Fatwa, Discursivity, and the Production of Sharia

Abstract

Fatwa, a legal response by a jurist-consult to concerns raised by the Muslim public, is the “atomic” component of Sharia. Substantive and formal aspects of Islamic law developed historically out of the corpus of fatwas, so they tell a lot about the anatomy of Sharia. This chapter will examine the contemporary fatwas issued by the International Islamic Fiqh Academy, an organization consisting of scholars from across the Muslim world. The fatwas examined here deal with economic issues that have arisen because of Sharia’s encounter with modernity. From these fatwas we can map the reproduction of Sharia in the postcolonial era and, at the same time, measure how Muslims are responding to modern and postmodern challenges.