Is it wrong to want to live in a peaceful place with few Muslims?

Question

I'm currently living in Australia as it is generally a great place. Not much religious discrimination, very diverse community, I can freely go to a mosque and pray and such.

I also am studying at Melbourne high school, a great place with a friendly community and highly intellectual students. I came here with my parents when I was only 6 (I became 14 a month and a half ago) for e.g. giving me a better education and letting me grow up in a safe environment.

I originally Uighur, from China, and there is ongoing persecution in China, partly due to the infamous Daesh, and also radicalism around the world including a few Uighur individuals.

We still go back once per a year for a month or two to visit our relatives and such. My mother wants to go back to live with them and my grandparents, but she values my education and environment so she isn't.

I will most likely spend my life here and I don't exactly dislike it as it is very safe and open for me and the other Muslims who are here. However, I recently read that a person shouldn't live between non Muslims for his life, which I find pretty worrying.

Question: Is it wrong for me to want to live in Australia, despite Muslims being in the minority?

I have a friends here who are Christians, but they respect my religion and don't try to convert me or anything. I just want to be able live in a peaceful place where I can freely practice my religion and not be oppressed or be in constant danger, and Australia fits this description very well.

Answer 1

It doesn't appear that you are living with non-muslims, after all you have a local mosque and I assume muslim friends; your worry appears to be that you follow a minority religion in a Western state.

However, one of the sources of Western civilisation is usually taken as being Christianity; this is not so readily apparent these days given the secular turn that the West has taken recently; still, it's values are deeply embedded in its institutions and laws; as the Prophet called the the followers of Judaism and Christianity the people of the book (ahl al-kitab), its appears to me that one should feel reassured in living in the West - this is how I've always understood it, though I can't offer any scholarly support for this position, its a position I've taken being a muslim living in England with a similar relationship as you to the land of not my birth, but that of my parents; except in my case, a village in Bangladesh.

The national poet of Bangladesh, a majority muslim state, is Rabindranath Tagore, ostensibly a Hindu; he wrote that he came of age within the matrix of the cultures of three great civilisations - Persia, India & Europe.

I hope this helps.

Answer 2

From this Fatwa

(a) Those who are obliged to migrate: they are those who are able to migrate and who cannot practise their religion openly in dar al-harb. It is obligatory upon a female even if she does not have a mahram, if she thinks she will be safe when travelling, or if the risk of travelling is less than the risk of staying in dar al-harb…

(b) Those who are not obliged to migrate: they are those who are unable to do so, either because of sickness or because they are forced to stay in the kaafir land, or those who are weak, such as woman and children, because Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning): “Except the weak ones among men, women and children who cannot devise a plan, nor are they able to direct their way” [al-Nisa’ 4:98]

(c) Those for whom migration is mustahabb but not obligatory: they include those who are able to migrate but are also able to practise their religion openly in dar al-harb. It is mustahabb for such a person to migrate so that he can participate in jihad and increase the numbers of the Muslims. In a fatwa issued by the Standing Committee (12/50): One may also migrate from a mushrik land to another mushrik land that is less evil and where there is less danger to the Muslim, as some of the Muslims migrated from Makkah at the Prophet’s command to Abyssinia.

I think you are in c category.

Read complete fatwa for better understanding of the issue.