Summary: You may have heard the term fatwa before ndash; especially if yoursquo;re a fan of writer Salman Rushdie ndash; and you may think a fatwa is a kind of death sentence. Well, itrsquo;s not. A fatwa is simply an opinion handed down by an Islamic scholar about some aspect of Islamic law. For Sunni Muslims, a fatwa is a non-binding opinion. For members of the Shirsquo;a sect, it can be binding depending upon the scholar. And while a fatwa may not necessarily be binding ndash; it can be used by judges when making legal decisions. Past fatwas have dealt with everything from banning the smoking of cigarettes by Muslims to banning the stockpiling of nuclear weapons by Muslim nations. Of course, it was media coverage of Rushdie affair of the 1980rsquo;s ndash; when Iranrsquo;s Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa saying Rushdie should be put to death for his book ldquo;The Satanic Versesrdquo; ndash; that the term ldquo;fatwardquo; became synonymous with death sentence. Itrsquo;s a misunderstanding that continues to be perpetuated by many in the media.
