SOCIAL CHANGE AND THE SHIFTING ROLE OF FATWA

This paper presents the arguments that fatwa apparently susceptible to social changes surrounding it. Fatwa's flexibility to adaptate makes fatwa has many different roles. Along with its main purpose to solve the umma's questions, fatwa occasionally also used to support government's policies, especially if the institutions that produce it are either subordinate or formed by the government. Fatwa institutions—within certain conditions—have becoming more adaptive toward the government's policies, even if they have to differ the clearity meaning of the holy text.