Muftis, State Muftis and Official Muftis

chapter 2 Historical Retrospective on Muftiship: Muftis, State Muftis and Official Muftis Jakob Skovgaard-Petersen Assalaamu alaikum, Is it halal to donate cord blood to a public bank? I was thinking about it, since it can cure a child or person of a terminal illness such as cancer. It is taken from the umbilical cord after delivery and does not affect the mother or child. Jazak Allah khair (Islamweb) ⸪ A Muslim is supposed to know his religion and act upon it. If he does not know the teaching of Islam on a specific point, he is expected to consult a specialist. This consultation is called istifta, the specialist is known as a mufti, his answer is designated a fatwa, and the act of giving it – ifta. Thus defined, ifta is as old as Islam itself. Indeed, several verses in the Quran begin with “They ask you… say to them”, that is, the Prophet Muhammad is consulted, and God tells him the fatwa he must give. Soon, of course, there was no prophet to ask, and his followers, e.g. Muslims, had to rely on consulting the most knowledgeable and authoritative person they could find among themselves. In the 8th and 9th centuries, Islamic legal thinking developed into a small number of divergent madhahib, or legal scholarly traditions, each with its own body of core texts to be taught and followed. A mufti would have to master the jurisprudence of his specific madhhab which, in turn, would also be applied by the local qadi (judge). When confronted with difficult or novel issues, those qadis were in fact also expected to consult the most prominent mufti within reach. Moreover, muftis would also be teaching basic and advanced courses of jurisprudence to students aspiring to positions in courts, in school, or perhaps simply seeking religious knowledge as a personal pious quest. While istifta would continue all over the world, with believers consulting the local shaykh, or, in lack of a shaykh, simply the most respected among them, in urban settings mufti had become a highly respected profession at the top of the scholarly hierarchy. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi �0.��63/978900435�68�_003 0003145005.INDD 12 301961 6/10/2017 2:12:12 PM Historical Retrospective on Muftiship 13 The mufti was, however, more than a learned individual. With time, his trade had evolved into an institution: he would be appointed by the ruler or governor, and special funds from pious endowments (awqaf) were allotted to his salary. From the medieval period – especially the 12th and 13th century, we also have formalized “job descriptions” for the mufti in the various madhahib.1 Entitled Adab al-Mufti, these treatises discuss issues such as: – – – – – – Who can become a mufti? Are there varying degrees of muftis? What could be done if no one with proper qualifications is around? What elements should a fatwa consist of? Is a written fatwa to be preferred to an oral one? Can a mufti answer “I don’t know” and send people away? May a mufti charge a fee for his fatwa? Apart from a long list of moral virtues, the treatises will normally stress that a mufti must be a sane and mature free Muslim man known for his piety. However, a slave, a woman or a blind may act as a mufti, if she has the required knowledge and is capable of communicating it. This required knowledge includes the legal verses of the Quran, a firm knowledge of the Hadith, and Arabic grammar and syntax, apart from the legal texts and doctrines of his madhhab.2 Muftis are known and respected for their scholarly insights, and some of the treatises divide the muftis into classes according to their competences, with the highest class (mujtahid mutlaq) capable of making altogether new legal rulings based on an original assessment of the Quran and the Sunna. The treatises generally stress the voluntary and ethical dimensions of the task of giving fatwas. The mufti is not allowed to charge a fee for a fatwa, and he should avoid answering frivolous or hypothetical questions. It is perfectly fine to state that he does not know the answer, but if he subsequently finds out, or realizes that the fatwa he gave was wrong, he is obliged to inform the questioner. In fact, the fatwa must be concluded with the statement “And God knows best”, to underline that it is a human, and hence imperfect, judgment. Likewise, Shiʿi manuals stress that the fatwas of a dead mufti must be reiterated by a living one, as “the deceased has no say”. 1 Masud, Messick & Powers, Islamic Legal Interpretation: Muftis and Their Fatwas (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996), pp. 15–20. 2 Masud, Muhammad Khalid, “Adab al-muftī”, Encyclopaedia of Islam, 3rd ed., edited by Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, Everett Rowson. Accesse online on 24 November 2016; first published online 2008. 