The Fatwa in Modern Reform Discourses

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ID: 314491
2026
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Abstract
Abstract This chapter addresses the issue of fatwa production in the modern period and certain methods that are expected to help issue fatwas that meet people’s needs. The chapter opens with an overview of the context in which a fatwa is produced today, followed by an examination of the contributions of the Iraqi scholar Ṭaha Jābir al-ʿAlwānī (d. 2016). Al-ʿAlwānī recognized a profound general intellectual crisis in modern Muslim thought, opining that it gave rise to several other crises, including the crisis of Muslim legal thought, which, he argued, leads to errors in fatwa production. As a remedy, al-ʿAlwānī proposed adopting a systematic, stringent approach for overcoming these crises and producing adequate fatwas. Like many other intellectuals, he saw the concept of the purposes of the sharīʿa (maqāṣid al-sharīʿa) as the key to reform of Muslim thought. However, he fundamentally revised this originally pre-modern concept, terming his own model “the highest governing Quranic purposes” (al-maqāṣid al-qurānīya al-ʿulyā al-ḥākima). This chapter analyzes al-ʿAlwānī’s thinking and presents his maqāṣid concept in detail, examining its potential for reforming Muslim thought in general and also providing an appropriate intellectual framework for producing contemporary fatwas. To illustrate what this framework should look like, al-ʿAlwānī discussed and criticized the premodern division of the world into the “abode of Islam” (dār al-islām) and the “abode of war” (dār al-ḥarb), contrasting it with a timely alternative based on his maqāṣid concept.
Reference Key
openalex_W7161980952 Use this key to autocite in the manuscript while using SciMatic Manuscript Manager or Thesis Manager
Authors Eva Kepplinger
Journal Oxford University Press eBooks
Year 2026
DOI
10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197532805.013.76
URL
https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197532805.013.76
Keywords Keywords not found

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