American Journal of Islam and Society Vol 41 No 1-2.indb


6

The Reconceptualization of the 
Umma and Ummatic Action in 

Abdullah Bin Bayyah’s Discourse

R E Z A R T  B E K A

Abstract
In the post-Arab Spring period, Abdullah Bin Bayyah has emerged 
as one of the principal exponents of the anti-revolutionary front. 
Dissatisfied with the Islamist solution to the socio-political crisis 
in the Middle East, Bin Bayyah has called for the establishment 
of a new jurisprudence based on fiqh al-wāqiʿ (jurisprudence of 

Rezart Beka is an academic consultant for the Digital Sirah Project in the Col-
lege of Islamic Studies at Hamad Bin Khalifah University in Doha, Qatar. In 
2022, he received his Ph.D. in Arabic and Islamic Studies from Georgetown 
University. In 2016, he received an M.A. in the Study of Contemporary Muslim 
Thought and Societies from Hamad Bin Khalifa University and in 2011, also 
received an M.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies of Religions and Cultures from 
Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, Italy. In 2004 he completed his B.A. 
in Sociology at the University of Tirana, Albania.

Beka, Rezart. 2024. “The Reconceptualization of the Umma and Ummatic Action in Abdullah Bin 
Bayyah’s Discourse” American Journal of Islam and Society 41, no. 2: 6–45 • doi: 10.35632/ajis.
v41i2.3438
Copyright © 2024 International Institute of Islamic Thought



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reality), which acknowledges and accepts the dictates of modern 
reality. He conceived his call for renewal (tajdīd) as one of the best 
ways to restore peace and unity in Muslim societies. This article 
aims to shed light on those aspects of Bin Bayyah’s reformist 
discourse that directly affect how he envisions the role and func-
tion of the umma in the modern context. The essay then explores 
the place that ummatic unification occupies in Bin Bayyah’s 
discourse and the kind of Islamic politics his post-Arab Spring 
religious discourse entails. Particular attention is also paid to 
the ways Bin Bayyah theorizes the significance of religious alle-
giances within the modern nation-state. The essay also considers 
Bin Bayyah’s view of the role of the Muslim umma in the global 
community, its relationship with other religions, and the wider 
human community when responding to global challenges.

Keywords: Arab Spring, Ummatic Action, Fiqh al-wāqiʿ, The 
Charter of Medina, Alliance of Virtue, Interfaith Dialogue

Abdullah Bin Bayyah is widely recognized as a prominent exponent 
of contemporary neo-traditionalism. Born in Mauritania in 1935, he 
acquired his traditional Islamic education within the intellectual cir-
cles of Mauritania. Following his legal studies in Tunisia, he entered a 
political career in Mauritania. Bin Bayyah occupied a number of signif-
icant posts, including Judge at the High Court of the Islamic Republic 
of Mauritania and Deputy Prime Minister. However, after the military 
coup in 1978, he withdrew from politics, devoting himself entirely to 
Islamic scholarship and becoming a leading authority in Islamic law. In 
this capacity, he assumed various religious positions, establishing himself 
as a noteworthy voice in contemporary Islam.1

In the Western academic literature, neo-traditionalism is often 
defined as “a denomination of Sunnism that emphasizes respect for and 
adherence to one of the four schools of law, the Ash’arī or Māturīdī 
schools of theology, and valorizes Sufism.”2 Abdullah Hamid Ali, adds 
to these essential features of neo-traditionalism the importance of the 
unbroken sanad (chain of transmission) and the “direct contact with 



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living human receptacles of knowledge.”3 However, the traditionalism of 
the neo-traditionalist movement, particularly that of Bin Bayyah him-
self, has been called in question in many academic quarters.4 However, 
the settling of this issue is beyond the scope of this article. For our 
purposes, it is important to emphasize Bin Bayyah’s clear positioning 
in the wake of the Arab Spring as one of the principal exponents of the 
anti-revolutionary front, and the role that this positioning has played 
in his reconceptualization of the role of the umma and ummatic action 
in the modern context.

Bin Bayyah’s post-Arab Spring discourse represents an attempt to 
counter Islamists’ ummatic politics and the ways they invoked it during 
the Arab Spring. Bin Bayyah contends that the post-Arab Spring period 
revealed a profound crisis in Islamic discourse, with Muslim scholars 
struggling to articulate a religious worldview that was responsive to 
modern needs. In Bin Bayyah’s view, the post-Arab Spring rise of Islamic 
extremism (represented by ISIS) and the endorsement of a jurisprudence 
of revolution by Islamists are clear indications of the decline of Muslim 
thought and the contemporary Islamic discourse’s inability to adapt to 
modern realities. To restore the unity of the umma and peace in Muslim 
societies, Bin Bayyah advocates for a new jurisprudence based on a 
jurisprudence of reality (fiqh al-wāqiʿ).5 This approach acknowledges 
and accepts the dictates of modern reality, encompassing concepts such 
as the nation-state, citizenship, individualism, religious pluralism, tol-
erance, freedom, human rights, international treaties, multiculturalism, 
and multi-ethnicity.6

This article analyzes those aspects of Bin Bayyah’s reformist dis-
course that directly affect how he envisages the role and function of 
the umma in the modern context. The article will explore the place 
that ummatic unification occupies in Bin Bayyah’s discourse and the 
kind of Islamic politics his post-Arab Spring religious discourse entails. 
Particular attention will be dedicated to the ways Bin Bayyah theorizes 
the part that religious allegiances play within the modern nation-state 
and the Muslim umma’s role in the global community, its relationship 
with other religions, and the broader human community more gener-
ally as a response to global challenges. In order to shed light on these 



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important aspects of Bin Bayyah’s discourse, the article will explore Bin 
Bayyah’s particular views on 1) the caliphate and the Islamic status of the 
modern nation-state, 2) his articulation of a model of contractual citizen-
ship centered on the Charter of Medina, 3) his theorization of religious 
pluralism and tolerance, as well as 4) his view on interfaith dialogue 
and global action based on his proposal for a New Alliance of Virtue. 
The exploration of these dimensions of Bin Bayyah’s discourse will then 
allow us to better understand the nature and function he ascribes to the 
umma and ummatic action in his project of renewal.

The Caliphate, the Islamic State, and the Nation-State

In the context of the Arab Spring and the emergence of ISIS, Bin Bayyah 
dedicates significant space to the topic of the Islamic state. He acknowl-
edges the novelty of the modern nation-state system compared to 
prevailing forms of government in Islamic history. However, he con-
siders the nation-state a universal fact and an inescapable feature of 
modern reality. Therefore, any modern Islamic political system should 
be conceived within the general framework of the nation-state. For Bin 
Bayyah, the reality imposed by the modern nation-state, with its require-
ments and constraints, “necessitates a new jurisprudence that molds 
its concepts and answers its inquiries.”7 He assigns the task of harmo-
nizing between the demands of modern times and the classic religious 
perspective on the Islamic state to taḥqīq al-manāṭ (the verification of  
the hinge).

In this context, the topic of the caliphate and its relation vis-à-vis the 
nation-state becomes central to Bin Bayyah’s discourse on the Islamic 
state. Bin Bayyah argues that, in modern times, the classical idea of the 
caliphate, understood as a supranational political entity that unifies all 
Muslims under a single ruler, is irretrievable and harmful to the umma. 
Instead, he calls for a full endorsement of the nation-state model and 
the idea of multiple Islamic states and rulers, where each rules over 
a particular territory and receives complete obedience and allegiance 
from the people they govern. Relying on al-Juwayni and several other 
classical jurists, Bin Bayyah presents the caliphate as an issue pertaining 



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to Islamic jurisprudence and not creed. This allows him to portray most 
issues related to the Islamic State as open to ijtihad. In his view, most 
matters related to the caliphate lack certainty and are not definitive or 
categorical.8

Bin Bayyah discusses how, historically, classical jurists have allowed 
the appointment during the same time of more than one sultan or caliph, 
each ruling over their territory. This concession was the result of the 
expansion of Muslim territories and the practical impossibility of a 
unified governing authority effectively ruling over one vast Muslim 
territory. In this context, he quotes Ibn al-Azraq al-Gharnati al-Maliki 
(d. 1344) stating that, “The requirement of there being just one unified 
leader and no other in the same time period ceases to be binding when it 
becomes a practical impossibility.”9 To this end, Bin Bayyah adds that “it 
was part of the historical practice of the Muslims to have multiple states 
and rulers, and there is nothing to indicate or prove that any of them 
ever tried to use doctrinal justifications to unite all the various lands 
under a single banner.”10 For Bin Bayyah, then, the reestablishment of 
the caliphate as historically understood, is not a religious obligation. The 
caliphate, “is one possible means among others that could be replaced 
today by other means in order to achieve unity between nations so that 
they may cooperate and complement one another… there is no religious 
duty to pursue the establishment of a caliphate by force—even if we 
assume it is possible to do so.”11

However, Bin Bayyah acknowledges that Muslim jurists have agreed 
“that there be an Imamate of some sort, namely, a government to manage 
and coordinate the affairs of the community.”12 Nonetheless, for him, “as 
regards the shape or form of this authority, or the nature of its powers 
and the extent of its mandate, or whether the office of government is 
hereditary or elected, there is no concrete requirement that conforms 
to a particular model.”13 Therefore, for Bin Bayyah, the various political 
forms and nature that the imamate has taken throughout Islamic his-
tory, including the caliphate, are not part of the religious obligation.14 
For him, the caliphate represents a historical institution and only one of 
the many forms that the imamate has taken throughout Islamic history. 
He grounds the necessity for an imamate not on doctrinal premises or 



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historical precedents but on rational and maṣlaḥa considerations. He 
presents the existence of a governing authority as a rational necessity 
to fulfill the higher purpose of “managing the affairs of the people and 
looking after their best interests.”15 For Bin Bayyah, the existence of an 
imamate is considered obligatory by the Shariʿa based on maṣlaḥa. In 
this maṣlaḥa-centric approach to the imamate, he makes recourse to ʿ Izz 
ibn Abd al-Salam’s (d. 1262) and al-Tufi’s (d. 1316) approach on the topic 
and their emphasis on the necessity to build the rulings of the Shariʿa on 
the basis of reason’s determination of the benefits and harms.