0003145005.INDD 13 301961 6/10/2017 2:12:12 PM 14 Skovgaard-Petersen In the literature the task of the mufti is regularly contrasted to that of the qadi. As a functionary in the city administration, the qadi is not supposed to delve into the legal sciences but to study the case at hand and apply the standard teachings of the school to pass a verdict. The mufti, on the other hand, does not sit in the court (mahkama), but in the madrasa – the school of higher studies in theology and law, or simply in his home. Here, the mufti is engaged in teaching his students, but the qadi can consult him on any issue that is irregular and requires study. If in the idealizing literature of the Adab al-Mufti the ethical and voluntary quality of the office is of prime concern, the Muslim historians convey another image of the mufti as a less detached and more worldly character. Acting as a consultant to the ruler and sometimes as an official representative on ceremonial occasions, the mufti of one of the madhahib in a major city was a public figure commanding considerable authority and respect. Unsurprisingly, the office of mufti was also a coveted prize, often alternating between a limited number of powerful families dominating higher learning and often marrying into other leading families. This has been documented for Damascus in both the Mamluk and late Ottoman times.3 Control of awqaf would also often ensure him some financial security. That said, there were also minor muftis with little power, influence or prestige, like local muftis in districts or villages who were consulted in mundane matters. And even the major muftis were not universally recognized as the heads of the ulama (religious scholars) and had little formal powers over this also quite amorphous and disorganized group. On the other hand, it was often this lack of formal power that made the muftis useful and influential. Lapidus considers the ulama as the mediator group in medieval Muslim cities, connected as it was with all the other groups and often expected to mediate or formulate demands.4 Consulted for fatwas by all strata of the population, and with personal access to the bureaucracy, and even the governor, the major muftis were eminently placed to fulfil that role and communicate, occasionally perhaps even mediate, between the ruler and the ruled. 3 Chamberlain, Michael, Knowledge and Social Practice in Medieval Damascus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 63–64; Schatkowski-Schilcher, Linda, Families in Politics: Damascene Factions and Estates of the 18th and 19th Centuries (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1985), pp. 117–121. 4 Lapidus, Ira M., Muslim Cities in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), pp. 107–108. 0003145005.INDD 14 301961 6/10/2017 2:12:12 PM Historical Retrospective on Muftiship 15 The Ottoman shaykh al-islam Before moving on towards the modern state, we need to dwell a while on the Ottoman Empire, relevant here for its impact on the institution of mufti (especially “state mufti”) in South-East Europe, but also as a very specific instance of a centralized and standardized ifta of a pre-modern variety. At the time of Sulayman the Magnificent in the 16th century, the Ottoman Empire proclaimed a state law, kanun, to be applied all over the Empire. Centralization was also in evidence in a state religious bureaucracy, headed by the Mufti of the Empire, known as the müftü or shaykh al-islam.5 Following the Hanafi madhhab, the shaykh al-islam resided in a special building, the Fetvakhane, where people could come and solicit fatwas. Secretaries reformulated their questions into statements of a general principle to which the Mufti could answer yes or no, whereupon the mustafti could present it in court. Collections of important fatwas were circulated and referred to as legal precedent. This is probably the closest the process of ifta ever came to a standardized mass procedure. The Mufti was thus directly involved in the development of the legal basis of the Empire. Furthermore, he had acquired another task that has proven more enduring; appointed directly by the Sultan, and often for life, the shaykh al-islam himself was placed in charge of a nationwide religious administration. The remarkable institutionalization of the ulama was fully developed at the time of Sulayman. It incorporated the ulama (e.g. teachers, muftis, qadis) into a state apparatus which operated with a hierarchy of twelve degrees of employment.6 At the top of the pyramid was the shaykh al-islam; it was he who appointed the main muftis and qadis of the provinces. These local muftis are of some relevance here, as many contemporary official national muftiates in the former Ottoman domains grew out of this office and took over its functions. Apart from giving fatwas, these local Hanafi muftis were also entrusted with heading the ulama, supervising religious schools and heading the waqf councils. According to a late Ottoman law, the shaykh al-islam selected the mufti among three candidates proposed by the local ulama.7 5 On the history of the Shaykh al-Islam and his functions, see Repp, Richard, The Müfti of Istanbul (London: Ithaca Press, 1986). 6 Zubaida, Sami, Law and Power in the Islamic World (London: I.B. Tauris, 2003), pp. 60–63. 7 Badr, Adnan Ahmad, al-Ifta waʿl-Awqaf al-Islamiya fi Lubnan (Beirut, al-Muʾassassa al-Jama`iyya, 1992), pp. 14–15; Skovgaard-Petersen, Jakob, “Levantine State Muftis – an Ottoman Legacy?” in Özdalga, Elizabeth, The Ottoman Intellectual Heritage (London & New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005), (pp. 274–288), p. 277. 