The Interaction Between Islamic Legal Methodologies and Social Context in the Light of the Contemporary Practice of Iftā’ A Case Study of two Institutions

Abstract

The non-binding Islamic legal rulings or opinions (fatwās), which are issued by Muslim scholars or Islamic religious institutions in response to questions of Muslim individuals may be said to represent the most dynamic genre of (past or present) Islamic legal literature. It was traditional case that the practice of iftā’ resided in the individual authority and effort of Muslim scholars. However, after the establishment of national and international Islamic religious institutions at the beginning of the twentieth century, this practice has largely become the responsibility of specific bodies tasked with issuing fatwās from that day to this. Saudi Arabia’s Dār al-Iftā’ (the General Presidency of Scholarly Research and Iftā’) and Turkey’s Diyanet (the Presidency of Religious Affairs) are concrete outcomes of the twentieth century. Both insti-tutions provide an idiosyncratic insight into the practice of iftā’ and more specifically its development and application within two quite different societies. One of the primary concerns of this thesis is there-fore to identify the authority, function and role of the two institutions and their official fatwās in their respective environments.