09-05-2006, 09:04 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-Mudy+Sep 4 2006, 02:35 PM-->QUOTE(Mudy @ Sep 4 2006, 02:35 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->India is not a Islamist country. Fatwa is invalid.
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You'd think so right? Au contrarire.. Fatwas issued in India has bigger following than in Islamists nations. Arun Shourie's book 'World of Fatwas' lists the history of Fatwas, impact on social fabric and political ramnifications. Time permitting, I'll post some interesting tit-bits for that book.
Some excerpts/review here: The World of Fatwa's Reviewed by: Harindra Srivastava
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->A fatwa, defines the author in his introductory note, "is a decree, a ruling". The sequence being that a Muslim puts an issue before an authority, and the latter rules on the matter. The authorities who can do so can be individuals as well as institutions. Dar al-Ulema at Deoband, for instance, has a special department for this very purpose. They have already come out with a 12-volume collection of fatwa. But that is not the end. Fatwas are eternal. They accumulate and go on from man to man and from time to time.
Whenever a Muslim is in doubt at some point of conduct or when he is involved in a dispute with another person for any problem of life, he will turn to some authority to find what the authority has decreed in its fatwa on the matter. Issuing fatwas, therefore, is an art to solve all human problems. Obviously, the fatwa-issuing agencies (mufti, maulvi, maulana or ulema) are no ordinary human beings. They are luminaries gifted with an encyclopaedic vision plus celestial omniscience so as to pronounce verdict on infinite problems ranging from personal hygiene to marital relations, from sex with goat and mare to rape and adultery, from finer points to law on inheritance to all those confusions about the cosmic order, i.e., the interplenatary relations of the earth, the sun, the moon and the like. So far, so good.
But as fatwas are the "Shariah in action", the question is - how many of these thousands of fatwas are known (or have been made known) to an average Muslim? If not, why? And if yes, how many of these fatawas are really cared for and put into practice; or they work only as interior decor of their sacred scriptures?
To build up his thesis and comment upon several other associated aspects of fatwas, the author takes into account five collections of fatwas:
Fatawa-i- Rizvia, Vol I to XII
Kifayat-ul Mufti, Vol I to IX
Fatawa-i-Ulema Dar al-Uluma, Deoband Vol I to XII
Fatawa-i-Ahl-Hadis, Vol I to IV
Fatawa-i-Rahimiyyah Vol I to III
Elaborating upon each one of them, the author comes to the main corpus of the work. But - and that is the crux of the matter - with a caution and appeal, for he knows the Muslim psyche too well.
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[right][snapback]56779[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You'd think so right? Au contrarire.. Fatwas issued in India has bigger following than in Islamists nations. Arun Shourie's book 'World of Fatwas' lists the history of Fatwas, impact on social fabric and political ramnifications. Time permitting, I'll post some interesting tit-bits for that book.
Some excerpts/review here: The World of Fatwa's Reviewed by: Harindra Srivastava
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->A fatwa, defines the author in his introductory note, "is a decree, a ruling". The sequence being that a Muslim puts an issue before an authority, and the latter rules on the matter. The authorities who can do so can be individuals as well as institutions. Dar al-Ulema at Deoband, for instance, has a special department for this very purpose. They have already come out with a 12-volume collection of fatwa. But that is not the end. Fatwas are eternal. They accumulate and go on from man to man and from time to time.
Whenever a Muslim is in doubt at some point of conduct or when he is involved in a dispute with another person for any problem of life, he will turn to some authority to find what the authority has decreed in its fatwa on the matter. Issuing fatwas, therefore, is an art to solve all human problems. Obviously, the fatwa-issuing agencies (mufti, maulvi, maulana or ulema) are no ordinary human beings. They are luminaries gifted with an encyclopaedic vision plus celestial omniscience so as to pronounce verdict on infinite problems ranging from personal hygiene to marital relations, from sex with goat and mare to rape and adultery, from finer points to law on inheritance to all those confusions about the cosmic order, i.e., the interplenatary relations of the earth, the sun, the moon and the like. So far, so good.
But as fatwas are the "Shariah in action", the question is - how many of these thousands of fatwas are known (or have been made known) to an average Muslim? If not, why? And if yes, how many of these fatawas are really cared for and put into practice; or they work only as interior decor of their sacred scriptures?
To build up his thesis and comment upon several other associated aspects of fatwas, the author takes into account five collections of fatwas:
Fatawa-i- Rizvia, Vol I to XII
Kifayat-ul Mufti, Vol I to IX
Fatawa-i-Ulema Dar al-Uluma, Deoband Vol I to XII
Fatawa-i-Ahl-Hadis, Vol I to IV
Fatawa-i-Rahimiyyah Vol I to III
Elaborating upon each one of them, the author comes to the main corpus of the work. But - and that is the crux of the matter - with a caution and appeal, for he knows the Muslim psyche too well.
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