In this book, Omer Awass examines the formation, history, and transformation of the Islamic legal discourse and institutions through the lens of a particular legal practice: the issuance of fatwas (legal opinions). Tracing the growth of Islamic law over a vast geographical expanse -from Andalusia to India - and a long temporal span - from the 7th to the 21st century, he conceptualizes fatwas as the 'atomic units' of Islamic law. Awass argues that they have been a crucial element in the establishment of an Islamic legal tradition. He also provides numerous case studies that touch on economic, social, political, and religious topics. Written in an accessible style, this volume is the first to offer a comprehensive investigation of fatwas within such a broad spatio-temporal scope. It demonstrates how instrumental fatwas have been to the formation of Islamic legal traditions and institutions, as well as their unique forms of reasoning.

Examines different persons, periods, places, and principles to weave a narrative about a practice that spawned a legal tradition.

This book places context at the core of the Islamic mechanism of iftā’ to better understand the process of issuing fatwās in Muslim and non-Muslim countries, thus highlighting the connection between context and contemporaneity, on one hand, and the adaptable perception of Islamic law, on the other. The practice of iftā’ is one of the most important mechanisms of Islamic law that keeps Islamic thought about ethical and legal issues in harmony with the demands, exigencies and developments of time. This book builds upon the existing body of work related to the practice of iftā’, but takes the discussion beyond the current debates with the intent of unveiling the interaction between Islamic legal methodologies and different environmental contexts. The book specifically addresses the three institutions (Saudi Arabia’s Dār al-Iftā’, Turkey’s Diyanet and America’s FCNA) and their Islamic legal opinions (fatwās) in a comparative framework. This demonstrates the existence of complex and diverse ideas around similar issues within contemporary Islamic legal opinions that is further complicated by the influence of international, social, political, cultural and ideological contexts. The book thus unveils a more complicated range of interactive constituents in the process of the practice of iftā’ and its outputs, fatwās. The work will be of interest to academics and researchers working in the areas of Islamic law, Middle Eastern studies, religion and politics.

One of the most misunderstood aspects of Islamic legal practice and thought is the role and position of fatwas or legal opinions. This three-volume reference work offers a comprehensive overview of and detailed insights into: -the concept of the fatwa as a vehicle of legal opinion-making in Islam -its historical role in different parts of the Muslim world -and contemporary debates reflecting both the fatwa's enduring relevance and its ongoing contestation among Muslims today.

During the formative classical period of Islamic jurisprudence, wellknown scholars possessed not only the intellectual skills required for analytic reasoning, but also a broad general knowledge of the fi elds relevant to the cultural contexts in which they issued their edicts. A viable fatwa requires knowledge of the Shari‘ah as well as local customs, cultural realities, individual and communal implications, and related matters. The original juristic tradition was formulated and fi xed during the fi rst 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 descendants functioned gradually started to impact how the authentic texts were understood, interpreted, paraphrased, and implemented. Both the Muslim and the non-Muslim worlds have drastically changed since that time. The new geopolitical and scientifi c realities of our rapidly changing world demand a fresh look at some aspects of the established juristic tradition. The way forward involves a systematic fresh look at and reevaluation of the old fatwas, as well as the issuance of new ones with a maqāsidī outlook that can deal successfully with today’s ever-changing global realities. In this edited volume, papers on fatwa and iftā’ point to an approach that is both rooted in the Islamic legacy and committed to meeting the challenges of the modern world.

Previous ed.: Cambrige, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996.