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MUFTI

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Originally appearing in Volume V18, Page 956 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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MUFTI , a consulting See also:

canon-lawyer in See also:Islam, who, upon application, gives fatwas (fetvas) or legal opinions on points of canon See also:law (see See also:MAHOMMEDAN LAW). These are asked and given in strictly impersonal See also:form, but the See also:cadi, or See also:judge, then applies them to the See also:case and decides in accordance with them. In theory, any learned See also:man whose See also:opinion is respected and whose See also:advice is sought can give fatwas. But generally in a Muslim See also:state there are muftis specifically appointed by the See also:government, one for each school of canon law in each See also:place. Each of these renders opinions in accordance with the law-books of his school; 2 The use of the word for See also:plain or civilian clothes worn instead of See also:uniform is originally Anglo-See also:Indian. It may have been suggested by the loose flowing See also:robes of the See also:stage " mufti," and thus Implied any easy See also:dress worn by an officer when out of uniform. he has no See also:scope for See also:free See also:interpretation; everything is fixed there, and he must follow the precedents of the elders. In See also:Turkey there is a See also:chief mufti, called the See also:Sheikh al-Islam, whose See also:office was created by the See also:Ottoman See also:sultan, Mahommed IL, in 1453, after the See also:capture of See also:Constantinople. He is, in a sense, the See also:head of the ecclesiastical See also:side of the state, that controlled by canon law; while the See also:grand See also:vizier is at the head of See also:secular matters. Although his See also:powers are delegated by the sultan-See also:caliph, and he is appointed and can be dismissed by him, yet in his fatwa-issuing See also:power he is See also:independent. The sultan may dismiss him before he has a See also:chance to issue a fatwa; but if he once issues it the result is legally automatic, even though it means the deposition of the sultan himself. Thus it was by a fatwa of the Sheikh al-Islam that the sultan Abdul Hamid was deposed.

See Juynboll, De mohammedaansche Wet., 40 sqq.; De Slane's trans. of See also:

Ibn Khaldun's Prolegomenes, I. lxxviii. 447 seq.; Turkey in See also:Europe, by " See also:Odysseus," 131 seq. ; See also:Young, See also:Corps de See also:droit ottoman, I. X., 285, 289. (D. B.

End of Article: MUFTI

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