ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the Islamic legal approach to belonging when that very legal tradition is invoked in a politics of fear, and informs exclusionary policies of policing in North America and Europe. It explores the premodern legal doctrine and more contemporary approaches, on entry and exit from the community denoted by ‘Islam’. Of course, when one converts to Islam, the question that often arises is whether and to what extent is that person obligated to the full scope of Islamic law, in particular the ritual rules of worship such as prayer and fasting, as well as the dietary restrictions around what one can and cannot eat. Leaving Islam is a more complicated matter, depending on whether and to what extent religion is conceived as purely personal and private, or also and at the same time, highly communal and thereby political.
