Mawlana Shaheer Pathan is a lecturer in the Department of Islamic Law. Read his full bio.
Every week, the Darul Ifta opens its doors to anyone who has a question in relation to Islam. Questions come in from all over the world from cities as far away as Istanbul, London, Namangan, and Islamabad but also from places as close to home as New York, San Diego, Madison, and Glendale Heights. Questions relate to a myriad of categories—theology, worship, finance, marriage, bioethics, tafsir and hadith, and requests for advice and counselling. Not only are the questions diverse, the questioners themselves come from varying backgrounds: men and women, young adults and seniors, students and working professionals, home-makers and bread-winners, and Muslims and non-Muslims. So how does a mufti answer a question?
Fatwā derives from futuwwah, says Ibn ‘Abidin. The Mufti prescribes an almost “youth-like” strength to the questioner that enables him to practice his Islam correctly. In order that the fatwā provide the desired aim, the Mufti follows a systematic and holistic methodology known as the “rasm al-muftī”. This is because the fatwa represents revelation – it too must be free of contradiction and inconsistencies, as far as humanly possible. Allah says: “Falsehood comes not to it, neither from the front nor from the back – a revelation from the All-Mighty, the All-Praiseworthy [Fuṣṣilat: (41):42]”.
There are two components to answering a fatwa: content (“representation” ) and context (“re-presentation”). First, the mufti must accurately identify what the question is actually asking (its substance) – as an answer can only truly be called an answer if it comprehensively addresses the question. Then, the mufti must answer the question(s) behind the question (context) and ensure that the questioner leaves not only with the accurate answer, but the correct mindset in relation to the “mood” of the ruling. If necessary, the mufti will also instruct the questioner on the correct route of action in relation to the issue. In some cases, the mufti may even need to teach the questioner on how to correctly ask a question.
When researching the content of the answer, the Mufti must first determine whether the issue has already been addressed by the jurists of the madhhab. If it has not yet been answered explicitly, he must engage the legal tool of tanẓīr by drawing an analogy between a preceding case and the case at hand. The exercise of juridical thinking takes place through the medium of the legal school – madhhab.
The madhdhab teaches the non-mujtahid how to correctly tread the path taken by the jurists before him so that he arrives at the primary sources of the Shariah: the Qurʾān and Sunnah. Once he is trained through the school—both in its written and oral, living tradition—he is equipped with all the tools he needs in order to extract, process, and articulate law. By following the madhhab, not only is the mufti able to provide legal opinions based on the knowledge of precedent, he is trained to gradually and holistically think like the pioneers of the school himself in that he must learn to demonstrate how his position exists in harmony with the Quran and Sunnah. If one does ultimately reach such an academic level—after teaching fiqh and answering fatāwā under the guidance of senior muftis for decades—he will find that his thinking aligns with his school.
As such, the mufti must ascertain—first—the position of his madhhab. He must find the most representative references of the madhhab which – at times – requires referencing dozens of books from different eras and geographies. In Islamic academia, scholars are trained to always cross-reference sources as it is possible, for example, that a secondary source contains an important discrepancy. If the secondary source is a translation of the original, the need for cross-referencing becomes all the more apparent.
At this stage, the mufti studies the reasoning presented by the madhhab. Whether, he chooses to represent that in the fatwā itself is a matter left to his discretion. At times, the reasoning is not mentioned explicitly in which case the mufti himself—in light of his madhhab—scans the corpus of wahy in search of statements of revelation that address the question, either directly or indirectly. So, he begins with the Qur’an: “We have not left out anything from the Book.” This āyah teaches us that the Qurʾān either explicitly or implicitly contains every legal ruling. However, the method of extracting rulings is learnt through the Prophet r as the Hadith is the “explanation” of the Quran. The Prophet r asked on Ḥajjat al-Wadāʿ: “Lo! Have I not conveyed?” The Prophet r conveyed to us everything we need, including the knowledge of every possible legal tool needed to extract rulings from waḥy. Thus, every faqih extends his knowledge from that of the Prophet r – and the first to do so (fuqahāʾ) are the Ṣaḥābah. These constitute the sources of Islamic law – Quran, Sunnah, and the understanding of the Ṣaḥābah.
As mentioned before, one may not find an explicit reference in the wahy-corpus because he must identify the implicit references in line with juristic principles. The Qur’an and Sunnah are replete with such forms of evidence. Allah says: “Do they not ponder over the Quran?” The Prophet r said: “I have been given comprehensive speech.”
