ABSTRACT

This chapter argues that Tareq Oubrou uses Islamic classical jurisprudential devices (such as fatwas) and personal communion with the divine (spirituality) to renew the understanding of God, man, and the Qur’an in the European context in general and the French context in particular. His work is synthesized in this chapter in three major concepts: (1) “geotheology,” (2) “shari‘a of the minority,” which are Oubrou’s own terminology-concepts, and (3) “European Islam.” Deductively, as a reflective closure of this synthesis, the three concepts above are briefly matched to three devices he uses in approaching religion: (1) the “relativization” of religious norms in the light of time and space changes; (2) the “minoritization” of Islam through the endorsement of pluralist values like liberty and equality; and (3) the “localization” of religious authority through the “nationalization” of religious discourse. In so doing, he (1) “relativizes” shari‘a law by emphasizing the questions of ethics and meaning, (2) “minoritizes” Islam as a religion in a pluralist liberal society so as to save it from narrow-mindedness and from being the “only” contributor to European, and broadly, modern civilization, and (3) attempts to converge religious and secular authorities into the nation state institutional apparatuses; namely, he “localizes” religious authority by “nationalizing” it.