Friz Muhammad’s fatwa to behead Dutch politician is only binding on the author.

A fatwa is only binding on its author ….

“Following the Salman Rushdie affair, Western media frequently use the term to mean an Islamic death sentence upon someone who is considered an infidel, apostate or a blasphemer.[2] This is indeed one possibility, but is a rare use for a fatwā, and the equation of fatwā with capital punishment is considered offensive by many Muslims.

The term’s correct definition is broader, since a fatwā may concern any aspect of individual life, social norms, religion, war, peace, Jihad and politics.

Most Islamic opinions—millions of fatwā have been issued over the 1,400 year history of Islam—likely deal with issues faced by Muslims in their daily life, such as the customs of marriage, financial affairs, female circumcision or moral questions.

Fatwa are issued in response to questions by ordinary Muslims, and go unnoticed by those not concerned, while the much smaller number of fatwā issued on controversial subjects such as war, Jihad, Dhmimmis, particularly by extremist preachers, sometimes get wide coverage in the media because of their political content (see examples below).

A fatwā is not automatically part of Islamic teachings. While the person issuing it may intend to represent the teachings of Islam accurately, this does not mean that that person’s interpretation will gain universal acceptance. There are many divergent schools within the religion, and even people within the same current of thought will sometimes rule differently on a difficult issue. This means that there are numerous contradictory fatwā, prescribing or proscribing a certain behavior. This puts the burden of choice on the individual Muslim, who, in case of conflict, will be forced to decide whose opinion is more likely to be correct. On the other hand, some fatwās are considered absolute.
[edit]History

In the early days of Islam, fatwās were pronounced by distinguished scholars to provide guidance to other scholars, judges and citizens on how subtle points of Islamic law should be understood, interpreted or applied. There were strict rules on who is eligible to issue a valid fatwā and who could not, as well as on the conditions the fatwā must satisfy to be valid.

According to the usul al-Fiqh (principles of jurisprudence), the fatwā must meet the following conditions in order to be valid:

The fatwā is in line with relevant legal proofs, deduced from Qur’anic verses and ahadith; provided the hadith was not later abrogated by Muhammad.
It is issued by a person (or a board) having due knowledge and sincerity of heart;
It is free from individual opportunism, and not depending on political servitude;
It is adequate with the needs of the contemporary world.

With the existence of modern independent States, each with its own legislative system, or its own body of Ulemas, each country develops and applies its own rules, based on its own interpretation of religious prescriptions.

Many Muslim countries (such as Egypt and Tunisia) have an official Mufti position; a distinguished expert in the Sharia is appointed to this position by the civil authorities of the country. But his fatwās are binding on no one: neither the State that appoints him, nor any citizen.
[edit]Issuer qualifications

See also: Ijazah and Madrasah
During what is often referred to as the Islamic Golden Age, in order for a scholar to be qualified to issue a fatwā, it was required that he obtained an ijazat attadris wa’l-ifta (“license to teach and issue legal opinions”) from a Madrassah in the medieval Islamic legal education system, which was developed by the 9th century during the formation of the Madh’hab legal schools. Later during the Islamic contributions to Medieval Europe, the ijazat attadris wa’l-ifta evolved into the doctorate, or more specifically the Doctor of Laws qualification, in medieval European universities.[3]
To obtain an ijazat attadris wa’l-ifta in the Madrassah system, a student “had to study in a guild school of law, usually four years for the basic undergraduate course” and ten or more years for a post-graduate course. The “doctorate was obtained after an oral examination to determine the originality of the candidate’s thesis,” and to test the student’s “ability to defend them against all objections, in disputations set up for the purpose”, which were scholarly exercises practiced throughout the student’s “career as a graduate student of law.” After students completed their post-graduate education, they were awarded doctorates giving them the status of mudarris (meaning “teacher”), faqih (meaning “master of law”), mufti (meaning “professor of legal opinions”) and which were later translated into Latin as magister, professor and doctor respectively.[3] Note that these terms are not yet standardized nor has a syllabus been agreed upon. hence there is vast variance in qualification and skills based upon schools and teachers
[edit]National level