0003145005.INDD 15 301961 6/10/2017 2:12:12 PM 16 Skovgaard-Petersen Finally, especially in the 16th century, the strong personalities holding the office were key advisors to the sultan and often held significant powers themselves. This declined markedly in the 18th and 19th centuries. Although the shaykh al-islam generally kept out of the dynastic politics of the Ottomans, at some points his endorsement could become pivotal, as for instance in the crisis of 1876, when Sultan Abd al-Aziz was murdered and his successor Murat was declared incapable of ruling after a few months. In both cases, the shaykh al-islam, Hasan Hayrullah, was called by the High Porte and the Minister of War to conduct the ceremony of transfer of power and issue the decree of appointment.8 Let us sum up some of the functions of the official Mufti in pre-modern times: – he could be attached to a court and consulted by it; – or, in the Ottoman Empire, he was mostly consulted by litigants who could make use of his fatwa as an argument in court; – he gave fatwas to ordinary believers; – he publicly represented the Muslims. In a city with several madhahib, he would be but one representative; – he had administrative roles, often in connection to awqaf, sometimes heading the ulama as a group and appointing local muftis, qadis and imams of mosques; – the main Mufti of the locality was often attached to a ruler and consulted by him. Sometimes he could communicate, or even mediate, between the ruler and the ruled. We do also know of fatwas that are meant as a criticism of current social and political practices, that is, ifta as an act of opposition. Modern Territorial States and Their Muftis Now, moving on to the post-Ottoman period, there are a number of overall historical developments that must be noted. First of all, the rise of the territorial state – the borders of which were often drawn by the colonial powers, especially so in Asia and Africa but also to a certain extent in North-Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. To maximise its output and strength, a new type of more systematic bureaucracy gradually developed that regulated the lives of its inhabitants and enacted its policies upon them. 8 Georgeon, Francois, Abdülhamid ii: Le sultan calife (Paris: Fayard, 2003), pp. 47, 115. 0003145005.INDD 16 301961 6/10/2017 2:12:12 PM Historical Retrospective on Muftiship 17 Perhaps the first official mufti of a territorial state was that of Imperial Russia. In 1788 Catharina the Great established the Orenburg Mohammedan Ecclesiastical Authority in Ufa, covering Caucasus, Volga and Siberia, and headed by a mufti. This was primarily an administrative body, in charge of Muslim affairs and overseeing mosques, and the state’s interest was primarily one of controlling its numerous Muslim subjects.9 With the further Russian conquests, by the end of the 19th century, the number of its Muslim subjects had eclipsed even that of the Ottoman Empire.10 By then, the mufti was no longer a traditionally trained Muslim scholar, but rather an Imperial administrator with knowledge of Muslim affairs.11 In the Middle East, the development from local mufti of a major city to the position of an official mufti of a state began in the late 19th century when territorial states emerged that were formerly governorates in the Ottoman Empire. In Egypt, the Hanafi mufti in Cairo was given the title “Mufti of the Egyptian Lands” (renamed “Mufti of the Republic” after the coup of 1952), and from 1895 a special office was given to him in the new Ministry of Justice. He was now appointed by the ruler of Egypt, the Khedive.12 This can be observed again in the states that emerged with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Yugoslav Federation in the 1990s. The appointment of an official mufti was part of the process of asserting sovereignty over a national territory. The newly established governments were not interested in having a part of their population recognizing an authority residing in another state, though this admittedly would occasionally happen, like in the case of Croatia, where Muslims recognize the Bosnian Mufti, there locally called Rais al-ulama, as their spiritual leader. Whether newly established or old, the modern states sooner or later began to regulate and control the religious sector which had for centuries been fairly autonomous. In most cases the state set up a special ministry charged with supervising religious affairs in the state, thus setting religion apart with its own administration. The field of religion was thus compartmentalized and bureaucratized in new and thorough ways. The main task of such ministries would be to ensure state control and state regulation of the religious field. Central in this 9 10 11 12 0003145005.INDD 17 Crews, Robert, “Empire and the Confessional State: Islam and Religious Politics in 19th Century Russia”, American Historical Review, February 2003, pp. 50–86; Gerber, Haim, State, Society and Law in Islam: Ottoman Law in Comparative Perspective (Albany: State Univ. of New York Press, 1994), p. 56. Ibid., p. 50. Ibid., pp. 76–77. Skovgaard-Petersen, Jakob, Defining Islam for the Egyptian State: Muftis and Fatwas of the Dar al-Ifta (Leiden, Brill, 1997), p. 112. 