Fatwa

From Philosopedia

Fatwa

As an indication of its importance, the word fatwa was not in the 1992 American Heritage Dictionary or the 1993 Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, but it is frequently used in the media to refer to a Muslim edict.

A fatwa is a Hindu and Muslim legal term, meaning a formal legal opinion, hence a judicial sentence, given by a canon lawyer. “The earth is flat. Whoever claims it is round is an atheist deserving of punishment”:

In 1993, Sheik Abdel-Aziz Ibn Baaz, the supreme religious authority of Saudi Arabia, a blind theologian, issued that fatwa.

Another Muslim fundamentalist theologian, Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman of Egypt, issued a fatwa authorizing five Islamic militants to assassinate Egypt’s President Anwar el-Sadat in October 1981. The sheik later was on trial in New York City for plotting to blow up the Lincoln and Holland tunnels and other landmarks.

In 1989 the Ayatollah Rudollah Khomeini of Iran called for the death of Salman Rushdie, whose The Satanic Verses he regarded as a sacrilegious ridiculing of the Prophet Mohammed.

In Bangladesh, Muslim religious fundamentalists issued a fatwa against Taslima Nasrin, forcing her to seek refuge in Sweden. Except in the Muslim world, Rushdie and Nasrin are considered among the most courageous people of their time.

Although secularist opponents of Islamic rule have mocked the fatwas, their harsh or contradictory nature has done lasting damage to the image of Islam, according to journalist Youssef M. Ibrahim in Paris. He cited the group of young Egyptian fundamentalists who ambushed and stabbed Naguib Mahfouz, the Egyptian Nobel laureate for literature. They claimed that his Children of Gebelawi (1959) had scoffed at religion and insulted the Prophet Mohammed.

Fatwas are often issued on such questions as whether one should fast during an airline flight and on whether charitable donations from belly dancers are accepted as good works by God.

(See entries for Taslima Nasrin and Salman Rushdie. Also, see Ibn Warraq’s Why I Am Not A Muslim.)

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