if a fatwa falls in the forest does it make any sound?
I’m always a baffled whenever people repeat the claim that abridgment [ikhtisar] and commentary [sharh] are proof that Islamic law stagnated. The reason I am baffled is that my experience reading of Shafii legal material compels me to arrive at the opposite conclusion, namely: that lots and lots of changes are going on. Three quick … Read more…
Since my last blog post was about the damage of poorly-research and poorly argued fatawas and another blog post touched the topic of fantasizing about sex with someone other than one’s spouse, I figured I should comment on a report from RadioFreeEurope: …fantasizing about someone other than your spouse during sex can lead to a woman giving … Read more…
The issue of crypto assets has been a real eye-opener for me because it gives me insight on how much poorly-researched and poorly-reasoned fatwas1)I have nothing but respect and appreciation for well-researched, well-reasoned legal opinions that totally disagree with me. contribute towards negatives views of Islamic scholarship. When a common Muslim individual reads a scholar’s … Read more…
“Bitcoin and crypto assets aren’t real because they’re just information.” If so, what about the majority of your paycheck that never gets converted into paper notes? And what about books present in one’s mind before they are expressed through spoken or written words? “Yeah, but someone can always withdraw those as paper money or print them … Read more…
Here’s an obvious yet still interesting difference between transmitting a message orally versus via blockchain: When a message is transmitted orally, each subsequent repeat does nothing to increase our confidence that the original message has not been corrupted while increasing the likelihood of transmission errors. This is in contrast to transmitting that same message via … Read more…
From euronews: Buying and selling virtual currencies is not compatible with religion at this time because of the fact that their valuation is open to speculation, they can be easily used in illegal activities like money laundering and they are not under the state’s audit and surveillance The objections given in the article seem to … Read more…
From Malay Mail Online: “Surely the worst of living creatures in God’s sight are those that are deaf and dumb and do not reason” — Quran, 8:22 As we can see from the above Quranic verse, the worst of living creatures are neither dogs nor pigs but those who shun themselves away from reasoning. […] … Read more…
From Malay Mail Online: […] …in reference to the viralled incident of a tudung-clad Muslim woman who kept her pet dog in the house and allowing the dog to lick her, after she posted it onto her Facebook page. …the Prophet’s hadith as narrated by renowned Islamic scholars Bukhari and Muslim mentioned reduced daily blessings … Read more…
Q. Can you provide any practical advice on how I should modify my interactions with younger relatives of the opposite sex as they grow closer to reaching physical maturity? A. Increase formality as they take on the appearance and behavior of young adults, and as they come closer to the age where they are expected … Read more…
Summary of a case study in Islamic Law and Ethics by Musa Furber. Animals are at the heart of many of today’s heated ethical and legal debates. This paper presents a survey of Qur’anic verses and prophetic narrations related to kept animals, and a study of one school’s application of this evidence to the topic of kept animals. This ethical and legal study will also throw into relief some of the mechanism of madhhab based jurisprudence and fiqh reasoning. This study serves as a basis for understanding and applying Islamic moral theology to the numerous contemporary issues related to kept animals.