Citizenship in the Arab World: Kin, Religion and Nation-State (review)

Gianluca Parolin, an assistant professor of Comparative Law at the American University in Cairo, analyzes in extensive detail three levels of interpretations of membership in Arab societies — the kin group which originated in pre-Islamic Arabia and flourishes as a basic framework of society today, the religious community [al-umma al-islamiyya] which seeks to override kin loyalties with holistic communal identity under Islam, and the more recent sense of the nation-state (al-jinsiyya) which challenges but is itself challenged by earlier themes of Arab membership and identity.

All three levels establish group participation by birth (jus sanguinis), but each interprets an individual's specific rights and duties in distinct ways. Parolin pursues these levels in almost overwhelming detail, a gold mine for the specialist but a bit daunting for the less involved reader. The latter would And Chapter 4, "Citizenship and the three levels of membership" (pp. 115-129), more rewarding.

Parolin presents several interesting points of contrast between Arab and Western customs. She discusses, for example, the considerable difficulty for foreigners, and especially non-Muslim foreigners to obtain citizenship in Arab states versus the relative ease of naturalization for foreigners in Western societies. She also discusses the rights of non-Muslims in many Arab states to be judged in their own confessional courts versus the requirement of everyone in most European states to follow universal secular law.