The Ruling on Revisiting an Incorrect Fatwa and Correcting It
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
He says: If a person issues a fatwa and that fatwa turns out to be incorrect, is he allowed to retract it and correct the error?
Answer:
It is obligatory for him to do so. First, it is not permissible for him to issue a fatwa without knowledge. Second, even if he is a scholar, he should not issue a fatwa unless he is certain or strongly believes in the correctness of the fatwa, by verifying through consulting knowledge until he is sure whether he is right or wrong. Third, if he exercises independent legal reasoning (ijtihad) and issues a fatwa, and then the error becomes apparent to him, it is obligatory for him to retract the fatwa and inform the questioner that he issued an incorrect fatwa and that the correct ruling is such and such, if that is possible.
He says: If a person issues a fatwa and that fatwa turns out to be incorrect, is he allowed to retract it and correct the error?
Answer:
It is obligatory for him to do so. First, it is not permissible for him to issue a fatwa without knowledge. Second, even if he is a scholar, he should not issue a fatwa unless he is certain or strongly believes in the correctness of the fatwa, by verifying through consulting knowledge until he is sure whether he is right or wrong. Third, if he exercises independent legal reasoning (ijtihad) and issues a fatwa, and then the error becomes apparent to him, it is obligatory for him to retract the fatwa and inform the questioner that he issued an incorrect fatwa and that the correct ruling is such and such, if that is possible.
Source
الخطأ في الفتوى — alfawzan.live
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.