Relying on the Internet in Issuing Fatwas
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. He says: Is it blameworthy for the general public if their reference is the internet for matters of religion that are unclear to them, where they write the question on the internet, then the answer appears to them, and they act upon it?
Answer:
Where does this answer come from? From the scholars? One does not rely on anything but the answers of the known scholars of knowledge. Specifically regarding issuing fatwas on general matters, no one issues a fatwa on them except the Committee of Senior Scholars or the Permanent Committee.[An-Nisa 4:83] This is referred to the competent authorities. Yes.
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. He says: Is it blameworthy for the general public if their reference is the internet for matters of religion that are unclear to them, where they write the question on the internet, then the answer appears to them, and they act upon it?
Answer:
Where does this answer come from? From the scholars? One does not rely on anything but the answers of the known scholars of knowledge. Specifically regarding issuing fatwas on general matters, no one issues a fatwa on them except the Committee of Senior Scholars or the Permanent Committee.
And when there comes to them information about [public] security or fear, they spread it around. But if they had referred it back to the Messenger or to those of authority among them, then the ones who [can] draw correct conclusions from it would have known about it.
وَإِذَا جَاءَهُمْ أَمْرٌ مِّنَ الْأَمْنِ أَوِ الْخَوْفِ أَذَاعُوا بِهِ وَلَوْ رَدُّوهُ إِلَى الرَّسُولِ وَإِلَىٰ أُولِي الْأَمْرِ مِنْهُمْ لَعَلِمَهُ الَّذِينَ يَسْتَنبِطُونَهُ مِنْهُمْ
Source
شرح كتاب المنتقى من أخبار المصطفى صلى الله عليه وسلم، بداية من كتاب الزكاة : باب الحث عليها والتشديد في منعها — islamhouse.com (1:12:33)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.