The Hindu Business Line : Clear the air before starting with `love all'

THE air is so thick with news about fatwa that it would be an error not to know what it is. The word has been with us from 1625, notes Online Etymology Dictionary, and it is "from Arabic fetwa `a decision given by a mufti,' related to fata `to instruct by a legal decision.'" Mufti refers to a scholar who is capable of issuing fatwas.

The word fatwa sprung to headlines in 1989 (as it is alarmingly doing now), when Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran issued a ruling sentencing author Salman Rushdie to death for publishing The Satanic Verses (1988). Thankfully, the ruling was lifted in 1998. Catch up with more details on Wikipedia: "On February 14, 1989, a fatwa promising his execution was proclaimed on Radio Tehran... On February 24, Khomeini placed a $3 million bounty for the death of Rushdie." The Indian-born writer began to live underground, courtesy the UK's security.

The bounty got doubled later, but there's a lot of ghastly stuff you can read on http://en.wikipedia.org, apart from the info that bookshops in the University of California at Berkeley were the targets of firebombs; and that book burning was rampant. "In 1991, Rushdie's Japanese translator, Hitoshi Igarashi, was stabbed and killed in Tokyo, and his Italian translator was beaten and stabbed in Milan. In 1993, Rushdie's Norwegian publisher William Nygaard was shot and severely injured in an attack outside his house in Oslo. Thirty-seven guests died when their hotel in Sivas, Turkey, was burnt down by locals protesting against Aziz Nesin, Rushdie's Turkish translator."

Rushdie, you may remember, won `Booker of Bookers' prize in 1993 - "after being selected as the best novel to be awarded the Booker Prize in its first 25 years" - for his novel Midnight's Children. His newest book, Shalimar the Clown was released this month.

A fatwa was issued against Taslima Nasreen in 1993 after she wrote in the newspaper about the treatment of women in her religion. In 1998, Osama bin Laden issued a fatwa declaring, "The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies - civilians and military... " It seems there is a fatwa against Osama, proclaimed by Spanish Muslims in March 2005. The site www.islamtoday.com/fatwa_archive_main.cfm provides a classified list. The first find for the word on Google, however, is www.fatwa-online.com.

Fatwa is defined as `legal opinion concerning Islamic Law' in `Glossary of Islamic Terms and Concepts' on www.usc.edu, the site of University of Southern California where interestingly it is Professor Surya Prakash who greets one on the homepage.

"This is an Islamic term that literally means `an answer to a question'," says www.religioustolerance.org, the site of Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance. "Traditionally, it has been a recommendation, an opinion issued by a Muslim scholar on a specific subject," it adds.

Fatwa is a legal statement in Islam, issued by a mufti or a religious lawyer, on a specific issue, defines Encyclopaedia of the Orient on http://i-cias.com. "Fatwas are asked for by judges or individuals, and are needed in cases where a issue of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) is undecided or uncertain. Lawsuits can be settled on the basis of a fatwa."

That makes it a scheme of alternative dispute resolution; however, to be useful, a fatwa is not to be based upon the mufti's or lawyer's own will and ideas; "he must render it in accordance with fixed precedent." On where it is relevant, the URL says that fatwas are normally used only in cases of marriage, inheritance and divorce.

The Free Encyclopedia Wiki clears the air about fatwa. "Contrary to what is believed by many non-Muslims, and even by the majority of Muslims, a fatwa is not binding on all persons professing the Muslim faith. The only ones who are obliged to obey any specific fatwa are the mufti who issued it and his followers."

It also comforts with this line - that the overwhelming majority of fatwas are on mundane matters.

"Those declaring war or pronouncing death sentences are not at all representative, despite the attention they draw in English-language media."

May we be confident, therefore, that the game can start with the usual philosophical diktat, `Love all'?

E&OE@TheHindu.co.in

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Clear the air before starting with `love all'