“Fatwa number 3741: No laughing at our fatwas…”

I’ll let Slate.com set up this great piece in the New York Times about fatwas in Egypt:

The NYT goes up top with a news feature on the role of the fatwa in Egyptian daily life. Thousands of fatwas—edicts that provide guidelines for daily life in Muslim communities—are issued every month by Quran scholars, some of which are, um, bizarre: One came out in favor of drinking the Prophet Muhammad’s urine; another maintained that unmarried male and female co-workers could interact freely, as long as the woman breast-fed the man at least five times. [Slate] is reminded of those ever-popular “weird news” stories about small American towns where it’s illegal to eat chicken on Tuesdays, or cross the street in March without wearing a hat. Culture clash, my foot.

Fatwas are an interesting issue in Turkey, too, especially now that the Diyanet has “Hello Fetva” (telephone) and E-Fetva (email) channels for dispensing religious advice.  The Times ran an article [available to subscribers] on Turkey’s fatwa telephone line last December that is just as colorful as today’s Egypt story.

It’s also been raining fatwas in my neck of the woods — just yesterday I came across a Dutch book on Diyanet fatwas and later in the day I met a student from the Sorbonne working on fatwas and religious authority among Muslims in France.  All this brought back memories of interviewing one of the officials at the Diyanet last summer when someone called to ask about the Islamic perspective on abortion.  I stepped out of the room.

I’m no expert on fatwas, but I keep hearing that they’re understudied.  One obstacle is that it’s pretty tough to gain access to fatwa archives, and of course fatwas are getting even harder to study systematically now that so many decisions are given impromptu over the phone.  But who knows?  Maybe they’re recording those calls for quality control purposes.