Word: fatwas
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...much does a fatwa cost? The question should be spiritual, but last week an Indian TV channel aired footage of several Indian Muslim clerics allegedly taking bribes from undercover reporters for issuing the edicts. Among the fatwas bought (for as little as $22) were decrees saying Muslims may not use credit cards or double beds. One cleric issued a fatwa in support of watching TV; another wrote one against...
...cash-for-fatwas scandal has renewed debate on what a fatwa is. Scholars should use the edicts to clarify Islamic law in reply to believers' questions. Many Muslims argue fatwas are misused and misunderstood, and not just by non-Muslims, who usually think of them as calls for the death of alleged blasphemers like Salman Rushdie...
India's Muslim leaders plan to create a body to monitor new fatwas. But Islam has no formal hierarchy or clergy. So who can stop someone from issuing--or buying--a fatwa against the fatwa police...
...India's "cash-for-fatwas" scandal broke out last weekend when a TV channel broadcast a sting operation that showed several Indian Muslim clerics allegedly taking, or demanding, bribes in return for issuing fatwas, or religious edicts. The bribes, some of which were as low as $60, were offered by undercover reporters wearing hidden cameras over a period of six weeks. In return for the cash, the clerics appear to hand out fatwas written in Urdu, the language used by many Muslims in Pakistan and India, on subjects requested by the reporters. Among the decrees issued by the fatwas: that...
...cash-for-fatwas" scandal has also led to a renewed debate on what constitutes a fatwa, and who has legitimate authority to issue one. Fatwas - like the one passed by Iran's Ayatullah Khomeini in 1989 against the novelist Salman Rushdie, or those issued by Osama bin Laden in 1996 and 1998 against America - have come to epitomize the intolerance of Islamic fundamentalists. Yet many Muslims argue that the purpose of fatwas has been misunderstood: A fatwa is, technically speaking, a ruling on a point of Islamic law made by a recognized Muslim scholar in response to a question...