In nations where Islamic law is the basis of civil law, but has not been codified, as is the case of some Arab countries in the Middle East, fatwā by the national religious leadership are debated prior to being issued. In theory, such fatwā should rarely be contradictory. If two fatwā are potentially contradictory, the ruling bodies (combined civil and religious law) would attempt to define a compromise interpretation that will eliminate the resulting ambiguity. In these cases, the national theocracies expect fatwā to be settled law.
In the majority of Arab countries, however, Islamic law has been codified in each country according to its own rules, and is interpreted by the judicial system according to the national jurisprudence. Fatwā have no direct place in the system, except to clarify very unusual or subtle points of law for experts (not covered by the provisions of modern civil law), or to give moral authority to a given interpretation of a rule.
In nations where Islamic law is not the basis of law (as is the case in various Asian and African countries), different mujtahids can issue contradictory fatwā. In such cases, Muslims would typically honour the fatwā deriving from the leadership of their religious tradition. For example, Sunni Muslims would favor a Sunni fatwā whereas Shiite would follow a Shi’a one.
There exists no international Islamic authority to settle fiqh issues today, in a legislative sense. The closest such organism is the Islamic Fiqh Academy, (a member of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC)), which has 43 member States. But it can only render fatwā that are not binding on anyone.
[edit]Legal implications

There is a binding rule that saves the fatwā pronouncements from creating judicial havoc, whether within a Muslim country or at the level of the Islamic world in general: it is unanimously agreed that a fatwā is only binding on its author. This was underlined by Sheikh Abdul Mohsen Al-Obeikan, vice-minister of Justice of Saudi Arabia, in an interview with the Arabic daily “Asharq al awsat”, as recently as on July 9, 2006, in a discussion of the legal value of a fatwā by the Islamic Fiqh Academy (IFA) on the subject of misyar marriage, which had been rendered by IFA on April 12, 2006.[4] He said : “Even the fatawas of the official Ifta authority (official Saudi fatwā institute) is binding on no one, whether individuals or the State.”
Despite this, some times, even leading religious authorities and theologians misleadingly present their fatwā as obligatory,[5] or try to adopt some “in-between” position.
Thus, the Sheikh of al-Azhar in Cairo, Muhammad Sayid Tantawy, who is the leading religious authority in the Sunni Muslim establishment in Egypt, alongside the Mufti of Egypt, said the following about fatwās issued by himself or the entire Dar al-Ifta:
“Fatwā issued by Al-Azhar are not binding, but they are not just whistling in the wind either; individuals are free to accept them, but Islam recognizes that extenuating circumstances may prevent it. For example, it is the right of Muslims in France who object to the law banning the veil to bring it up to the legislative and judicial authorities. If the judiciary decides in favor of the government because the country is secular, they would be considered to be Muslim individuals acting under compelling circumstances.” Otherwise, in his view, they would be expected to adhere to the fatwā.[6]
In Morocco, where king Mohammed VI is also Amir al-Muminin (Commander of the faithful), the authorities have tried to organize the field by creating a scholars’ council (conseil des oulémas) composed of Muslim scholars (ulema), which is the only one allowed to issue fatwā. In this case, a national theocracy could in fact compel intra-national compliance with the fatwā, since a central authority is the source. Even then, however, the issue would not necessarily be religiously binding for the residents of that nation. For, the state may have the power to put a fatwā in effect, but that does not mean that the fatwā is to be religiously accepted by all. For instance, if a state fatwā council made abortion acceptable in the first trimester without any medical reason, that would have direct impact on official procedures in hospitals and courts in that country. Yet, this would not mean that the Muslims in that nation has to agree with that fatwā, or that fatwā is religiously binding for them.
[edit]Sources

Sources of fatwā include:
Al-Azhar University
Mufti Ebrahim Desai
Darul Iftaa
Cairo University Center of Islamic Research and Studies