In contemporary Islamic thought, the invocation of Abd al-Salam’s 
and al-Tufi’s approaches to maṣlaḥa has been a fixed element of the 
Islamic modernist strategy to disassociate religion from politics by reduc-
ing the imamate, in terms of secular politics, to a system of managing 
the affairs of people and redistributing resources in a just way. In this 
manner, the imamate’s doctrinal and religious elements like uphold-
ing the divine message (iqāmat al-dīn), facilitating stewardship of the 
earth, or establishing justice and prosperity for all people in confor-
mity with the divine imperative and the Islamic system are, to a degree, 
divorced from the reasons that affirm the necessity of the imamate. In 
Bin Bayyah’s discourse, the invocation of Abd al-Salam’s and al-Tufi’s 
maṣlaḥa approach fulfills a similar objective. It allows him to historicize 
the scriptural proofs or historical precedents for the caliphate, and pres-
ent as Islamic any system that is built upon the principle of promoting 
benefit and avoiding harm. The function and role of the imamate, then, 
are reduced almost exclusively to utilitarian considerations of manag-
ing and coordinating the affairs of the community. Although they are 
not negated, nevertheless, the creedal and ideological aspects of the 
imamate are attenuated or considered non-essential for its necessity. 
In short, for Bin Bayyah, it is reason and maṣlaḥa considerations of 
harm and benefit, rather than doctrinal positions or historical claims 
that should be at the center of any attempt to create a working concept 
or model for a contemporary Islamic state that responds to the norms of  
the age.

What is the form and nature of the Islamic state in the modern 
context? What is the relation between an Islamic State’s religious and 



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mundane dimensions? In the 1990s, Bin Bayyah’s discourse on the nature 
of the Islamic state followed closely the discourse of many Islamist cen-
trist (waṣaṭī) scholars in which the Islamic state is presented as a civil 
state with a religious reference.16 In other words, a state in which the 
importance of Islamic values for public order is recognized, at least offi-
cially. This state portrays itself as the guardian of Islam and Islamic 
institutions. Its laws might not necessarily derive from the letter of 
Shariʿa. However, as a result of the broad scope ascribed to maṣlaḥa 
and interpretation (taʾwīl), they are considered in harmony with the 
spirit of Islamic law. The political form this Islamic state takes is judged 
in accordance with “the degree of what has been realized in terms of 
benefit, social peace, and proximity to the spirit of the Divine Law and 
its texts.”17 As we shall see in his later writings, Bin Bayyah’s vision for 
the Islamic state shifts from the civil state with a religious reference 
paradigm towards modern forms of constitutional liberalism, where 
political identity is not based on religion but on shared constitutional 
values. Nevertheless, as Bin Bayyah states, “We believe every Muslim 
state, indeed every state with a majority Muslim population, to be an 
Islamic state.”18

In Bin Bayyah’s view, even though the caliphate remains “the ideal 
to which we all aspire and which best serves our religious and mundane 
interest,” nevertheless, “given how much the conditions, time, place and 
situation have changed, the legitimacy of the nation states is no longer 
even in question.” This means that “the same degree of obedience must 
be given to the leaders and laws of these states as was given to those 
Muslim states of the past.”19 Bin Bayyah conceives the nation-state as 
structurally compatible with Islam. He endorses it out of principle, and 
not as an interim necessity before the establishment of the universal 
Islamic state. In his view, in the modern context, the attempts to recall 
the historical caliphate are utopian and harmful. Bin Bayyah argues that 
from a fiqh al-wāqiʿ perspective, nowadays, the establishment of the 
caliphate is neither desirable nor feasible. It is undesirable because its 
pre-modern imperial nature does not fit well with the spirit of the age, 
and its reestablishment in the modern context seems utopian. It is also 
unfeasible because the nation-state model is not a transient development 



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but an inevitable and irreversible reality as well as a constitutive feature 
of modernity. In this regard, he states,

We do not mean to disparage our history—the caliphate fulfilled 
its function admirably in Islamic history and gave a great many 
wonderful things to the Muslim people—but times have changed so 
much that what was a benefit in the past may well have become 
a harm in the present.20

Regarding the nation-state, he argues that,

The nation-state in all its shapes and forms in the Islamic world is 
a valid and legitimate system of government. And so long as it is 
built on the principle of promoting benefit and avoiding harm—
the axis around which all the laws of Islam revolve—it can be 
considered no less legitimate than the major Muslim empires of 
the past.21

In his discourse on the Islamic state, Bin Bayyah downplays the 
creedal and ideological elements that traditionally have been part of 
the legitimation of the caliphate or the imamate and instead conceives 
it mostly as a “security device” that preserves the umma from external 
threats and guarantees internal peace and stability. Although, in prin-
ciple, Bin Bayyah acknowledges that Muslim political global unity is an 
admirable goal, especially when it is achieved voluntarily, like in the 
case of the UAE or the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).22 However, in 
his discourse Muslims’ global political unity remains an ideal, at least 
on the level of formal discourse, rather than an active principle of per-
sonal and collective moral action. The idea of Muslim unity under a 
unified government of some sort as a collective aspiration of the Muslim 
umma that informs their actions and moral horizons is not present in 
Bin Bayyah’s discourse. On the contrary, he considers any contempo-
rary active endeavor to achieve political unity under an Islamic state 
utopian, dangerous, and the cause of current wars and bloodshed in the 
Muslim world.



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Bin Bayyah’s portrayal of every present Muslim majority state as 
an Islamic state serves as a powerful discursive strategy to counter the 
Islamist discourse on the need to establish a caliphate or an Islamic 
state. In Bin Bayyah’s discourse, the Islamic state is already in exis-
tence in the form of a number of independent Islamic nation-states. 
Hence, the Arab Spring Islamists’ calls for the need to overthrow what 
in their view are presented as Arab authoritarian political regimes in 
the name of an Islamic democratic state or a possible future caliphate 
are misplaced and dangerous. Instead, what is required is the recogni-
tion of the validity of the present political order in the Muslim world 
and the suggestion of some socio-political reforms that supposedly 
will bring it more into line with the objectives of Shariʿa. Bin Bayyah’s 
modernist and historicizing approach towards the caliphate serves as 
an instrument for opening the door to the legitimation, on religious 
and fiqh al-wāqiʿ grounds, of the present political order in the Muslim 
World. Ultimately, taḥqīq al-manāṭ and fiqh al-wāqiʿ are mobilized to 
justify the present status quo in the Muslim World and counter any 
transformative or idealist tendency that calls for the re-organization of 
the present political order in the Muslim World in line with the ideals 
of the caliphate or the Islamic state. For these reasons, Bin Bayyah’s 
discourse on political change has been officially endorsed by the UAE 
and other countries of the counter-revolutionary front to religiously 
delegitimize the Islamist jurisprudence of revolution and subdue political  
dissidents.

The Charter of Medina, Islam, and Citizenship

The endorsement of the nation-state as an Islamic model of governance 
required Bin Bayyah to explicate the nature of the political order and 
social arrangements for his model of an Islamic nation-state. In this 
context, Bin Bayyah presents inclusive citizenship, based on a shared 
constitution, as the central framework for how he conceives an Islamic 
state’s structure. He acknowledges that the notion of citizenship is a 
modern idea; nevertheless, he argues that modern developments have 
elevated citizenship to “a universally accepted norm” and “a universal 



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fact.”23 For Bin Bayyah, the normativity of citizenship stems from two 
sets of accords. The first is international, i.e., the Charter of the United 
Nations and its Amendments, and the second is local, i.e., national con-
stitutions. These two accords constitute the dictates of our context and 
determine the form of any modern Islamic political order.24 Bin Bayyah 
describes citizenship as “a link or voluntary association contracted in 
the context of a nation governed by the constitution.”25 In this model of 
state formation, it is not shared ethnicity, history, or religion that binds 
individuals together in a society, but rather “a constitution, shared values, 
and a system of laws that outline the responsibilities and rights of its 
citizens.”26

To provide religious legitimation for the framework of contractual 
citizenship within the framework of a nation-state, Bin Bayyah presents 
the Charter of Medina as the perfect model for an Islamic contractual 
citizenship. From January 25-27, 2016, Bin Bayyah helped organize an 
International Conference in Marrakesh, Morocco, on “The Rights of 
Religious Minorities in Predominantly Muslim Majority Communities: 
Legal Framework, and a Call to Action.” The conference was jointly 
sponsored by the Ministry of Endowment and Islamic Affairs of the 
Kingdom of Morocco and FPPMS. The result of the conference was the 
Marrakesh Declaration that, according to the organizers, provided the 
theorization of an Islamic constitutional contractual citizenship based 
on the Charter of Medina as a framework that guarantees the rights of 
religious minorities in modern Muslim societies.27

According to Bin Bayyah, the traditional dhimma system that cen-
tered on religious identities and hierarchies is at odds with modern 
forms of constitutional citizenship as they are manifested in modern 
multicultural and multi-religious societies. He presents the Charter of 
Medina as “an example of contractual citizenship governed by a treaty or 
constitution.”28 For him, the Charter of Medina represented a contractual 
citizenship model where various segments of society came together as 
equals in the name of shared principles and cooperated for the sake of 
the common good of society. In this way, “every segment of the society 
was equal to the other segments, and equity was established among them 
whenever possible. It thus left no place for a philosophy of subjects and 



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sovereign.”29 Some of the salient features that, according to Bin Bayyah, 
make the Charter of Medina particularly suitable for a modern Islamic 
form of contractual citizenship is that the Charter of Medina represents 
1) a voluntary agreement reached without war; 2) it does not contain a 
concept of minority or majority; 3) it recognizes religious freedom and 
equal rights for each community regardless of their faith; 4) it paves the 
foundation for a multi-cultural, multi-religious society in which indi-
vidual enjoy equal rights and responsibilities and consider themselves 
part of a single nation; 5) it establishes equal rights and responsibilities 
for all the segments of society; 6) the conferral of rights and duties is 
not based on religious allegiances or identities but by virtue of residing 
in the same land.30

Therefore, for Bin Bayyah, modern reality renders the Charter of 
Medina “the best model to serve as a sound basis for contractual citizen-
ship in Muslim societies. It is the optimal model for us to choose because 
the values it embodies concur with those of the times.”31 He laments 
the fact that despite its importance, the Charter of Medina, “which 
affirms freedom of religion and the unity of the nation in a multi-reli-
gious domain, is scarcely studied at all, despite its huge importance.”32 
In the classical Islamic normative tradition, the Charter of Medina has 
remained for the most part a dead letter. Classical jurists considered it as 
an early and typical treaty or truce between the Prophet and other reli-
gious communities. Instead, they concentrated their efforts on the study 
and elaboration of the dhimma system based on religious allegiance, 
jizya, and the subordination of non-Muslims to the Muslim state.33 Bin 
Bayyah contends that this neglect of the Charter of Medina has resulted 
in a departure from the original and authentic Islamic paradigm of state 
formation that it embodies. For Bin Bayyah, the establishment and dom-
inance of the dhimma system have been the result of specific historical 
circumstances that originated in the latter part of the life of the Prophet 
and were dominant throughout Islamic history, which made the state 
of fighting and wars between Muslims and other religious communities 
the norm of state political organization.34

