This is a unique and brilliant study of fatwas, as issued predominantly in India. The work, nevertheless, provides an important window on the issuance of fatwas globally and as such deserves much wider exposure and study.
Many of the topics about which questions have been asked of religious authorities would undoubtedly trigger red lights in Amazon's screening software. They cover the personal matters regarding every sort of bodily fluid, in every imaginable circumstance, and even some that I could not have imagined.
And then there are questions as regards suitable responses after a man has had intercourse with a goat, and suitable punishments for men who have had intercourse "with a minor child or a goat."
Such questions, and those regarding the manner in which a man may divorce his wife, and for what reasons (these are endless, truly) might pique the vulgar interests of some readers.
But what's really amazing in this book is the extent to which the author exposes the total revulsion Islam reserves for any and all non-Muslims. Hindus, according to Volume VI of the 30-volume Fatawa-i-Rizvia of Ahmed Raza Khan, for example, are "absolutely kafirs," and anyone who does not so consider them is himself also a kafir. This class of non-Muslim, moreover, is distinguished from the subdued dhimmis (zimmis). While the latter are also kafirs, in that they are non-Muslims, "they have submitted themselves to Islamic power" and have promised to live in "absolute obedience." Many other equally authoritative sources are also cited and quoted.
This thinking was also duly applied by Muslim politicians, as the author shows in fatwa after historical fatwa, dating back to the mid 19th century. Fatwas in this context centered upon a "commitment to Islam, to aggrandizing Muslim power" and to reiterating again and again the “inherent impurity of kafirs, their inherent untrustworthiness” and so on.
As the author also points out in a chapter entitled “A fundamental difficulty,” many of the ideas repeatedly issued in such fatwas dervice primarily from Islamic sacred texts, and should anyone doubt, the author quotes the offending passages at length, and in full context.
This book was written in 2002, and clearly and correctly identified as a totalitarian ideology that which “enforces its right to regulate the totality of life.”
Highly educational and highly recommended.
--Alyssa A. Lappen
- Amazon Business : For business-only pricing, quantity discounts and FREE Shipping. Register a free business account
