Failure to elect a president in any of the three rounds results in automatic dissolution of the Assembly and snap elections afterwards. This mechanism was designed to produce consensus. However, in a fragmented political system where no party brings about a supermajority, such a mechanism becomes a cause of continuous elections.

This institutional paralysis has critical implications for the country, particularly its economy. With a GDP per capita of $20,400, Kosovo was the second-poorest country in Europe as of 2025. Prolonged political crisis has compounded these economic pressures, with Kosovo’s economy already strained by the global energy crisis and rising fuel prices. The same institutional vacuum has also delayed crucial European financing and other international funds. The impasse has delayed Kosovo’s accession to the European Union as Marta Kos, the European Commissioner for Enlargement, commented that there needs to be a stable government capable of serving as a reliable partner for cooperation with the European Union. European Council President Costa has also urged Kosovo to end the impasse. Kosovo’s accession to NATO has also been stalled as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the matter is not a priority for NATO members. Washington’s hesitancy reflects in part its reservations about Kurti and its preference to deal with a stable government led by a duly elected president. According to Al Jazeera, the voters are also frustrated as Gezim Selimi told the AFP news agency that, “I expect parties to finally come to their senses and work for Kosovo.”

Kosovo’s deadlock is not unique. Greece’s constitution employs a similar mechanism requiring a two-thirds parliamentary majority to elect a president, with failure ultimately permitting dissolution. Despite this design intended to ensure consensus, Greece held three elections between June 1989 and April 1990, driven by repeated government formation failures in a fragmented parliament. Ultimately, both cases demonstrate that mechanisms intended to compel consensus can result in successive legislative dissolutions in a politically fragmented state.

On December 8, 2024, Syria entered a new era. The downfall of Bashar al-Assad brought an end to 50 years of brutal rule. Yet one year later, true justice remains out of reach. The level of distress is unimaginable. Under Assad’s rule, his forces have killed at least 234,000 civilians. They carried out over 181,000 enforced disappearances and caused 45,342 deaths through torture. Chemical weapons were fired 217 times. Whole neighborhoods were destroyed by barrel bombs. The Assad regime carried out a systematic campaign of terror. The revolution started with simple demands. In March 2011, the Syrian revolution started with a call for freedom, dignity and justice. The government’s violent reaction transformed peaceful protests into a long battle. Thousands of people were imprisoned, executed, or disappeared, and numerous family members are still looking for their loved ones. The impact of those years shapes the present.

There is both hope and despair in the Post-Assad era. A constitutional declaration in March 2025 recommended the establishment of a consultative, effective and victim-centred transitional justice commission. In May 2025, the interim administration led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa made two major decrees. Decree No. 19 created the National Commission for the Missing (NCM) to address the fate of the disappeared. Decree No. 20 established the National Commission for Transitional Justice (NCTJ) to oversee broader accountability efforts. The Commission signed an MOU with six civil society organizations in August 2025 to help in the search for missing persons.

These steps are important, but many observers believe they are too restrictive. The NCTJ were initially tasked only with Assad-era crimes. Pressure from the Syrian organizations expanded the scope. On February 18, 2026, President al-Sharaa issued General Amnesty Decree No. 39. This decree grants amnesty for many crimes committed before that date. It aims to reduce overcrowding of prisons and promote reconciliation. But it came from an executive order, not a legislative process. The Syrian Network for Human Rights has expressed concerns about these measures. According to the organization, they could weaken judicial independence and lead to the selective application of the law.

Serious challenges remain. Since then, investigations have uncovered further evidence of war crimes. While access to official records has been restricted, there are reports of additional detentions. In March 2025, violence erupted in the coastal areas of Syria and in Sweida in July, highlighting recurring accountability challenges. The April 2026 trial of Atef Najib, one of the Assad regime’s top officials. The trial was welcomed by many and highlighted the challenges of prosecuting large-scale human rights violations. Despite this, there are many who feel that progress in Syria is still slow. Civil society groups suggest ideas with practical solutions. The international mechanisms have gathered key evidence, and the experience in countries like Sierra Leone and Cambodia has demonstrated the potential of hybrid courts to prosecute war crimes and hold perpetrators to account.

However, accountability is not only about addressing past crimes. It is also essential for building a peaceful and stable future. Justice goes hand in hand with long-term stability for many Syrians. The success of Syria’s transition will also rely on the credibility and inclusiveness of its justice system. Addressing past abuses fairly and transparently will be an important step toward rebuilding public trust and supporting lasting peace.

Bangladesh shows what that looks like in practice. On 9 April 2026, Parliament passed the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) (Repeal and Re-enactment) Bill, 2026 by voice vote, repealing the 2025 Ordinance and reviving the National Human Rights Commission Act, 2009. Law Minister Md Asaduzzaman called the 2025 Ordinance’s Section 16 “problematic,” warning it risked weakening protections against enforced disappearances. He framed the repeal as temporary, pending future consultations through a proposed parliamentary committee. On June 22, 2026, thirteen international organisations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, issued a joint statement condemning the bill as a regression.

The National Human Rights Commission Ordinance of 2025 had granted the Commission far greater independence than the 2009 Act it replaced, including direct investigative authority over enforced disappearances and custodial deaths, and the power to inspect detention facilities run by intelligence agencies and the military. These provisions, absent from the 2009 Act, are now gone with its revival. The 2026 bill also removed mandatory representation quotas for women and ethnic minorities. National Citizen Party (NCP) lawmaker Md Abul Hasnat warned that reviving the 2009 Act risked turning the Commission into a tool for “political repression.”

Among the provisions revived from the 2009 Act, the self-investigation mechanism is the most consequential. Under the bill, the NHRC must rely on reports prepared by “the chief of the force concerned” when investigating security force violations, self-investigation by definition, leaving the Commission no power to verify facts autonomously. This is particularly significant given that, per Human Rights Watch, many of Bangladesh’s most serious human rights violations, including torture and extrajudicial killings, over the past decades have involved allegations against security force members.

This mechanism, alongside the removal of the Commission’s independence clause, puts the 2026 bill in direct tension with the Paris Principles. The 2025 Ordinance had explicitly stated the Commission “shall not fall under any ministry or division of government”, a clause removed under the new bill. The selection committee for the NHRC now includes the Law Minister, Home Minister, and ruling-party MPs, expanding executive influence over the Commission’s composition. According to the joint statement, these risks are undermining Bangladesh’s prospects for international accreditation.

That risk is not hypothetical. According to Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB), the self-investigation clause is not new language but Section 18 of the 2009 Act, reinstated verbatim. Under that same provision, the Commission previously lacked independent investigative authority, making it a key reason, according to TIB, that Bangladesh’s NHRC was never granted “A Status” by the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI), the top accreditation tier enabling full participation in international human rights mechanisms.

Bangladesh has tested this mechanism before, and the accreditation it sought once eluded it. Human Rights Watch warns that, without substantial amendment, the bill risks creating an institution that retains only the appearance of independence. A commission required to rely on the word of the forces it is meant to scrutinise has little left to investigate independently. Who investigates the investigators, when the investigators answer only to themselves?

The six men executed included Mahmoud Nayef Musa, Anwar Adel Saleh, Ibrahim Mansour, and three others. Musa and Saleh were convicted in connection with the 2018 Salt Cell attack on security forces; Mansour was executed for his role in an ambush on a police patrol in 2022; the remaining three were executed for their involvement in the killing of law enforcement officers during anti-narcotics operations.

Government Spokesperson Mohammad al-Momani confirmed the executions were carried out after sentences received confirmation by the Court of Cassation, Cabinet endorsement, and royal decree, in accordance with Article 359 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The Jordanian government framed the executions as justice for fallen security personnel. Jordan had previously resumed executions in December 2014 after an eight-year pause, which Human Rights Watch described as “backsliding on human rights.”

The State Security Court, established under Law No. 17 of 1959, is a military tribunal with jurisdiction over civilians in five categories under the 2011 constitutional amendments to Article 101: grand treason, espionage, terrorism, drug offences, and currency fraud. The Court’s founding statute additionally grants the Prime Minister discretionary authority to refer any crime deemed connected to economic security to the SSC under Article 3(a)(3) of Law No. 17 of 1959.

Jordan’s resumption of capital punishment carries broader implications. On the same day as the executions, Prime Minister Jafar Hassan announced plans to expand the scope of the death penalty to cover major drug traffickers and smugglers operating in coordination with external criminal networks, all while placing further pressure on the SSC’s already broad jurisdiction. This sits alongside Jordan’s obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ratified in 1975, whose Article 6(2) restricts the death penalty to the “most serious crimes” only. The Human Rights Committee, in General Comment No. 36, has explicitly stated that drug offences cannot serve as the basis for capital punishment under this threshold. Official figures on Jordan’s death-row population vary significantly; the National Centre for Human Rights recorded 276 individuals under sentence of death in 2024, Amnesty International reported at least 200 as of December 2025, and Government Spokesperson Momani stated that more than 100 prisoners remain on death row.

Jordan’s executions intersect with longstanding global debates on capital punishment. Human Rights Watch has reiterated its opposition to the use of military courts to try security-related offences, arguing that such courts are frequently authorised to conduct trials in ways that restrict defendant rights beyond what international human rights law permits. Adam Coogle, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, called on Jordan to renew its moratorium on the death penalty. The United Nations General Assembly similarly called on states in 2012 to establish a moratorium on executions, progressively restrict the practice, and reduce the offences for which it may be imposed. Relative to its neighbours, Jordan has used capital punishment sparingly, imposing at least 31 death sentences over the last five years compared to at least 2,341 in Egypt and 549 in Iraq over the same period, making Hassan’s announced expansion of its application a notable departure from that pattern.

Yet, Jordan’s executions raise a structural question that extends beyond the cases themselves. How does a court established for state security offences come to execute people for drug offences, with active plans to expand that further? At the same time, bound by a treaty its government voluntarily joined in 1975?

Napoleon Bonaparte’s Egyptian campaign (1798–1801) marked a defining encounter between modern Europe and the Ottoman Middle East. Among its most symbolic elements was the presence of one of the first printing presses brought to the region, carried aboard Napoleon’s flagship L’Orient alongside approximately 35,000 soldiers. The press functioned both as a tool of knowledge and an instrument of power, quickly used to issue Arabic proclamations presenting the French as liberators and bearers of civilization.

This episode raises a broader question: how might the intellectual history of the region have developed had such technologies been introduced through education and scholarly exchange rather than military conquest? Although Napoleon’s expedition included over one hundred scientists and artists whose work produced the Description de l’Égypte, knowledge transfer remained subordinate to imperial objectives, and local populations were not integrated as equal participants in its production.

Nevertheless, ideas often exceed the intentions of those who transmit them. The French expedition contributed, directly and indirectly, to new scientific and administrative practices in the region, while later European Orientalists played a role in preserving and publishing Arabic manuscripts, despite interpretive biases shaped by their own intellectual frameworks.