301961 6/10/2017 2:12:12 PM 18 Skovgaard-Petersen ambition was the control of the awqaf, the pious endowments which in some countries had formed a significant part of all land holdings and had been the economic basis of the Muslim religious institutions. Numerous countries nationalized the awqaf and took over the task of funding and directing mosques, religious schools and other Islamic institutions and their staff. The direct state control was often followed by a much closer ideological direction. The relationship between the Minister of Religion and the state mufti sometimes caused tensions, and the various states have devised different divisions of labour between the two positions, generally with the minister as the person holding power, and the Mufti as the person holding prestige in the community. In some cases, the Minister may be the person who appoints the Mufti. More commonly, however, the Mufti may be appointed directly by the president or king, and holds tenure for life, thus typically outliving several ministers of religion. In countries with an authoritarian political culture, the Mufti selected will be known for his loyalty to the state, and often he will be expected to be a member of the ruling party. In more democratically oriented countries, there may have been an election, at least of candidates, among the ulama. This will especially be the case where Sunni Muslims only form a minority in the state. In this situation, the Mufti primarily represents a religious constituency, rather than the population as a whole. I shall refer to such a mufti, not as a state mufti, but as an official mufti, as he is recognized by the state but does not represent the state. Mufti’s Role in Contemporary Court System and ifta Religion is not the only sphere of life that has been étatized and reorganized with the advent of the modern territorial state. The transformation of the Islamic legal sphere has been just as remarkable. Beginning in the late 19th century, Muslim states began to build up entirely novel legal systems, either induced or inspired by the European colonial powers. Again, the Ministry of Justice was the central power and organizer, in charge of a nationwide system of court houses, themselves often also built in a European classicist style. These courts were now part of a system, with lower courts and courts of appeal, and new institutions and professions such as that of public prosecutor and attorneys of law (hitherto not known in Muslim/Islamic legal practice) who followed new and codified codes of process.13 Concomitant to the new institutions were new laws, also written after the European model as state laws, 13 0003145005.INDD 18 Zubaida, pp. 121–135. 301961 6/10/2017 2:12:12 PM Historical Retrospective on Muftiship 19 organized in hierarchical codes and published in state gazettes. In these new legal systems, fatwas no longer had any immediate legal efficacy. This means that one of the primary functions of the mufti in classical times, namely his relation to courts, is today extinct, or at least much weakened. Muftis are no longer attached to courts. The Ottoman practice of procuring a fatwa to present in court as an argument that the judge will have to take into account is no longer observed. But there is the exception of Saudi Arabia where the fatwas of the Dar al-Ifta (presided over by the State Mufti) still have legal validity.14 Apart from Saudi Arabia, there are a few other Muslim-majority countries were specific links between the court and the state mufti may survive. In Egypt, the penal code still stipulates that in cases of death sentences, the Mufti of the Republic must scrutinize the text of the verdict to ascertain that it can be upheld on Islamic grounds.15 In any case, as a rule, fatwas are no longer demanded by the courts. But are they in demand in the public? Yes, as every day thousands of fatwas are being asked for and delivered – face to face, or mediated in magazines, television program or on websites. But that may not have anything to do with a state mufti. Despite the etymology of the title, state muftis are not necessarily engaged in ifta at all. This is another field where the variety of state muftis is striking: in Egypt, the main task of the Mufti of the Republic and his administration, the Dar al-Ifta, is certainly to deliver fatwas to the public, but also to state agencies or to mustaftis (petitioners) abroad. The Dar al-Ifta has an archive of close to 100,000 fatwas, and publishes selections of them in a book series and on the Internet. The Syrian Mufti of the Republic, by contrast, does not deliver fatwas, but is the head of a High Council for Ifta in Syria that occasionally issues a few fatwas, the most notorious in recent years being a ban on smoking. His facebook page contains speeches and decisions, but no fatwas.16 And most official muftis in the former Ottoman territories, especially in South-Eastern Europe, as is shown in several chapters of this volume, deliver no fatwas at all. Likewise, as evidenced by several other chapters in the current volume, muftis, recognized as such by the states, thus formally “official” muftis in the countries in North-Eastern Europe where Muslims make only insignificant minorities, do not generally issue fatwas either. 14 15 16 0003145005.INDD 19 Atawneh, Muhammad Al (2010): Wahhabi Islam Facing the Challenges of Modernity: Dar al-Ifta in the Modern Saudi State (Leiden: Brill, 2010), p. 30. Skovgaard-Petersen (1997), pp. 105–106, 290–291. https://www.facebook.com/Dr.Ahmad.Hassoun/?ref=page_internal, accessed 17 November 2016. 