i found this interesting and thought others might too. one of the things i like about islam is the very fact that it is de-centralized with no Big Cheese (like a pope) calling the shots. i guess this article deals with the downsides of this. personally, i like the fact that there is diversity of opinion on many matters, but i can see that it would also be confusing to someone trying to practice the religion in the best way possible and it would be easy to get overwhelmed. i guess this is why some choose to pick a sheikh and follow his rulings consistently.
in a way, it is like every other field - we are bombarded with an endlessly huge amount of information to sift through.
that's really all i have to say on the subject, but thought it might make for an interesting discussion.
Muslim scholars decry ‘fatwa chaos’
* Al-Azhar University churns out 1,000 fatwas a day
* Egyptian scholar says too many unqualified opinions being spread
Daily Times Monitor
LAHORE: Muslim scholars have condemned the explosion in the number of fatwas now being issued and called for the establishment of unified standards for pronouncing religious decrees.
Daniel Williams writes for Bloomberg News that a century ago, the fatwa department at Cairo’s Al-Azhar University issued fewer than 200 edicts a day. Now it turns out about 1,000.
“Around the world, an explosion in the number of fatwas is driving efforts by prominent Muslims to rein in the practice. That’s proving a nearly impossible task, given Islam’s decentralised nature and the growing number of outlets for the edicts,” says the report.
Muslims in Egypt seeking religious guidance may now turn to satellite television and the Internet for opinions from as far afield as Indonesia - unless they follow the fatwa issued in 2004 by the Dar ul-Ulum, India’s largest madrassa, that ruled Muslims shouldn’t watch TV.
Too many unqualified opinions: With no pope or patriarch to arbitrate orthodoxy, “it’s the nature of Islamic thought to have many options,” says Abdel Moti Bayoumi, who heads the Islamic Research Compilation Centre in Cairo. “But there are too many unqualified opinions being spread, and this is wrong.”
The result is what MENA, Egypt’s official news agency, calls “fatwa chaos”. Mainstream Islamic scholars blame TV and the Web for the proliferation of pronouncements. Confusing opinions are reaching millions of believers, these critics say.
Dissident preachers fault establishment clerics for issuing what they consider abstruse and sometimes ridiculous judgments.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default...11-2007_pg7_28