At the same time, colonial expansion significantly reshaped Islamic religious thought. Military occupation and political domination generated intellectual and theological responses that reconfigured authority, identity, and conceptions of freedom. Many modern Islamic movements emerged within this colonial context and gradually developed more rigid interpretive frameworks as part of broader reform and resistance projects.

This essay argues that the contraction of freedom in contemporary Islamic discourse cannot be understood without reference both to the classical Islamic legal tradition and to the colonial transformations that reshaped it. It does not suggest that pre-modern Muslim societies were liberal in a modern sense, but rather that classical Islamic jurisprudence articulated a broader conception of intellectual and legal freedom than is commonly acknowledged today, later narrowed through colonial intervention, authoritarian state formation, and modern ideological movements.

The discussion proceeds in two parts: first, an examination of freedom in classical Islamic legal theory based on primary sources; and second, an analysis of how colonial modernity contributed to the emergence of contemporary Islamic discourses with significantly different understandings of freedom.

Classical Islamic Conceptions of Freedom

To evaluate the contemporary crisis of freedom in many Muslim societies, it is necessary to distinguish between classical Islamic legal thought and the ideological constructions of the modern period. This discussion relies exclusively on primary sources from the seventh to the sixteenth centuries. Rather than asking whether historical Muslim societies fully embodied these ideals, the focus here is on how freedom was conceptualized within the classical juristic tradition itself.

Freedom as Theological Foundation

At its foundation, freedom in Islamic legal thought is first a theological concept rather than a political one. Human freedom originates not in the state or social contract, but in God’s creation of human beings as morally responsible agents. Its purpose is the liberation of the human being from servitude to power, wealth, desire, and the ego, and it begins with the ability to seek truth without coercion.

In North Africa, children and elderly women in rural communities still memorize a didactic verse by the 16th-century Mālikī jurist Ibn ʿĀshir of Fez:

“The first duty of the morally responsible person
is to reflect upon the universe and seek the truth.”

This formulation condenses centuries of earlier theological and legal reflection. Within classical legal theory, moral accountability presupposes investigation and conviction; a person is not bound by beliefs not reached through reflection and understanding.

The Qur’an consistently frames faith as a matter of free choice rather than coercion, affirming that “there is no compulsion in religion” (2:256) and repeatedly stressing individual accountability before God (18:29; 10:99; 109:6).

In this framework, freedom is understood as moral agency grounded in accountability rather than unrestricted autonomy.

Knowledge as Freedom

The pursuit of knowledge was itself a form of freedom. The Qur’an begins with the command “Read,” and Prophetic traditions encourage learning for both men and women. Islamic civilization incorporated Greek philosophy, Persian science, and Indian mathematics into its intellectual tradition. Jurists such as Ibn Juzayy in al-Qawānīn al-Fiqhiyya explicitly classified disciplines such as medicine and mathematics as communal obligations (farḍ kifāya) on account of their social benefit. The ʿulamāʾ thus integrated scientific inquiry into the moral and legal structure of society.

This intellectual openness is further reflected in the integration of religious and empirical knowledge among leading ʿulamāʾ. Al-Māzarī, a major Mālikī commentator, was also a practicing physician, while Ibn Rushd (Averroes) combined juridical authority with philosophical work. Such figures illustrate how legal, medical, and philosophical sciences coexisted within a unified intellectual tradition.

Travelers, geographers, historians, physicians, and philosophers documented societies across Africa, Asia, and Europe with remarkable openness, giving rise to the genre of adab al-riḥla (travel literature). Even disciplines later considered controversial—such as astrology, alchemy, and magical sciences—were preserved in manuscript traditions rather than systematically excluded.

Custom and Legal Pluralism

Another defining feature of classical Islamic jurisprudence is its attentiveness to reality (al-wāqiʿ) and local custom (ʿurf), later expressed through doctrines such as the Ḥanafī principle of ʿumūm al-balwā (widespread, unavoidable hardship) and the Mālikī principle of al-ʿamal al-quṭrī (regional judicial practice), both aimed at legal facilitation. Across different madhhabs (schools of law), custom was recognized as a valid source of law so long as it did not contradict explicit revelation.

The Qur’an itself commands adherence to what is commonly recognized as good (7:199). Consequently, Islamic law developed distinct regional expressions—from Medina and Kūfa to Córdoba, Fez, Oran, and Timbuktu—where local languages, commercial practices, and social norms shaped legal interpretation. This flexibility enabled Islamic law to adapt across diverse societies without erasing cultural identities.

Public Welfare and the Development of Legal Reasoning

Closely related to custom is the principle of public welfare (maṣlaḥa), a cornerstone of Islamic legal theory. As al-Shāṭibī states, “God’s law serves people’s welfare and well-being” (al-Muwāfaqāt, 1:318). Since neither the Qur’an nor the Prophetic traditions could anticipate every future circumstance, Ibn Rushd clarifies in Bidāyat al-Mujtahid that jurists (fuqahāʾ) and legal theorists (uṣūlīyūn) developed ijtihād, particularly through qiyās, as early as the 8th century within Sunni legal theory, where independent reasoning first took systematic form.

Epistemic and Intellectual Pluralism in the Scholarly Tradition

Epistemologically, because fiqh regulates the practical implications of ʿaqīdah, classical Islamic tradition accommodated a significant degree of intellectual plurality. Institutions such as al-Azhar, al-Qarawiyyīn, and al-Zaytūna taught multiple theological schools—including Ashʿarism, Māturīdism, Atharism, Muʿtazilism, and Shīʿī thought—encouraging debate rather than uniformity.

Medieval biographical and philosophical literature preserves accounts of ʿulamāʾ who described experiences of doubt and intellectual struggle. Thinkers such as al-Kindī, al-Fārābī, Ibn Sīnā, Ibn al-Haytham, Ibn Rushd, and al-Ghazālī engaged deeply with questions of reason, revelation, and free will.

Jurists and biographers such as al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, al-Dhahabī, and Ibn Ḥajar included ʿulamāʾ from diverse orientations in their tarājim (biographical dictionaries), while works of adab such as Abū al-Faraj al-Iṣbahānī’s Kitāb al-Aghānī preserve a wide cultural and intellectual diversity. Despite occasional political suppression, disagreement remained structurally embedded in the scholarly tradition.

Applications of Classical Legal Principles in Economic and Family Law

Economic freedom was similarly well established. Individuals—male or female, Muslim or non-Muslim—possessed independent legal personality in property and commercial matters. Women could own, inherit, buy, sell, and manage wealth independently.

Taxation remained comparatively limited, consisting primarily of zakāt for Muslims and jizya for certain non-Muslim adult males, while women, children, monks, the elderly, and the disabled were generally exempt.

In family law, classical jurisprudence presents a broader legal discourse than is often reflected in contemporary Islamist readings. Jurists recognized a woman’s right to seek judicial dissolution of marriage under multiple conditions, and many legal manuals state that domestic service is not among her enforceable obligations. Women could therefore seek legal remedy before judges in cases of mistreatment.

The extensive nawāzil literature on both economic and family fiqh remains largely unedited and understudied, while contemporary discourse is increasingly shaped by online Islamist fatwas. Women also participated in the production of legal knowledge. The Ḥanafī jurist ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn al-Samarqandī records that fatwas issued by his circle bore the signatures of his daughter, Fāṭimah al-Samarqandiyyah, alongside those of her father and later her husband, al-Kāsānī, illustrating the recognized scholarly authority of women in the classical legal tradition (Mīzān al-Uṣūl, 1:20).

Religious Plurality, Protection of the Other, and Contextual Jurisprudence

Religious diversity was formally recognized through the institution of dhimma, a covenant ensuring protection for non-Muslim communities under Muslim rule. Despite variations in historical practice and documented instances of discrimination, the normative legal framework emphasized protection rather than persecution.

The Prophet Muhammad stated: “Whoever oppresses a covenant-holder, burdens him beyond his capacity, or takes anything from him unjustly, I shall argue against him on the Day of Judgment” (Abū Dāwūd and others; see al-ʿAjlūnī, Kashf al-Khafāʾ, 2/218). The Constitution of Medina similarly established mutual protection for Jewish tribes under the covenant. Many historical restrictions on non-Muslims reflected political or security considerations rather than immutable religious doctrine.

At the same time, the foundational legal texts of certain areas require further interdisciplinary study that goes beyond questions of context and authenticity alone, including some passages that may appear controversial in contemporary perspectives.

Classical jurists also developed a distinct subfield known as fiqh ahl al-dhimma, in which a wide range of juristic disagreement is observable. This diversity of opinion reflects the strong influence of zamān and makān (time and place) on legal reasoning and illustrates the contextual adaptability of this branch of law.

Concluding Perspective

Taken together, these sources do not depict an idealized or conflict-free past, but rather a legal tradition that conceived freedom as a divinely grounded trust shaped by moral responsibility, intellectual inquiry, public welfare, legal pluralism, and cultural diversity. It is against this framework that the restrictive understandings of freedom found in many modern Islamist movements must be evaluated. The following section argues that these movements did not emerge as direct continuations of the classical tradition, but as ideological responses to colonialism, state centralization, and the political transformations of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Freedom in the Age of Modern Islamic Movements

The transition from the pre-modern to the modern period fundamentally transformed Islamic discussions of freedom. Beginning in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Muslim societies experienced military defeat, colonial occupation, economic dependency, and the rapid importation of European political institutions. In response, numerous reform movements emerged seeking to revive Islamic civilization and restore political autonomy. Among the most influential were the Wahhabi movement in the Arabian Peninsula and, later, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Although these movements differed in important respects, they shared the conviction that Muslim decline resulted from religious corruption and that renewal required a return to what they saw as a puritanical, utopian form of Islam.

This reformist impulse produced profound changes in Islamic discourse. Whereas classical jurisprudence generally accommodated legal diversity and disagreement, many modern movements increasingly sought to define a single correct interpretation of Islam. Religious authority became concentrated within the movement itself, and different theological traditions, legal schools, and even established Sufi communities have been subject to demonization.

One consequence was a narrowing of the classical understanding of freedom: rather than viewing faith as the outcome of reflection and conviction, some contemporary ideologies emphasized conformity, doctrinal certainty, and strict adherence to prescribed interpretations. Freedom of interpretation was reduced, while religious identity became increasingly tied to loyalty to specific ideological programs, weakening the pluralism characteristic of classical legal thought.

This shift also affected legal reasoning. Although classical fiqh is often associated with the so-called “closure of the gates of ijtihād,” the established legal schools preserved a methodological depth that many modern movements have struggled to match and, at times, have only partially imitated. In reaction to Islamist trends, another fragmented approach emerged that sought reform through a heavily maqāṣid-based fiqh; however, it often under-engaged the established tools of uṣūl al-fiqh and Arabic linguistics while still presenting itself as a corrective alternative to Islamist legal thought.

In parallel, various Islamist movements have discouraged democratic participation, public protest, and criticism of political authority, though their positions vary across contexts and periods. Internally, many have also centralized religious authority in charismatic leadership structures, reducing the space for independent juristic reasoning that had characterized classical legal culture.