The historicization of the textual foundation for the dhimma system 
allows Bin Bayyah to contest the present validity of the entire juridical 



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corpus of the dhimma system. Instead, he advocates for the Charter of 
Medina as the originally intended framework for the nature and struc-
ture of the Islamic state. Suddenly, the injunctions pertaining to the 
dhimma system are transformed from being among the fixed matters 
(thawābit) of the legal tradition to the changing (mutaghayyirāt) ones. 
In a departure from the prevailing order in the Islamic normative tra-
dition, the Charter of Medina now supersedes, specifies, and updates 
the principles inherent in the dhimma system, reversing the traditional 
hierarchy. Naturally, Bin Bayyah justifies this hermeneutical maneuver 
entirely on the premise of fiqh al-wāqiʿ and the presumed need to adjust 
the Islamic vision of the state and religious minorities in accordance 
with modern secular and liberal discourse. According to Bin Bayyah, 
the exceptional state of affairs that prevailed throughout Islamic his-
tory led to the development of legal frameworks and historical practices 
that significantly differ from those of our current era. By contrast, the 
Charter of Medina embodies the originally intended state of affairs of the 
Lawgiver, wherein individuals enjoy equal rights and duties and are free 
to choose their religion. Therefore, “the contemporary cultural context 
provides Muslims with an ideal opportunity to put forward this charter 
as an authentic model for citizenship.”35

Paradoxically, within this context, modernity is depicted as the 
unique historical juncture where the intended original Islamic para-
digm on the state and society can finally find realization. It is modernity, 
with its nation-state and constitutional citizenship model that brings 
Islamic juridical thought out of its exceptional state of affairs. This 
stance towards modernity seems to be at odds with Bin Bayyah’s own 
juridical discourse, which posits that the disruptions brought about by 
modernity require Islamic law to operate in an emergency or exceptional 
mode. Thus, he emphasizes the legal framework of necessity, maṣlaḥa, 
the objectives of the Shariʿa, fiqh al-wāqiʿ, and facilitation as central 
elements of modern juridical discourse.36 This position also appears to 
diverge from the prevailing neo-traditionalist approach, commonly asso-
ciated with Bin Bayyah, which views modernity as a rupture with the 
pristine and authentic Islamic metaphysical dimensions and a departure 
from the true principles of revelation.



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Bin Bayyah presents his concept of Islamic inclusive citizenship as 
both a precursor to, and in alignment with, Habermas’ theory of consti-
tutional patriotism.37 He asserts that Habermas’ notion of constitutional 
patriotism is “very, very close to the traditional Islamic law because it is 
based on a contract.”38 Habermas formulated the idea of constitutional 
patriotism in postwar West Germany, suggesting that in post-secular and 
multicultural modern nation-states, individual and national identities 
should no longer be rooted in religious or quasi-sacred grounds, such 
as the patria. Instead, loyalty should be directed toward the constitution 
and its universal norms. In this way, in a properly disenchanted world, 
“Religious legitimacy is—or ought to be—abandoned alongside tradi-
tionalism and other apparently transcendent sources of authority.”39 In 
Habermas’ constitutional patriotism, “Attachment and loyalty to the 
constitution thus replaces attachment to a particular national identity 
as a binding element and source of motivation for citizens.”40 In these 
post-conventional and post-national forms of identities, conventional 
forms of morality (religious or national) are not formally negated but 
are decentered and reinterpreted in light of the constitutional universal 
values. According to Habermas, the realization of constitutional patrio-
tism necessitates a democratic setting, which he believes can only occur 
within the polity of a nation-state as the only historical political frame-
work in which large-scale democracies have appeared and prospered 
in modern times. In other words, as many critics have suggested, in the 
post-modern context, constitutional patriotism has become a form of 
civil religion, “that is, broadly speaking, a form of collective self-worship 
in the extreme case, or at least an ideology that makes citizens venerate 
their constitution and their civic myths as quasi transcendent objects.”41

In accordance with Habermas’ approach, Bin Bayyah contends that 
an intrinsic feature of modern reality is the fact that in the modern 
world, loyalties to a political order “are no longer exclusively religious 
but have instead become complex, often associated with complex and 
distinct and yet intertwined factors.”42 He further asserts that Muslim cit-
izenship “does not go back to any tribal affiliation, it doesn’t go to color. 
Even religion, it does not go to religion.”43 According to Bin Bayyah, the 
classical understanding of the political system based on religious loyalty 



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is outdated and problematic in our current age. Nowadays, statehood is 
no longer derived solely from religious affiliation; instead, it is based on 
factors such as the constitution, shared values, and the system of laws. 
The role that religious allegiance once played in defining the nation 
(umma) has been replaced by citizenship, which is grounded in religious 
pluralism and constitutional values. As Anjum highlights in the context 
of Rashid Ghannoushi’s similar presentation of an Islamic nation-state, 
in this perspective, “The umma is now a national, secular umma: the 
residents of the state are part of it, whereas those believers who do not 
live within its boundaries have no rights or politically meaningful ties.”44

In this endorsement of citizenship in liberal terms by Bin Bayyah, 
religious identity is dethroned from the central place it once held in 
pre-modern Islam as the principal element of political legitimation 
and belonging. Religious loyalty assumes the new, albeit reduced and 
subservient, role of reinforcing national identity or nationalism.45 In a 
presupposed pluralistic Islamic nation-state political order, citizenship—
not religion—forms the primary source of rights and duties. Rather than 
being defined by faith, Bin Bayyah argues that adherence to a set of 
shared values based on human nature, innate natural rights, and agreed-
upon rational principles (all confirmed by the Shariʿa), become the only 
valid framework for state formation and political identity. In this way, 
Bin Bayyah criticizes the Islamist call for establishing an Islamic state 
solely on confessional grounds as parochial and fundamentalist. Instead 
of serving as an essential element for rights and justice, religious identity 
becomes a tool in the hand of the nation-state to forge and reinforce the 
citizen’s loyalty to its political system.

Following Habermas, Bin Bayyah presents constitutional values as 
universal norms shared by all humanity, open to acknowledgment and 
subscription by any community member or religious affiliation. While 
religious loyalty may hold a paramount place in individuals’ personal 
lives, Bin Bayyah states that it cannot assert itself or claim exclusivity 
in the public sphere. Although not dismissed outright, in Bin Bayyah’s 
discourse religious differences are typically viewed as detrimental to 
constitutional citizenship. He portrays the convergence of all religious 
or ideological groups in a society around a set of shared constitutional 



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values, represented and guaranteed by the state, as the sole valid 
approach for a contemporary Islamic political system.

Bin Bayyah utilizes the concept of inclusive Islamic citizenship to 
illustrate the legitimacy of the nation-state model for Islam. In his dis-
course on citizenship, the state ensures the constitutional order and 
upholds shared values. Through the nation-state, the disparities among 
religious communities constituting society are transformed into posi-
tive elements and platforms for cooperation. The nation-state ensures a 
secular or neutral public sphere, where various comprehensive religious 
doctrines present in society can contribute to the public discourse by 
providing insights from their ethical and scriptural teachings. In this 
way, a neutral public sphere becomes central to the flourishing and ful-
fillment of religious communities. This conceptualization resembles John 
Rawl’s thesis on the role of religion in the public sphere.46 In fact, Bin 
Bayyah identifies his own approach with Rawls. Following a concise 
summary of Rawls’ position on the role of religion in the public sphere, 
Bin Bayyah asserts, “This is the methodology that we follow in the Abu 
Dhabi Declaration of Peace and other documents on tolerance. We trans-
lated therein the language of religion into the language of the public 
discourse, or the language of civil life and the law.”47 In this regard, Bin 
Bayyah states that one of the challenges for modern Islamic political 
discourse is to translate the language of religion into “the language of 
what Habermas calls the public space, that is, the language of civil life 
and law.”48

Here Bin Bayyah seems to endorse Rawls’ proviso and Habermas’ 
reading of it. According to this perspective, reasonable comprehensive 
religious doctrines may present their reasoning in the public sphere “pro-
vided that in due course proper political reasons—and not reasons given 
solely by comprehensive doctrines—are presented that are sufficient to 
support whatever the comprehensive doctrines are said to support.”49 
This liberal stance of the participation of religion in the public sphere 
assumes that religious communities “accept not only the separation of 
church and state but also the restrictive definition of the public use of 
reason.”50 As Habermas explains, “The assumption of a common human 
reason forms the basis of justification for a secular state that no longer 



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depends on religious legitimation. And this, in turn, makes the separation 
of state and church possible at the institutional level in the first place.”51 
In his discourse on the topic, Bin Bayyah seems unaware of the many 
critiques leveled against the proviso, and the difficulties that it poses for 
the Islamic worldview by requiring that worldview to justify itself by 
way of appeals to secular public reason.52

In this way, the necessity for a religiously colored yet neutral or 
secular public sphere becomes a condition for inclusive citizenship. As 
a matter of fact, Bin Bayyah argues that secularism is characterized by a 
set of principal values that should be considered positively by the Islamic 
discourse in the modern context. Among them, he lists 1) respect for con-
victions; 2) neutrality towards religious beliefs; 3) the acknowledgment 
of individual and collective human rights and the state’s protection of 
them; 4) the rights of disagreement, diversity, and change on matters 
characteristic to individuals and groups; 5) the right of appeal to courts 
of natural law to secure rights and place obligations on individuals.53 Bin 
Bayyah asserts that these secular principles align with Islam. He takes 
for granted secularism’s self-description of neutrality towards religion. 
He defends it against Muslim critics who argue that, in practice, secular-
ism interferes in the public sphere and controls religion by continually 
redefining it in accordance with the aims of the secular state. Responding 
to this line of thought, Bin Bayyah argues that such cases constitute “a 
deviation from the basic meaning of secularism.”54 In his view, all groups 
in society should “hold on to secularism as a means of liberation that 
springs from personal contentment and is not subject to a single compre-
hensive trend that wishes to impose its particular understanding based 
on personal prejudices.”55 Commenting on this quote from Bin Bayyah, 
March aptly observed, “here we have a quite unmistakable endorsement 
of secularism and citizenship on liberal terms… that is asserted to be 
compatible with Islamic commitments.”56

Although unacknowledged, in his presentation of the Charter of 
Medina as a model of constitutional citizenship in the context of a 
multi-religious society and a legitimation for the territorial nation-state, 
Bin Bayyah is heavily indebted to reformist figures like Muhammad S. 
El-Awa, Fahmy Huwaydi, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, and Rashid Ghannoushi.57 



22    A M E R i C A N  J O U R N A L  O F  i S L A M  A N d  S O C i E t Y  4 1 : 2

Likewise, his interpretation of the Charter of Medina suffers from the 
same predetermined agenda, inconsistencies, and anachronisms as that 
of his predecessors.58

Scholars have debated whether the Charter of Medina constitutes 
a single document or a compilation of separate documents.59 Similar 
discussions have arisen regarding the composition date of the text and 
with whom the Charter was concluded. While some scholars date the 
composition to the first year of the Hijra, immediately after the Prophet’s 
arrival in Medina and before the start of friction between the Muslims 
and Jews of Medina, others have suggested the second year of the Hijra 
as the probable date for the composition of the Charter of Medina, i.e., 
after the Battle of Badr and the start of the conflict between the Muslims 
and the Jews of Medina.60 Based on an isnād analysis of the few available 
oral transmissions and other historical considerations on the matter, 
Anjum argues that the Charter of Medina was most likely put down in 
its written form after the Battle of Badr and probably immediately after 
the killing of Kaʿb ibn al-Ashraf at the beginning of the third year of 
the Hijra.61 This seems to call into question Bin Bayyah’s assertion that 
the Charter of Medina was a voluntary agreement reached without war.

