**3. Religion and Public Policy**

In March 2020, a group of students from the University of Notre Dame in the American Midwest traveled to Muscat, Oman, for spring break. There, they met students who were studying at Notre Dame University, Bangladesh. The two student bodies from Notre Dame on opposite sides of the world were established by the Congregation of Holy Cross, "educators in the faith." (Congregation of Holy Cross n.d.). The cross-cultural encounter between mostly Catholics from the United States and Muslims from Bangladesh—which we playfully called "Holy Crossroads"—took place during the week that COVID-19 resulted in widespread global shutdowns.

Midweek, the American students received a message from the University administration instructing them not to return to campus after the trip. As student anxieties surged, Muscat went into near total lockdown on the morning of return: All schools were closed; daily congregational prayer in the mosques was suspended; entry of foreign nationals was banned; and Souq Muttrah, a daily thoroughfare, was shuttered. Just two months later, the University of Notre Dame, distinctive among nationally ranked research universities in the United States because of its faith-based mission, became the first institution of its kind to announce that it would reopen for in-person classes that fall. University president

Rev. John Jenkins, CSC, explained the rationale in a *New York Times* Op-Ed titled "We're Reopening Notre Dame: It's Worth the Risk" (Jenkins 2020).

Three principles guided his decision: ensuring the physical health and wellbeing of the community; educating the whole person, which requires in-person learning inside and outside the classroom; and advancing high-quality research. Would remote or in-person learning be better for flourishing within learning environments? What risks should be given the greatest consideration in a global pandemic? "No science, simply as science, can answer that question", argued Rev. Jenkins. "It is a moral question in which principles to which we are committed are in tension". The global response to the pandemic unearthed the human side of scientific problems. Why do some people believe in the efficacy of masking, and others disparage it? Why did Sweden follow a completely different public policy strategy from its European neighbors, despite following the same science? "There are", says Rev. Jenkins, "questions that a scientist, speaking strictly as a scientist, cannot answer for us". The University opened that fall with mandated masking and social distancing, and it mandated vaccines once they became available to near-total compliance.

Meanwhile, in Oman, the population by-and-large also complied with public health guidelines. Even the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, an obligation for every adult Muslim of means at least once in their lifetime, was canceled for all nonresidents (Blakemore 2020). Dissent, however, was not entirely absent, and it was even widespread in some parts of the world (Maire 2020; Piwko 2021). One case study in Bangladesh shows, unsurprisingly, that religion cut both ways, both helping and hurting to promote key public health initiatives which arose during the crisis (Roy 2022). On the one hand, extremist faith leaders used the pandemic to scapegoat others. On the other hand, many faith leaders engaged in social development projects. UNICEF estimates that "currently about 500,000 Imams and religious leaders are disseminating information about COVID-19 in Bangladesh on topics ranging from hygiene and infection prevention, social distancing, and how to benefit from the Holy Quran when in lockdown at home" (ibid, p. 3).

In both compliance and resistance, Muslim scholars have attempted to abide by the sharia, whether advancing the goals of political authorities—even if they have had to postpone or altogether miss out on the lifelong dream to attend the sacred precincts of Mecca and Medina—or thwarting them. The sharia, imperfectly translated as "Islamic law," has a moral component vis-à-vis one's obligations to God as well as a political component, which involves policymaking for the common good. Governance requires practical wisdom, the weighing of priorities, and the privileging of certain obligations over others when imperatives clash, especially in emergency circumstances. Scholars reasoning with the "objectives of Islamic law" (*maqa¯s.id al-shar¯ı'a*) offer a three-tier ranking system of priorities: necessities (*d. aruriyy ¯ at¯* ), needs (*h. ajiyy ¯ at¯* ), and embellishments or adornments (*tah.s¯ıniyyat*) (Abd-Allah 2007). To better understand this three-tier ranking, take the home as an example. Having some kind of home (shelter) is a necessity. Having basic amenities in the home, such as windows for natural light and fresh air and furniture for daily living, are needs. Leather couches and velvet curtains, on the other hand, are embellishments: Nice to have, but one doesn't invest in drapes if one doesn't have a home with windows, to begin with.

There are five overarching objectives of Islamic law: the preservation of life, intellect, religion, wealth, and family (sometimes referred to as lineage or dignity). Life takes precedence over everything else. Things that are otherwise forbidden become temporarily lawful in emergency circumstances in order to preserve life. A starving person, for example, is permitted to eat pork or carrion in order to survive, provided that they consume only what is minimally necessary for survival and immediately desist when lawful alternatives become once again available. Consistent with this pattern of reasoning, public policies that temporarily suspend obligatory rituals in order to preserve life—such as the congregational prayer, funeral rites, or the annual pilgrimage—are immediately comprehensible and justifiable within a sharia framework.

Muslim-majority countries classified as repressive, whether secular or religious according to Daniel Philpott's typology, can therefore expect compliance around COVID-19 policies not simply because they are authoritarian (Philpott 2019). They can also expect compliance because the decision to lockdown is religiously intelligible as a means of advancing public welfare and the objectives of Islamic law. Even dissenters, who personally may not trust scientists or the government, are obliged to comply with public health regulations as a religious obligation. That is because individual judgment does not supersede the rule of law, so long as the law is not obligating outright sin. If one considers—for whatever reason—that the vaccine is a danger to one's life and health, then one has the *moral* right to disobey political authority for the sake of preserving one's life and wellbeing, thus incurring no sin, but one will nonetheless suffer the *legal* consequences that follow in society. In cases where lockdowns harm more than they benefit, rulers and citizens may come up with different conclusions on the best course of action. The interplay between obeying authority, following science, prudence in policy and enforcement, and the right to dissent thus results in a complex faith-based posture that is both reasonable and in line with the sharia.