Personal freedoms likewise became increasingly restricted. During much of the twentieth century, legal opinions associated with Salafi and Wahhabi circles prohibited or discouraged practices that earlier Muslim societies had often accepted, including certain forms of dress, artistic expression, mixed education, and women’s public participation. Some modern cultural forms—such as music, photography, television, and cinema—were sometimes prohibited through paradoxical analogical reasoning or literalist readings extended beyond earlier precedents and contexts. Whether implemented through state institutions or social pressure, these rulings significantly curtailed freedom of expression, creativity, and individual choice.

These developments should not be understood simply as theological disputes. Rather, they emerged within the broader context of colonial domination, post-colonial state formation, authoritarian governance, and rapid social transformation. External intervention and internal political repression reinforced one another, creating conditions in which highly centralized religious movements could flourish. The argument, therefore, is not that colonialism alone produced contemporary Islamist ideologies, nor that these movements are merely external imports, but that the political disruptions of the modern era fundamentally reshaped the language through which Islam has been interpreted and mobilized.

Today, various Salafi trends, alongside other active daʿwa movements, continue to exert significant influence through educational institutions, mosques, charities, satellite television, and digital media. Over time, these movements have come to occupy a dominant position in shaping much of contemporary religious life, and with the internet this discourse has been further amplified and widely disseminated, contributing to the marginalization of more traditional forms of Islamic learning. Behind slogans of “reform” or “authentic Islam,” their interpretations often frame Islam primarily through binary categories such as ḥalāl vs. ḥarām, Sunnah vs. bidʿah, and īmān vs. kufr, leaving relatively limited space for the pluralism, contextual reasoning, and intellectual diversity that characterized much of the classical tradition. As a result, public discourse often shifts away from ethical cultivation toward the regulation of identity and behavior.

The story of Napoleon’s Egyptian expedition offers an instructive symbol with which to conclude. Napoleon departed Egypt in 1799, leaving General Jean-Baptiste Kléber in command. On 14 June 1800, Kléber was assassinated in Cairo by Sulaymān al-Ḥalabī, a young Syrian associated with the Ottoman resistance. The Egyptian historian ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Jabartī, an eyewitness to the occupation, recorded the episode in remarkable detail, praising the procedural organization of the French trial while criticizing the poor Arabic used in its official documents. The colonial authorities later preserved the assassin’s skull in France as an object for the study of fanaticism, while al-Jabartī’s chronicle itself eventually entered European libraries and scholarly collections.

The French expedition introduced important scientific methods, scholarly institutions, and technologies to the region. Yet it also inaugurated a period of colonial domination whose political and psychological consequences continue to shape the modern Middle East. The printing press arrived on Napoleon’s ships, but so too did military occupation. Scientific inquiry was accompanied by conquest, and the promise of enlightenment was inseparable from the experience of subjugation.

This paradox lies at the heart of my argument. Classical Islamic legal theory conceived freedom primarily as a moral and intellectual condition grounded in human dignity, public welfare, and the diversity of social experience. Modern Islamic movements emerged within a world transformed by colonialism, state centralization, and ideological conflict, often reducing this expansive tradition to rigid systems of identity and obedience. If Muslim societies are to recover a richer conception of freedom, Islamic discourse itself must be liberated—both from the lingering burdens of colonial modernity and from the monopolization of religious authority by ideological movements that mistake uniformity for faith.

Malaysians have been seen to rely on e-wallets for everyday, routine purchases. According to Bank Negara Malaysia’s announcement last month. What was once an alternative form of payment has now become a routine for not just shopping malls but also roadside vendors. Paying with a smartphone has become easier than carrying cash.

According to the Bank Negara Malaysia, the country has experienced a gradual increase in digital payment adoption over recent years. This change, driven by online initiatives such as DuitNow QR and expanded internet access, is growing consumers’ confidence in online transactions.

For many Malaysians, this shift has proven to be overwhelmingly positive as they not only simplify transactions but also reduce waiting time and allow small businesses to enjoy financial services that previously only relied on cash. Many small business owners claim that QR payments have allowed them to reach customers without expensive infrastructure.

With digital payments becoming the norm, opting out becomes difficult. Simple actions like buying food or paying for transport assume access to smartphones, an internet connection, and a bank account. So for those lacking these tools, particularly senior citizens or rural/low-income areas, there is a serious risk of being left behind.

Globally, digital payments have been promoted by governments and financial institutions to increase economic participation. Simultaneously, this has raised questions about inclusion and resilience.

Cash requires no passwords or mobile networks. It functions without intermediaries and remains accessible regardless of age or technological literacy. Digital systems depend on certain infrastructures, and when systems fail, it disrupts daily life in the blink of an eye. Malaysia experienced this vulnerability in 2023 when technical issues affecting payment networks disrupted transactions countrywide. This shows the extent to which modern economies depend on digital infrastructure and asks if more choices mean greater autonomy or greater dependence.

Many argue that the benefits outweigh the risks. Malaysia’s National Digital Economy Blueprint aims to accelerate digital transformation and position the country as a leading digital economy in Southeast Asia. With such an ambitious vision, this country aims for greater financial inclusion, stronger economic growth, and easier access to services– all in the direction of an efficient digital strategy.

Yet technological progress has always involved trade-offs. With every new system comes opportunities and new forms of dependence. The challenge is not whether societies should embrace innovation, but also how they are willing to keep pace with those that are unable to do the same.

Malaysia’s digital revolution answers a critical question: that digital systems are not going to shape the future; they already shaped the present. But then one is prompted to ask if convenience alone is enough, as technologies are often judged by how efficiently they work. However, that alone should not be the criterion. It must also take in regard how many people it allows to participate and how many are quietly left behind.

Mahrang Baloch was brought up in the shadow of enforced disappearances. Her father, Abdul Ghaffar Langove, a political activist, was disappeared in 2009. His body was later recovered in 2011 and showed signs of torture. It was an experience that influenced her public life. She holds a medical degree and was a prominent member of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC). A group advocating for human rights in Balochistan. Baloch has been detained in the Hudda District Prison in Quetta since March 2025.

On June 25, an anti-terrorism court sentenced Baloch and Sibghatullah Shahji to life imprisonment. They were convicted under section 302 (murder) of the Pakistan Penal Code and section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997. The case is linked to the killing of a paramilitary soldier during the protests in Gwadar in July 2024. Both activists boycotted the proceedings, and their lawyers have said they will appeal the verdict to the higher courts. The BYC called the ruling “judicial tyranny”. Greta Thunberg, a Swedish activist, criticized the proceedings, calling the trial a “mockery of justice” carried out “in utter secrecy”.

In court proceedings, prosecutors did not charge Baloch for being directly responsible for the soldier’s death. Rather, they stated that she had incited the protest by organizing and leading it. Records of the court also revealed inconsistencies in police documentation, including conflicting dates of the incident. Amnesty International and the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan have expressed concerns about the fairness of the trial. Limited access to legal counsel and video-link hearings were mentioned. The Pakistani government, however, says the case is related to “Violence against security personnel during the course of their duties.”

The case also poses general legal questions. Article 16 of Pakistan’s Constitution guarantees the right to peaceful assembly. This right may be subject to some restrictions to protect public order. Pakistan has also ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which guarantees freedom of assembly. But allows justifiable and necessary restrictions for security purposes. In areas like Balochistan, with prolonged security operations and insurgencies. Implementing these principles presents practical challenges.

This is the dilemma of the Balochistan province. The Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances has recorded around 2,700 disappearance cases from the province since 2011. Rights groups believe the actual number is higher because many cases go unreported or lack documentation. Meanwhile, government officials state that many registered cases have been resolved. The situation mirrors patterns seen elsewhere. In Iran, Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi was sentenced to 31 years’ imprisonment after campaigning for rights. Baloch’s case is not the only one that has been linked to accusations of activism and questions of judicial process. In both cases, the state used legal measures for a longer period to silence continued political activity.

Therefore, the debate goes beyond the judgment of one court. It is about the boundaries that states set between peaceful political expression and acts that they deem to be a threat to public security. Some analysts believe that a heavy focus on security measures could leave little room for political participation, while others say security measures are needed to keep public order intact. The legal significance of this case also extends beyond one individual. The result can have implications for people’s views of justice and their expectations of legal and political avenues of grievance. More generally, the balance of security concerns and legal protections in Balochistan could influence trust in legal institutions.

Edraak is our newsletter that honours the Muslim world’s diversity, reflected in the multitude of its socio-economic conditions and political institutions spanning across the continents. Traced back to its Arabic origins, إدراك encompasses timely and thorough insights into the developments of the Muslim-majority countries.

We organise the Muslim-majority countries into four zones as per their current conditions of conflict, transition, stability, and development.

The Four Zones

Zone I: Experiencing War, Conflict, Oppression, Genocide

UN finds Niger’s detention of civil society leader Moussa Tiangari arbitrary

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention ruled on 23 June that Moussa Tiangari, secretary general of Alternative Espaces Citoyens and a prominent junta critic, has been unlawfully detained since his arrest on 3 December 2024. Charged with “terrorism apology” and “plotting against state authority through collaboration with enemy powers,” he was held incommunicado for two days before being located at Niger’s Central Service for Combating Terrorism. The UN called for immediate release, reparations, and an independent investigation into his detention. Niger’s junta has simultaneously stripped a second exiled opposition leader of citizenship this month. Tiangari’s detention sits at the centre of a pattern: civil society targeted by the same apparatus deployed against terrorists, because the junta finds them equally threatening.

Mali: 38 civilians killed by the army and militias since April

HRW’s 28 June report documents that since JNIM and the FLA’s coordinated April offensive, Malian armed forces and Dozo ethnic militias have killed at least 38 civilians, including 23 children, in counterinsurgency operations. Soldiers have also killed 31 Fulani civilians in Sarkala Werè village, burned homes, and looted 700 animals; satellite imagery confirmed 25 burned huts. The army also conducted two apparent drone strikes killing 22 people, including 12 children and teenagers. JNIM separately killed civilians and burned vehicles. JNIM announced a “total siege” of Bamako on 28 April; schools have been closed. Equating community identity with insurgent affiliation has been Mali’s operating counterinsurgency doctrine for years. Its consequence is a civilian population absorbing lethal violence from every direction: jihadist groups, state forces, Russian Africa Corps fighters, and ethnic militias. Impunity is not an institutional failure in Mali; it is institutional design.

Zone II: Transition toward Peace and Stability

Chad: N’Djamena Crackdown Nets 29 Suspects

Chad’s National Police announced the identities of 29 individuals arrested in coordinated N’Djamena raids between May 15 and June 1, on charges spanning weapons trafficking, aggravated robbery, and illegal immigration. Authorities framed it as ordinary law enforcement but it is worth watching against the backdrop of Chad’s broader pattern. The same weeks saw opposition leader Succès Masra convicted on incitement charges tied to intercommunal violence, and September’s constitutional amendments stripped presidential term limits. In a state where “criminal” and “political” prosecutions increasingly blur, routine-sounding crackdowns deserve scrutiny for whether due process, not just public order, is being served.

