European Muslims and the Digital Fatwa¯

To explore how the relationship between Muslims and modernity has further evolved in the digital age, a detailed analysis was carried out of a corpus of nearly 1000 fatwā questions posed by Muslims residing in Europe—the cradle of modernity—to online muftīs of three websites offering the fatwā-on-demand service (corpus A). In the first section, before presenting the full analysis of corpus A, the characteristics and limitations of the so-called Muslim minority jurisprudence, developed as a result of the growing presence of Muslim immigrants in Western societies, are discussed. In the next section, the construction of corpus A is described, then the results of the thematic analysis are presented and discussed in relation to the results of previous research. It is shown that the main concerns of European Muslims are family and social relationships as well as their private relationship with God. It is highlighted that they are trying to ‘integrate’ as individuals rather than as a collectivity or community, a very modern trait in itself. The results of this analysis further support the idea that Muslims, through the use of the fatwā, are neither rejecting modernity nor ‘escaping’ it, but are simply struggling to find a balance between their faith and modern reality. Finally, some important concluding remarks are provided.