Mufti A mufti (often glossed as “jurisconsult”) is a Muslim authority who issues opinions (fatwā, pl.fatāwā) in response to questions posed to him (or, in some cases, to her) on questions regarding Shari ah rulings. Theoretically, a mufti should be a pious Muslim, adult, sane, and trustworthy, and should possess the necessary legal training. Slaves, women, a blind person, or a mute (assuming that he or she can communicate his or her opinion) may serve as muftis as well. In other words, the legal requirements for issuing legal rulings are somewhat different from the requirements for other legal capacities (such as bearing witness, for example). Ranging from a legal scholar merely answering a question to an official, state-endowed position, the construct of the mufti, his function, and the status of his rulings have all varied considerably over time and space in Islamic history. The word “mufti” is derived from the Arabic root f-t-y, which denotes the activity of legal consultation in the form of questions and answers. The root appears in the Qurʿān in the same meaning (4:126) in the context of God’s response to a question posed to the Prophet (“When they ask you for a pronouncement [wa-yastaftūnaka], say: ‘God pronounces to you [yuftīkum] …’”). “Mufti” is the present participle of this “pronouncing” verb, or, technically,fatwā giving. Concept and Function. In classical Sunnī jurisprudence, the formalized concept of the mufti is different from the judge (the qāḍī) in several significant respects, although many scholars who were considered muftis also served as judges. First, for the most part, the mufti was not appointed by the leader of the Muslim community (the imam), whereas judges were. Secondly, the ruling of the mufti (the fatwā), as opposed to the judge’s resolution (ḥukm), is not legally binding and enforceable. Therefore, the solicitor of the mufti’s opinion does not have to follow the mufti’s fatwā. Thirdly, while judges dealt only with issues of conflict between individuals or the state, muftis could be asked about issues ranging from proper ablution techniques to the nature of Hellfire and the interpretation of obscure passages in jurisprudential texts— issues that would never be adjudicated in a court. Finally, the ruling of the mufti is intended to articulate a general legal principle, “an element of doctrine,” on the basis of a concrete case. By contrast, the judge in his ruling aims to resolve a concrete dispute between two parties or litigants. To illustrate the difference in their rulings, consider the following example, which uses the standard fictitious personas of Zayd and ʿAmr. Zayd rented a house from ‘Amr but refuses to pay his rent. ‘Amr files a lawsuit against Zayd in court. After hearing both litigants, the judge rules that Zayd indeed owes money to ‘Amr and that the former has to pay his debt immediately. ‘Amr also addressed a mufti and solicited his opinion: “If a person rents a house but refuses to pay his rent, what can be done?” The mufti answered: “The tenant should pay his debt immediately.” As this example suggests, the mufti’s ruling is applicable to an infinite number of similar cases. The judge’s resolution, however, is concerned with a specific house, a specific debt, and specific litigants. Although there may be similar cases, the judge will have to rule over and over again for each individual case. As articulators of general legal principles, muftis play a significant role in expanding and elaborating the Islamic legal corpus, especially in cases that are not explicitly addressed in the existing legal (as well as theological and even mystical) literature. Moreover, in many instances, their rulings, especially those of eminent muftis, were integrated into the literature of substantive law (or the “branches of the law,” furū ). On the other hand, muftis interpreted the literature and applied it to new cases that are not explicitly discussed in it. In other words, as several modern scholars have observed, muftis served as mediators between the legal text and the world. The function of the mufti and the nature of this legal institution drew the attention of many jurists over the centuries. Islamic legal literature was concerned with regulating the mufti’s activity within the school of law (madhhab) and with defining his/her function. Unlike the qāḍī, who was generally charged with applying the laws of his maddhab exclusively (and was often considered a follower, muqallid, of the school), the mufti is often perceived as the performer of independent legal discretion (ijtihād), since he may well be asked about an issue that has no existing ruling yet (or that is hotly debated). Moreover, the terms mufti and mujtahid are frequently used interchangeably, especially in the seminal treatises on the Majority (Jumhūr) school of legal theory produced in the eleventh century. In the anafī school, however, the notion of a muqallid mufti exists as well. It is for this reason that, according to some jurists, the resolution of an ignorant judge (according to the Islamic legal definition of ignorance, i.e., not knowing the answer himself) is valid, as long as it depends on a mufti. On the other hand, in theory, the mufti cannot be ignorant. Moreover, in this literature, the judge is often encouraged to address