Gambia: Peacebuilding Week Wraps, Claims Progress

The UN and Gambian government closed a joint Global Peacebuilding Week (June 22–26), spotlighting gains in social cohesion, democratic governance, and transitional justice since the Jammeh era. A documentary premiere and youth-focused events anchored the celebration. The framing is notable, running alongside quieter but harder-edged stories the same week: a corruption inquiry into a former Army Chief, contested handling of forfeited Jammeh-era land, and unresolved questions about who benefits from transitional justice mechanisms. The optics of progress and the substance of institutional accountability aren’t yet the same thing.

Zone III: Stable but Economically Struggling

Sihem Bensedrine, 75, sentenced to 25 years on 26 June for her work running Tunisia’s Truth and Dignity Commission

A Tunis court sentenced Sihem Bensedrine, former president of the IVD, Tunisia’s transitional justice commission, to 25 years in prison on 26 June, on charges of fraud, forgery, and abuse of office. The charges relate to her work documenting human rights violations committed between 1955 and 2011. Amnesty International was denied entry to both trial hearings on 18 and 25 June, despite the trial being public. Bensedrine was arrested in August 2024, released on bail in February 2025 after a hunger strike, and convicted four months later. HRW’s Bassam Khawaja described the sentence as reflecting “the cruelty of Saied’s government to strangle human rights.”

Pakistan Punjab’s Habitual Offenders Bill 2026: an attempt to revive the Colonial Criminal Tribal Act of 1871

The Punjab government of Pakistan withdrew the Punjab Control of Habitual Offenders and Anti-Social Behaviour Bill 2026 on 1 July after a wave of opposition from PTI, HRCP, lawyers, and civil society. The bill would have empowered District Intelligence Committees to declare individuals “habitual offenders” based on arrests, not convictions, and authorised freezing bank accounts, blocking national identity cards, confiscating phones, removing online content, and placing individuals under continuous electronic surveillance. Spreading “false news on social media” was classified as anti-social behaviour. The Speaker had halted passage on 28 June after learning the bill was tabled without his knowledge. Dawn’s analysis traced it directly to the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871.

Zone IV: Developed or Emerging Economies with Peace and Stability

Qatar ranked No. 1 in the region and among the world’s best in the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook 2026

Qatar was ranked first in the Arab world and among the top global performers in the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook 2026, which was announced on June 24. Produced by Switzerland’s Institute for Management Development, the ranking assesses 67 economies across economic performance, government efficiency, business efficiency, and infrastructure. Taxation is a major thread running through that performance. Qatar levies no personal income tax, no consumption tax, no capital or property taxes, and no social security contributions on expats. This light-touch tax burden feeds directly into the ranking’s other headline numbers: the world’s lowest unemployment, high disposable income, and strong entrepreneurship (4th globally). It’s a clean case study in minimal taxation correlating with capital inflows, business formation, and worker retention, though one that rests heavily on hydrocarbon revenue substituting for tax income, rather than fiscal restraint alone.

Turkey: Law No. 7582 Opens a 20-Year Tax Door

Published in Turkey’s Official Gazette last month, Law No. 7582 marks the country’s boldest tax liberalization in years. New residents who haven’t been Turkish tax residents for three years can now shield foreign-source income and capital gains from tax for 20 years. Manufacturing exporters see corporate tax cut to 9%, other exporters to 14%, down from 25%. Inheritance tax for qualifying individuals drops to a flat 1%, and the Istanbul Financial Center’s incentive window stretches to 2047, a genuine bid to loosen the state’s grip on capital and talent amid lira weakness.

Article Pick

Jonathan Cook

Islam vs the West: The four biggest fallacies about Islam explained

A recent conversation with a friend highlighted to me how little most westerners know about Islam, and how they struggle to distinguish between Islam and Islamism. This lack of knowledge, cultivated in the West to keep us fearful and supportive of Israel, creates the very conditions that originally provoked ideological extremism in the Middle East and u…

Read more

8 months ago · 581 likes · 208 comments · Jonathan Cook

By all accounts, it was an institutional event, a formal gathering with a global affairs journal, a transactional group, and an official paper. However, no one in the room questioned the larger question it presented. Who genuinely influences the way 1.9 billion Muslims perceive themselves and their faith.

Institutions have a compelling argument. The infrastructure of religious life has historically been governed by states, seminaries, and organizations such as the Muslim World League. This includes who trains imams, whose curricula are taught in schools, and which interpretations are preached in churches. According to research presented in May 2026 at Stanford’s Center on Democracy. Developments and the Rule of Law, historical Islamic empires established systems in which rulers derived legitimacy through religion, consolidating political authority through the empowerment of clerics and religious institutions. This pattern continues to this day.

The most obvious example in the modern era is still Saudi Arabia. One of the most significant institutional identity-shaping initiatives of the previous fifty years has been its financing of religious instruction and mosque construction throughout Indonesia, West Africa, and South Asia. Because Saudi Arabia is the center of Islam and the Arabic language, it has the power to establish religious norms that Muslims all around the globe have embraced. Global repercussions occur when Riyadh changes its religious focus, as it has under Vision 2030.

However, the field is not exclusive to institutions anymore. According to a leading interpretation of the Islamic revival, Muslim Identity has seen a significant metamorphosis from regionally based tradition via state-attempted secular modernisation to the renewal of a global Muslim identity. Interestingly, the same modernisation that nations employed to control religion provided common Muslims with access to judicial knowledge that was previously unheard of.

This is more evident in the digital realm than anywhere else. Every day, more than 83% of Muslims in the UAE utilise apps for prayer and an Islamic lifestyle. With over 150 million downloads, well-known applications like Muslim Pro and Athan Pro offer digital spiritual mentoring and AI-integrated Quranic study aids. Encoded digital venues are enabling theological contemplation and social discourse that is not feasible within mosques in areas where state censors keep an eye on public remarks. Here, the process of religious identification is bottom-up rather than top-down.

Social media influencers and online scholars now compete directly with traditional mosque and seminary structures for religious authority, creating new “virtual ummahs” that cross borders and local constraints. A young Muslim in Lahore, Lagos, or London can access a scholar in Cairo, a debate in Jakarta, and a fatwa from an AI platform.

In her Stanford study presentation, Alice Evans hypothesised what she terms a “Prestige-Piety Feedback Loop” in which mass education and communication technologies strengthened rather than diminished the societal impact of religious authority and norms. The internet increased the number of institutions competing for institutional power rather than eradicating it.

This is what makes the question challenging. In the Muslim world, identity is formed by the competition between institutions and ideas rather than by these things themselves. Declarations are made by states. Imams are trained by scholars. Fatwas are delivered via apps. Congregations are built by influencers. Each is asserting its right to define what it means to be a Muslim in the twenty-first century.

Some Muslim thinkers have opposed the Makkah Declaration because “it’s based on a Western template,” a critique that points to the deeper anxiety beneath every institutional framework. Whose Islam? Shaped by whom? In the service of what? These are not theological abstractions. They are live political contests, fought every day in classrooms, on screens, and in the silence between a believer and their conscience.

The institution can build the mosque. It cannot control what happens inside the mind that prays there.

Saudi Arabia had unveiled the Manara Robot at Islam’s holiest site, designed to answer Sharia-related questions in eleven languages, Arabic, Urdu, Bengali, Hausa, and more, drawing on an integrated, pre-verified database of religious rulings. For questions beyond its database, it offers a video call with a live scholar. The robot is draped in Islamic decorative motifs, its 21-inch touchscreen a fusion of heritage and high technology.

That scene at the Haram quietly highlights a transformation spreading across the Muslim world.

For over a millennium, Islamic religious authority has flowed through a recognizable chain: the Quran, the Hadith, qualified jurists trained in ijtihad (independent legal reasoning), and the community that trusts them. A fatwa was never simply an answer; it was the product of a living scholar’s moral insight, contextual judgment, and spiritual accountability.

Artificial intelligence threatens to flatten that chain. Egypt’s Dar al-Ifta launched FatwaPro in 2022, a smart app fielding religious inquiries from Muslims in the West. By 2024, it had handled 6,740 fatwas, over half issued that year alone. More than sixty percent of questions touched on marriage, divorce, and gender roles. Dubai’s “Virtual Ifta” service, launched as far back as 2019, was one of the first AI-based platforms to issue Islamic rulings via chat. Indonesia, the world’s sixth-largest user of ChatGPT, has seen millions of Muslims turn to AI for religious guidance before ever reaching a human scholar.

Behind every AI fatwa is a dataset, and behind every dataset is a set of choices about what counts as authoritative Islam. Those choices are made by engineers, governments, and institutions, not by open scholarly consensus.

A 2025 evaluation of Islamic-oriented chatbots found significant methodological failures, including misattributed Quranic verses, fabricated hadith references, and a near-total absence of consistent juristic frameworks. Responses, critics note, “reflect algorithmic biases and fail to address the nuanced differences in individual circumstances that are often decisive in Islamic rulings.”

This is not a technical glitch. It is a structural problem. Scholars at the International Islamic Fiqh Academy and Al-Azhar have argued unanimously that AI cannot replace a faqih, a human jurist, because issuing a fatwa requires taqwa (God-consciousness), waqi’ (situational understanding), and a life of accumulated moral formation. An algorithm has none of these.

As one Islamic law blog noted, AI raises “provocative questions about the nature of religious authority and the legitimacy of AI-generated fatwas”, questions that touch the very architecture of how Muslims relate to God, community, and law.

For societies that already concentrate religious authority in state institutions, AI adds another layer of control, one that is invisible, scalable, and difficult to contest.

When a government-backed body pre-loads an AI with approved rulings, the algorithm becomes a tool of ideological consolidation. Dissenting interpretations are not banned; they are simply absent from the database. As researchers have observed, if AI platforms erode public trust in living scholars, they may gradually eliminate the very figures who historically served as buffers between state power and individual conscience.

Independent ulama have long been the Muslim world’s quiet check on political authority. Replace them with a robot trained on state-approved data, and that check disappears, not by decree, but by default.

The worshipper in Mecca who approached the Manara Robot was not surrendering her faith. She was seeking convenience. But the question of whose knowledge shapes that machine and whether she is free to seek an answer from somewhere else entirely is a question about liberty as much as theology.

Algorithms cannot yet issue fatwas. But they are already shaping which questions get asked, which answers feel authoritative, and which voices disappear from the conversation. That is power. And in the Muslim world, as everywhere, power without accountability is its own kind of danger.

Since April 2023, the conflict between the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has destroyed basic infrastructure across the country, including schools, hospitals, and community spaces. The result is a system struggling to survive. Where learning itself has become an exception rather than a norm. An estimated 8 million children are out of school across Sudan. According to UN agencies, around 13 million out of 17 million children are out of school, including both enrolled students unable to attend and those who were never registered in the first place.

Overall, over 10,400 schools closed in at least eight states, including Khartoum, Kordofan and Darfur. Nearly 171 schools have also been transformed into emergency shelters for displaced populations, rather than educational institutions. This is not a temporary pause. It is a prolonged rupture in childhood. More than 1,000 days of conflict have already passed, and UNICEF stated that Sudan is experiencing one of the longest and most severe school shutdowns in recent history. It does not require that learning stop instead, it gradually disappears.

