Fatwa Activism or Educational Activism

FATWA ACTIVISM OR EDUCATIONAL ACTIVISM Issuing commands without first cultivating this capacity does not solve the problem at any level. Whenever corruption appears in a society, its cause is not that people are unaware of commands or laws and therefore fall into wrongdoing. The reality is that social corruption results from a lack of inner spirit among people, not from ignorance of commands and laws. In such a situation, the starting point of social reform is not to issue fatwas based on legal rulings. Rather, the starting point is to awaken people’s inner spirit, revive awareness within them, and cultivate in them the capacity for acceptance. When this has been achieved to a significant extent, the time comes to inform people about issues in the language of commands and laws. Announcing external commands before creating internal capacity is a wrong order. It is like putting the cart before the horse, which is clearly unworkable. Whether it is fatwa activism or any other form of activism, there is only one way to assess it, and that is by examining the results it produces in practice. The only measure of the correctness of an action is its outcome. It is an established principle that action should always be result-oriented, and fatwa activism is certainly not an exception to this general principle. (Al-Risala, September 2006)