Iftā’ and Fatwa in the Muslim World and the West مقاله

Iftā’ and Fatwa in the Muslim World and the West Zulfiqar Ali Shah London: International Institute of Islamic Thought, 2014. The elegant book under review, Iftā and Fatwa in the Muslim World and the West, edited by Zulfiqar Ali Shah, has taken care of that major omission in what may be described as a virtually all-encompassing look at emerging concerns in iftā’ (formulating a fatwa) and fatwa (issuing a fatwa). The introduction situates the book’s subject in a historical context and exposes its indebtedness to the seminar convened during July 2011 by the International Institute of Is- lamic Thought’s (IIIT) Summer Institute for Scholars, which addressed this topic. He then identifies the intellectual skills required for analytical reasoning, as well as the broad general knowledge of the fields relevant to the cultural contexts of their verdicts, as the strength that characterized the excellent performance of scholars in fatwa formulation and issuance from the rise of the Abbasids in 750 to the fall of Andalusia in 1492. The editor, who engages critically with various issues and con- cerns involved in the contemporary formulation and issuance of fatwa, also provides a brief description of each chapter’s subject. Abdullah Saeed’s chapter, “Textual Challenges to the Death Penalty for Apostasy in Islam and the Question of Freedom of Religion,” is quite inter- esting in terms of the concept of religious freedom, the importance of religious freedom, and the reality in Muslim-majority countries today. In “Ordering Religion, Organizing Politics: The Regulation of the Fatwa in Contemporary Islam,” Alexandre Caeiro examines the proliferation of voices currently clamoring for regulating the formulation of fatwas in the Muslim world.