301961 6/10/2017 2:12:12 PM 20 Skovgaard-Petersen Where fatwas are being issued, it is useful to distinguish between small and great fatwas.17 Most of the fatwas issued by the Egyptian Dar al-Ifta are trivial reiterations of established points of Islamic law for the uninitiated, for instance in the field of inheritance law. These fatwas are prepared not by the Mufti himself, but by his secretary (amin al-fatwa). Certain more important questions, however, require much more study, whether because they are asked by an important government agency, or because the subject matter is difficult or entirely new. These are the great fatwas, and in fields such as finance or medicine, the Mufti needs to consult other experts, either practitioners from the field, or ulama who have specialized in the subject. To respond to this need, there has therefore been a trend towards establishing collective bodies of ifta to enhance the competence and authority of the official mufti. Collective bodies of ifta can be organized in many ways, according to the interests they are meant to serve. Some countries have organized a higher body of ifta, typically presided over by the Mufti, and thus enforcing national sovereignty and domestic public service. The above-mentioned High Council for Ifta in Syria is a case in point. It is of little consequence and not much known by the Sunni Muslims of the country. A fatwa from 2009 declaring smoking Islamically prohibited must qualify as its most well-known fatwa, but few Syrians would stop smoking because of that. At the other end of the spectrum is the powerful Saudi al-Hay’a al-A`la li ʿl-Ifta which issues fatwas directly applicable in court.18 Due to the rise of new media, there has been a spread of trans-national ifta in recent years. Istifta was one of the first ways for pious Muslims to make use of the Internet, and especially for Muslims living in diasporic communities the Internet provided an opportunity to connect to well-known scholars or centres of Islamic jurisprudence. Not content with providing the service for the individual mustafti, many scholars have made their fatwa-archive available on their personal websites, and Islamic institutions and media invite people to submit questions as part of a strategy to build up Internet traffic and user loyalty. A few state actors have also entered the field setting up virtual fatwa banks that visitors can browse and consult, the largest of all being www.islamweb.net from the Qatari Ministry of Awqaf. Internet and satellite tv fatwa services raise several issues for modern ifta that were already apparent with the introduction of print, but are much more in evidence in the new global media. For one thing, as Muslims surf innumerable television channels or browse different fatwa banks, they will soon 17 18 0003145005.INDD 20 Skovgaard-Petersen (1997), p. 383. Vogel, Frank, Islamic Law and Legal System: Studies of Saudi Arabia (Leiden: Brill, 2000), pp. 115–117. 301961 6/10/2017 2:12:12 PM Historical Retrospective on Muftiship 21 discover fatwas that contradict one another, and will have to choose between them. While to some Muslims this will be very convenient, allowing them to select the fatwa that suits them best, others will probably feel that they lose the guidance that they were seeking in the first place. The fatwa banks will thus empower mustaftis, but put muftis under closer scrutiny, as anyone can access their opinions and compare them – including other muftis. Hence the Internet is awash with fatwas responding to other fatwas, and muftis or their followers polemicizing against other muftis. In the Arab debate this phenomenon is dubbed the “chaos of fatwas”, and it sometimes leads to calls to strengthen official ifta. In 2010, Saudi Arabia officially limited the practice of giving public fatwas to the High Council of Ulama or whomever the Mufti would authorize.19 Another consequence is an enforced inflexibility of ifta. With the fatwa completely separated from its original mustafti-mufti intimacy, it cannot take specific and local conditions into account, but must be formulated as a general Islamic principle. This would be an attraction to some; for instance, the early 20th century modernist Rashid Rida whose journal al-Manar was distributed all over the Muslim world precisely in the hope of promoting a standardized “correct” Islam. Many Muslim scholars and preachers today would concur, especially those who espouse a literalist interpretation of Islamic law and theology. But a counter movement is also in evidence. Countries such as Morocco and Tunisia would stress that they need a national mufti and local ifta to take local circumstances into consideration, but also to apply the madhhab of their citizens, namely Maliki jurisprudence. And one of the other global Islamic websites, Islam Online, developed a method of seeking a mufti from the country where the online mustafti was asking from, in order to take the national legislation and local conditions into account. There are also efforts to compromise between universalist and localist aspirations of ifta. The Islamist scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi, probably the most influential mufti of the Sunni Muslim world today, has adopted Rida’s ambitions of a standardized ifta with a stated aim of making Islam relevant, applicable and easy (yusr al-islam). In his modern Adab al-Mufti work he considers this a “middle way” (wasatiyya) between the rigid and the lax. During the 1990s, as the president of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, a consultative body established to aid Muslim migrants to Western Europe to pursue a live according to Islamic precepts in their new non-Muslim environment, al-Qaradawi gradually came around to accept that certain compromises had to be made. Upholding the general idea of a universal fiqh, he allowed for a fiqh al-aqalliyat, that is, a 19 0003145005.INDD 21 http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2010/08/12/116431.html accessed 15 November 2016. 