Ifta' and Fatwa in the Muslim World and the West

Zulfiqar Ali Shah

"During the formative classical period of Islamic jurisprudence, well-known scholars possessed not only the intellectual skills required for analytic reasoning, but also a broad general knowledge of the fields relevant to the cultural contexts in which they issued their edicts. A viable fatwa requires knowledge of the Shariʻah as well as local customs, cultural realities, individual and communal implications, and related matters. The original juristic tradition was formulated and fixed during the first three Islamic centuries, a time of widespread sociopolitical turmoil. Of course, the jurists legal outlooks and thinking processes could not have escaped this reality. While Muslims of the prophetic and rāshidūn periods adhered closely to the authentic texts due to their sincerity, piety, prophetic training, and proximity to the revelation, the changing environment in which their...