People here are lampooning Mufti Muneeb, but this document shows that almost all major Islamic organizations of Pakistan agree that mosques must remain open. What’s funny is that these ulema think people will abide by the safety regulations here, sort of how religion & most >
> ideologies work, if anything goes wrong people will be blamed, not this document. Also I don’t think this is a monetary decision. These ulema genuinely think that communal prayers are necessary, as has been the case throughout Islamic history, during plagues people flocked >
to mosques. Hadeeths on this are confusing & contradictory (more here, ). A little about Ibn al-Khatib (Andalusian poet, philosopher, & vizier) who fought against the ulema of his time for this very reason & ulema won. >
> From Justin Stearns' Infectious Ideas: Contagion in Premodern Islamic & Christian Thought: In the wake of Black Death of 1349 (which probably killed a third of the Muslim population worldwide), Ibn al-Khaṭīb wrote a treatise entitled That Which Satisfies the Questioner >
> regarding the Appalling Illness (Muqniʿat al-Sā’il ʿan al-Maraḍ al-Hā’il), which dealt chiefly with the medical aspects of the plague. Included in its strong defense of the need to flee the plague, however, is an unabashed attack on legal scholars who denied the principle of >
> contagion. For Ibn al-Khaṭīb, any Prophetic traditions & prior legal arguments that deny contagion must yield before the empirical evidence that supports the contagious nature of the plague. To think otherwise would be to expose the Muslim community to needless danger, which >
> goes against the underlying principles of the sharīʿa. Toward the end of Ibn al-Khaṭīb’s plague treatise,
we read: One principle that cannot be ignored is that if the senses and observation (al-mushāhada) oppose a revealed indication (al-dalīl al-samʿī), the latter needs to >
we read: One principle that cannot be ignored is that if the senses and observation (al-mushāhada) oppose a revealed indication (al-dalīl al-samʿī), the latter needs to >
> be interpreted, and the correct course in this case is to interpret it according to what a group of those who affirm contagion say. In the Law (al-sharʿ) there are many
texts that support this (mu’nisāt ʿadīda), such as prophet's saying, “The sick should not be watered with >
texts that support this (mu’nisāt ʿadīda), such as prophet's saying, “The sick should not be watered with >
> the healthy,” (I think this is why in the letters people have been advised to do wuzu at home) and the saying of the Companion: “I flee from the will of God to His will.” This is not the place for prolixity on this subject... To sum up, to play deaf to such an inference is >
> malicious (zaʿārah), perverting blasphemy against God, and holding the lives of Muslims to be cheap. A group of pious people in the Maghrib have renounced [their previous view] to the people, bearing witness against themselves that they no longer give fatwas to this effect >
> [i.e., not believing in contagion], in order to avoid being in the position of declaring it permissible for people to engage in suicidal behaviour. God protect us from nonsense (al-khaṭal) and grant us success in both speech and action." Later, the Grand Qadi of Granada >
> al-Nubahi issued a fatwa in which Ibn al-Khatib's work on Sufism and philosophy were branded heretical and his work ordered to be burned. Sultan Abu'l-Abbas Ahmad al-Mustansir ordered Ibn al-Khatib arrested and a trial be held in the Moroccan capital city of Fes, in which a >
> Granadan group of emissaries, including his former student Ibn Zamrak, was actively involved. Despite intimidation and torture, Ibn al-Khatib kept protesting his innocence throughout the trial and denied the accusations of heresy. The final vote was far from unanimous and a >
> council of Islamic scholars were unable to reach a conclusive decision. He was sent back to his prison cell & strangled later that night. Next morning his body was buried near Fes' Bab al-Mahruq city gate. Unsatisfied, his enemies ordered his body dug up & thrown in a bonfire.