Another set of similar discussions have arisen regarding the nature 
of the Charter of Medina. As we mentioned earlier, in contemporary 
Islamic thought the Charter of Medina has usually been understood as 
a constitution and presented as a precursor to modern forms of constitu-
tionalism. This view contrasts sharply with the way the Charter has been 
understood in premodern Islam. Al-Shafiʿi contextualizes the Charter 
as a dhimma truce, akin to those established by the Prophet in the later 
phases of his life. The exception is that, at this early stage, other religious 
communities were not obligated to pay the jizya to Muslim authorities 
but were required to contribute financially and militarily to common 
defense (see article 24).62 This portrayal of the Charter by al-Shafiʿi is 
representative of the ways it has been understood in premodern Islamic 
scholarship. As Emon explains, medieval scholars like Ibn Khaldun con-
sidered the Charter as examples of a sulḥ or mawādaʿa, which suggest 
“that they did not consider the Constitution to be anything more than 
a truce between the Prophet and the various tribes in Medina, whether 



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Arab or Jewish.”63 As Lecker explains, these two terms should be rendered 
as “a non-belligerency treaty for a certain period of time,” or “a tempo-
rary cessation of warfare by agreement between the belligerents.”64 This 
view is also shared by many contemporary Western scholars.65 Emon 
contends that interpreting the Charter in constitutional terms “seems 
to go beyond what the context of the text and its constructed historical 
legacy supports.”66 In his view, the fact that in contemporary Islamic 
thought the text of the Charter has been mostly interpreted in constitu-
tionalist terms “have more to do with twentieth century politics in the 
Muslim world than with anything inherent in the text.”67

The indication of these points is also apparent upon a cursory exam-
ination of the Charter’s text itself. The first two articles of the Charter 
define the umma in terms of common faith and jihad against the enemies 
of Islam. Muslims are described as one umma to the exclusion of all 
others. As Anjum observes, “In this context, umma could only mean a 
community defined by belief in and support of the Prophet Muhammad’s 
mission.”68 It is on this confessional basis that the rest of the Charter 
proceeds to elaborate upon Muslims’ relations with other religious com-
munities present in Medina (i.e., the Jews and the idolaters). Within the 
Charter of Medina, the Prophet’s authority was derived from his status 
as the Prophet of God and the divine mission bestowed to him by God 
rather than from any authority granted to an appointed leader within a 
pluralistic political framework. The central tenet defining the Prophet’s 
political authority was his divine mission, with the status of other reli-
gious communities contingent upon their stance vis-à-vis his claim to 
prophethood.

Moreover, at its core, the Medinan polity constituted a political 
system established and presided over by the Prophet. Its purpose was to 
serve as a platform for advancing his divine mission, ensuring socio-po-
litical and religious unity for his umma including establishing peaceful 
coexistence with non-Muslim religious communities in Medina. The 
Muslim umma constituted the original and normative political unity of 
the Medinan polity. As stated in article 16 of the Charter, other religious 
communities were allowed to join Muslims as clients in order to enjoy 
aid and parity of favor. However, these non-Muslim communities did 



24    A M E R i C A N  J O U R N A L  O F  i S L A M  A N d  S O C i E t Y  4 1 : 2

not participate on equal terms in the governance of Medina. They lacked 
the ability to negotiate the terms of the Prophet’s claim to authority or 
the policies he devised to advance his religious mission in Medina. As 
Anjum observes, “The Jews and the polytheists included in the Kitāb did 
not elect or want him as their leader, nor could they vote him out, change 
his mission, or even side with their own co-religionists against him.”69 
Throughout, the Prophet was involved in extensive efforts to invite the 
non-Muslim religious communities of Medina to Islam. The Medinan rev-
elation reflects these missionary efforts and contains abundant criticism 
of the religious and political stances of the Jews, idol worshipers, or other 
political dissidents (i.e., the hypocrites) of Medina. The revelation warns 
them with consequences in both worlds for their refusal to accept the 
Prophet and join the Muslim umma. All of the above is difficult to square 
with the idea of a faith-independent citizenship and constitutional-based 
pluralistic political order.

A careful examination of the Charter of Medina reveals that, con-
trary to the interpretation of the Charter endorsed by Bin Bayyah and 
other contemporary reformists, not all religious communities enjoyed 
equal political rights. For instance, article 14 of the Charter stipulates that 
“no believer shall be killed for an unbeliever.” Bin Bayyah conveniently 
refrains from commenting or interpreting this clause, which appears 
to discriminate among members of different religious communities on 
religious grounds. Furthermore, while the Charter of Medina portrays 
Muslims as one umma allowing them to operate as one political and 
religious unit against its enemies, article 20 prohibits the polytheists 
(mushrik) from conceiving of themselves as one umma and cooperating 
or expressing solidarity with their co-religionists, i.e., the Meccan poly-
theist. This restriction extends to the Jews of Medina, who are required 
to side with the Prophet and the Muslims against their co-religionists in 
the event of a treaty breach. As Anjum has pointed out, even the perspec-
tive that views the Charter of Medina as establishing a confederation or 
commonwealth system, where different ummas unite against common 
enemies (i.e., the idol worshipers of Mecca), fails to acknowledge that 
the Meccans were enemies of Muslims, not of the Medinan Jews or idol 
worshipers. The foreign policy of the Prophet was entirely dedicated to 



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his divine mission, and Jews or other non-Muslim communities had no 
say or equal rights in determining its course.70

The presentation of the Charter of Medina as a precursor and model 
of contractual citizenship based on a constitution within the framework 
of a nation-state requires demands, from Bin Bayyah, a great deal of 
anachronisms and hermeneutical maneuvers that unjustifiably stretch 
its text beyond its original meaning and historical setting. In its proper 
context, the Charter of Medina reflects an early policy of the Prophet 
that encapsulates, in its essence, some of the main features of the Islamic 
political order and the place of religious communities within it. Most of 
these features found their way into the final form of the revealed law, 
represented in the dhimma system. At the same time, other elements 
became abrogated or were further elaborated into the more robust 
and developed dhimma system. However, the key elements regarding 
religious minorities, which are important for Bin Bayyah’s discourse, 
like the preference for peace over war, tolerance of the non-Muslim 
religious communities, respect for their freedom of religion, and the 
right to organize their life according to their religious principles, were 
also preserved in the dhimma system. The mature Islamic legal discourse 
on ahl al-dhimma is no less generous than that reflected in the Charter 
of Medina. Contrasting the Charter of Medina with the dhimma system 
and favoring the former over the latter by historicizing the rulings 
regarding the ahl al-dhimma is decidedly ahistorical. It does not do justice 
to the continuity of the Prophetic governance, and flies in the face of 
the scriptural sources and the historical circumstances of the life of the 
Prophet. This brings us back to al-Shafiʿi’s depiction of the Charter of 
Medina as a truce similar to that known in the later stage of the Prophet’s 
life, with the only exception being that non-Muslim communities were 
not required to pay the jizya. This description seems to accurately depict 
the historical nature of the Charter and situate it in its proper historical 
context. Attempts to reconcile the Charter of Medina with modern 
notions of constitutional citizenship or present it as a precursor to such 
modern conceptualizations are undeniably anachronistic.

Nevertheless, the principal difference between Bin Bayyah’s interpre-
tation of the Charter of Medina and other reformist figures that preceded 



26    A M E R i C A N  J O U R N A L  O F  i S L A M  A N d  S O C i E t Y  4 1 : 2

him is that Bin Bayyah does not invoke the Charter of Medina to justify 
a liberal democratic form of government or a national constitutional 
democracy. Since the 1990s, Bin Bayyah has consistently maintained a 
critical stance towards democracy, asserting that “democracy should not 
become a religion.”71 He has portrayed the central role given to the major-
ity in democracy in hegemonic terms as “the tyranny of the majority.” 
For Bin Bayyah, the slogan of democracy opens the door “for the evils 
of partisan bigotry,” and the existence of a multi-party system becomes 
a danger to the stability of society.72

In the aftermath of the Arab Spring, Bin Bayyah intensified his 
anti-democratic stance, contending that in Muslim societies lacking 
common ground and a democratic tradition, “democracy will turn to be 
a source of constant dispute and disorder.”73 Therefore, any unqualified 
call for democracy in the Muslim world is “essentially a call for war.”74 
Instead, Bin Bayyah presents the classic Islamic system based on consul-
tation (shūra) and allegiance (bayʿa) as of a higher order of justice than 
democracy. Unlike democracy, he asserts that shūra is reconciliatory, 
non-competitive, and non-hegemonic, enabling individuals qua indi-
viduals to contribute to political decision-making through consultation 
and sincere private advice to the rulers. Bin Bayyah, however, famously 
couples this discourse with a strong political quietist position, where 
any form of dissent or public criticism towards the rulers is deemed 
prohibited, limiting criticism to private and non-binding sincere advice.75

As we saw, for Habermas, liberal democracies are constitutive ele-
ments that render possible constitutional patriotism. According to him, 
the latter necessitates and takes place only in a large-scale democratic 
setting. While Bin Bayyah formally adopts Habermas’ constitutional 
patriotism, he simultaneously presents a discourse contradicting essen-
tial features of a democratic liberal order. Instead, he constructs his 
theory of inclusive citizenship based on the classical Islamic understand-
ing of consultation and allegiance, which were integral elements of a 
political order where individuals were conceived as subjects not citizens. 
Bin Bayyah’s inclusive citizenship lacks elaboration on the nature and 
limits of the ruler’s sovereignty, adhering to the classical Islamic inter-
pretation that grants the ruler seemingly unlimited sovereignty except 



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in cases of manifest disbelief. Individuals are denied the right to pub-
licly protest, criticize, or hold rulers accountable, with their only avenue 
for participation in public governance being through consultation and 
non-binding advice to rulers.

