Shaykh Abdullah bin Bayyah, one of the well-known Muslim scholars, has visited the United States, and this is part of one of his lectures, addressing all Muslims who live in Non-Muslim countries:

You are a group that is small in number and yet strong in faith, a group that has diverse ideas and understandings and whose individuals come from many different cultural and ethnic backgrounds, a group that is few amongst a dominant group that is many. The dominant group is strong in many areas; in fact, they are controlling many areas of the world. I would like to speak tonight about what the priorities of such a group would be: What are the obligations of such a group? What are the responsibilities of such a group? I would like to present some ideas to you, and I hopes that Allah subhaana wa ta'aala helps me to present some ideas that relate to a methodology, to approaches, and to things that will be beneficial to this group if they implement them.

I want to speak about the responsibilities that you carry here. In contrast to Muslims living in the dominant Muslim world at large, you are, in many ways, strangers in a strange land. Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) said:

"Tuba lil guraba." In other words, the conditions of the stranger are blessed conditions,

and it also means, "lahum al-jannah: they have paradise" for bearing the burden of alienation. An Arab proverb is, "ya ghareeb kun adeeba: oh stranger in a strange land, be a man of courtesy and cultivation." There is also a Hadith saying:

"Islam began alienated and will return as it began, alienated. So, blessed are the alienated ones."

This alienation should not mean that you distance yourselves from those around you. That is not the meaning of this state of estrangement. It does not mean you should not work with others or that you should avoid the dominant society and distance yourselves completely from it even though your state is one of estrangement.

Since we know that Islam has legal injunctions and that Muslims have a code of law, a question that occurs immediately to us in looking at these conditions here is whether or not there are rules in our religion that apply to one land and do not apply to another land. As we all know Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) said that Allah subhaana wa ta'aala has made incumbent upon you to fulfill certain obligations, and Allah has also set boundaries for you, so do not transgress those boundaries. As we know, these rules in Islam relate to every Muslim. In terms of human beings, every one is equal in relation to these rules. You cannot say that one Muslim does not have to pray and another one does. All Muslims who are responsible adults have to pray. So, these rules of prayer and fasting, what are know as the Five Pillars of Islam, the foundations of Islam-are things that are binding upon all Muslims, no matter where they come from, or what place they are in.

In addition, there is another type of set of rules in Islam that is known as al-ahkam as-sultania, and these are rules related to governmental authority, to the state. These rules involve certain things, such as the penal code of the Muslims. There is a code related to criminal law: if you do this, then this is the punishment. The implementation of those laws is related to the ahkam as-sultania or the rules related to the legitimate authority of the state.

The ahkam as-sultania includes the rules related to jihaad-in other words, martial activity in which men fight in war and battles. They also include the rules related to zakaah collecting: the gathering of wealth that Allah has obliged people to pay. In addition, they relate to the establishment of imams, not only the greatest imam, who would be the khalifa, but also the aaimma who will be in the Mosque, and the qadaat who are the people who give the khutba on the jumu'a prayer every Friday. All these types of things are traditionally related to the authority of the legitimate governing body of the Muslims. Muslims need judges; they need courts; they need police-all of these things relate to these ahkam; rules. These types of rules which are known as the ahkam as-sultania, or rules related to people of authority, are not the concern of those people who are living in a land in which there is not a legitimate state authority of Muslims.

If we want to look at an analogy, we will find it in the Makkan stage of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), or the stage where he was in Mekkah, he was not making any claims to government authority. He was calling people to tauheed: the unity of Allah. He was calling people to prayer. He was calling people to the purification of their hearts. He was calling people to leave shirk (associating partnership with Allah). All these are known as the jihaad of the tongue: jihaad al-kalima; it is not the jihaad of the sword-or now the gun or the atom bomb or whatever. It was the jihaad of the tongue. Allah subhaana wa ta'aala said,

"jaahidhum bihi jihaad al-kabir." "Jaahidhum bihi"

means to struggle against them with the Qur'an. In other words, "speak the Qur'an to them, and struggle against them with the truth in word;" and this was the jihaad of Mekkah. You can say that this is speaking with a strong tongue in the face of wrong, in the face of injustices.

Next, I would like to address the issue of our responsibilities. Given our state of weakness and our minority status here, the Governmental Aspects of the Sharia' (God Commandments) do not apply to us. We are not legally responsible for the governmental aspects because of our condition here. Given that, what becomes our responsibility?

The first aspect depicts the relationships that we have with one another. These relationships have to be based on brotherhood. They have to be relationships based on love. Since we are minorities here and are few in number, we have to understand that we need to have solidarity. In order for us to have solidarity, there is something that is very important that we must understand about our legal structure, which is the jurisprudence of difference of opinion: fiqh al-khilaaf. We have to look deeply into this because if we understand this, this is a way in which we can be united and have good feelings towards each other and not negative feelings based on our understandings of valid differences of opinion amongst us.

Another aspect is the relationship that we have with non-Muslims. Now, an issue that we must look at is that of the abode: the daar. Although there may be some people who are educated in Islam who are aware of this issue of the abode, there are many people who are unaware of this issue. In fact, you will even find some people who are fuqaha, scholars of Islamic law and the legal system, who are unaware of this issue. The issue of the abode is this: most people think that the world is divided into two abodes, the abode of peace and the abode of war. The abode of peace is the land of the Muslims, daar al-Islam, and the abode of war is everywhere else. In Nixon's book that I read a translated version of called Seizing the Moment, Nixon wrote a long chapter on the Islamic phenomenon of the modern world. One of the things Nixon said after praising Islam a great deal and saying many nice things about Islam is that one of the most fundamental problems with the Muslims is that they view the world as a dichotomy of two abodes: the abode of peace and the abode of war.This idea is completely wrong, as Islam is a religion of peace. There are three abodes: there is the abode of peace, the abode of war, and then there is the abode of treaty where there is a contractual agreement between two abodes. We have to understand that the relationship between the Muslims living in this land and the dominant authorities in this land is a relationship of peace and contractual agreement-of a treaty. This is a relationship of dialogue and a relationship of giving and taking.

Also I want to underline the need for three institutions: The Mufti; somebody who gives legal opinions based on the understanding of all of the different areas of Islam, such as marriage, the rules of buying and selling, the rules of prayer, and the rules of tahaara (cleanliness and purification). The mufti is involved in all of these different things. So, we need an institution that deals with this for the Muslims. They need a sound source for guidance concerning these issues.

The second institution is The Court; we need is a muassasa of tahkeem, an institution that issues rulings. In this culture, it is called people's court. A people's court is where the state does not get involved with the case. The parties that are differing agree to go to somebody who will listen to both sides and then make a judgment, and that judgment becomes binding upon them based on the prior agreement of the two.

Third institution is Reconciliation; bringing people together. Somebody brings the differing groups together and reconciles between them so that they can work together or work separately in peace; thus, they are not fighting each other, undermining each other's work.

Thus, as Muslims, people should come together as one hand and create blocks to where they can try to have some influence to the best of their ability.