Dubai (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Muslim papers and websites report daily questions and answers with regard to a plethora of issues, often with different views on the same topic. The latter range from spousal relations to state power, from jihad and women’s clothing to Western “Islamophobia.” Questions cover every aspect of an individual’s personal and social life and are addressed to religious scholars in order to elicit considered opinions or fatwās.
The highest religious authority in Saudi Arabia, the Council of Senior Ulema, has decided to launch an official website, www.alifta.com, to provide bona fide fatwās. Visitors to the new website will be able to learn what the right thing to do is by asking questions on various topics and have ulema answer.
Dubai’s Gulfnews daily, which published a special report on the new website, said that it will feature edicts issued by a number of official religious scholars, devoting a section to the former head of the council and mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Baz.
The website’s launch is apparently a response to the proliferation of fatwās by Saudi and other Muslim scholars that clash with the official line of the Saudi religious establishment led by the Council of Senior Ulema.