This approach allows Bin Bayyah to argue that establishing constitu-
tional citizenship within the framework of a non-democratic nation-state 
does not require a modern constitutional form of democracy. Therefore, 
he contends that political regimes in the Muslim World are equally or 
perhaps even better equipped to implement the vision of inclusive citi-
zenship embedded in the Charter of Medina. This perspective allows him 
to present countries like the UAE as the embodiment of Islamic inclusive 
citizenship. In the context of his discussion on religious freedom and citi-
zenship, Bin Bayyah states that “we must praise the policies of the United 
Arab Emirates that serve to support the foundations of positive citizen-
ship, tolerance, and human fraternity.”76 In overly romanticized tones, he 
presents the reality within the UAE as that of the progressive unfolding 
of all the essential dimensions of inclusive citizenship as embedded in 
the Charter of Medina. In this context, he claims that in the UAE,

The reality of positive citizenship is enhanced every day through 
creative initiatives that improve the quality of inclusive citizenship 
and contribute to the advancement of the social contract between 
the state and its subjects and the promotion of loyalty and belonging 
to one’s homeland. It also improves the quality of global citizenship 
through good governance and selfless care offered by the state to 
all of its residents, regardless of their background and religion.77

Bin Bayyah’s approach towards inclusive citizenship and his inter-
pretation of the Charter of Medina should be understood within the 
anti-Islamist political context of the post-Arab Spring period. It rep-
resents his attempt to delegitimize the Islamist call for political change 
in the Muslim World. In his perspective, the Islamist interpretation of the 
Charter of Medina as a model for an Islamic constitutional democracy 
and their call for a change in the present authoritarian political order in 
Muslim societies is misguided and dangerous. According to Bin Bayyah, 



28    A M E R i C A N  J O U R N A L  O F  i S L A M  A N d  S O C i E t Y  4 1 : 2

the present political order in many Muslim societies is more than capable 
of providing all the elements of inclusive citizenship embedded in the 
Charter of Medina. He argues that the situation requires only internal 
reform, without disrupting the present political order, to better imple-
ment the essential elements of inclusive citizenship.

Moderate Islam, Religious Tolerance, and the Global Alliance 
of Virtues
In Bin Bayyah’s post-Arab Spring writings, the discourse on global 
alliances, interfaith dialogue, and religious pluralism have been an 
important element of his stance against Islamic terrorism (i.e., ISIS) and 
political Islamism (i.e., the Muslim Brotherhood). During this period, Bin 
Bayyah has increasingly advocated for the formation of a global alliance 
between representatives of the Abrahamic faiths and other members of 
the human family as the only remedy to the current civilizational crisis. 
In this approach, humanity is portrayed as being on “a ship that is on 
the verge of being stranded.”78 Therefore, it is the duty of each member 
or community of the human family to work together to find solutions 
to the problems facing the modern world. In this context, Muslims are 
portrayed as one actor among others and their equal in the effort to 
provide the ethical principles and worldview necessary for the progress 
and stability of humanity. This multi-faith perspective on global action 
has allowed Bin Bayyah to decenter the Islamist emphasis on the neces-
sity of Islam and the ummatic perspective as the only answer to the 
present political problems in the Muslim World and the current global 
civilizational crisis. The multi-faith approach under which Muslims are 
requested to conceive their ummatic global action becomes, for Bin 
Bayyah, a distinguished element of “moderate Islam.” Therefore, any 
religious perspective that does not adhere to this new conceptualization 
and insists on approaching the ummatic global action solely in terms of 
the primacy of Islam and its worldview is considered fundamentalist 
and against global peace.

The multi-faith perspective on global action revolves around acknowl-
edging and accepting the principle of religious tolerance and pluralism. 



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Bin Bayyah addressed this topic in the fifth and sixth Assemblies of the 
Abu Dhabi Forum for Peace in 2018 and 2019, respectively. On both 
occasions, he presented a framework speech where he elaborated his 
vision of a global alliance, interfaith dialogue, and religious tolerance. 
In these public speeches, Bin Bayyah advocates, at least formally, the 
full endorsement of religious tolerance and pluralism. He also empha-
sized the need for historically revisiting, in the name of fiqh al-wāqiʿ, 
all the classical Islamic rulings pertaining to ahl al-dhimma and Muslim 
relations with non-Muslims that do not fit the modern context. In his 
2018 framework speech entitled “Alliance of Virtue: An Opportunity 
for Global Peace,” Bin Bayyah calls for the creation of “a moral alliance 
between the three religions of the Abrahamic family… and by the par-
ticipation of all those who love goodness and benevolence from among 
the members of the great human family.”79 He was the most prominent 
promoter of the Charter for the New Alliance of Virtue. As expected, Bin 
Bayyah justifies the need for this global moral alliance on fiqh al-wāqiʿ 
groundings. As we mentioned at the beginning of our essay, Bin Bayyah 
identifies the culture of freedom, religious pluralism, and tolerance as 
inherent features of modern reality. For him, nowadays, inter-religious 
cooperation is guided by a wholly different logic than before and is 
subject to international agreements and treaties.80

In order to establish an Islamic framework accommodating reli-
gious pluralism and fostering new interfaith cooperation, Bin Bayyah 
invokes the pre-Islamic Alliance of Virtue (ḥilf al-fuḍūl), which histor-
ically referred to the alliance where various pre-Islamic Arab tribes 
came together and pledged to assist and cooperate with one another 
to protect the weak and the oppressed against injustice, in the name of 
goodness and righteousness.81 The Prophet later affirmed the validity of 
this historical alliance. For Bin Bayyah, a unique feature of this historical 
alliance is that “it was not founded on shared religious, tribal or ethnic 
affiliations, but rather on universal values and freedom.”82 Building on 
this historical precedent, Bin Bayyah advocates for the formation of a 
New Alliance of Virtue among members of the Abrahamic religions and 
people of goodwill. This alliance, contrary to being rooted in religious 
affiliations, should be based on shared human values such as human 



30    A M E R i C A N  J O U R N A L  O F  i S L A M  A N d  S O C i E t Y  4 1 : 2

dignity, freedom, justice, tolerance, peace, and solidarity. According to 
Bin Bayyah, the necessity for such an alliance arises from an awareness 
of the present civilizational failure and the existence of shared human 
values.83

Bin Bayyah argues that the modern civilizational failure has alerted 
people of sound intellects “to the inability of the modern civilizational 
model in which all of humanity is engaged to realize its hopes of prosper-
ity and stability.”84 Thus, he proposes the establishment of a united front 
comprising people of faith who, united by shared aims and goals, can 
address contemporary issues, combat religious extremism, and resolve 
religious conflicts and wars. Central to Bin Bayyah’s conceptualization 
of the New Alliance of Virtue is the idea of shared values among people 
of faith and the broader human community more generally, which he 
categorizes on three levels: the level of a single religion, Abrahamic reli-
gions, and humanity. At the level of the specific, Bin Bayyah emphasizes 
the value of faith as it is encapsulated in the Islamic notion of the five 
protected necessities — religion, life, intellect, personal property, and 
family — as a shared feature among Abrahamic laws and requirements.85 
On a more general level, Bin Bayyah asserts that Muslims share with the 
rest of humanity all the universal values innate in human nature, which 
form the source of innate natural rights granted to all human beings 
by virtue of their existence.86 He believes that these shared values, on 
which the New Alliance of Virtues is based, “can guide the world and 
offer solutions to society’s most challenging problems.”87

The values championed by the New Alliance of Virtue include human 
dignity, freedom, justice, tolerance, peace, mercy, solidarity, and inclusive 
citizenship. Bin Bayyah identifies human dignity as the foremost and 
most crucial shared value, one that “transcend the vicissitudes of time, 
the determinants of space, and the tendencies of human beings.”88 He 
disassociates human dignity from any faith-based dignity. In his view, 
human dignity exists “prior to faith-based dignity both in conception 
and existence.”89 It is for this reason that, according to Bin Bayyah, “Islam 
places a strong emphasis regarding the holistic conception of the other 
on the unity of species, equality in human dignity, the search for cul-
tivating commonalities.”90 Therefore, differentiations between humans 



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should not be based on purely confessional grounds but only on good-
ness (khayr), piety and God-consciousness (taqwa). In support of this 
approach, Bin Bayyah quotes a statement from the Prophet, asserting 
that no Arab or white person holds precedence over a non-Arab or black 
person, and vice versa, “except through piety and God-consciousness.” 
Here, Bin Bayyah divests piety and God-consciousness (taqwa) from the 
requirement of adherence to Islam and the Shariʿa. Instead, the notions 
of goodness and God-consciousness are stripped of their metaphysical 
requirements to include not only Muslims but any person (religious or 
not) of goodwill and virtue, “no matter how much the theological or 
philosophical foundations on which each side is based might differ.”91

As we can see, in Bin Bayyah’s discourse, the presumed shared 
values between the Abrahamic religions and humanity at large become 
a kind of meta-ethic or meta-religion around which the role and function 
of religion in the world is conceptualized. However, his discourse on the 
presupposed shared human values remains oddly abstract. It isolates 
these values from their tradition-specific understanding, and then pri-
oritizes the abstract way of understanding them over the ways in which 
they have been understood and manifested historically in the traditions 
and narratives of each particular religion. Following the virtue ethics 
approach of MacIntyre and Hauerwas, one might then ask, “Whose 
Justice and Which Peace?” is Bin Bayyah intending?92 Nonetheless, 
Bin Bayyah seems unaware of the virtue ethics approach, and presents 
current Western ethical discourse as a battle between postmodernism 
and the Kantian categorical imperative approach.93 On more than one 
occasion, Bin Bayyah identifies Islamic ethics with the Kantian categor-
ical imperative approach. For Bin Bayyah, Kant’s moral absolutism is 
“supported by the heavenly religions.”94 However, his understanding of 
Kant’s ethical discourse does not seem to go beyond a general and pop-
ular understanding of it, and he seems to have access to Kant’s thought 
only through secondary sources.95

Martino Diez correctly observes that the Charter of the New Alliance 
of Virtue reflects an implicit shift towards a natural law perspective, 
whereby the appeal to revelation is not necessary for the establish-
ment of social peace and common values. On the contrary, the values in 



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question are established and legitimized based on natural law or innate 
natural rights.96 In fact, some of the rabbis that participated in the Forum 
drew a parallel between the New Alliance of Virtue approach and the 
Noahic Covenant, which in Judaism has constituted the central paradigm 
of the relationship between Jews and non-Jews.97 In this Muʿtazilite-
like approach, the function of revelation consists of the confirmation of 
existing values that are already grounded in human nature and known 
outright by the intellect.