In East Darfur, one of Sudan’s poorest regions, over 1.3 million people live under long-term conflict and deprivation. Over half are children, but only approximately 52% of girls and 52.6% of boys are enrolled in school. That translates to approximately 207,376 school-age children out of school in one state alone. These are not just statistics. They point to a wider structural failure. The crisis is also compounded by existing fragility. Even before the war, Sudan’s education system was struggling. Many children were already out of school because of poverty, instability and the impact of COVID-19. At the beginning of the conflict, approximately 6.4 million children had their learning disrupted and suspended when schools were forced to close early. UNICEF has warned clearly: “Education is not a secondary need; it is lifesaving.”

Now, generations of children have lost years of education. Save the Children cautions that extended closures are resulting in “years they can never get back,” as children lose essential learning, impacting their future livelihoods and stability. Meanwhile, the educational system is in the worst crisis of its history. Teachers in 10 states have received only partial salaries since the start of the war, while in at least 8 states, teachers have not been paid at all. Schools can’t run without teachers, regardless of their buildings. This brings to mind a difficult question: Does a nation have the power to reshape its future without supporting its teachers and its children being unseen?

Nevertheless, the humanitarian programmes are continuing to support learning through school feeding, supplies, psychosocial support and teacher training. However, only a small number of children receive these interventions. Funding is also severely constrained, with only a small fraction of the required resources allocated to support education for millions of people, even after several humanitarian appeals.

The question is, what is being left behind when an entire generation is out of school? For children themselves, the crisis is deeply personal. Sudanese student Ibrahim says: “I still hope that one day the situation will be good in Sudan and war will stop… we will go back to our universities.”

A state with vague domestic law can easily invoke citizenship, even when it sits in tension with international human rights law. This constitutes only a violation of an international obligation, one with a weak enforcement mechanism but significant human consequences.

Bahrain’s recent revocation of citizenship is a case in point. On April 27, 2026, Bahrain revoked the citizenship of 69 people of Shia Iranian descent, leaving them stateless and attempting to expel them to Iran. The government accused them of sympathising with Iran and colluding with foreign entities. The revocation was carried out under Article 10/3 of Bahrain’s citizenship law, by royal directive of King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa. Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD) and Human Rights Watch condemned the move.

Within days of the directive, officials summoned the male head of each affected family and confiscated their identification documents. Families were then forced to sign documents acknowledging the revocation and agreeing to leave; one man who refused was beaten. Authorities then issued travel documents and forced families to purchase tickets to Iran via Turkey, but Turkish authorities refused them entry. A second attempt routed some families through Azerbaijan, where they were held in hotels before being sent on to Oman. Ali Abdulnabi, 31, expelled with his wife and newborn daughter and now seeking asylum in Europe, said: “I have no connection to Iran. I am not a supporter of Iran.”

What made this expulsion possible is the statutory framework behind it. Article 10/3 of the Bahraini Nationality Law permits revocation of citizenship for “causing harm to the interests of the Kingdom or acting in a manner that contradicts the duty of loyalty to it.” The law does not specify what exactly constitutes such harm or disloyalty, creating a loophole that makes enforcement straightforward. Subsequent amendments compounded this: a 2019 change allowed revocation by cabinet decision alone, without a royal decree, while a 2024 decree removed judicial oversight entirely, classifying such decisions as “sovereign acts” immune from appeal. As a result, the 69 individuals affected in April had no charge brought against them, no hearing, and no avenue to contest the decision.

This same vagueness puts Bahrain’s actions in tension with its international treaty obligations. Article 12(4) of the ICCPR, which Bahrain has ratified, states that no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country. The UN Human Rights Committee has interpreted “his own country” to extend beyond formal nationality, meaning the provision can apply even to those stripped of citizenship. Separately, Article 29 of the Arab Charter on Human Rights, also ratified by Bahrain, states that no citizen may be deprived of nationality without a legally valid reason. Given the vagueness of Article 10/3’s own wording, what counts as a “legally valid reason” remains unclear.

Nor is this an isolated use of that vagueness. Between 2012 and 2019, Bahrain stripped at least 990 people of their citizenship, according to BIRD. The 2026 action was the first since then; in the interim, judicial oversight was removed and the practice redefined as a “sovereign act” beyond appeal. It was also unusual in composition: of the 69 people affected, 46 were rendered stateless, including 33 children, 10 of them toddlers, the youngest 19 days old.

The practice is not confined to Bahrain, either. According to the Clingendael Institute, 11 of 15 Middle Eastern political orders are classified as authoritarian, including the Gulf’s rentier monarchies. The New York Times reports that mass citizenship revocation has become especially prevalent among these states — Kuwait, for instance, has stripped tens of thousands of people of citizenship in recent years.

Where the standard for revocation is vague, so too is the limit on its use.

In recent years, many Kenyan domestic workers have immigrated to the Gulf nations, especially Saudi Arabia. This trend is shaped by the labour demand and ongoing economic challenges in Kenya. In East Africa, Kenya is considered one of the key labour-sending countries to Saudi Arabia. According to migration reports, more than 150,000 Kenyan domestic workers, mostly women, are working in the Gulf. Recent national data has found the youth unemployment rate to exceed 60%. Around 40% of Kenyans are living in poverty. Due to these conditions, labour migration becomes a means of livelihood. The remittance inflows to Kenya from Saudi Arabia have grown substantially over the past few years, and this is seen as one of the sources of income for many households.

According to reports, domestic work in the Gulf is predominantly a kafala-sponsored form of employment. In this system, the legal status of a worker is usually tied to their employer. This setup can decrease job mobility and make it harder for employees to leave a job without the employer’s consent. In practice, this structure has been linked to the power imbalance between workers and employers. Specifically for domestic workers in private household services. It is not a new phenomenon, but instead, it has been an ongoing pattern. The Kenyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs has admitted the deaths of at least 89 Kenyan nationals in Saudi Arabia since 2020, many of whom were domestic workers. According Kenya news outlets, over 274 workers, mostly women, died in Saudi Arabia in the last 5 years. But detailed, publicly available data is scarce, and the causes of death are frequently classified as ‘natural’ in official records. Migrant workers do not all have the same experience, and this can vary considerably by employer, recruitment agency and legal status.

According to investigative studies, some Kenyan domestic workers in the Gulf countries have suffered physical, verbal, and, in some instances, sexual abuse. According to a lawyer at Kituo cha Sheria, a legal aid organisation, “This is a matter of grave public interest.” Concerns have also been raised regarding access to institutional support mechanisms. Advocacy organisations reported that some workers who requested consular assistance were denied timely protection and safe accommodation. Many workers reported that there was only one Kenyan embassy in Riyadh, and it was far away from other cities in Saudi Arabia. The limited mobility also made it difficult for workers to report abuse or mistreatment.

At the policy level, Saudi Arabia has made various reforms over the last few years. In 2021, the Labour Reform Initiative (LRI) extended some mobility rights to certain categories of migrant workers, including the circumstances for changing employment. Subsequent regulations in 2023 included provisions related to wages, rest days, and electronic wage protection systems. In 2025, a national policy aimed at addressing forced labour was introduced. Research assessments indicate, however, that enforcement is inconsistent, especially for domestic workers who are not always covered by general labour law.

If migration is increasingly promoted as a solution to unemployment and economic hardship, then an important question arises: are workers receiving the protection and support they need? The data available does not lead to a single conclusion. However, it does suggest that economic opportunity alone may not be enough. The long-term success of labour migration requires effective oversight, support systems, and regular implementation of labour rights protections for those who undertake this migration.

Under Prime Minister Modi, India has shifted from a traditionally pro-Palestinian stance and a focus on relations with Iran, Turkey, and other Gulf nations to a more explicit strategic normalization with Israel. The motivations for this shift, the broader geopolitical context, and the potential consequences have significantly influenced domestic minority politics. This is particularly evident among Indian Muslim communities, especially Shia Muslims, who seek continued relevance given Iran’s religious and ideological significance. As a result, external crises increasingly shape domestic politics and policy, particularly when the sentiments, expressions, and visibility of Indian Muslims are viewed with suspicion.

India’s internal politics are analyzed through the interactions among governance, foreign policy, Muslim political subjectivity, and economic vulnerability. A central issue is how geopolitical developments translate external crises into daily tests of loyalty, concepts of ‘good citizenship,’ and permissible expressions of grief for Muslim communities. Ahmed (2022) highlights the widening gap between formal citizenship and lived belonging for Indian Muslims, describing a constitutional and political environment in which Muslims are citizens by law but remain contingent in practice.

The increase in anti-minority hate speech has positioned Indian Muslims at the intersection of geopolitics, identity, and democratic exclusion. Local responses by Indian Muslims to violence in the West Bank and Gaza have intensified political instability and anxiety. In Kerala, pro-Palestinian protests have raised concerns about humanitarian issues and human rights violations; however, such demonstrations have led to investigation, criminalization, and surveillance, rendering public Muslim solidarity both visible and vulnerable (Nazir 2024).

Similarly, the Israel/US-Iran conflict has influenced political anxieties and expressions, further widening the gap between formal citizenship and lived belonging for Indian Muslims. Such political anxieties depended on the government’s Citizenship (Amendment) Act (2019). Despite such anxieties, the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (2019) movement demonstrated that Muslims continue to engage with constitutional language through protest, public performance, and civic solidarity.

Besides, the Israel/US-Iran conflict caused a political economy of insecurity that impacted Indian minorities, particularly those concentrated in informal employment, self-employment, insecure housing, and Gulf-linked remittance networks.

The Shift in Modi’s Foreign Policy

Modi’s foreign policy has shifted toward explicit strategic normalization with Israel, while simultaneously seeking to strengthen bilateral relations with Israel, Gulf regimes, and Iran, independent of the Palestinian question that previously shaped West Asia policy. In 2019, the Modi government altered the tone and public visibility of India’s regional diplomacy, yet maintained the overarching framework of strategic autonomy and multi-alignment (Rather 2025). Modi’s visit to Israel in February 2026, immediately preceding the war, signaled mutual agreement to intensify defense cooperation and pursue a free trade agreement. Consequently, India and Israel publicly affirmed their strategic partnership, whereas Iran’s role in India’s foreign policy and planning remains trade-dominated. India-Israel bilateral trade reached 3.75 billion in 2024-25 (Ministry of External Affair, February 2026), compared to India-Iran bilateral trade at 1.68 billion in 2024-25 (Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, May 2024).

Although the India-Iran partnership has not been entirely diminished, the hierarchy of partnerships has shifted. The current emphasis is on connectivity and continental energy access, rather than defense or cultural cooperation. India continues to underscore the importance of Chabahar, having signed a 10-year contract to equip and operate the Shahid Behesti terminal, reaffirmed in 2026. Sanctions on Iran persist as a significant risk to the project. Despite these risks, Chabahar represents a symbolic partnership in which Iran remains indispensable. Israel cannot replace Iran’s geo-strategic role in Afghanistan, Central Asia, and overland connectivity.