301961 6/10/2017 2:12:13 PM 22 Skovgaard-Petersen special jurisprudence for Muslims living as minorities in non-Muslim countries allowing for exceptions to otherwise well-established rules of Islamic law.20 Mufti’s Administrative Tasks No longer important in court, and less consulted for fatwas by the public, what are the tasks of the official mufti? In some countries, the mufti may still be in control of awqaf. As a rule, this mainly applies to countries where no ministry has been established, or where the Muslims form a minority with some administrative autonomy. Wherever the mufti is in charge of awqaf – often as the head of a council of Muslims – there will often be critics and challengers from within the community, as this is a significant source of wealth which is often administered without much transparency or accountability. Another field where there is a great variety is the role of the mufti vis-à-vis the ulama. In many successor states of the Ottoman Empire, including those in South-Eastern Europe, he retains significant influence over the appointment and promotion of local muftis, and sometimes even preachers. While in others, such as Egypt, he has no influence or even formal contact to the ulama at all. The same holds true for positions in Islamic higher education. The size of a mufti’s own office and bureaucracy depends on his functions, of course. And it often reveals a lot about his influence and status. In Tunisia, he has a small office in the compound of the Ministry of State where he can be consulted and where he can accept and register conversions to Islam. In Jerusalem, the Mufti of Palestine has a small office on top of the haram alsharif, next to the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosque. These buildings and the small mountain they are standing on are at the centre of the contestation of Jerusalem, and his archives provide the documentation for their status as a Muslim waqf. In Beirut, the Mufti of Lebanon has a rather big building of his own, the Dar al-Fatwa, which houses the administration of Sunni mosques and personnel all over Lebanon, and a high school of Islamic studies. In times of political crises, especially during the civil war of 1975–90, it would also serve as the venue for important meetings of the (often rival) Sunni political leaders of the country. In Damascus, the former Mufti Ahmad Koftaro (d. 2004) resided inside the Ministry of Awqaf, all the while he presided over a foundation with a nearby compound of schools, a higher academy of Islamic studies and a huge 20 0003145005.INDD 22 Caeiro, Alexandro & al-Saify, Mahmoud, “Qaradawi in Europe, Europe in Qaradawi?” In Gräf & Skovgaard-Petersen (eds.), The Global Mufti (London, New York: Hurst & Columbia University Press, 2009), (pp. 109–148), pp. 113–118. 301961 6/10/2017 2:12:13 PM Historical Retrospective on Muftiship 23 mosque and conference centre. And yet again, in Cairo, the Mufti who is formally an employee in the Ministry of Justice, has his own impressive tall building with the archives of fatwas, classrooms for trainee muftis from abroad, a conference hall, and telephone and visitor service for the ordinary mustafti. Although their functions vary, all buildings have been funded by the state and thus illustrate that, at least at specific points in recent national history, the state has been grateful to have a Mufti around.21 As will be seen from the country studies in this volume, in the countries of South and North Eastern Europe the official mufti is primarily an administrative function. However, there is a great variety in the precise content of those functions, as well as their funding and maintenance, not to mention the degree of the mufti’s influence in the state, over the ulama and ordinary believers. Mufti’s Representative Role State muftis and official muftis also serve the purpose of representing Islam, or representing the Muslims. As mentioned, this was always a function of the top mufti in a city, but in the mediated public of the modern state, this will happen much more frequently, especially in states where the government has an interest in demonstrating its Islamic character or pro-Muslim position or sympathy for the Muslim minority in the country. In such countries, he is a familiar face on tv as a dignified and confidence-inspiring figure, for instance during the month of Ramadan. Added to this is a new function as a representative of the state, or its Muslims, abroad. Many official muftis receive delegations from other countries and take part in conferences of international Islamic organizations. Such congregations of top official ulama from many countries can make important decisions and statements and thus have obvious political significance. The history of ulama internationalism is very much a tale of state competition for international influence. When the Egyptian Academy of Islamic Research was erected in 1961, Saudi Arabia felt compelled to set up a competitor, the Muslim World League (in 1962), and with a proxy war between the two countries being fought in Yemen, ulama were members of either one or the other. The ideological priorities of the host states of these two international ulama councils are easily 21 0003145005.INDD 23 Skovgaard-Petersen, Jakob, “A Typology of State Muftis” in Haddad & Stowasser (eds), Islamic Law and the Challenges of Modernity (New York: Alta Mira Press, 2004), (pp. 81– 98), p. 95. 