This hermeneutical shift resembles the process that gave rise to 
modern secular culture in Europe, where in the mid-seventeen century, 
amid prolonged religious wars, European thinkers formulated the idea 
that, in order to restore social peace, the unity of the social order should 
no longer be based on religious unity but rather on the universality of 
human nature. This marked the emergence of natural law and morality as 
central to maintaining social order, signaling the birth of modern secular 
culture. The shift from religion as the foundation of unity of the social 
order, to human nature implied that in order to restore social peace, 
religious doctrines had to be somewhat marginalized to make space for 
the presupposed universal and rationally accessible values grounded in 
innate human nature.98

Seeking religious validation for his multi-faith perspective on global 
action, Bin Bayyah refers to a well-known hadith in which the Prophet 
likens those upholding God’s limits to individuals as sitting at the deck 
of a ship and stopping the people of the galley, i.e., those who tres-
pass God’s limits, from piercing a hole in the hull of the ship.99 Bin 
Bayyah conceives his proposal of a New Alliance of Virtue as the “finest 
conceptual and procedural embodiment of the metaphor of the ship’s 
passengers.”100 For him, this hadith shows that “humanity is now on 
board a single ship which is on the verge of sinking, and it is the moral 
obligation of people of values to restrain those who want to pierce 
holes in the ship.”101 The metaphor of the ship underlines the unity of 
human destiny, urging people of virtue to address the civilizational 
crisis through solidarity, cooperation, common love, and compassion. 
In this way, the New Alliance of Virtue can become the cause of a new 
beginning, “the occasion for a new start, and an opportunity for the 



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birth of a new human being with a new vision of the world that is based 
on virtue.”102

In the Islamic tradition, there has been a consensus that in this 
hadith, the people in the upper deck refer to Muslims who honor God’s 
limits (ḥudūd) and the necessity for the Muslim umma to command 
the right and forbid the wrong. Whereas the people in the galley 
represent the disbelievers or sinful Muslims who trespass God’s limits.103 
However, in Bin Bayyah’s interpretation, the duty of the Muslim umma 
to command the right and forbid the wrong is transformed into the 
generic call to humanity and people of virtue to promote good and 
prevent harm. The people sitting on the deck are the people of virtue 
(of any faith or philosophical orientation). They are all equally called 
upon to take action and prevent the ship from sinking. The framework 
that would dictate the success of this operation is the shared values that 
unite humanity. Islam is one actor, on par with others, in this common 
endeavor to find a solution to modern problems. Proposals constructed 
on narrow identities or confessional bases are considered insufficient, 
ineffective, parochial, and detrimental to global peace. This shift from a 
confessional religious perspective to a humanistic one constitutes one 
of Bin Bayyah’s main discursive strategies in grounding his vision for 
a global Alliance of Virtue.

Bin Bayyah contends that the foundation of the New Alliance of 
Virtue lies in the acknowledgment and embrace of tolerance and reli-
gious pluralism. According to him, both the Marakesh Declaration 
(grounded on the Charter of Medina) and the New Alliance of Virtue 
(inspired by the ḥilf al-fuḍūl) offer the necessary Islamic justifications for 
tolerance and religious pluralism.104 He asserts that the moral and legal 
obligation to embrace tolerance and religious freedom “is imposed upon 
us by our values and our times.”105 Bin Bayyah critiques scholars who 
still adhere to the traditional dhimma system stating that, “Sadly, many 
of us still live as if we were in the Middle Ages, with its social stratifi-
cation and segregation, ignoring the present realities of cosmopolitan 
interaction and coexistence.”106 In Bin Bayyah’s perspective, religious 
freedom and tolerance should be regarded as a religious duty in the 
modern context. Tolerance should carve out the conceptual space for 



34    A M E R i C A N  J O U R N A L  O F  i S L A M  A N d  S O C i E t Y  4 1 : 2

fostering positive religious pluralism based on shared values of common 
human origin and human commonalities. It is through tolerance that the 
negative effects of differences in beliefs can be neutralized or mitigated. 
According to this view, Muslims “must accept diversity as a positive 
manifestation of beauty in existence.”107 Here, we can notice a significant 
departure from the classic Islamic conceptualization of religious diver-
sity as merely a component of the ontological or existential will of God 
(al-irāda al-kawniyya) to its recognition as a constitutive element of His 
deontological or normative will (al-irāda al-sharaʿīyya).

Numerous critical observers, particularly those with a human rights 
background, have lamented the fact that despite their claim both the 
Marrakesh Declaration and the Charter of the New Alliance of Virtue 
have fallen short of unequivocally and explicitly endorsing religious 
pluralism.108 The same is noticeable, also, in Bin Bayyah’s discourse on 
the topic. Despite invoking Qur’an 2:256 to argue against the compulsion 
of religion or belief in Islam, he notably omits any discussion of apostasy, 
a pivotal aspect concerning religious pluralism. In his pre-Arab Spring 
writings, Bin Bayyah aligns himself with the classical Islamic stance on 
apostasy, maintaining that “Even though the Islamic principles is that 
‘There is no compulsion in religion,’ nevertheless apostasy from Islam 
is not permitted.”109 He critiqued efforts by figures like Taha Jabir al-Al-
wani and other reformists who revisited the classical Islamic position 
on apostasy.110

By contrast, in his post-Arab Spring writings, Bin Bayyah has 
remained silent on the matter of apostasy. Additionally, his discourse 
lacks an explicit exploration of the relationship between the state and 
religion in a religiously pluralistic society. Apart from a generic state-
ment that the state needs to guarantee freedom of religion, Bin Bayyah 
does not address the issue of the state’s neutrality towards religion as 
a precondition for a full endorsement of religious pluralism. Beyond 
declaring the need to respect every religion in the public sphere, Bin 
Bayyah does not explicitly advocate for the equality of all religions 
in the public domain — a crucial aspect of the modern understanding 
of religious pluralism. Furthermore, Bin Bayyah appears to blur the 
distinction between religious tolerance and religious pluralism in his 



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discourse. He relies on an expanded interpretation of classical Islamic 
rulings on religious tolerance, such as recognizing the rights of people 
of other faiths to practice, build places of worship, and be secure from 
persecution and insult, as evidence supporting his stance on religious 
pluralism.111

Nevertheless, Bin Bayyah argues that modern reality and fiqh 
al-wāqiʿ considerations require the broadening of the concept of toler-
ance beyond mere acceptance of the other towards “mutual recognition 
and assistance.”112 Again, it is the common destiny of humanity and other 
shared values that form the basis for mutual recognition. Returning to 
the metaphor of the ship, Bin Bayyah presents people of faith as being in 
the same ship, united in their journey and destination. In this way, “there 
is no survival for one without the survival of the other, no redemption 
for a nation without the redemption for the other, and no deliverance of 
one religion without the deliverance of all others.”113 Thus, the envisioned 
new social contract for the New Alliance of Virtue requires moving from 
the framework of shared existence (wujūd mushtarak), which dominated 
the pre-modern Islamic thought, to that of shared conscience (wijdān 
mushtarak).114 Encapsulating the heart of his multi-faith approach 
towards religions’ global action, Bin Bayyah states “By getting to know 
each other, the narrowness of the “I” is transcended into the openness 
of “Us”. We thus move from the fragmentation of minorities and narrow 
identities to the unity of the whole as one community, of the great society 
of humanity.”115

For Bin Bayyah, a meta-ethical and meta-religious perspective, rooted 
in shared values among people of faith and humanity in general, allows 
for the transcendence of the presupposed narrowness of the confessional 
identities towards the conceptualization of religions’ global action as one 
unified body or global human community. Muslims and Islam, in this 
context, become one contributing factor among others and on par with 
them in providing solutions to modern problems. While recognizing 
the truth claims of each religion, any Islamic supersessionist discourse 
based on strictly Islamic terms is viewed negatively and considered an 
obstacle to global peace. In this way, the Islamist slogan “Islam is the 
solution”116 seems to have been replaced by the motto “The shared values 



36    A M E R i C A N  J O U R N A L  O F  i S L A M  A N d  S O C i E t Y  4 1 : 2

of humanity are the solution.” Any call for the application of the Shariʿa 
as the only base for political change and the establishment of global 
justice and rights is perceived as too confessional and narrow. Instead, 
the adherence to some common generic values, presumably shared by 
all the Abrahamic religions and humanity more broadly is portrayed as 
the only solution to modern problems and global peace. In this way, the 
mobilization of interfaith discourse serves as a powerful tool to counter 
political Islam and its call for political change in the name of Islam and 
the Shariʿa. The interfaith dimension is invoked to neutralize the appeal 
of the Islamist discourse to political change and portray it as parochial, 
dangerous, and a door to religious extremism.

In the aftermath of the Arab Spring’s war of narratives, Bin Bayyah’s 
discourse on religious pluralism and tolerance, coupled with his vision 
for a global alliance of religions against extremism, aligns with the UAE’s 
soft power politics aimed at combating Islamism and positioning itself 
as a beacon of moderation in the world. Paradoxically, the present Arab 
regimes are framed as the guarantors and protectors of shared values 
and the guardians of interfaith efforts for global peace. In this context, 
any attempt to challenge the present status quo in the name of Islam or 
the Shariʿa is perceived as a threat to global social peace and humanity’s 
efforts to fight extremism and find a solution to the modern civilizational 
crisis. Bin Bayyah’s discourse on tolerance and religious pluralism serves 
as an important framework to ultimately counter the Islamist pro-rev-
olutionary front.

In fact, Bin Bayyah’s view on tolerance and moderation has been 
officially endorsed and utilized for soft power projection by the Muslim 
states of the post-Arab Spring counter-revolutionary camp to counter the 
pro-Arab Spring revolutionary discourse of the Islamists.117 The rhetoric 
of moderation, interfaith dialogue, and religious tolerance allows the 
Muslim states of the counter-revolutionary camp to present themselves 
as the natural interlocutors of the West against political Islam, whose 
ideology is often conflated in the official discourse with terrorism and 
jihadism. In recent years, countries of the counter-revolution camp have 
been actively exporting worldwide the discourse on tolerance and mod-
eration, outlined by Bin Bayyah, in the attempt to counter any other 



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Islamic discourse that does not align with their official position on the 
matter.

