Fatwā concerning the legality, based on their interpretation of Islamic law, of fulfilling the Friday prayer (Jumuʿa) at home, instead of at a mosque (masjid) or public prayer venue. The answer provided by the Mufti of Australia and The Australian Fatwa Council, dated 18 March 2020, is that their interpretation of Islamic law permits for a Muslim, in the event of a pandemic that threatens one’s life, such as COVID-19, which is spread through close social interaction, to not have to attend the daily congregational prayers and Friday prayer.
Ibn Ḥārith al-Khushanī recorded the following case as a ḥikāya, an anonymous report: A Christian appeared before the judge Aslam b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, petitioning to be executed. The anecdote offers insight into the historical role of judges during a period of religious dissent in the Umayyad Caliphate, while the author's narrative voice demonstrates past judicial approaches to rationality, humor, and violent penalization.
This text is part of Maribel Fierro, The Judges of al-Andalus, forthcoming.
In this excerpt, ʿAbd al-Karīm Zaydān (d. 2014), an Iraqi scholar, gives a summary of the Ẓāhirī, Shāfiʿī, Ḥanbalī, Ḥanafī, and Mālikī viewpoints on the question of judicial knowledge—that is, whether it is permissible for a judge to rule according to his own knowledge in court—and evaluates their merits. In his chapter on circumstantial evidence in Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts, Hossein Modarressi cites this source to demonstrate the range of opinions held by Sunnī jurists on this issue.