Jurisprudential Fatwas Issued by the International Islamic Fiqh Academy on Social, Economic and Medical Issues of Women: A Contemporary Original Study

Volume 7, Issue 4

Abstract: This study examines the jurisprudential fatwas issued by the International Islamic Fiqh Academy concerning social, economic, and medical issues related to women. It provides a contemporary analytical reading aimed at tracing the evolution of the Academy’s institutional jurisprudential discourse regarding women and their rights. The study is based on an analysis of the Academy’s resolutions and the minutes of its deliberations published in the Journal of the International Islamic Fiqh Academy, and connects them with the concepts of gender equity, justice, and the preservation of human dignity as articulated in contemporary Islamic thought and human rights literature.

      The findings indicate that the Academy has gradually shifted from a near-complete neglect of women’s empowerment issues (up to the early 1990s), to adopting a defensive discourse centered on the “complementarity of roles” in response to international women’s conferences, and eventually to explicit recognition of women’s legal and human qualifications and their rights to education, employment, and participation in development. This shift, however, still maintains the framework of traditional jurisprudence regarding rulings on guardianship, custodianship, inheritance, blood money, and related matters.

      The study also reveals that emerging medical issues—such as medical treatment of women by male practitioners, reproductive technologies, AIDS, female genital mutilation, and the sterilization of girls with intellectual disabilities—have prompted the Academy to apply the jurisprudential principles of necessity, the removal of hardship, the preservation of lineage, and the preservation of life, in an effort to reconcile scriptural requirements with contemporary medical realities.

      The study concludes that the most significant transformation in the Academy’s discourse lies in the adoption of value-based and humanitarian language that is more responsive to women and their rights. However, structural renewal in ijtihad remains limited in several areas that shape power dynamics within the family and define women’s roles in the public sphere. This underscores the need to deepen purposive (masjid-based) ijtihad and to broaden the participation of researchers and specialists in formulating institutional fatwas.

Keywords: Jurisprudential Fatwas; International Islamic Fiqh Academy; Social, Economic, and Medical Issues; Women.

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