To conclude, Bin Bayyah fully endorses the legitimacy of the nation-
state together with the essential features of modernity and rejects the 
present validity of the necessity for an ummatic global integration in 
the form of a supra-national Islamic political order represented by 
the caliphate. His discourse is anti-idealist in nature. It does not con-
template the possibility of transcending the nation-state framework 
and the modern liberal order in favor of a possible alternative Islamic 
global political vision. In this anti-utopic approach, any project of global 
ummatic integration that would result in a supra-national Islamic global 
government in the form of a modern caliphate is considered unfeasible 
and harmful. Grounding his political vision in the Charter of Medina, 
he advocates for a liberal, religiously pluralistic, citizenship-based 
constitutional order and challenging, in the name of fiqh al-wāqiʿ, the 
traditional dhimma system. Ultimately, he falls short in grounding, in 
a historically coherent and meaningful way, the main features of a 
national liberal constitutional order on the precedent of the Charter of  
Medina.

The shared values among the Abrahamic religions and humanity 
at large constitute the conceptual axis around which Bin Bayyah 
conceptualizes global Muslim action. In his multi-faith perspective, 
these shared values constitute a sort of meta-religious and meta-ethical 
perspective that allows Muslims to contribute, together and on par 
with other religions, to the problems that afflict the modern world. The 
multi-faith perspective becomes a hallmark of “moderate Islam.” In this 
perspective, the Islamist call for re-establishing the Islamic caliphate or 
applying the Shariʿa in Muslim societies as the only solution to modern 
problems is portrayed as inadequate, insufficient, and parochial. Any 
ummatic global action that does not ground itself in an interfaith 
perspective toward the shared values ingrained in human nature and 
established by reason is considered fundamentalist and an enemy of 
global peace. This discursive shift from the purely Islamic framework 
to a multi-religious one whereby Islam becomes an equal member of a 
united front of religions has constituted one of Bin Bayyah’s important 



38    A M E R i C A N  J O U R N A L  O F  i S L A M  A N d  S O C i E t Y  4 1 : 2

strategies to counter the Islamist’s pro-revolutionary discourse. 
His post-Arab Spring discourse has been officially endorsed by the 
counter-revolutionary camp, in the attempt to counter and eliminate 
any Islamist pro-revolutionary religious discourse based on ummatic 
solidarity and global political integration in the quest for rights and 
justice in Muslims societies.



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Endnotes
 I would like to express my gratitude to Usaama al-Azami and the anonymous 

reviewers at AJIS for helping improve this article at various stages of its devel-
opment. Any errors in this article are entirely my responsibility.

1 Among the various important positions held by Bin Bayyah over the years have 
been: member of the International Islamic Fiqh Academy, Jeddah; Vice President 
of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, Qatar and more recently President 
of the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies, Abu Dhabi. For more on 
Bin Bayyah’s biography, see https://www.peacems.com/peacemagazine/about-us/
board-of-trustees/members/he-sheikh-abdullah-bin-bai/

2 Usaama al-Azami, “‘Abdullāh bin Bayyah and the Arab Revolutions: Counter-
revolutionary Neo-traditionalism’s Ideological Struggle against Islamism,” The 
Muslim World 109, (July 2019), 343.

3 Abdullah Hamid Ali, “‘Neo-Traditionalism’ Vs ‘Traditionalism’,” Accessed, 
October 1, 2022, https://lamppostedu.org/neo-traditionalism-vs- 
traditionalism-shaykh-abdullah-bin-hamid-ali.  

4 See Mark Sedgwick, “The Modernity of Neo-Traditionalist Islam,” in Muslim 
Subjectivities in Global Modernity, ed. Dietrich Jung and Kristine Sinclair (Leiden: 
Brill, 2020), 121-147 and David H. Warren, Rivals in the Gulf: Yusuf al-Qaradawi, 
Abdullah Bin Bayyah, and the Qatar-UAE Contest Over the Arab Spring and the Gulf 
Crisis (London and New York: Routledge, 2021). 

5 Abdallah Bin Bayyah, The Exercise of Islamic Juristic Reasoning by Ascertaining the 
Ratio Legis: The Jurisprudence of Contemporary and Future Contexts (Abu Dhabi: 
Tabah Foundation, 2015), 2. For more on Bin Bayyah’s emphasis on renewal (tajdīd) 
and its methodology see Abdullah Bin Bayyah, The Nation State in Muslim Societies, 
from the Third Assembly of the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies Abu 
Dhabi, 18–19 December 2016, trans. Habib Bewley (Abu Dhabi, UAE: Forum for 
Promoting Peace, 2019), 9-13; Fatāwa Fikriyya, (Jeddah, Dār al-Andalus al-Khaḍrāʾ, 
2000), 88-104; Itharāt tajdīdiyya fī ḥuqūl al-uṣūl (Riyād: Dār al-Ujūh & Dār al-Ta-
jdīd, 2013), 12-22. For Bin Bayyah’s conceptualization of renewal in Islamic legal 
methodology see Rezart Beka, “Maqāṣid and the Renewal of Islamic Legal Theory 
in ʿAbdullah Bin Bayyah’s Discourse,” American Journal of Islam and Society, No. 
38, 3-4, (2022):104-145.

6 Abdullah Bin Bayyah, The Path of Peace: A Vision for a Peaceful World. The Collective 
Speeches of Shaykh Abdallah Bin Bayyah (Abu Dhabi: Abu Dhabi Forum For Peace, 
2022), 154, 245.

7 Bin Bayyah, Tanbīh al-Murājaʿ, 181.

8 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 25-26.

9 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 28.



40    A M E R i C A N  J O U R N A L  O F  i S L A M  A N d  S O C i E t Y  4 1 : 2

10 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 27. 

11 Abdullah Bin Bayyah, “This is not the Path to Paradise: Response to ISIS,” Abu Dhabi, 
September 14, 2014, accessed September 30, 2022, http://binbayyah.net/english/
fatwa-response-to-isis/. 

12 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 26.

13 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 21.

14 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 29.

15 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 21.

16 Bin Bayyah, Fatāwa Fikriyya, 17-43 

17 Bin Bayyah, The Exercise of Islamic Juristic Reasoning, 54.

18 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 19. See also, Abdallah Bin Bayyah, Sināʿat al-fatwā 
wa-fiqh al-aqalliyyāt (Beirut: Dār al-Minhāj, 2008), 280-281.

19 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 29.

20 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 34.

21 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 35.

22 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 34

23 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 153 and 160, respectively. 

24 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 153.

25 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 239.

26 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 153.

27 For more on the Marrakesh conference and the Marrakesh Declaration see, https://
www.marrakeshdeclaration.org/. 

28 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 149.

29 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 155.

30 For more on these elements see, Bin Bayyah, The Path, 148-155.

31 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 154

32 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 19.

33 For the relative non-importance of the Charter of Medina in the classic Islamic 
legal and political discourse see, Anver Emon, “Reflections on the Constitution of 
Medina: An Essay on Methodology and Ideology in Islamic Legal History,” UCLA 
Journal of Islamic and Near Eastern Law 1, no. 1 (Fall/Winter 2001-2002): 127-129.

34 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 19.

35 Bin Bayyah, The Nation State, 20.

36 See, Bin Bayyah, Ṣināʿat al-fatwā.



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37 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 153-154. Regarding Habermas’ idea of constitutional patrio-
tism see, Dafydd Huw Rees, “Constitutional Patriotism,” in The Cambridge Habermas 
Lexicon, ed. Amy Allen and Eduardo Mendieta (Cambridge: Cambridge University 
Press, 2019), 66-69; Jan-Werner Müller, Constitutional Patriotism (Princeton and 
Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2007); Vito Breda, “Constitutional Patriotism,” 
in Handbook of Patriotism, ed. Mitja Sardoč (Cham, Springer, 2020), 179-193; Predrag 
Zenović, “Constitutional patriotism in the context of Habermas’s political philos-
ophy,” Prolegomena 20, No.1 (2021): 119-136; Jan-Werner Müller, “A general theory 
of constitutional patriotism,” International Journal of Constitutional Law 6, No 1, 
(2008): 72–95; David Abraham, “Constitutional patriotism, citizenship, and belong-
ing,” International Journal of Constitutional Law 6, No. 1, (January 2008): 137–152.

38 Bin Bayyah in “A Conversation with Shaykh Abdallah Bin Bayyah,” Council on 
Foreign Relations, June 4, 2015, Accessed September 30, 2022, https://www.cfr.org/
event/conversation-shaykh-abdallah-bin-bayyah. 

39 Müller, Constitutional Patriotism, 27.

40 Rees, “Constitutional Patriotism,” 66.

41 Müller, Constitutional Patriotism, 75.

42 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 160.

43 Bin Bayyah in “A Conversation with Shaykh Abdallah Bin Bayyah.”

44 Ovamir Anjum, “Best-laid Schemes: How the Sahifa of Medina Discourse became 
an Instrument of Modern Arab Authoritarianism,” forthcoming article.

45 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 242-243; Alliance of Virtue: An Opportunity for Global Peace 
(Abu Dhabi: Forum for Promoting Peace, 2019), 16.

46 See John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 2nd edition (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknapp 
Press, 1999).

47 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 243. 

48 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 162, 243.

49 John Rawls, “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited,” The University of Chicago Law 
Review 64 (1997): 783f. Jürgen Habermas, “Religion in the Public Sphere,” European 
Journal of Philosophy 14, No. 1 (2006):1-25

50 Habermas, “Religion,” 6.

51 Habermas, “Religion,” 4.

52 For some of the critiques of the proviso and Rawls’s response to them see, James 
Gordon Finlayson, “No Proviso: Habermas on Rawls, Religion and Public Reason,” 
European Journal of Political Theory 20, No. 3: 443–464. For the difficulties that 
the liberal proviso poses for the religious worldview see, Joseph Kaminski, Islam, 
Liberalism and Ontology: A Critical Re-evaluation (London and New York: Routledge, 
2021), 113-139.



42    A M E R i C A N  J O U R N A L  O F  i S L A M  A N d  S O C i E t Y  4 1 : 2

53 Bin Bayyah, Sināʿat al-fatwā, 305.

54 Bin Bayyah, Sināʿat al-fatwā, 305.

55 Bin Bayyah, Sināʿat al-fatwā, 306.

56 Andrew March, Islam and Liberal Citizenship: The Search for an Overlapping 
Consensus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 231

57 For more on the conceptualization of the Charter of Medina by these reformist 
figures see, Muhammad S. El-Awa, On the Political System of the Islamic State 
(Indianapolis: American Trust Publications, 1980); Rashid Ghannoushi, al-Mu-
wāṭana: naḥwa ta’ṣīl li-mafāhīm muʿāṣira (Tunis: Dār al-Ṣaḥwa, 2016); Fahmy 
Huwaydi, Muwātinūn la Dhimmiyyūn: Mawqiʿ Ghayr al-Muslimīn fī Mujtamaʿ 
al-Muslimīn, 4th ed. (Cairo: Dār al-Shurūq, 2005; Yūsuf al-Qaraḍāwī, al-Waṭan 
wa-l-muwāṭana fī ḍaw al-uṣūl al-ʿaqadiyya wa-l-maqāṣid al-sharʿiyya (2010). For 
more on the reformist interpretation of the Charter of Medina see, Ovamir Anjum, 
“The ‘Constitution’ of Medina: Translation, Commentary, and Meaning Today,” 
Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research, 4 Feb 2021,  https://yaqeeninstitute.org/read/
paper/the-constitution-of-medina-translation-commentary-and-meaning-today and 
“Conjuring Sovereignty: How the “Constitution” of Medina became an Instrument 
of Modern Arab Authoritarianism” forthcoming article. 