In the broader framework, India’s policy does not represent a transition from Iran to Israel; rather, it reflects a narrowed, infrastructure-focused relationship with Iran alongside a more publicly celebrated partnership with Israel. This dual approach influences domestic politics and policy, as Israel’s prominent relationship is viewed with apprehension by Muslim communities in light of the ongoing Gaza genocide, Israel’s attack on Lebanon, and the Israel-Iran war.

During the conflict involving Israel, the United States, and Iran, India has maintained a balanced diplomatic stance, consistently advocating for restraint and diplomacy in the Israel-Iran confrontation. However, India did not endorse the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s June 2025 statement condemning Israel attach on Iran (Parashar, 2025). As a result, India’s policy remains dehyphenated in doctrine but increasingly uneven in public signaling, defense cooperation, and ideological alignment. India’s approach, including statements against violence toward Palestinians and human rights violations affecting Muslims, has generated anxiety among local Muslim communities and reinforced sentiments of “othering” (Said 2016).

Citizenship without Belonging- Indian Muslims

Religious and emotional responses among Muslims have increased markedly over the past five years since Shaheen Bagh Protest 2019 against the he Citizenship (Amendment) Act, prompting critical examination of legal exclusion and the precarious status of Muslim citizenship. The Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019 intensified the sense of otherness by granting religion-based fast-track citizenship to non-Muslims from neighboring countries, thereby excluding persecuted Muslims and reinforcing strict documentary requirements, policing, and discrimination. Thus, the legality of the CAA accentuates the perception that Muslim belonging is subject to adjudication rather than presumption. As a result of these legislative measures, widened the gap between formal citizenship and a sense of belonging in their own nation.

Muslim political representation remains disproportionately low relative to demographic presence, thereby weakening democratic participation. The social geography of safety is evolving, where Muslim communities are increasingly compelled to reside in segregated environments, not due to citizenship-based security, but because such segregated spaces are derived from social protection, economic engagement, and political marginalization. These spatially segregated areas prioritize safety and social protection over convenience or infrastructure quality. Thus, when formally equal citizens experience unequal geographies of risk, genuine belonging becomes an elusive prospect, and citizenship is experienced as socially conditional.

In 2024, anti-minority hate speech increased by 74% compared to 2023 (Singh, 2025), contributing to its normalization in public discourse and further marginalization of Muslim communities. Digital platforms have also become increasingly hostile, intensifying anxiety, amplifying rumors, and generating pervasive insecurity that extends into educational, professional, and electoral environments. Thus, anti-Muslim hate sentiments are normalized in both electoral and non-electoral contexts and rooted in the sense of ‘otherness.’

West Asia Politics and Contested Indian Muslim Solidarity

Indian Muslim responses to the US/Israel and Iran 2026 war should be conceptualized as mediated solidarity rather than straightforward identification. This mediation is influenced by factors such as theology, secularism, and regional context. Notably, protests against the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were organized in Delhi, Hyderabad, Jammu, and Lucknow. Protesters raised anti-US and anti-Israel slogans, carried portraits of Khameni, and performed rituals including marsiya recitation. The All India Shia Personal Law Board declared three days of national mourning, and black flags were displayed at mosques throughout Uttar Pradesh. Kashmir has historically been known as “Iran-e-Sagheer,” or “little Iran,” reflecting centuries of religious, cultural, artistic, and linguistic ties with Iran. Protesters viewed Iran as embodying a profound civilizational connection. As a result, Khamenei was regarded not only as a contemporary political leader but also as a figure of moral, religious, and cultural significance (Masood, 2026). The protests led to the detention of more than 200 individuals, particularly Muslims, and the imposition of internet and movement restrictions in Kashmir. They heightened security in Delhi and Hyderabad due to the overlap of Holi and Ramzan.

The protest also exemplified counter-geopolitical citizenship. While protesters do not directly influence India’s foreign policy, they contest the moral legitimacy of US-Israel military power from public spaces in India, such as Jantar Mantar, Imambaras, mosques, and public squares. These venues function as alternative diplomatic arenas where ordinary citizens articulate grassroots foreign policy positions.

The anti-war protest, associated rituals, and expressions of Muslim political sentiment within a constrained public sphere should not be interpreted solely as pro-Iran demonstrations. The killing of Khameni revealed a significant gap between formal citizenship and lived belonging among Indian Muslims. While Indian Muslims possess the formal right to protest, their public expressions of solidarity with events in West Asia are frequently met with suspicion, surveillance, and security interventions. Such emotion and political marginalization are derived from the existing anti-muslim sentiments. The restrictions imposed in Kashmir, increased policing of diplomatic zones in Delhi, and heightened scrutiny of online content illustrate the domestic securitization of global Muslim grief (Masood, 2026).

Moreover, the government adopted a cautious stance, refraining from issuing an official statement on Israel/US-Iran until the protests had spread across Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh. This approach was perceived as a strategic balancing act, given India’s significant defense and technology ties with Israel and the US, as well as its energy, connectivity, diaspora, and civilizational interests in Iran and the Gulf (Anshuman & Rashid, March 2026).

Consequently, the protest revealed a deeper democratic tension; even though citizens possess formal citizenship, their emotional and political identification with global Muslim suffering is frequently viewed with suspicion. The killing of Khamenei produced not only a geopolitical rupture in West Asia but also a domestic atmosphere of anxiety, surveillance, and contested belonging within India.

Political Economy of Insecurity- Oil Shock, Remittance, and Indian Muslims

The protest is also connected to economic anxieties, as indicated by Owaisi’s remarks concerning oil prices, Indian workers in West Asia, and remittances. He condemned the killing of Khamenei and cautioned that instability in West Asia would have direct economic consequences for India, particularly through rising oil prices and disruptions to remittances from Indian workers (Times News Network, 2026).

Following the Iran-Israel war of 2026, issues such as rising fuel prices, weakened Gulf economies, threats to Indian workers abroad, and reduced remittances have directly impacted everyday livelihood security. India receives 70% of its oil from West Asia and the Strait of Hormuz (Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas, 2026). The conflict involving Iran increased oil and gas prices, widened India’s import bill, and threatened inflation and economic growth. These effects have permeated daily life through higher transport costs, increased LPG cylinder prices, rising petrol and diesel prices, and mounting pressure on small businesses.

Anxiety among Indian Muslims intensified because a larger proportion of Muslim workers are self-employed and underrepresented in salaried public and private sector employment. The fuel price shock directly affects their profit margins, mobility, and household consumption. Inflation and fuel price shocks are not merely abstract macroeconomic indicators; they directly reduce income and consumption. Moreover, if Gulf economies experience a slowdown, leading to reduced demand for migrant labor, disrupted shipping, or uncertain remittance flows, Muslim households with Gulf connections may face additional economic pressure. Thus, the war imposes an indirect minority cost: a burden that is not officially communal but is socially differentiated.

The protest addressed both moral and economic issues, condemning US-Israel military power while also expressing concerns about the fragile economic lifeline that connects Indian Muslim families to the Gulf. Consequently, the war shifted the global solidarity of the Muslim community into a domestic conversation focused on livelihood security, minority vulnerability, and contested citizenship.

Conclusion

The Israel/US-Iran war of 2026 illustrates how geopolitical crises affect not only foreign policy but also the everyday experiences of minority communities through emotions, suspicion, discourse, and economic insecurity. For Indian Muslims, this conflict is not just a distant event in West Asia; it is a domestic issue that raises important questions about belonging, loyalty, and democratic participation. While Indian Muslims have formal citizenship, their ability to express grief and solidarity is limited. Political criticism and concern are increasingly influenced by a majoritarian public sphere that often views Muslim emotions with suspicion. India’s shift from a historically balanced engagement with Iran, Palestine, and the Arab world to a celebrated strategic alignment with Israel heightens these anxieties. This diplomatic shift also carries significant symbolic implications within India’s domestic politics.

For many Indian Muslims, the growing diplomatic ties with Israel, along with restrictions on showing support for Palestine and the rise of anti-minority rhetoric, are seen as part of a larger shift that marginalizes both the political and emotional spheres of the Muslim community. As a result, the sense of belonging among Muslims is once again challenged during a global crisis. This situation raises ongoing questions about whether Indian Muslims can freely exercise their citizenship rights—such as protesting, speaking out, mourning, and seeking justice—without feeling the need to prove their loyalty constantly. The Israel-U.S. conflict with Iran reflects Indian democracy, illustrating how minority rights are upheld not only by law but also by the broader political environment in which these rights are exercised.

References:

Ahmed, H. (2022). New India, Hindutva constitutionalism, and Muslim political attitudes. Studies in Indian Politics, 10(1), 62–78. https://doi.org/10.1177/23210230221082833

Anshuman, K., & Rashid, H. I. (2026, March 2). Ayatollah Ali Khamenei death: Protests in J&K, Delhi & UP; BJP stays mum. The Economic Times. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/india/ayatollah-ali-khamenei-death-protests-in-jk-delhi-up-bjp-stays-mum/articleshow/128926131.cms

The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, No. 47 of 2019, The Gazette of India, Extraordinary, Part II, Section 1 (2019). https://indiancitizenshiponline.nic.in/Documents/UserGuide/E-gazette_2019_20122019.pdf

Masood, B. (2026, March 1). Behind Khamenei killing protests in Kashmir, its centuries-old ties with Iran. The Indian Express. https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-history/khamenei-killing-protests-kashmir-iran-ties-10559607/

Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India. (2026a, February). India–Israel bilateral relations. https://www.mea.gov.in/Portal/ForeignRelation/Israel_February_2026_1_.pdf

Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India. (2026b, March 9). Suo motu statement by EAM Dr. S. Jaishankar in Rajya Sabha on “The Situation in West Asia” (March 09, 2026). https://www.mea.gov.in/Speeches-Statements.htm?dtl%2F40863%2FSuo_Motu_Statementby_EAM_Dr_S_Jaishankar_in_Rajya_Sabha_on_The_Situation_in_West_Asia_March_09_2026=

Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas, Government of India. (2026, March 11). Inter-ministerial briefing held on recent developments in West Asia: 70% of India’s crude imports now routed outside Strait of Hormuz; energy supplies remain secure. Press Information Bureau. https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2238525&reg=3&lang=1

Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, Government of India. (2024, May 13). Long-term main contract for development of Shahid Beheshti Port Terminal, Chabahar signed between India Port Global Limited (IPGL) and Ports and Maritime Organization (PMO) of Iran. Press Information Bureau. https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2020454

Nazir, I. A. (2024). Kerala and the Gaza crisis: Solidarity, politics, and media responses. Contemporary Review of the Middle East, 11(4), 466–491. https://doi.org/10.1177/23477989241289686

Parashar, S. (2025, June 15). Government abandons SCO statement condemning Israel. The Times of India. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/government-abandons-sco-statement-condemning-israel/articleshow/121854544.cms

Rather, A. A. (2025). Considering how India’s Middle East policy has changed and remained consistent since 2019 under the Modi government. Journal of Asian and African Studies, 60(4), 2515–2526. https://doi.org/10.1177/00219096231218446

Said, E. W. (2016). Orientalism. In W. Longhofer & D. Winchester (Eds.), Social theory re-wired: New connections to classical and contemporary perspectives (2nd ed., pp. 402–417). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315775357-43

Singh, K. (2025, February 10). Anti-minority hate speech in India rose by 74% in 2024, research group says. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/india/anti-minority-hate-speech-india-rose-by-74-2024-research-group-says-2025-02-10/

Times News Network. (2026, March 2). Urge Centre to condemn Khamenei’s killing: Asad. The Times of India. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/urge-centre-to-condemn-khameneis-killing-asad/articleshow/128925333.cms

Edraak is our newsletter that honours the Muslim world’s diversity, reflected in the multitude of its socio-economic conditions and political institutions spanning across the continents. Traced back to its Arabic origins, إدراك encompasses timely and thorough insights into the developments of the Muslim-majority countries.

