Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Barry Hoberman, “The First Muez-

zin.” Saudi Aramco World 34 (July–August 1983): 2–3; 

Scott L. Marcus, Music in Egypt: Experiencing Music, 

Expressing Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 

2007): 1–15.

mufti

A mufti is a Sunni Muslim trained in Islamic 

law, the 

sharia

, who has the 

aUthority

 to issue 

formal legal opinions called 

FatWa

s. This person’s 

counterpart in Shii contexts is called a 

mujtahid

.

The opinions given by a mufti are informed by 

the  q

Uran

, the 

sUnna

, and legal tradition. They 

can be solicited by individuals or government 

officials and political authorities. This function 

appeared early in the Muslim community when it 

determined that it must strive to apply the legal 

prescriptions of the Quran and sunna to the daily 

needs of the newly emerging Islamic religious and 

political order in the Middle East. Unlike a judge 

(qadi), a mufti’s ruling was not necessarily tied 

to a court case, nor was it final. Rather, it had to 

contend with advisory opinions issued by other 

muftis. However, the decisions of muftis were col-

lected in books and played an instrumental role in 

the development of the Islamic legal tradition. At 

first muftis were paid by donations from private