Encyclopedia of Islam

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national census and today includes some esti-
mated 315,000 residents. It constitutes about 1.5
percent of Australia’s 21 million citizens.
The Muslim community has an extremely
diverse ethnic makeup, its members deriving from
more than 50 countries, including those in west-
ern Africa, the Middle East, and southern Asia.
The largest group of Australian Muslims comes
from Lebanon and tUrkey. Its members have
concentrated in the major urban centers in the
southeastern part of the continent. Through the
last decades of the 20th century, regional councils
of Muslims were formed, leading to the creation
of the Australian Federation of Muslim Councils,
the primary national Islamic organization. The
growth of the community has allowed a variety of
regional and national organizations, such as the
United Muslim Women Association, to emerge.
The Australian Federation appoints a titular
spiritual head of the Islamic community who
bears the title mUFti of Australia and New Zea-
land. The current mufti, Egyptian-born Taj Al-
Din Hamid Abd Allah Al-Hilali (b. 1941), has
become well known for his outspokenness, espe-
cially in his defense of the Muslim community
in the wake of recent bombings in the United
States, Bali, and London, the commitment of
Australian troops to Afghanistan and Iraq, and
government efforts to suppress possible terrorist
acts in Australia.
Nationally, Muslims have concentrated on the
education of the next generation and where pos-
sible have opened Islamic schools for youths at
the primary and secondary levels. Leaders have
expressed concern about the secular atmosphere
in the country and laws promoting the liberation
of youths in their mid-teens.
Today there are more than 100 mosqUes and
prayer halls in Australia. Most are Sunni in
orientation, with no one legal school or ethnic
membership dominating. The largest number of
mosques and Islamic schools are found in the Syd-
ney and Melbourne urban areas. Al Zahra College,


the first Islamic institution of higher learning, is
located in Sydney.
See also eUrope; United states; West aFrica.
J. Gordon Melton

Further reading: A. H. Johns and A. Saeed, “Muslims
in Australia: The Building of a Community.” In Muslim
Minorities in the West, Visible and Invisible, edited by
Yvonne Haddad and Jane I. Smith, 192–216 (Walnut
Creek, Calif.: Altamira Press, 2002); Abdullah Saeed,
Australian Muslims: Their Beliefs, Practices and Institu-
tions (Melbourne: Department of Immigration and
Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs, Australian Mul-
ticultural Foundation, University of Melbourne, 2004).
Available online. URL: http://www.amf.net.au/PDF/religion-
CulturalDiversity/Resource_Manual.pdf. Accessed on
December 27, 2005; Wafia Omer and Kirsty Allen, “The
Muslims in Australia.” In A Yearbook of Australian Reli-
gious Organizations, edited by Peter Bentley and Philip
J. Hughes, 114–115 (Kew, Victoria: Christian Research
Association, 1997).

authority
Authority is the basis by which power is legiti-
mately used to bring about compliance and obedi-
ence. In secular terms, it is often connected with
how leaders and governments justify their right
not only to exist, but also to rule others with their
consent. In a hereditary monarchy, for example,
authority is vested in the person of the king and
his dynasty. In a liberal democracy, authority
is vested in the people, who then consent to be
legally subject to those they elect to governmen-
tal office. In either case, the exercise of authority
displaces the need to rely upon only brute force to
obtain compliance. Max Weber (d. 1920), one of
the founders of modern sociology, identified three
basic types of authority that are generally accepted
by modern scholars: 1) traditional authority based
on the sanctity of the past, 2) charismatic author-
ity involving the sanctity of individuals, and 3)
rational-legal authority involving bureaucratic
organizations. These three ideal types of authority

authority 71 J
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