the mufti whenever he encounters a legal issue that he cannot resolve. All schools of law, however, conceived of grades of muftis according to ability as well as function in society. From the twelfth century on, the Mālikīand Shāfiʿī schools considered the highest level to be those rare scholars capable of being mujtahids within and betweenmadhhabs. Conversely, the lowest level was the minimally trained scholar who was qualified simply to consult a fiqh reference and inform local petitioners about the ruling in question. The adab al-muftī (literally, “the etiquette of the mufti”) literature, as a distinctive genre whose focus is the institution of the mufti and is a counterpart to “etiquette of the judge” works, is of particular significance in this context. Apparently, the earliest work in this genre is that of the tenth-century Shafiʿi jurist Abū al-Qāsim ʿAbd al-Wā id ibn alusayn al-Saymarī (d. 996), Adab al-muftī wa-l-mustaftī (The Etiquette of the Mufti and the Solicitor of Legal Opinions). In the ensuing centuries, additional works in this genre, as well as chapters devoted to these issues in broader jurisprudential texts, were compiled. The genre emerged against the background of the consolidation of the Sunnī schools of law in the tenth century, a fact that explains the centrality of the operation of the mufti within the context of themadhhab. Most authors in this genre seek to guide their reader-mufti in his rulings in order to minimize the risk that issuing a fatwā entails, and particularly to reduce the risk of reaching a wrong ruling by wrongly exercising ijtihād. They also urge their readers not to issue their rulings hastily, to support their opinions by citing earlier authorities, to show humility and modesty by concluding their rulings with a phrase that expresses doubt in the definitiveness of their opinion (such as the phrase “God knows best”), and to inform their solicitor if, after ruling on an issue, they realize they have made a mistake. Some manuals even instruct the reader-mufti how to lay out his ruling on the paper, how to organize his library, and how to use his manuscripts. Moreover, the adab al-muftī prescribes the intellectual skills that are expected of the jurisconsult: he should be competent in Arabic and familiar with the legal verses of the Qurʿān, the corpus of ḥadīth, the biographies and opinions of earlier jurists, and the doctrine of the legal school he follows. The construct and ideal forms of the mufti and the fatwā intersect with the perennial Islamic legal debates over the law as universal or particular, a rigid standard to which individuals must adapt or a system designed to adapt to specific needs. A sixteenth-century mufti in Istanbul was praised for purposefully hiding the names of those whose fatwā requests he was answering so as to be totally impartial. In Egypt’s state Dār al-Iftā’ (Fatwā Ministry) today, however, muftis will often not respond to requests on questions such as marital obligations or divorce until they meet with the couple personally. The eleventh-century Mālikījurist al-Bājī (d. 1081) and the twentieth-century Shāfiʿī scholar al-Saqqāf (d. 1916) refused to provide fatwā solicitors with the laxer ruling if they did not believe it was the strongest position in their school of law. Egypt’s current grand mufti, Ali Gomaa, however, follows the methodology of providing the legal opinion that best suits the predicament of the solicitor in question. A second important genre of legal writing associated with muftis was their fatwā collections. Esteemed scholars often collected their fatwās, or their disciples (and in later centuries, in the Ottoman Empire, their secretaries) did so on their behalf, and compiled them as reference works. The fatwā collections of leading scholars like Ibn Rushd al-Jadd (d. 1126), al-Nawawī (d. 1277), and Rashīd Riḍā (1865–1935) continue to be consulted as influential works of Islamic thought today. The Age of State Muftis. Throughout most of the Islamic middle ages, muftis were usually not appointed by the state. They were competent or respected scholars acting in the capacity of legal experts sought out by judges, rulers, and private individuals alike. Their training was, like the ulamā as a whole, regulated almost autonomously by the scholarly community. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, for example, any jurist who was granted a permit to teach law and issue legal rulings (ijāzat al-tadrīs wa-l-iftā’) was considered a mufti. The fairly decentralized production of new muftis created a reality in which large numbers of muftis operated and issued their rulings. The famous fourteenth-century thinker and Mālikījurist Ibn Khaldūn (d. 1406), while serving as the chief Mālikījudge in Mamlūk Cairo, complained about the large number of active muftis, about their incompetence, and about the burden their rulings posed on the Mamlūk legal system. Nevertheless, over the centuries, there were a few instances in which rulers appointed muftis or tried to regulate their activity. As early as the first decades of the eighth century, the Umayyad caliph ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (r. 717–720) is said to have appointed three Egyptian jurists to issue legal opinions. In fact, in some retrospective Sunnī writing of the