“Islam Is More than Halal and Haram”

This chapter focuses on Webb debates about Islamic law and ethics. In 2011, in the midst of a flurry of proposed anti-sharia legislation across the United States, the Webb community held an adult class focused on fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence). The conversations I track here occurred during the fiqh class and the conversations I had with Webb members about how to live according to God’s will as American Muslims. Students rarely talked about or engaged fiqh as a body of Islamic jurisprudence. Instead, the Webb interest in fiqh derived its urgency from its members’ goals to raise their children to have “seamless” American Muslim identities and to improve the public image of Islam. Webb parents especially want their kids to understand that Islamic ethics is not a rigid, narrow set of guidelines, but rather everyday processes of normative reflection and action, negotiated within families and among individuals, religious scholars, and God.