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"Fatwas"
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Islamophobia and the Spoils of Violent Fatwas
The current research aimed to examine the key manifestations of violent fatwas, particularly those that incite bloodshed, within the context of Arab-Islamic culture. These fatwas are categorized into two types. The first type comprises institutional fatwas, issued by official religious institutions or individuals who represent states in their capacity as political leaders or as figures combining political and religious authority. These two types of fatwas take two directions: they target individuals abroad or at home, including their own countries and leaders, or foreign countries. The research highlighted how fatwas advocating bloodshed in both categories are often co-opted by those who fear Islam to fuel Islamophobia, portraying all Muslims as violent and terrorists without acknowledging that Muslims are not a monolithic group. Among Muslims are those who condemn such fatwas, as well as those who fall victim to them. The study demonstrated that these generalizations obscure the diversity within Islamic culture and serve as tools for anti-Muslim propaganda. Furthermore, the study aimed to establish that fatwas contributing to the stigmatization of Islam and Muslims as violent both serve as spoils and create a predicament. They provoke angry and accusatory reactions towards Muslims, causing their concerns to be consistently framed by rulings that diminish their significance. Fatwas sanctioning the taking of life are presented as evidence of hatred and violence, fuelling mobilization against these matters—even when they are merely issues.
Journal Article
Fatwas and court judgments : a genre analysis of Arabic legal opinion
By examining Arabic legal opinions, Ahmed Fakhri seeks to understand how the organization of these texts accomplishes specific social goals. In doing so, he hopes to illuminate socio-cultural practices among those who produce and use these texts. Like other sociolinguistics projects, this manuscript unites texts with their social contexts. Fakhri also points out that legal texts have traditionally held an important place in Arabic culture and therefore provide an especially illuminating window into the broader realm of Arabic thought and culture.
Book
Issuing Justice
The ratification of the Sexual Violence Crime Bill in May 2022 reflects the collective efforts of diverse actors advocating for gender justice in Indonesia, including women ulama from the Congress of Indonesian Women Ulama (Kongres Ulama Perempuan Indonesia/KUPI). Central to this achievement is the KUPI’s pioneering 2017 fatwa condemning sexual violence, which empowered women ulama to mobilize support for the bill. This article explores how KUPI’s fatwa galvanized support for the Bill, helped to overcome resistance, and built lasting coalitions, thereby drawing attention to the overlooked role of women in issuing fatwas and in navigating and reshaping traditional religious frameworks to address gender-based violence. Using qualitative methods—including online observation, textual analysis, and interviews—I examine how women ulama challenge patriarchal interpretations of Islamic law and assert their authority in public religious discourse. I argue that, in social movements, fatwas can serve as internal innovations that offer shared moral guidance, unite actors, and act as mobilizing tools to drive policy change. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of female religious authority in Islamic jurisprudence and highlights shifting gender dynamics in contemporary Muslim societies, with a specific focus on Indonesia.
Journal Article
Feminist Jurisprudence, Women Ulama and Iftā in Indonesia
Eight years ago a group of Indonesian women scholars who constituted themselves as ‘women ulama’ claimed the epistemic authority to pronounce on matters of Islamic law, and enacted it by issuing three collective fatwas. Six years later they repeated this process and issued four more fatwas. How should we read this development, in terms of the Muslim women’s movement, and the growth and development of Islamic law? Recognising the fatwa as the fundamental element of Islamic legal thought, the work of KUPI continues and expands modern processes of collective fatwa making. Significantly KUPI also add a framework derived from women’s experiences of the law; namely attention to maʿrūf (goodness), mubādalah (hermeneutics of reciprocity), and hakiki (substantive or true) justice. Even as Muslim women advance innovative readings of classical Islamic law and its legal processes, feminism remains entwined in a colonial history that is difficult to lose. And so the feminist associations of the work of the KUPI remain muted for now. Their achievements, however, must be announced and celebrated.
Journal Article
Sustainable Development in Islamic Theology: From Occasion-Driven Approaches to a Comprehensive Understanding of Sustainability Using the Example of Water-Related Fatwas in Jordan
The Islamic environmental theology (IET) that emerged in the 20th century is analyzed and two main strands are pursued: the efforts to protect the environment derived from the thinking of some Muslim scholars and activists in Europe and North America, and the discourse of Muslim theologians in Arab countries such as Egypt and Jordan that developed in the face of environmental destruction and associated problems in the societies concerned. The topic of water, i.e., the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of clean water and access to sanitation, played a particularly important initial role in the discourse in Arab countries. Jordan, for example, is one of the most water-scarce countries in the world and, since 2010, various fatwas have been seen, such as expert opinions from the General Iftaa’ Department, the state authority for Islamic jurisprudence in Jordan, on the use of water. The discourse of Muslim jurists on the Sustainable Development Goals in general has developed from this. At the same time, it is obvious that the normative theology in Arab countries is more reactive than progressive concerning the challenges of climate change. This article comes to the conclusion that Islamic theology, even if it starts from the same resources of tradition, comes to form different discourses depending on the regional context. This study will show how institutions of Islamic law respond to climate change and what flexibility is inherent in Islamic theology to meet these challenges.
Journal Article
THE MIGRATION OF RESISTANCE AND SOLIDARITY: ʻABD AL-QĀDIR AL-JAZĀʼIRĪ’S PROMOTION OF HIJRA
This paper examines how Algerian resistance figure al-Amir ʻAbd al-Qādir (1808–1883) promoted migration by tying it to proper Islamic practice and to Muslim solidarity. The analysis illustrates how al-Amir ʻAbd al-Qādir mapped out his world and understood the fight he was leading beyond anachronistic nationalist narratives. This is achieved by reading his legal ruling alongside primary sources from the same period. The amir is shown to be both a political strategist who used Islamic concepts to mobilize the population in his vicinity and a thinker whose rhetoric gave meaning to migration.
Journal Article