301961 6/10/2017 2:12:13 PM 24 Skovgaard-Petersen visible in some of the statements they issued in that period.22 To avoid this political exploitation, a number of ulama in 2003 established the International Union of Muslim Scholars (iums) with a legal base in Dublin, Ireland. Presided over by the well-known Islamist preacher and independent mufti Yusuf al-Qaradawi, this organization was no less ideological than its state-sponsored predecessors. It makes statements on current events, sends delegations to political leaders of Muslim countries, and holds annual conferences. The Union does not issue fatwas, but its website does publish a few political fatwas, mainly by Yusuf al-Qaradawi.23 Mufti’s Political Role What has been the political role of the mufti in the modern territorial state? That would depend on many variables. Here the distinction is relevant between, on the one hand, state muftis representing the clear majority of the population and, on the other hand, official muftis representing a minority, especially in non-Muslim majority contexts. In states where Muslims are the majority, the question of the Islamic nature of society has been at the forefront of the challenges that both states and official muftis have been facing, in particular in the last decades of the 20th century. The response to this question would depend on the ideological position of the state towards religion. In some extreme cases, the state adopted an atheist ideology and saw no need for a religious bureaucracy at all. A few states abolished the office in an effort to combat what they considered “contra-revolutionary” forces in society. This was the case in modern Turkey which abolished the office of shaykh al-islam in 1922. More commonly, states with a modernist bent might retain the mufti as a minor functionary, thus demonstrating a secularist capacity to subsume (nationalize) and privatize religion, rather than abolishing it altogether. Secularist states sometimes found it useful to have a state mufti, precisely because they realized that traditional offices affiliated to the state might be the cheapest and most efficient way to control the “reactionary” field of religion. Indeed, a state mufti could even promote specific modernist state policies that might be resisted on religious grounds in conservative layers of the population. To new elites, with a self-understanding as the modernist avant-garde, it made sense to propagate their ideology through modernist 22 23 0003145005.INDD 24 Schulze, Reinhard, Islamischer Internationalismus (Leiden: Brill, 1989), pp. 149–177, 445– 456. http://iumsonline.org/ar/fatawy/?tag=fatawy. 301961 6/10/2017 2:12:13 PM Historical Retrospective on Muftiship 25 reformulations of Islam, delivered by a state mufti. State muftis were thus drafted into a modernist project. Many Muslim-majority countries went through a phase in the 1950s and 60s of having a “republican” state mufti to promote specific policies such as family planning or state sequestration of private property on Islamic grounds. The old role of the mufti as a mediator between the ruler and the ruled had given way to a more one-directional role as a fixer who helped giving Islamic arguments to policies which were formulated with other objectives. To be sure, a loyal state mufti would occasionally be allowed to make minor corrections of policies or practices considered an affront to the Muslim population, but these exceptions would be few and far between (as could also happen in pre-modern times). The main difference to earlier ages would be that the states, especially around the time of the de-colonization in the mid-20th century, would have an ideology of their own, often supported by significant groups in the population, which had little or nothing to do with traditional Islamic ideas of a social order. As a representative of the believers, the mufti would thus be struggling to defend the very idea of the Islamic identity and character of the society, something that could be taken for granted in premodern times. This issue of “defending Islam” is dear to many state muftis who see themselves as committed believers who must ensure that the public morality and ritual concerns are not abandoned in the necessary struggle for social progress. If state muftis themselves believed they were defending Islam, a growing number of critics began to say that they in fact were defending the state. In many Arab states, the political opposition accused the government of being un-Islamic, and it was the often unthankful task of the state mufti to uphold and defend the Islamic credentials of the state. Whether resisted or endorsed by the individual state mufti, the mobilization of his office and his person for political objectives made him vulnerable to attacks for being a puppet of the regime. The degree to which he had become synonymous with a “regime Islam” that was widely discredited in the more religiously committed parts of the population, could be seen during the Arab uprisings of 2011. Here, the State Muftis of Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Syria all had to support the regimes against the uprisings and denounce the protests as un-Islamic. They were, in turn, placed on the protesters’ “lists of shame” on Facebook, and denounced by international Islamic thinkers and ulama. In this situation, it was