Concern Grows Over Proliferation of Fatwas

An explosion of fatwas on television and the Internet has led to contradictory and occasionally bizarre decrees. The problem is that although Sunni Muslims do have rules for who can become a mufti, a scholar who may issue fatwas, there is no clear mechanism for enforcing them. And these days, viewers of Arab satellite channels are being deluged with fatwas.

There have been fatwas both encouraging and forbidding Muslims from fighting in jihads in other countries or belonging to militant groups. A Saudi cleric said owners of TV channels could be killed for broadcasting immoral content. An Egyptian cleric — not on TV, but from Cairo's venerable Al Azhar University itself — issued the much-ridiculed "breastfeeding fatwa," which proposed that a woman could work alongside an unrelated man if she had breast-fed him five times.

Cairo lawmaker Mustafa al-Gendi says enough is enough. Gendi says fatwas were originally intended to be private decisions to help individuals with their problems, and blanket prescriptions for the masses were rare and only issued by the most senior and trusted muftis. [NPR (National Public Radio)] Read more