ABSTRACT
Though frequently referenced within the secondary literature, the fatwa collection has yet to be examined systematically as an independent genre of Islamic legal writing.1 The fatwas that ultimately appear in fatwa collections no doubt represent a tiny fraction of all fatwas written throughout history, and therein lies an ambiguous legacy for the contemporary historian. On the one hand, fatwa collections allow for broader analysis and comparative studies within a legal corpus that otherwise would prove prohibitively cumbersome and persistently incomplete. On the other hand, if we accept the argument that fatwas, at the individual level, refl ect on-the-ground legal realities of Muslim societies and thereby offer unique access to otherwise invisible trends in Islamic social history, then fatwa collections serve to elevate such texts to a canonical status.2 In sum, fatwa collections are the exclusive product and prerogative of scholarly elites; the fatwas contained within them thus open themselves up to the standard critiques of intellectual history and its limitations.3