In this case, the Darul Ifta first looked to the books of the Hanafi jurists to see whether they explicitly outline a criterion for classifying non-Muslims as Ahl al-Kitab. It is well-established that in the U.S., majority of Christian denominations do not consider Mormons to be “Christian.” As such, the Darul Ifta located representative excerpts which discussed the issue: the books state that a non-Muslim is classified as Ahl al-Kitab if they believe in a Prophet and a Divine Book. As such, we decided to explain the rationale of the issue so that Muslims understand that intra-religious recognition of “Mainstream” Christians does not matter.
Then, in order to holistically represent the thought-process of the madhhab’s position, the Darul Ifta identified two ayat that indirectly speak to the rubric of classifying non-Muslims based on religious affiliation. As such, they found that both ayat allude to the ruling using tools of derivation. Thereafter, the books of tafsir (specifically, the Ahkam al-Quran genre) were referenced to see how the jurists understood the issue.[i] In this case, we found Mufti Shafi quoting the earliest complete Hanafi tafsir source, Ahkam al-Qur’an by Imam al-Jassas, discussing the issue in relation to the practice of ʿUmar (Allah be pleased with him). We went back to the original source of Imam al-Jassas and found the original Arabic along with additional material relevant to the fatwa, specifically where he himself explicitly states that intra-religious recognition is irrelevant.
Then, the Darul Ifta identified within the Sunnah that the Magians (who may or not have had a book of revelation) were not considered to be Ahl al-Kitab as far as the rulings of marriage and the consumption of slaughter are concerned. From here, it became clear that a mere claim to revelation is not sufficient to classify one as Ahl al-Kitab – there must be a reference in the primary sources of revelation that establishes a group to be kitabi, as stated by Mufti Shafi.
Finally, when crafting the answer, the mufti must answer the question taking into consideration the context of the questioner. This can be likened to a patient who comes to the doctor. The doctor must prescribe the correct medicine to the patient taking into consideration any medicinal intolerances, for instance. Additionally, he must also ensure that the patient leaves with the right mindset. In this way, the mufti fulfils not only his obligation of informing the questioner of the religious ruling but also providing religious advice (islah/nasihah).
In fact, the issue of “re-presentation” is so important that the mufti must consider not only his direct audience – the questioner himself – but all secondary audiences: the wider Muslim community and, even, non-Muslims. Muftis are trained to write fatwas in a way that non-Muslims could also read them.
As mentioned previously, the mufti must decide whether it is necessary to explain the full gamut of the aforementioned process – Quran, Sunnah, jurisprudential background, and advice – or suffice with a simple “yes” or “no” response. The answer lies in personalizing the answer to the questioner. Additionally, a mufti may opt to actively and pre-emptively address an issue and express his position, he is not bound to only respond to an issue when it is formally brought to him.
In this case, the Darul Ifta aimed to provide a holistic understanding of the ruling that accurately shows that there are rules and there are exceptions to the rule. In this way, we understand not only the theoretical permissibly of the issue, but all of its angles, including why it is—at the same time—disliked. The Muslim must understand that marrying a kitābī is not a type of privilege or honor – no! That is a gross misrepresentation of the mood of the ruling. In order to achieve this “re-presentation” a certain level of jurisprudence and the philosophy of the law is required prior to the legal ruling in order to prepare or “appetize” the mind of the reader before the “meat” of the fatwa. Finally, the fatwa concludes with advice or islah that concludes and seals the fatwa in such a way as to help the questioner on his future course of action.
At both stages of the fatwa – content and context – the muftis discuss their thought process among themselves and “bounce” ideas of each other. In fact, one of the hallmarks of Abu Hanifah’s madhhab is that his pedagogical and developmental approach (tarbiyah) is based on the Prophetic and Angelic model of academic council (shura/mala’). Every fatwa that now passes through the Darul Ifta is shared among all the muftis on the council – even though one or two muftis may not always assent to the conclusion. In this way, Darul Qasim continues the Hanafi model of not only academic freedom but academic integrity, oversight, and peer-review. In the same vein, the muftis collaborate with experts of beneficial knowledge—from medical doctors to IT professionals to historians—whenever the need arises. Thus, after a written draft is produced, any given fatwa will be edited a good number of times before the fatwa is deemed to be satisfactory and finally ready for publication. The fatwa is signed by the muftis and stamped with the Darul Ifta seal before sending the electronic answer to the mustafti. A physical copy of every fatwa – with the exception of frequently asked questions – is preserved in the Darul Ifta archives. For this fatwa, there were approximately five versions produced with varying amounts of additions and subtractions.
[i] Of note, there are certain discussions which Hanafi jurists appear to discuss in certain genres such as tafsir or hadith commentary that they do not discuss as frequently in books of “fiqh.” Although the primary madhhab references come from the books of fiqh, the “secondary” literature of the jurists tafsir and hadith works still hold a certain amount of legal weight especially in the absence of primary fiqh literature
