In the wake of the Arab Revolutions of 2011, countries in the Middle East are grappling with how Islamists might be included within a regime of democratic political pluralism and how their aspirations for an “Islamic state” could affect the citizenship status of non-Muslims. While Islamic jurisprudence on this issue has traditionally classified non-Muslims in Islamic society as protected peoples or dhimma, endowed with what the authors term “minority citizenship”, this article will examine how the transnational intellectual Wasatiyya or Centrist movement, of which Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi is the figurehead, have sought to develop a new fiqh of citizenship in which Muslims and non-Muslims have equal civil and political rights. This article will focus on Yusuf al-Qaradawi on the basis that his very recent shift in 2010 on the issue is yet to be studied in depth, as well as in view of the fact that the dilemma faced by reformist Islamic scholars - how to integrate modern concepts into a legal tradition while simultaneously arguing for that tradition’s continuing relevance and authority - is for him rendered particularly acute, given that this tradition is itself the very source of his own authority and relevance. It will therefore be argued that the legacy of the Islamic legal tradition structures his discourse in a very specific way, thereby having the potential to render it more persuasive to his audience, and worthy of a more detailed examination.

In the early stages of the Arab uprisings, one of the questions frequently posed in the analysis of the mass mobilizations revolved around the role that Islamists would play in post-authoritarian transitions. To that end, when the Critical Currents in Islam page launched in 2013, it featured a roundtable exploring Islamism as a political force that presented a popular challenge to authoritarian rule. As events unfolded and gains of revolutionary movements were rolled back, however, the conversation shifted to the fallout from a resurgent authoritarian wave and its impact on forces of political Islam moving forward. In the interim, a phenomenon that came to demand more attention from observers was the construction of theological arguments and the enlisting of Islamic institutions in support of the authoritarian resurgence. This roundtable facilitates critical discussion on the state of this question ten years after the Arab uprisings.