The World of FATWAS Or The SHARIAH IN ACTION

BY ARUN SHOURIE

INTRODUCTION

FATWAS

Is a decree, a ruling". Muslim puts an issue before an authority, and the latter rules on the matter

They are eternal.

They accumulate and go on from man to man and from time to time. fatwas are the "Shariah in action"

PROBLEM SOLVING
Muslim is in doubt at some point of conduct or when he is involved in a dispute with another person for any problem of life, he will turn to some authority to find what the authority has decreed in its fatwa on the matter Issuing fatwas, therefore, is an art to solve all human problems. fatwa-issuing agencies (mufti, maulvi, maulana or ulema) are no ordinary human beings. .

five collections of fatwas:

Fatawa-i- Rizvia, Vol I to XII Kifayat-ul Mufti, Vol I to IX Fatawa-i-Ulema Dar al-Uluma, Deoband Vol I to XII Fatawa-i-Ahl-Hadis, Vol I to IV Fatawa-i-Rahimiyyah Vol I to III

Islam
- "Islam is the religion of tolerance" the Quran is the holy book of islam. The quran and the collection of Hadis are the high literature of the community the 'centers of Islamic learning'

THEIR WAYS THEIR POWER

The hard core of Islam that "I'm a Muslim first and a Muslim last", the book starts off with Mahatma Gandhi - Ali Brothers' alliance (holy or unholy) during the Khilafat movement. These Ali Brothers (maulana Mohammed Ali and Maulana Shaukat Ali) who, as politicians, readily bent down to kiss Bapu's feet and hailed him "the most Christlike man of our times", has the cheek to say at Aligarh and Ajmer: "However pure Mr Gandhi's character may be, he must appear to me from the point of view of religion, inferior to any Mussalman though he be without character".

MORAL
A Muslim is a Muslim. And a maulana, being a bare mian, is Subhanallah. He is above law, nay, a law unto himself, unquestionable, unchallengeable. That is why, concludes the author: "Throughout, the fundamentalists have foreclosed all possibilities of any foundational critique of Islam by standard heads-I-win tails-you-lose accusations: if the critique has been from a Muslim, they dismiss it, maintaining: "But he is a murtaad, an apostate; there is no reason to listen to him." If it has been from a non-Muslim, they have ruled it out of court, maintaining: "But he is a kafir, why should he be listened to?"

BELIEVERS AND KAFIRS

Kafirs means false purpose wearing trousers, hat, jacket, "ulta purdah" are prohibited. "Even to stitch such clothes is haraam for a Muslim."

"Women and Shariah"

It is an exhaustive study of the man- woman or the husband and wife equation; and redundant to add that "the husband is always the master". A woman is wickedest thing. And "when excited, she is a hundred times more passionate than man... A woman is "mom ki naak" (white hot tip of the candle), "balki raal ki pudiya" (a tight little packet of resin), "balki barood ki dibiya" (in fact a packet of explosives). If she is brought near a spark (of temptation) it will explode. She is defective in reason as well as in faith. And by nature she is crooked. Which is why the husband has the power the absolute, unconditional power to exercise talaq for which he is not accountable to anyone on earth - to throw the wife out by just uttering the word talaq. The chapter is replete with hundreds of examples of talaq, and every time the husband stands victor and superior.

Their world

fatwas on money (prohibition on interest, insurance, share business); on western medicine (as they contain alcohol), on listening to music or playing musical instruments or even getting photographed. The current rage of course is fatwas on literary writings (just Rushdie and Taslima) which is a big blow to literature and the freedom of expression.

Thank you