ISLAMIC WORLD
“Fatwa chaos” blamed for Muslims’ confusion
Saturday, 10 November 2007
Cairo, November 10: The number of fatwas, or religious edicts, issued by the fatwa department at Al-Azhar University in Cairo dramatically increased over the past century from fewer than 200 edicts per day to around 1,000 nowadays.
The shocking fact is not the huge number of fatwas released by Al-Azhar, but rather the increase in fatwas issued all over the world that supposedly aim at advising Muslims in all aspects of life. Such fatwas are given to Muslims via TVs, radios, phone services and even the internet.
One might think that this a good sign as Muslims get the information they need to properly follow their religion, but that’s not the case.
Some misleading fatwas confuse Muslims, and hamper efforts by Islamic scholars to aid Muslims in their daily live; a phenomenon described by Egypt’s official news agency, MENA, as “fatwa chaos”.
"It’s the nature of Islamic thought to have many options," Abdel Moti Bayoumi, who heads the Islamic Research Compilation Center in Cairo said, according to the International Herald Tribune.
"But there are too many unqualified opinions being spread, and this is wrong."
Muslim scholars usually blame the television and the internet for disseminating wrong information to a huge number of Muslims.
Instead of obtaining fatwa through the Holy Qur’an and the Sunnah (tradition) of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), confusing opinions are increasingly reaching millions of Muslims.
In an effort to combat this phenomenon, Al-Azhar, which has been issuing fatwa for more than a millennium, announced on September 28th that it will launch a TV channel to broadcast proper edicts, according to MENA.
A week later, the Council of Senior Muslim Clerics in Saudi Arabia also announced that it would launch a Web site to provide quick access to its rulings, the International Herald Tribune reported. With the mainstream media disseminating false claims about Islam and Muslims, people around the world, especially Muslims, are in desperate need for true guidance.
Conflicting opinions have created "crises and confusion" at a time when Muslims are "in utmost need of coherence and unity," Seif Abdul Fattah, a professor of Islamic political thought at Cairo University, wrote in an Oct. 4 article for Al Ahram newspaper.
Aly Elsamman, head of Al-Azhar University's Dialogue and Islamic Relations Committee, agrees, saying that now is the right time for the supply of right facts about Islam. "The real problem is that religion is being put out front at all times and injected into everything. This makes the need for knowledge more pressing, but the need isn't met,” he said.
The rivalry between establishment clerics and a new generation of television preachers is also complicating the problem, according to Amr Khaled, a former accountant who turned to a "tele-imam".
The 40-year-old preacher has his own show aired on four Middle East satellite channels called “Paradise in Our House”, which he describes as an Oprah-style program.
With a suit and a tie, Khaled preaches via satellite, reaching a huge number of young Muslims all over the world.
Although Khaled has been chosen by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in 2007, he acknowledges that he lacks formal theological training.
However, Khaled says that several scholars do not know how to approach the youth, particularly Muslim women.
"If I can take viewers away from following bad fatwas, I will," he says. "Unfortunately, there's some injustice said in the name of Islam, and they come out of even respected institutions."
Taking the right approach, Khaled and many other respected preachers avoid giving any edicts. "It is a fine line between giving advice and fatwas, and people are rightly confused," says the Islamic Research Compilation Center's Bayoumi. -Agencies
The Siasat Daily, 2004.
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“Fatwa chaos” blamed for Muslims’ confusion