58 In the following analysis of the Charter of Medina we are indebted to Ovamir 
Anjum’s “The ‘Constitution’ of Medina,” and “Conjuring Sovereignty.”

59 For a general overview of the different opinions see, Michael Lecker, The “Constitution 
of Medina”: Muḥammad’s First Legal Document (Princeton, New Jersey: The Darwin 
Press, 2004), 183-191; R. Stephen Humphreys, Islamic History: A Framework for 
Inquiry, revised edition (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1991), 
92-98.

60 For the various dating of the document see Lecker, The “Constitution of Medina,” 182 
and Anjum, “The “Constitution” of Medina.”

61 Anjum, “The “Constitution” of Medina.”

62 Muḥammad b. Idrīs al-Shāfiʿī, al-Umm, 8 vols. (Beirut: Dār al-Maʿrifa, 1990), 4:222. 
Quoted in Anjum “The ‘Constitution’ of Medina.”

63 Emon, “Reflections,” 129.

64 Lecker, The “Constitution of Medina,” 205. For a broader discussion on the meaning 
of these two terms, see Lecker, ibid, 204-205.

65 See, R. B. Serjeant, “The ‘Constitution of Medina,’” Islamic Quarterly no. 8 (1964): 
3–16; idem, “The Sunnah Jāmiʿa, Pacts with the Yathrib Jews, and the Tahrim of 
Yathrib: Analysis and Translation of the Documents Comprised in the So-called 
‘Constitution of Medina,’” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 41 
(1978): 1–41; Paul Lawrence Rose, “Muhammad, The Jews and the Constitution of 
Medina: Retrieving the historical Kernel,” Der Islam 86, no. 1 (2011): 19



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66 Emon, “Reflections,” 129.

67 Emon, “Reflections,” 133.

68 Anjum, “The ‘Constitution’ of Medina.”

69 Anjum, “The ‘Constitution’ of Medina.”

70 Anjum, “Conjuring Sovereignty.”

71 For the appearance of this statement in Bin Bayyah’s works, see Bin Bayyah, In 
Pursuit of Peace: Framework Speech for the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim 
Societies: Abu Dhabi, 9-10 March, 2014 , trans. Tarek El Gawhary, (Abu Dhabi, UAE: 
Forum for Promoting Peace, 2014), 22; Fatāwa, 30; Hiwār ḥawla ḥuqūq al-insān fī 
al-islām (Riyadh, Obëikan, 2006), 92.

72 Bin Bayyah, Ḥiwār, 90; Fatāwa, 29.

73 Bin Bayyah, Ḥiwār, 89; Fatāwa, 29.

74 Bin Bayyah, In Pursuit, 22. In this regard, in his book The Culture of Terrorism, Bin 
Bayyah says, “A pretense of democracy in an immature and undeveloped environ-
ment could actually open the door to terrorism in its worst form.” Dr. ‘Abd Allāh 
Bin el-Sheikh Mahfūẓ al-Bayyah, The Culture of Terrorism: Tenets and Treatments, 
Trans. Hamza Yusuf (n.p., Sandala and the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslims 
Societies, 2014), 22.

75 Abdullah al-Shaykh al-Maḥfūz Walad Bayyah, Khitāb al-amnī fī al-Islām wa thaqā-
fat al-tasāmuḥ wa al-waʾ ām (Riyadh, Al-Akādīmiyya Nāyaf al-Arabiyya lī al-ʿulūm 
al-amniyya, 1999), 39-42; In Pursuit, 17, 22-23; Tanbīh al-Marājaʿ, 240-246.

76 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 241.

77 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 251.

78 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 235.

79 Shaykh Abdallah Bin Bayyah, Alliance of Virtue: An Opportunity for Global Peace 
(Abu Dhabi: Forum for Promoting Peace, 2019), 9.

80 Bin Bayyah, The Path 197.

81 For more on Ḥilf al-Fuḍūl see, Pellat, Ch., “Ḥilf al-Fuḍūl”, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 
Second Edition, Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, 
W.P. Heinrichs. First published online: 2012. Consulted online on 25 April 2023 
https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/hilf-al-
fudul-SIM_2865?s.num=36&s.start=20.

82 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 196-197.

83 Bin Bayyah, The New Alliance of Virtue, 10.

84 Bin Bayyah, The New Alliance of Virtue, 10.

85 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 220.



44    A M E R i C A N  J O U R N A L  O F  i S L A M  A N d  S O C i E t Y  4 1 : 2

86 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 220. On this level, Bin Bayyah lists the values of human dig-
nity, freedom, justice, tolerance, peace, mercy, solidarity, and inclusive citizenship.

87 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 233.

88 Bin Bayyah, The New Alliance of Virtue, 14.

89 Bin Bayyah, The New Alliance of Virtue, 13.

90 Bin Bayyah, The New Alliance of Virtue, 13.

91 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 203. 

92 See A. Maclntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (London: Duckworth, 1988); 
S. Hauerwas, A Community of Character. Towards a Constructive Christian Social 
Ethic (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981).

93 Bin Bayyah, Global Peace, 16-17

94 Bin Bayyah, Global Peace, 17; Alliance of Virtue, 14.

95 The only source that Bin Bayyah quotes with regard to Kant’s philosophical dis-
course is ʿAţayāt Abū Al-Saʿūd, Kant wa al-Salām al-Islamī. See, Bin Bayyah, In 
Pursuit, 9.

96 Martin Diaz, “The Alliance of Virtue: Towards an Islamic Natural Law?”, 30/03/2020. 

97 Diaz, “The Alliance of Virtue.” For more on the Noahide Covenant see, David Novak, 
The Image of the Non-Jew in Judaism (New York and Toronto: Edward Mellen Press, 
1983). Some Jewish thinkers have compared the Noahic Covenant approach with 
the natural law. See, Nahum Rakover, “Law and the Noahides: Law as a Universal 
Value (Jerusalem: The Library of Jewish Law, 1998).

98 For a brief account of these developments, see Wolfhart Pannenberg, Christianity 
in a Secularized World (Crossroad, New York, 1989).

99 For Bin Bayyah’s elaboration on the hadith and its relationship with the New 
Alliance of Virtue see, Bin Bayyah, The Path, 228-235. 

100 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 233.

101 Bin Bayyah, The New Alliance of Virtue, 15.

102 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 234.

103 For the classic interpretation of this hadith see, Muḥammad Anwar al-Kashmīrī, 
Fayḍ al-bārī sharḥ ṣaḥīḥ al-bukhārī, ed. Aḥmad Azzu Inayah, 4th volume (Beirut: 
Dār al-Iḥyāʾ al-Turāth al-ʿArabī, 2000), 431-432; Shihāb al-Dīn al-Qasṭalānī, Irshād 
al-sārī lī sharḥ ṣaḥīḥ al-bukhārī, ed. Muḥammad ʿ Abd al-Azīz al-Khālidī, 6th volume 
(Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1996), 145-146. 

104 In fact, the sixth Assembly of the Abu Dhabi Forum for Peace, in 2019, was dedicated 
to the topic of tolerance and religious freedom.

105 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 214. 

106 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 214.



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107 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 213.

108 Diaz, “The Alliance of Virtue,”; Ahmed Salisu Garba, “The Prospects and Problems of 
the Marrakesh Declaration on the Rights of Religious Minorities in Muslim Majority 
Communities,” The Review of Faith & International Affairs 16, No. 4 (2018): 47-59 and 
Vebjørn L Horsfjord, “The Marrakesh Declaration on Rights of Religious Minorities: 
Opportunity or Dead End?” Nordic Journal of Human Rights 36, No. 2:151-166

109 Bin Bayyah, Hiwār, 173.

110 See, Abdullah Bin Bayyah, “Taʿlīq ʿ ala al-kitāb: Ishqaliyyāt al-ridda wa al-murtadīn 
li al-ʿalāmat Ṭāha al-ʿUlwānī”, accessed May 1, 2023, https://binbayyah.net/arabic/
archives/400. 

111 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 213-214.

112 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 216.

113 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 216.

114 Bin Bayyah, Alliance of Virtue, 204.

115 Bin Bayyah, The Path, 216.

116 Islam as the solution is an important feature of the Islamist discourse. In the 1970s, 
al-Qaraḍāwī started the series, “The Inevitability of the Islamic Solution” (Ḥatmiyyat 
al-ḥal al-Islāmī). In this context, he wrote the book Al-Ḥal al-Islāmī: Farīḍā wa 
ḍarūra (Beirut: Mu’assasa al-Risāla, 1974)

117 For more on the use of use of tolerance and “moderate Islam” as a religious soft 
power by the counter-revolutionary camp, see Baycar, Hamdullah, and Mehmet 
Rakipoglu, “The United Arab Emirates’ Religious Soft Power through Ulema and 
Organizations,” Religions 13 (2022): 646; John Fahy, “The international politics of 
tolerance in the Persian Gulf,” Religion, State & Society 46, No. 4 (August, 2018): 
311-327; Panos Kourgiotis, “‘Moderate Islam’ Made in the United Arab Emirates: 
Public Diplomacy and the Politics of Containment” Religions 11, no. 1: 43. Stéphane 
Lacroix, “The United Arab Emirates: When Religious Tolerance Serves Political 
Intolerance,” Site du Centre de Recherches Internationales (CERI) de Sciences Po, 
March 21st 2019; Last accessed, 15th September 2022; https://www.sciencespo.fr/
ceri/en/content/united-arab-emirates-when-religious-tolerance-serves-political-
intolerance.html.; Dhiya Boubtane, “From soft power to sharp power? The United 
Arab Emirates’ religious policy and the promotion of a moderate Islam,” Site 
du Centre de Recherches Internationales (CERI) de Sciences Po, Spring, 2021. 
Last accessed September, 21, 2022, https://www.sciencespo.fr/kuwait-program/
wp-content/uploads/2021/11/sciencespo-kuwait-program-2021-boutane-dhiya.pdf.