Not only is the statement issued by clerics at the end of their two-day conference recognition of the growing challenge that various militant organisations, particularly the Islamic State, are posing to various Muslim societies, it is also a reflection of existence of deep divisions in the community of muftis who are widely considered as chief interpreters of Islamic law in their respective countries. Moreover, the Cairo conclave has highlighted the profundity of new challenges that Internet and the arrival of satellite television have created for them, urging media houses to host only "specialised muftis" in their programmes.
The statement has also clearly underscored the need for doing away with issuance of fatwas that are strongly characterised by a discourse that promotes political instability and foments a situation of confusion and wild behaviour. Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, for example, in her acclaimed essay "Operation Desert Storm and the War of Fatwas (Islamic Legal Interpretation: Muftis and Their Fatwas by Oxford University Press in 2005)" had argued: "What was disconcerting to many was the fact that the Muslim world not only divided into opposite factions and warring groups, but also utilised Islamic texts and political understandings in a contentious manner for opposite ends...It is clear that the Gulf crisis [annexation of Kuwait by Iraq] caused dramatic fissures in the Arab body politics and deepened rifts within the Muslim nations, among the various Islamic movements and between factions of the same movement. These fissures were a reflection of the division that existed among the Islamists".
The credibility of the al-Azhar statement, however, was unfortunately clouded by the participants of the two-day conference themselves after they praised Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi for organising the event, strengthening the narratives of muftis' detractors that they generally employ to undermine clerics' role by describing them as persons who act obsequiously towards rulers in order to gain advantage.
That the institution of Ift'a or the activity of legal consultation (futya) in classical manifestation still carries a great significance for the Afghan society in particular is a fact that has found its best expression in growing calls for involvement of Ulema to help resolve a bitter dispute over the leadership of Mullah Akhtar Mansour following the confirmation of death of Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar amid reports that the family of the late emir and some others have refused to pay allegiance to the new Taliban chief.
It will be, however, a matter of a different debate to determine whether or not those who strongly believe that the fatwa is one of the foundation stones of the Islamic legal system and the mufti is the principal interpreter or provider of legal opinions of the Shariah will acquiesce to Mullah Omar's decision to ignore a fatwa through which a group of Islamic scholars invited by him had strongly recommended for the exit of Osama bin Laden from Afghanistan. This provides one with an opportunity to ruminate about how the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan Mulla Zaeef was seeking to justify his emir's decision to the chagrin of the West and Western media at a press conference in Islamabad soon after the US had sternly asked Taliban to hand Osama over to it. Mulla Zaeef explained that the fatwa by religious scholars was nothing but a recommendation or a non-binding advisory opinion, which could be ignored or even rejected by the "Amirul Maumineen".
Insofar as Pakistan is concerned, one may like to recall a considerable controversy that was evoked by the then Emir of Jamaat-e-Islami, Syed Munawwar Hasan, over the definition of martyrdom in relation to the casualties in the war between militants of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and the country's security forces, including its army. One may tend to deduce that he had perhaps sought to issue an Islamic legal pronouncement by assuming the role of a questioner (mustafti).
The writer is newspaper's News Editor