The Mardin Fatwa

– March 28, 2010

During the last weekend of March 2010, a prominent group of Muslim academics, scholars and theologians from across the Muslim world convened in the historical city of Mardin to discuss the implications of the “Mardin” fatwa (legal edict) penned by the Hanbalite Shaykh al-Islam, Taqi al-Din Ahmed bin Abd al-Halim ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328) in particular, and the rules of writing and understanding legal edicts in general. The conference closed with the signing of a New Mardin Declaration, that among other things, urged the faithful to live up to Islam’s high moral and ethical values, condemned in the strongest terms the vigilantism of radicals and urged all to foster greater peace and conviviality.