Fatwa, State, and Public Morality: Islamic Legal Authority in Contemporary Governance Systems
Keywords:
fatwa authority, Islamic legal governance, public morality, institutional translation, digital religionAbstract
Fatwas increasingly shape public policy, moral regulation, and digital religious communication, yet their authority cannot be explained adequately through the conventional distinction between binding and nonbinding opinions. This study examines how fatwa institutions are authorized, how advisory religious opinions acquire regulatory or coercive effects, and under what conditions such transformation remains compatible with juristic plurality, religious freedom, equal citizenship, and accountable governance. It employs a qualitative comparative socio-legal design combining document analysis, directed qualitative content analysis, comparative legal interpretation, and normative evaluation across Indonesia, Egypt, Morocco, Malaysia, and Türkiye. The corpus consists of constitutional texts, statutes, regulations, gazetted instruments, official fatwas, judicial decisions, institutional documents, and relevant international legal standards. The findings show that contemporary fatwa authority is institutionally hybrid and emerges through different combinations of scholarly legitimacy, constitutional authorization, bureaucratic capacity, political recognition, judicial reception, regulatory incorporation, and public acceptance. Fatwas become publicly consequential through a contingent process of institutional translation from epistemic and advisory authority to administrative, regulatory, and sometimes coercive authority. This process may generate unequal burdens for religious minorities, women, dissenting Muslims, converts, nonbelievers, and other citizens whose convictions differ from official interpretations. Digital platforms further reshape authority by introducing algorithmic visibility, online popularity, and platform engagement as new sources of influence. The study contributes an Institutional Translation of Fatwa Authority Framework that explains how religious interpretation becomes public power while identifying transparency, proportionality, non-discrimination, reviewability, and digital accountability as essential safeguards for legitimate fatwa governance.
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