Muhammad Salim Al-Awa… From Traditional Jurisprudence to the Jurisprudence of the Modern State
If Gamal al-Banna settled the question of freedom as a purely individual matter, then Muhammad Salim Al-Awa moved the discussion to another level:
How is freedom managed within the modern state
without clashing with the essence of Islam, and without being reduced to general slogans?
Ijtihad… A Necessity, Not a Luxury
Al-Awa proceeds from a clear premise:
There can be no intellectual or political renaissance without reopening the gate of ijtihad.
In his view, jurisprudence is not rigid texts,
but a living system that interacts with reality and rereads heritage in light of historical and social changes.
Hence, freedom of opinion is not merely a moral value, but a fundamental condition for the very exercise of ijtihad.
The State… Citizenship Before Creed:
Al-Awa offered one of the most significant contemporary contributions when he distinguished between:
religion as belief, and the state as a political entity.
The modern state, as he sees it, is founded on citizenship, not on religious discrimination.
Muslims and non-Muslims are partners in the homeland,
equal in rights and duties, and creed must not serve as a gateway to political or legal discrimination.
The Pact of Dhimma… Consigned to History:
Among Al-Awa’s boldest propositions
is his assertion that the system of dhimma now belongs to history;
it ended with the disappearance of the type of state that had endorsed it.
The modern nation-state was not built upon religious conquest, but upon the concept of national sovereignty—one in which Muslims and Christians alike participated in liberation and state-building, as they together confronted and resisted colonialism, and then constructed the independence of their states.
Accordingly, there is no place for jizya, no place for legal discrimination, and no place for diminishing citizenship
in the name of history.
Political Pluralism… Not an Innovation:
Al-Awa confronted the claim “there is no partisanship in Islam”
with a calm yet decisive juristic reading.
He argued that the texts praising the unity of the الأمة (ummah)
refer to unity of belief, not to the prohibition of political pluralism.
Political and party pluralism, in the modern state, is an instrument of organization, not division, and a guarantee of rotation of power, not chaos.
The arbiter among parties is neither the sword nor accusations of treason, but the free ballot box.
Democracy, in this sense, is the finest human achievement for selecting representatives of the people who enact laws.
Freedom… Guaranteed by Law:
Al-Awa did not treat freedom as a state of disorder, nor as an absolute value without limits.
Rather, he made constitutional law
the regulating framework for it—not fatwas, not the executive authority, nor political whim.
Freedom is safeguarded by law, and squandered when it is left
to exceptions.
Why Is Al-Awa Considered a Pivotal Figure?
Because he reconnected: freedom, the state, the constitution, and citizenship.
Because he presented a model through which modern society can be governed from within an Islamic reference framework,
without rupture with the present nor subjugation to the past.
What Does This Installment Add?
That freedom of opinion and expression is not fulfilled solely through moral preaching, nor through individual rebellion, but requires:
A just political system.
A state of law.
And courageous juristic ijtihad.
In the Next Installment (25):
We move to a more confrontational reading with the prevailing discourse:
Ahmed Subhy Mansour,
and religious freedom between faith, peace, and the desacralization of violence.
To be continued,
Cairo: Five in the evening, local time.
