The attack on Salman Rushdie promptly led to speculation on whether the attacker had been influenced by the 1989 fatwa against the author. A scholar explains what a fatwa is — and isn’t.
When news broke on Aug. 12, 2022, that the writer Salman Rushdie had been attacked, many people immediately recalled the fatwa, or edict, calling on all Muslims to take his life, issued in 1989 by the Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran’s Supreme Leader at the time. Khomeini accused Rushdie’s 1988 novel, “The Satanic Verses,” of insulting Islam and blaspheming against the Prophet Muhammad.
Given wide media coverage of the fatwa against Rushdie, some may conclude that a fatwa always means a death sentence. Let’s say, for example, that a Muslim man wonders whether he should accept the teaching position he has been offered at a religious school or continue working in his father-in-law’s better-paying commercial enterprise. Faced with such a question, the man may turn to a recognized religious authority to request an expert ruling, or fatwa, on the matter.
Given the subjects that fatwas must address – matters ranging from personal hygiene, marital relations, inheritance law, lifestyle, or allegiance owed to one’s nation – an encyclopedic knowledge of Islamic law is required, including familiarity with fatwas that have already been issued. Several collections of these accounts, called hadith, are held in such high esteem that they are shared across many Muslim communities. Because they record the sayings and doings of the Prophet, these collections are nearly as important as the Quran itself in providing guidance for daily life. Sharia law and Islamic jurisprudence draw on hadith.
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