We organise the Muslim-majority countries into four zones as per their current conditions of conflict, transition, stability, and development.

Subscribe now

Zone I: Experiencing War, Conflict, Oppression, Genocide

Palestine: Israel escalates Silwan demolitions, eviction process compressed from five years to 45 days

Israeli authorities have demolished over 50 homes in East Jerusalem’s Silwan district since October 7, 2023. In March and April of 2026, over 145 residents, including 52 children, were displaced. Of 587 total Palestinians displaced since October 7, a quarter were displaced during the Iran war. Over 2,000 more face displacement in what Ir Amim calls potentially the largest wave of East Jerusalem expulsions since 1967. A resident told HRW proceedings now take 45 days; a lawyer said sometimes one working day. One family was barred from retrieving their gold and cash from a property being demolished. The ICJ confirmed this constitutes a forcible transfer prohibited under the Fourth Geneva Convention. Impunity is the operating condition, not the exception.

Zone II: Transition toward Peace and Stability

Syria: Mob Justice in Assad-Era Crackdown

Protests demanding accountability for Assad-era crimes spread across Aleppo, Idlib, Deir Ezzor, Raqqa, and Damascus, turning violent against Alawi communities. What began as legitimate demands quickly turned into vigilante attacks on Alawi communities. Alawi communities are the religious minority historically associated with Assad’s regime. In Damascus, masked men stormed shops and beat residents. In Idlib, two men accused of pro-government ties were dragged through the streets and killed. This is precisely what happens when transitional frameworks lack legitimacy. The Syrian government holds nearly 6,000 Assad-era detainees, but without any clear legal framework for trying them. The 6,000 detainees signal that the new authorities risk reproducing the Assad-era arbitrary detention under a different banner. Revenge dressed as justice poisons any genuine accountability process.

Zone III: Stable but Economically Struggling

Pakistan’s Dr Mahrang Baloch sentenced to life imprisonment on 22 June after being tried in a “faceless court” inside Quetta Jail, two contradictory FIRs on record

An Anti-Terrorism Court in Quetta sentenced BYC chief organiser Dr Mahrang Baloch, TIME100 Next 2024, BBC 100 Women 2024, Nobel Peace Prize nominee, to life imprisonment on 22 June, alongside Sibghatullah Shahji and two others, for the 2024 death of an FC soldier during a Gwadar protest. The trial was conducted inside Quetta Jail through a “faceless court“ with anonymous judges and undisclosed witnesses. Two FIRs in the case record the soldier’s death on different dates. The person directly accused of the killing was acquitted; those who delivered speeches were sentenced to life. Protestors in Balochistan called a complete shutter-down strike on 24 June. PEN Norway and the Narges Foundation jointly condemned the verdict. Mahrang Baloch’s only documented instruments were peaceful protests and long marches.

Subscribe now

Bangladesh’s NHRC Bill 2026 lets security forces investigate themselves

Over 30 civil society organisations called on Bangladesh’s government to revise the NHRC Bill 2026, warning it regresses from the 2025 ordinance it replaced. The bill requires the NHRC to rely on reports prepared by “the chief of the force concerned” when investigating security force violations, which is self-investigation by definition. It removes mandatory representation of women and ethnic minorities, places ministers of law and home affairs on the selection committee, and eliminates functions including protecting human rights defenders, engaging civil society, and reviewing draft legislation. The 2025 ordinance was scrapped in April 2026; this bill replaces it. Bangladesh’s most serious documented violations involve security forces. A bill that shields precisely those actors from independent scrutiny, at precisely this moment, is a structural choice, not an oversight.

Uzbekistan’s Human rights defender Muminov suffocated with plastic bag in custody, arrested for documenting the same officials who filed the complaint

Javokhir Muminov of Ezgulik Human Rights Society was arrested on 5 June alongside farmer Djura Akbarov on an extortion complaint filed the same day by two bailiffs who had previously broken Akbarov’s arm. One bailiff transferred a medical expense payment that day; authorities called it extortion. Muminov recently told his lawyer that officers suffocated him with a plastic bag to coerce a confession. His lawyer was physically assaulted during a prison visit. No forensic examination has been ordered despite two formal complaints to the Karshi Prosecutor’s Office. The legal system is being used as a retaliatory instrument; when the complainant is a state official, and the charge is framing a medical payment as extortion, the abuse of process is complete and deliberate.

Zone IV: Developed or Emerging Economies with Peace and Stability

Jordan executes six men on 21 June, making it the first mass execution since 2017, all tried before the military State Security Court

Jordan carried out six hangings on 21 June. All were tried before the State Security Court, a military institution with jurisdiction over terrorism, drugs, and espionage. Jordan’s NCHR documented 276 people under death sentences in 2024. Executions received Cabinet endorsement and royal decree. HRW’s Adam Coogle called on Jordan to “renew its moratorium on the death penalty.” Here, the same court handles terrorism and narcotics; the infrastructure for capital punishment expands beyond its stated purpose into ordinary criminal jurisdiction.

Subscribe now

Article Pick

Islam Today

Islam and Apostasy

Some critics claim that Islam commands “death for apostasy” for anyone who dares leave the Islamic faith. This claim is both false, and tries to hide the broader point. That is, far from punishing people for their religious beliefs, no faith is so adamant on the protection of religious freedom and freedom of conscience as is Islam. As you read this, I a…

Read more

9 months ago · 96 likes · 19 comments · Qasim Rashid, Esq.

These patterns are seen in social experiences and official reports in the U.S. According to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) 2026 report, “The right to be different,” there were 8,683 complaints of discrimination against Muslims in 2025. The highest number recorded in decades. The report also reported attacks against mosques and Islamic centers. The largest number of cases were reported in Texas, Florida, Illinois, Minnesota, and Oklahoma. This shows that the issue is not limited to one region but is spread across the country.

Such concerns are also associated with government policies. An example of this is the “Muslim Ban” by the Trump administration, which restricted the immigration of individuals from some Muslim countries. It was called a security measure, but many thought that it was a continuation of the exclusion of Muslims. In fact, U.S. courts denied citizenship to Muslim immigrants between 1790 and 1944. This was based on the belief that Muslims did not fully fit into American identity. Over time, this contributed to the formation of the notion of “Muslims as outsiders”.

Political debates more recently have set Islam in the context of securitization. In 2025, Congress proposed amendments to the law that would restrict Muslims at home and also limit Muslim immigration. At the same time, U.S. Representatives Chip Roy and Keith Self from Texas made strong claims against Islamic law. They presented it as a threat. A group of representatives in the U.S. Congress formed the “Sharia-Free America Caucus” in Dec 2025. To safeguard the American legal and immigration system from the ideology of Islamic extremists. This demonstrates the presentation of ideas in political spaces today. In 2025, Governor Ron DeSantis in Florida declared the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR as Foreign Terrorist Organizations. But some of the order was later blocked by a court. Furthermore, there has been an increase in anti-Islamic sentiment from government officials. CAIR reported in 2025 that anti-Muslim narratives are more prominent in recent years. One limitation noted in the report is that data for several years is missing, particularly between 2009 and 2017. While there was still surveillance and suspicion of Muslims after the 9/11 period. Incomplete reporting makes it difficult to fully comprehend the discrimination experienced during this period. However, Islamophobia is not new, but has evolved through processes of history and public discourse.

No Compulsion in Religion: No Exceptions is one of those rare books that arrive at exactly the right moment and meet the moment with exactly the right arguments. Edited by Mustafa Akyol, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, this multi-authored collection brings together eight distinguished Muslim scholars to make a sustained, Islamically grounded case that the Qur’anic maxim “There is no compulsion in religion” (2:256) means precisely what it says: with no exceptions, no asterisks, and no historical qualifications that dilute its force.

Where centuries of juristic tradition narrowed verse 2:256 to apply only to non-Muslims entering Islam, or treated it as “abrogated” by wartime Qur’anic passages, the contributors argue collectively that this narrowing was not a timeless divine imperative, but rather just a product of its historical moment. As Akyol notes in his Introduction, the Arabic grammatical construction of “No compulsion” — la ikraha — is a categorical negation parallel to the central Islamic declaration of faith itself, admitting of no partial application (p. 3). The book is structured across seven chapters, each dissecting a distinct form of religious coercion: historical, legal, political, and gendered, before the final chapter proposes an institutional framework for genuine religious freedom. Taken together, they form one of the most coherent and courageous arguments for liberty within Islam published in recent years.

Chapter 1

Compulsion in Religion: An Ottoman Episode

By Mustafa Akyol

Akyol opens with a vivid 17th-century case study: the Kadızadelis, a zealous Ottoman movement he aptly describes as “proto-Wahhabi,” whose campaign to eradicate religious “innovation” led to the execution of thousands for drinking coffee, smoking tobacco, and attending Sufi lodges. The lesson drawn from scholar Kâtip Çelebi, that “men desire what is forbidden” and that preachers “will have done their duty if they gently admonish and advise the people,” since “the duty of complying belongs to the people; they cannot be forced to comply” (p. 28), is as timely as it was four centuries ago. Equally important is the chapter’s recovery of Ottoman scholar al-Nabulsi’s rare premodern use of Qur’anic verses 18:29, 10:99, and 2:256 against intra-Muslim coercion, making it a precedent that anticipates this book’s entire project.

Chapter 2

A Grave Exception: Criminalization of Apostasy

By Abdullah Saeed

Saeed confronts the starkest expression of religious coercion in classical Islamic law: the death penalty for apostasy, enforced today in roughly ten Muslim-majority states. His argument is rooted firmly in the Qur’an, which he demonstrates prescribes no worldly punishment for leaving Islam, treating apostasy exclusively as a spiritual failing with eschatological consequences (p. 42). The hadith most commonly cited, “Whoever changes his religion, kill him,” is scrutinized carefully: it lacks corroboration from the Prophet’s recorded actions, which include no documented execution of anyone solely for leaving Islam, and may conflate private religious change with armed treason against the early Muslim community. Most powerfully, Saeed shows that threatening people for their faith, the defining feature of apostasy laws, is attributed in the Qur’an not to righteous believers but to the very pagan oppressors who persecuted the first Muslims.

