SHARIAsource Lab – Adnan Zulfiqar
Posted on September 12, 2020
On Friday, August 7, 2020, Professor Adnan Zulfiqar (Rutgers University) presented “Mapping COVID-19 Fatwas Project” as part of our Digital Islamic Law Lab series. The Project came about in early March 2020 when global awareness of the novel Coronavirus (Covid-19) extended beyond hot spots in China, Iran and Italy. Zulfiqar began noticing increased commentary from religious scholars on what Islamic law, and Islam in general, had to say about Covid-19. Sensing the need to start cataloguing these opinions, Professor Zulfiqar began collecting fatwās and statements from around the globe on the Islamic legal response to Covid-19. Thus far, the project has collected over 100 fatwās representing almost 30 countries/regions and in various languages including Arabic, Urdu, Farsi, English, Turkish and Indonesian (Bahasa). The purpose of the project is to provide a clearinghouse of fatwās for scholars, policymakers and others interested in Islamic legal opinions on the pandemic, with the hope that this resource can be used to support academic research, as well as prove helpful to those crafting guidelines for pandemic related matters in specific countries.