impossible to be a state mufti and at the same time represent the Muslim population. In states where Muslims formed a minority, including those in South-Eastern and North-Eastern Europe addressed in-depth in this volume, the issue of the Islamic character of society would be less pertinent, and that might in some 0003145005.INDD 25 301961 6/10/2017 2:12:13 PM 26 Skovgaard-Petersen ways make it easier for the official muftis to adapt. Rather than representing the society’s Islamic character, the official mufti would be representing the country’s Muslims as an interest group. Admittedly, to what degree the Muslims would feel represented by him might vary considerably, but on certain issues, such as cemeteries and funerals, even non-practicing Muslims would consider themselves Muslims and expect to be treated and represented as such. On certain occasions the mufti would physically and symbolically represent them, for instance at national ceremonies along with the heads of other religious denominations. For the more devoted members of the Muslim community, the mufti would have a ritual role to play, not just vis-à-vis the state and society at large, but also more specifically in his dealing with the Muslim community internally: for instance organizing the hajj delegation or declaring the beginning of Ramadan. The challenge of representing the Muslims in a modern state would again be dependent on a host of factors, not least of which would be the degree of liberalism and secularism of the state. In the South- and North-Eastern European contexts, states with a national ideology related to another religion, such as Catholic or Orthodox Christianity might pose specific challenges, just as Communist states had done. But also in these countries, the official mufti could have the important representative function of reassuring the world that this is actually a religiously tolerant state which has the support of its Muslim population. If there were ethnic differences or even tensions between the Muslims and the majority non-Muslim population, the state nationalism might also not consider the Muslims ideal, or even genuine, citizens, and representing them might be a thankless task. With the rise of Islamist militancy, for instance in Chechnya, the representation of Muslims elsewhere in Russia became markedly more difficult. This has happened several times in South-Eastern Europe, as is pointedly revealed in the country chapters of this volume. Conclusions While the act of asking for a fatwa and receiving one can be an entirely private affair, the office of mufti is often a public office. This was the case in previous Islamic empires and centuries, but with the rise of the modern territorial state, an office of state mufti has been introduced in many Muslim states. As we have seen, the tasks and importance of these offices vary significantly from state to state. Some of these state muftis are busy giving fatwas to ordinary believers and to the administration, whereas others are predominantly administrative positions. In some countries the state mufti is at the head of a hierarchy of 0003145005.INDD 26 301961 6/10/2017 2:12:13 PM Historical Retrospective on Muftiship 27 provincial and local muftis, while in others he is on his own. State muftis also have representative functions, domestically and abroad. Most controversially, state muftis may have a public role providing legitimacy to state policies. In particular, states with a strong modernizing impetus, as we saw them in the 1950s and 1960s, would occasionally draw on their state mufti to mobilize public support, or forestall public negative religious responses to specific political initiatives. This instrumentalization of state muftis has weakened the office and made it the object of criticism in oppositional media. During the Arab uprisings of 2011, the State Muftis of Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Libya and Syria found themselves between a rock and a hard place, as the interests of the regimes and those of the ordinary Muslim citizens were diametrically opposed. In states where the Muslims only form a minority, the leading official mufti will not be defending the Islamic identity of the society, but rather representing the Muslims as a part of the society with its own identity and interests. Again the tasks of the official mufti vary according to state identity and policies, the size and commitment of the Muslim group etc. In secular states in contemporary Europe, the official mufti in a state will be struggling to demonstrate his relevance on two fronts: towards the state which may either disregard him or utilize him, and towards the Muslim community who may consider him a relic of the past. But this is not a foregone conclusion. As we shall see throughout this volume, official muftis in North- and South-Eastern Europe are as varied as those in the Middle East, and some of them have been quite adept at carving out new roles for themselves. One of the roles which seems to be in demand in several places, is that of providing spiritual guidance. Not all the official muftis are willing or capable of playing such a role, and some may consider it to be beyond the scope of the office. But, as we have seen, this would be well in line with the unofficial and informal quality that partially marked the office in pre-modern times. 0003145005.INDD 27 301961 6/10/2017 2:12:13 PM 0003145005.INDD 28 6/10/2017 2:12:13 PM