Islam begins with the hijra, the Prophet Mohammed’s flight from persecution in Mecca to the city of Medina, where Muslims first organized themselves as a spiritual and political community–the Muslim umma. This founding event has led to a debate in Islamic law that continues to this day. Does the Prophet’s example suggest that Muslims may not reside in a non-Muslim polity? The dominant position, according to scholar Andrew March, is that Muslims may reside in non-Muslim states, as long as they are free to practice their religion. A minority tradition, however, holds that Muslims may not reside in non-Muslim states and that migration is a religious obligation. This latter view obviously creates complications for citizenship in pluralist democracies.

These questions are no doubt addressed by a book to be published later this month by Britain’s Islamic Texts Society, Muslims in Non-Muslim Lands: A Legal Study with Applications, by author Amjad M. Mohammed. The publisher’s description follows:

Since the Second World War, there has been a significant migration of Muslims to countries in the Western world. Muslims in non-Muslim Landstraces the process by which these migrants arrived in Western Europe-in particular Britain-and explains how the community developed its faith identity through three particular stances: assimilation, isolation and integration. The findings argue that the assumption that Islam causes Muslims to isolate from the indigenous population and form ‘a state within a state’ is false, and that Islamic law actually gives Muslims confidence and the ability to integrate within the wider society.