The making of the fatwa: The production of Islamic legal expertise in Europe

Alexandre Caeiro*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

24 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This article examines the kind of expertise that is provided by Muslim actors specialized in Islamic Law (muftis) to their coreligionists in Europe. It seeks to understand how the production of this expertise (the fatwa) is organized and managed, and to what extent it is shaped by policy discourses in the West. The article thus seeks to fill a relative gap in the scholarship on Islam in Europe which has often reduced fatwas to ahistorical and fundamentalist rhetorics. Taking the European Council for Fatwa and Reseach as a case study, the author describes the settings, actors and logics of the production of fatwas in the European context.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)81-100
Number of pages20
JournalArchives de Sciences Sociales des Religions
Volume155
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2011
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Europe
  • European Council for Fatwa and Research
  • Fatwa
  • Islam
  • Jurisprudence of minorities

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