tenth century the office of mufti was associated with scholars serving the legal needs of the Umayyad court. In the fifteenth century, at least two Mamlūk sultans tried to curb the muftis’ activity: al-Ẓāhir Barquq demanded that the muftis follow the dominant views and doctrines of their respective schools in their rulings, and each mufti was required to obtain a permit from the chief judge (qāḍī al-quḍah) of his school to issue his rulings; and al-Ashrāf Baybars, slightly later, asked one of his chief judges to oversee the competence of some muftis. In addition, in the Mamlūk sultanate, a mufti was appointed to serve in the Hall of Justice (dār al-‘adl), the ruler’s court presided over by the Mamlūk sultan or his governors throughout the sultanate. Moreover, in the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Maghrib, Mālikīmuftis were attached to the legal court sessions and consulted the judges. In the eastern Islamic lands (Central Asia, Iran, Anatolia, and later the Arab Middle East, after the Ottoman conquest of this region), from the early fifteenth century onward, states appointed muftis regularly. This practice was intended to enable the ruling dynasties to intervene and regulate the authorities of the school of law and to specify the opinions that the jurists who were affiliated with them were to apply. Moreover, the appointment of muftis was an important, perhaps the most important, element in these dynasties’ development of learned hierarchies. In many polities, such as the Ottoman Empire, Timurid Iran, and the Uzbek Khanate, muftis played an important role in these hierarchies, and sometimes, as in the Ottoman learned hierarchy, presided over them. Furthermore, in the Ottoman Empire (but apparently in other polities throughout the eastern Islamic lands as well) the rise of the state-appointed muftiship also led to a growing bureaucratization of the muftis’ work: muftis were appointed to serve in specific cities and provinces, and many state-appointed muftis, at least in major urban centers, had secretaries (amīn, or fetva emini in Turkish) who aided in and recorded their fatwās. At the same time, in parallel to the state-appointed muftis, muftis who did not hold a state appointment continued to operate across the Arab Middle East and apparently elsewhere as well. These muftis continued to follow the classical understanding of the institution of the jurisconsult. Some of these jurists, such as the early eighteenth-century Damascene jurists ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nabulusī (d. 1731), argued against the practice of appointing muftis, and claimed that the state should not limit the range of widely recognized and legitimate opinions within the school. Although the practice of appointing muftis mostly affected anafījurists (as most of these Sunnī post-Mongol polities adopted different branches within the anafīschool of law as their official state school), it is quite possible that this practice also affected muftis who followed other schools, because in some places, such as the Ottoman realms, the state appointed muftis who followed other schools as well. In later centuries, the practice of state-appointed muftis gained currency in other parts of the Islamic world, from East Asia to North Africa. In 1895, for example, as Egypt became increasingly independent from the Ottoman Empire, the khedival state appointed a chief state mufti. This office was charged with duties like providing legal rulings for government ministries, reviewing death penalty cases, and, more cynically, providing a perspective on Islamic law agreeable to the ruler. Eventually this office came to exist alongside other fatwā-producing bodies in Egypt, like the Islamic Research Academy of al-Azhar. This was also the case in many post-Ottoman nation-states throughout the Middle East and the Balkans, such as Lebanon (1955) and Bosnia (the Reis-ul-ulema, 1882). In other countries, such as Indonesia, instead of a single mufti, the muftiship is a collective body. Despite their affiliation with a specific state, some of these state-appointed muftis, such as the Egyptian state mufti, received questions from abroad, as well as from within Egypt itself. Independent Muftis Today. Alongside these state-affiliated muftis, and often in competition with them, the activity of eminent jurisconsults who are not attached to the religious and judicial establishments of specific states has never ceased. Many of these figures attracted, and still attract, questions from different parts of the Islamic world as well as from their more immediate environment. Around the turn of the twentieth century, for example, the prominent reformist Rashīd Riḍā issued his rulings to his supporters and others throughout the Islamic world, from Egypt to East Asia. The leading Salafī scholar Mu ammad Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Albānī (d. 1999) commanded a huge global audience through his books and recorded lectures, giving fatwās that were sometimes compiled in influential collections. In recent years, the Qatar-based Egyptian scholar Yūsuf al-Qaraḍāwī has emerged as the most influential Sunnī mufti, serving as an important transnational (or, perhaps, supra-national) legal authority. 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