Issuing edicts

Edict are interpretations of religious law or doctrine. Edicts are issued by various religions. In its strictest sense, a fatwa (Islamic edict) is an interpretation by a Koranic scholar of how Islamic laws written long ago apply to the demands of everyday life.

Christian, Jewish and Islamic theologians across the ages have issued edicts. In the first several centuries of Islam, fatwas were inclined towards a liberal direction. In the present day Islamic world, fatwas have been and can be issued for a whole range of human activity, among others: religious fasting; charitable obligations; marriage; divorce; supporting and opposing peace with Israel; banning works by writers, artists, and filmmakers; forbidding and sanctioning genital mutilation of girls and women; killing of foreigners; hostage-taking; suicide bombing; death sentences.

1. Edicts have been and can be used among others: as a tool to maintain or increase religious power and control over the masses; to run counter to modern notions and scientific findings; to run counter to the very founding principles of their respective religions (Thou shalt not kill; Love thy neighbour as you love yourself, and so on). With respect to the above: to reject a fatwa can cast the rejector as an atheist; the Roman Catholic Church reversed its condemnation of Galileo (he argued that the Earth revolved around the Sun) in 1992 - more than 350 years after the event; several years ago the supreme religious authority of Saudi Arabia issued a fatwa stating that the Earth is flat - whoever claims it is round is an atheist deserving of punishment; one of the Arab world's most popular Muslim preachers issued a fatwa saying it was legitimate for Bosnian Muslims to enslave their prisoners and force their wives and daughters to engage in sex. Edicts are a human response to the teachings of God, and all to often they are an abuse of and or failure to adhere to the teachings of God - out of ignorance or out of deliberate acts of self-gain. Then it is better never to issue them.

1. Issuing