The Fiqh of the Future? How Should We Think about the Future of our World?
I converted to Islam in 2002, and I made my first Muslim friends in 2001, over the last twenty years I have seen our communities pushed into boxes focused on identities prefabricated for us and an endless stream of responses talking primarily about what we are not. It is because of this policing of our identities that we have focused so much on what it means to be American Muslim, British Muslim, and on and on. I've also been blessed to live and build with Muslim communities around the United States and around the world from West Africa to Southeast Asia, so I've seen how these things are playing out in different parts of the world. As we started building the Center for Global Muslim Life, the original name I used for this organization was the Muslim Futures Foundation with the idea of creating something that is focused on building a vision for our community rather than simply reacting to whatever is thrown at us day after day, and year after year.
As this era of the War on Terror, inshallah comes to an end, and we see a totally new world being birthed around us in the 2020s in the midst of the global coronavirus pandemic, we have to think about what the next 50 years of our world will look like. In this time from 2020 to 2070 Muslims are expected to grow from making up one-quarter of the world’s population to one-third. So much of the military, educational, philosophical, cultural, and psychological wars that our communities face are meant to put us into this permanent reactionary state that diminishes our understanding of our own worldview.
So it has been in these realms that I have worked primarily through grassroots community organizing to build local power for communities, and in discussing the larger dimensions of the worldview of Islam and how we should understand the metaphysical realities of our spiritual lives to see how the world is changing around us. These latter points are both lifelong pursuits in understanding and knowing Allah, while also understanding your own self, and your heart in transforming your life.
The sad reality is for many Muslims today, being Muslim is about identity more than it is about faith and calling the world to a higher purpose. The reality is, the rapid transformation of our world, and the breakthroughs in technology make this world difficult to look away from, as many prophecies have predicted. Along those lines, this past week I read an important book, Lifting Hardship from the Umma, by Habib Abu Bakr Al-’Adani b. Ali Al Mashur. The book is an important reflection on what our states should be in the midst of this global pandemic, how we should be supplicating to Allah to remove these various hardships we face in our world, as well as a beautiful set of Appendices with specific litanies for these times. In some ways, I’m surprised I haven’t seen something like this book before, as this is one of the greatest crises we have faced in most of our lives. The link to the book is here, and it’s highly recommended as we approach Ramadan in less than 60 days.
One of the points that really struck me in the book, was Habib Abu Bakr’s usage of the term, ghutha'iyya period, in reference to the hadith where the Prophet ﷺ refers to a point in history where Muslims will be many but we will be like the flotsam (ghuta’) on the sea, as it relates to power and where “wahan” will be placed in our hearts. In the Hadith, it is asked of the Prophet ﷺ what is wahan? He ﷺ then replied: “The love for this worldly life, and hatred of death” (Abu Dawud). Again, this goes back to that point about identity, if we are Muslim, but don’t understand what the worldview of Islam actually is, then what will we create in the world?
This is especially important for us to think about as one thing that the world pre and post-COVID represent (if such a thing exists), is a further acceleration of the worldview of unbridled technology. How do we actually prepare for this future through our own worldview rather than as Muslims living through the lens of westernization, or the Chinese worldview, or some type of technological utopianism? If all that Elon Musk is trying to build came to fruition what do we as Muslims have to say about this, and do we participate? Of course, this is much bigger than just Elon Musk, but this is someone who is solving a problem we can agree on, in creating alternatives to fossil fuels, while also building companies that are trying to link our minds to computers, who will soon control up to 50% of the world’s satellites orbiting the earth in an attempt to beam internet to the entire planet, and of course, most ambitiously, trying to colonize Mars. He’s not alone in our world of mega barons whose central goal is the colonization of space, this is why Jeff Bezos built Amazon.
Of course, none of these things are really fiqh questions, they are more along the lines of questions of worldview, maybe more within the realm of the maqasid of sharia, and how we understand existence, but most Muslims understand right and wrong through the lens of fiqh.
So can we imagine then fiqh of this rapidly approaching future?
Amongst the scholars, who has a great enough understanding of these issues to answer these questions?
Is there a working group somewhere thinking about these things?
These are some of the core issues we have to start thinking about, some having to do with the shifting nature of power, and some having to do directly with emerging technologies. A brief list would include:
White supremacy, racism, ethnonationalism, caste, and apartheid
The deeper regionalization of our world through technological networks
The shift from fiat to cryptocurrency and the decline of the dollar
The western system of capitalism and the poverty it is creating in our world
Broad corruption in politics
The global growth and prevalence of criminal organizations (mafia, cartel, etc.)
War and the military-industrial complex
Shifting global centers of power and intra-Muslim wars
Pandemics and vaccines
The future of food, what does this mean for halal & tayyib?
The Internet and content consumption
The Hyper Visualization of existence
Virtual reality and augmented reality
Relevant cultural production through an Islamic worldview frame
Social media and influencers as faith leaders, and the displacement of tradition
Artificial intelligence
Wearable technology & implants
Climate manipulation
Future military weaponry - Robots
Health, medicine, and natural medicines
Life beyond earth
Surveillance, Data, and Privacy
Islamic finance and social impact
Are you interested in this and want to work with us in thinking about this series? Reach out at dustin@globalmuslimlife.com