OverviewIn Islamic legal parlance, fatwa (fatwà, pl. fatàwà)
refers to a clarification of an ambiguous judicial
point or an opinion by a mufti, a jurist trained in
Islamic law, in response to a query posed by a judge
(qà∂ì) or a private inquirer (mustaftì). It is not a
binding judgment or verdict – that is for a judge to
deliver. Although the practice of issuing fatwas
dates back to the earliest days of Islam, the term
gained worldwide notoriety in 1989 following
Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa against the British
author Salman Rushdie; Khomeini charged Rush-
die with blasphemy in his novel The Satanic Verses
and pronounced a death sentence on the author.
Soon there were reports of similar fatwas against
the Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz and the
Bangladeshi novelist Taslima Nasreen. The greater
awareness of and attention to the term fatwa since
the late 1980s is reflected in both the increased
international media coverage of current fatwas as
well as the greater number of scholarly works on
historical and contemporary fatwas that has been
produced in both Muslim and non-Muslim con-
texts. It would be inaccurate, however, to attribute
the increasing number of fatwas pertaining to
women (the primary concern in this entry) in
Islamic societies entirely to the renewed promi-
nence of the term itself. Throughout Islamic his-
tory, fatwas have been sought in greater than usual
numbers during times of change and transition,
and this is also true of the late twentieth century;
as a result of state policies, the efforts of non-gov-
ernmental organizations (NGOs), as well as the
growth of Islamist politics, women in Muslim soci-
eties are increasingly confronted with new public
roles and opportunities. Thus, while in the nine-
teenth century Muslims in Iran, Algeria, and India
sought fatwas on how to interact with the new non-
Muslim colonial powers, laws, and customs in their
midst, today Muslims pose such questions as: what
is appropriate dress for women? Can women shake
hands with men? Are beauty pageants contrary to
Islam? Can women vote? Can women participate
in Christian-funded development activities?
The high profile fatwas mentioned earlier raise
important questions that are relevant to a broader
discussion of the role of fatwas today and how they
affect the lives and behavior of ordinary women in
Fatwa
Islamic societies. By issuing a fatwa on behalf of the
Muslim umma(community of believers), Khomeini
granted himself the authority to speak on behalf of
Muslims everywhere. The question then arises,
who has the authority to issue a fatwa? The varied
responses to Khomeini’s fatwa among Muslims
themselves lead to a second related question: upon
whom is a fatwa binding and under what circum-
stances? Finally, on what topics can fatwas be
issued? This entry explores these questions in the
context of recent decades, with particular attention
to fatwas pertaining to women in two populous
Muslim-majority countries, Egypt and Bangladesh.
Muslim countries today vary in the importance
they attach to official muftis. Egypt, for instance,
has had an official Dàr al-Iftà±(office that issues fat-
was) since 1895, headed by the country’s grand
mufti. In addition to the Dàr al-Iftà±, Egypt is home,
of course, to that venerable seat of Islamic learning,
al-Azhar University, headed by the grand shaykh.
For some observers, both institutions’ close ties to
the Egyptian state have given their decrees legiti-
macy; according to critics, they have become mere
pawns of an undemocratic government. Interest-
ingly, recent years have seen open disagreement
between the two institutions on many controversial
issues, including international politics. Bangladesh,
which came into existence only in 1971, was estab-
lished as a secular state and has no comparable
national institution for fatwas. There, the term
fatwa exploded onto the national scene in the early
1990s with a fatwa against Taslima Nasreen, issued
by an obscure group that accused her of blasphemy
and offered a reward for her execution; the inter-
national media quickly dubbed her the “female
Rushdie.” This was accompanied by reports of
rural fatwas – decrees by village-based religious
leaders – against village women accused of having
behaved in an un-Islamic manner. The norms of
Islamic jurisprudence would deem these men
unqualified to issue fatwas, yet local villagers took
their pronouncements as binding decrees and went
on to commit acts of often brutal violence against
the women in question.
While there is some confusion then in Muslim
societies about who exactly is authorized to give
a fatwa, most Muslims do assume that only men
can issue fatwas; indeed, there have been no official
female muftis anywhere in the Muslim world.