Summary

The Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA) serves as the main body of juristic counsel for Muslims in North America, providing guidance to Muslim Americans on critical issues related to their social lives and ritual practices, responding to their questions and issuing religious edicts on a wide range of issues, such as medicine, economics, marriage, divorce, alimony (nafaqa), inheritance, and fostering. FCNA is a voluntary and fully independent nonprofit organization, consisting of diverse, recognized, and qualified Muslim scholars who accept the Qur’an and the authentic Sunnah as primary sources of Islam. In the early 1970s, national organizations like the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), and the ministry of Warith Deen Mohammed saw the need to form committees of scholars to advise the Muslim community on matters related to fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence). During the 1970s, Muslim Students Association (MSA) members formed the Religious Affairs Committee primarily to determine the corresponding dates of Islam’s lunar months with the Gregorian solar calendar so that Muslims could accurately determine the exact dates of Ramadan, and the religious festivals of Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha. Later, as the Muslim community’s needs grew and issues became more complex, the Fiqh Committee evolved into the FCNA (hereinafter “the Council”) as an independent entity in 1986. Although the Council was historically affiliated with ISNA, the Council has been completely self-governing as an independent scholarly organization. This intellectual freedom enables the Council to monitor and analyze outside Islamic legal opinions of other Muslim juristic bodies to benefit from the scholarly works of renowned international and national jurists. The Council strives to consider the main legal schools (madhhabs) of Islamic law, in consideration of the Muslim American community’s diversity and the inherent pluralism of Islamic law. For over three decades, the Council has advised and educated Muslim Americans on the application of Islamic legal principles in their individual and collective lives within their respective American societies. From the beginning, the Council’s intellectual and juristic methodology has reflected the founders’ deep understanding of two elements that are required as necessary for the issuance of legal edicts (fatawā, plural of fatwa): knowledge of context (i.e., American history, culture, law, etc.) and mastery of the Islamic sources of knowledge. The new environment presented many challenges, ranging from traditional family law to basic aspects of North American life (e.g., mortgages, voting, marriage, and divorce). The founders of the Council strove to develop a comprehensive methodology of fiqh al-aqalliyyāt (jurisprudence for minorities) to guide and answer Muslim American concerns. Fiqh al-aqalliyyāt is not merely a theoretical debate among jurists on mechanisms and methodologies, but a practical approach to empirical questions and challenges facing Muslim minorities. The Council’s ultimate goal is to help Muslim Americans maintain their identity and values as Muslims, values that encourage their positive contributions to society’s virtues and promote their engagement as active American citizens and role models for those who work for the public good.