Fatwas

A formal legal opinion given by a qualified Islamic scholar in answer to a question. A fatwa is an opinion and not a verdict, it binds nobody who does not accept the authority of the one who issued it, and two muftis may answer the same question differently without either being in error. That is worth stating plainly, because the word is more often met outside Islam attached to the one instrument here that was received as a death sentence. The other is a consensus statement by an international conference on who counts as a Muslim.