Chapter 3

Compulsion in Speech: Blasphemy Laws in Pakistan and Beyond

By Husnul Amin

Amin writes from deep personal familiarity with Pakistan, where from 1987 to 2024 at least 2,793 persons were accused of blasphemy and at least 104 killed extrajudicially by mobs (p. 58). His central contribution is demonstrating, from within the Islamic tradition, that the current application of blasphemy laws has no foundation in the Qur’an or the authentic Sunnah: the Qur’an prescribes no punishment for offensive words, and the Prophet himself forgave personal insults, reserving action only for individuals who committed or incited physical violence against the Muslim community. The great irony Amin exposes is that Pakistan, as a Hanafi-majority country, applies blasphemy laws that contradict the position of the Hanafi school’s own founder, Imam Abu Hanifa, who explicitly excluded non-Muslims from such penalties (p. 65).

Chapter 4

Fasting for God, Not Society: The Religious Case Against Ramadan Laws

By Mohamed Lamallam

Lamallam addresses a form of coercion that many Muslims consider unremarkable: laws in Morocco, Pakistan, Kuwait, Qatar, and elsewhere criminalizing eating in public during Ramadan. His argument, grounded in the theology of the Moroccan jurist Ahmed Al-Raysuni, is elegantly simple: fasting is an act of worship that requires sincere intention (niyyah); coerced observance is therefore not only spiritually worthless but actively contrary to Islamic principles. As Al-Raysuni states, “The matter is between them and God” (p. 83). The human cost of such laws is made concrete by the sobering detail that in Pakistan’s 2015 Ramadan heatwave, over a thousand people died of dehydration, some “reluctant to ask for a drink of water” (p. 80).

Chapter 5

How Compulsion in Religion Made Iran Less Religious

By Mohamad Machine-Chian

This chapter functions as the book’s most empirically powerful argument by presenting a real-world demonstration of the central thesis. Machine-Chian traces how the Islamic Republic of Iran, after 1979, built a comprehensive apparatus of religious coercion: mandatory hijab, ideological university screenings (gozinesh), persecution of minorities, and a morality police patrolling everyday life. The result, paradoxically, is a dramatically less religious society. Survey data suggests that today up to 47% of Iranians no longer identify as Muslims (p. 105), with sociologists documenting a widespread “inner secularization”; outward compliance masking deep alienation. The chapter opens with Grand Ayatollah Borujerdi’s prophetic warning against Khomeini’s project: “If you take his place, your weapon will be the people’s faith and beliefs. That is a weapon against which resistance is not so easy, and in the process, religion itself will be taken hostage” (p. 96). History has vindicated Borujerdi entirely.

Chapter 6

No Compulsion on Women: Gender Egalitarianism in Islam

By Asma Afsaruddin

Afsaruddin demonstrates that much of what passes for “traditional Islamic gender norms” is a historical departure from the Qur’an’s egalitarian spirit. Drawing on early Islamic sources, she recovers figures like Samra’ bint Nuhayk: the first female market inspector in Mecca, appointed in the earliest period of Islamic history, and the ninth-century philanthropist Fatima al-Fihriyya, who founded the oldest university in the world (p. 118, p. 122). The Qur’an’s own framework, she shows, recognizes differences among human beings only based on personal piety (taqwa), not gender. The chapter also demonstrates that Muslim women held legal property rights over a thousand years before British law extended the same to women in 1882 (p. 121), a comparison that quietly upends many assumptions about Islamic tradition and modernity.

Chapter 7

Separating the Sharia and the State: A Conversation with Abdullahi Ahmed An-Naim

The final chapter steps back from specific forms of coercion to ask the structural question the whole book demands: what political arrangement makes “No compulsion in religion” genuinely possible? In a rich interview, Professor An-Naim argues for a secular state, not because Islam should be absent from public life, but because Sharia observance, to be Islamically valid, must be completely voluntary. As he puts it with characteristic precision: “Any coercion or compulsion renders conformity null and void from a religious point of view” (p. 147). The chapter gains emotional depth from An-Naim’s account of his teacher, Mahmoud Mohamed Taha, a pious Muslim reformist executed in Sudan in 1985 for “apostasy” at age 76, his apostasy charge inserted at the appellate stage purely to discredit his political critique of the regime. An-Naim’s concept of “civic reason”, a public discourse all citizens can equally participate in and evaluate, offers a practically workable framework for Muslim-majority societies seeking to honor both their religious identity and their obligations to all citizens.

Conclusion

No Compulsion in Religion— No Exceptions is a landmark work in contemporary Islamic thought. Its greatest strength lies not in any single argument but in the cumulative weight of seven distinct, rigorously researched cases, each arriving at the same conclusion through a different door: that religious coercion contradicts the Qur’an’s vision of the human being as a free and morally responsible agent, that it has demonstrably harmed both the individuals it targets and the religion it claims to protect, and that returning to the principle of “No compulsion in religion” is not a liberal concession to modernity but a faithful recovery of Islam’s deepest scriptural convictions.

The book achieves something rare: it works entirely from within the Islamic tradition, engaging the classical sources with both fidelity and moral seriousness, recovering neglected voices (al-Nabulsi, Borujerdi, Al-Raysuni, An-Naim) who saw what the dominant tradition obscured. It is essential reading for scholars of Islamic law and theology, for policymakers engaged with religious freedom in Muslim-majority contexts, and for the many Muslims around the world who sense that something has gone wrong and are looking for a way forward that honors their tradition at its best. This book gives them the arguments they need.

The book is readily available for purchase or download from the Cato Institute’s website. 

Edraak is our newsletter that honours the Muslim world’s diversity, reflected in the multitude of its socio-economic conditions and political institutions spanning across the continents. Traced back to its Arabic origins, إدراك encompasses timely and thorough insights into the developments of the Muslim-majority countries.

We organise the Muslim-majority countries into four zones as per their current conditions of conflict, transition, stability, and development.

Zone I: Experiencing War, Conflict, Oppression, Genocide

Iran–US Peace Deal

The US and Iran declared an end to hostilities on 15 June, with a formal signing ceremony set for 19 June in Geneva. The deal reopens the Strait of Hormuz and lifts the American naval blockade. On nuclear issues, however, there is no substantive agreement, only a commitment to negotiate further over Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile.

Niger’s Junta strips exiled opposition leader of citizenship

Niger’s military junta revoked the citizenship of an exiled opposition leader, Mariama Djibrine, on 15 June, removing his legal standing to return, contest, organise, or litigate. The move echoes Burkina Faso’s January 2026 ban on all political parties and President Traoré’s declaration to “forget democracy.” Niger has been under junta rule since July 2023 and is now aligned with Mali and Burkina Faso in the Alliance of Sahel States. Stripping citizenship from a political opponent in exile is not a security measure but rather a permanent foreclosure of political opposition.

Mali Journalist jailed under terrorism charges for calling a military claim false

Journalist Aliou Touré was imprisoned for publicly contradicting an official military account of a security operation and presenting evidence that the junta’s version was false. He faces charges under Mali’s cybercrime and terrorism laws. Since 2021, the junta has expelled French forces, UN peacekeepers, and most international media. The domestic press is now operating under near-total self-censorship. When “calling a fact a fact” constitutes terrorism, the legal system has been converted into an instrument for managing reality.

Zone II: Transition toward Peace and Stability

Afghanistan’s Morality police arrest 30 women for dress code violations; security forces kill an 11-year-old boy during protests

Taliban morality police arrested at least 30 women in Herat for dress code non-compliance by 7 June. Residents took to the streets on 9 June, chanting “Work, Education, Freedom.” Security forces beat protesters, fired toward fleeing crowds, and killed an 11-year-old boy. Three other protestors reached the hospital with gunshot wounds. Officers then conducted home searches, examined phones for protest footage, and detained both men and women. Individual liberty requires the right to protest without being shot. The state’s relationship with its own people has become one of lethal enforcement.

Zone III: Stable but Economically Struggling

Bahrain strips dozens of citizens of nationality for “glorifying Iran,” while no charge, no trial, no appeal process disclosed

Bahrain’s government revoked the nationality of dozens of citizens this week, citing expressions of sympathy toward Iran during the ongoing war, alleged espionage, and “pledging allegiance to foreign entities.” No court proceedings or formal charge sheets were published. The move follows the 28 April sentencing of photographer Sayed Baqer Al-Kamel to ten years for filming a burning building, and an earlier security sweep that detained 24 people on Iran-linked grounds. Citizenship is the foundational right on which every other right rests. Revoking it by executive decree, without trial, for expressions of political sympathy is not security but legal elimination of dissent.

Azerbaijan rearrests journalist forcibly returned from Georgia

Azerbaijan rearrested a journalist, Afgan Sadigov, who had been forcibly returned from Georgia, where he had sought asylum, immediately upon arrival in Baku, with new charges added to an existing prosecution. The case follows the Supreme Court’s 3 April rejection of all appeals by six Abzas Media journalists, each sentenced to nine years for corruption investigations. Azerbaijan now holds at least 24 journalists behind bars. The forced return from a country he had fled to, followed by immediate rearrest, is transnational repression in its most direct form: a state reaching across borders to silence a reporter who left precisely to keep reporting.

Jailed Pakistani lawyers Imaan Mazari and Hadi Chattha receive the Ludovic Trarieux International Human Rights Prize

Lawyers Imaan Zainab Mazari and her husband Hadi Ali Chattha were awarded the 2026 Ludovic Trarieux International Human Rights Prize on 13 June, while both are serving 17-year prison sentences handed down earlier this year over controversial social media posts. The prize is the world’s oldest and most prestigious human rights honour for lawyers. Chattha has represented victims of blasphemy charges, enforced disappearances, and sexual violence; Mazari has defended journalists, activists, and persecuted religious minorities. The UN special rapporteur for human rights defenders had previously stated that the cases against Mazari appeared to reflect an arbitrary use of the legal system, only to harass and intimidate.

Zone IV: Developed or Emerging Economies with Peace and Stability

Attacks on education surge 40% globally, while Muslim-majority conflict zones account for the majority of verified cases

HRW’s annual Education Under Attack report was released on 15 June. It documented a 40%+ rise in attacks on schools and universities in 2025, making it the highest on record. Afghanistan, Sudan, Palestine, Mali, Burkina Faso, Somalia, and Yemen account for the bulk of verified incidents, ranging from the Taliban’s campus ideological enforcement to drone strikes on Sudanese schools and the destruction of Gaza’s entire university system. When schools are targets, the destruction is structural.

Article Pick

diaspora diaries

why political literacy is an islamic obligation

to be muslim is to live with an awareness of power. not only divine power, but worldly power. who makes decisions, who benefits from them, who is harmed, and who is rendered invisible. islam does not imagine faith as something that floats above society. it places belief squarely inside the structures that govern daily life. markets, courts, borders, fam…

Read more

5 months ago · 1045 likes · 16 comments · anya chung