Speech by Mufti Dr Nazirudin Mohd Nasir at Fatwa Lab Symposium

Thank you for joining us in this important event, which is a follow up to the Fatwa Conference held last year. I would like to record my special thanks to experts who have worked closely with us on many new and challenging issues, as part of the Fatwa Lab initiative.

We are also very blessed today to have with us eminent scholars, members of the International Advisory Panel for the Singapore College of Islamic Studies, who have travelled very far to be with us in Singapore over the next few days. We are indeed very grateful that they have made time to join us to lend their support and offer advice on our fatwa work too.

Last year, we presented on the Fatwa Lab idea and its projects at the Fatwa Conference. Many of you attended the Conference and heard our budding young researchers as they presented their work and recommendations on many cutting-edge issues. You can find the progress and findings of these teams in the inaugural issue of the Fatwa Lab highlights and insights.

I am personally very glad that there has been further progress, thanks to the commitment of new research teams and mentors from amongst senior asatizah. Today, the team is excited to share further developments.

In fact, we are pleased to announce that one of the projects have now culminated in a new fatwa issued by the Fatwa Committee. I will speak more on this in a short while.

Over many centuries of its development, Islamic thought has always been characterised by dynamism and continuous evolution. That is why ijtihād is an important virtue, encouraged by the Prophet s.a.w. even as it carries risk to integrity and reputation to those who undertake it. Ijtihad is important because it is the means with which religious thought renews itself as Islam progresses through time and space. In the development of Islamic law and jurisprudence over the centuries, much of this development takes place in the teaching and writing of fiqh. But we also find fatāwā as a key genre within fiqh too. Some have become standard and key fiqh references, such as Al-Fatāwā al-Kubrā al-Fiqhiyyah Imam Shihabuddin Ahmad ibn Hajar al-Haithami, Al-Fatāwā Al-Hindiyyah in al-Fiqh al-Hanafi.

In my view, fatwa is not only one of the ways or tools, but is the tool and platform for the renewal and development of Islamic thought today. And this is for various reasons:

1. Given the changing and challenging circumstances that Muslims live in, there will always be new issues that require guidance. So there will always be a need for fatwas. The market for fatwas will still exist.

2. The more established and rigorous process of formulating fatwas, through committees and institutions, less so through individuals or driven by personalities. The collective nature of fatwa formulation and issuance lends it greater legitimacy for effect and impact, compared to a scholarly or academic view expressed in works of individual scholars.

3. Effectiveness, persuasiveness and instructiveness. Although fatwas are not binding, they are instructive. In other words, fatwas are not just opinions that are as easily dismissed as any other informed opinion. It is usually noted, deliberated and considered.

I think for these reasons, many institutions are pushing ahead as leaders in fatwa formulation, such as the Dār al-ʾIftāʾ al-Miṣriyyah from Egypt.

Yet, at the same time, the world we live in continues to throw new surprises, some of which are extremely complex and dynamic. This includes climate change, food sustainability, costs of living, new diseases and epidemics, political instabilities, wars.

For example, last year was the warmest year on record. But what is more alarming is that the past 10 years have been the 10 warmest years. Singapore was not excluded, 2024 being our warmest year too.

We also have food sustainability challenges, including issues of food waste and food security. Our current food production methods are pushing our planet to its limits. And human’s excessive consumption only adds pressure to this struggling system.

New variants of diseases are also emerging, alongside new discoveries and breakthrough achievements in the biomedical sciences. New ethical questions become more complex and urgent.

Many of the challenges we face are existential and planetary in nature. In other words, literally no one is spared. This also means that religious leaders need to actively play their role - not just in the form of opinions, but through guidance that is thoughtful, courageous, and grounded in both tradition and realities of our time.

We must therefore continue to think very hard on how to further advance fatwa thinking and formulation, because of the many serious things at stake as mentioned above.

To do this, in my view, we have to focus on four key areas, which I will illustrate through our Fatwa Lab initiative in Singapore, and end with an example of some Fatwa Lab outcomes.

Values, Content, Process, People

Values – confidence, resilience and empowering

Content – robust, rigorous, comprehensive

Process – inclusive, collaborative,

People – competence, nurturing, courageous

The Fatwa Lab is meant to nurture a dynamic research ecosystem where Islamic ethico-legal scholarship can flourish but with clear long-term goals in mind. In my view, this is one of the hardest challenges – to shift thinking from a short-term to having a long-term perspective. Because most of humanity are concerned only with the here and now. I think this perspective to life is further entrenched by what some big powers are doing and what social media does best - which is to  highlight immediate or short-term gains and gratification as what truly matters. And that is why, many are not interested to, or do not take longer-term structural issues seriously. For example, on the challenges posed by climate change, behaviours and attitudes on saving the environment are harder to change because the impact of not doing so is not felt now and mostly not felt by us, but by our children and grandchildren’s generation.

Yet, in my view, this conflicts with our religious values and principles. For example, the concept of istikhlāf and wasatiyyah - stewardship and guardianship of the earth, and moderation. By definition, it is for the long-term, i.e. for generations. Not just for our own, but those who will come after us. That is why too the Quran mentions – that harm has occurred on earth and in the seas with the hands of humankind – which in my view, is a shorthand for generations and all forms of activities that harm the environment.

In this regard, initiatives like the Fatwa Lab, which requires scholars to think of long-term problems and think of solutions, becomes extremely important. This is the thinking of Imam Abu Hanifah too, when he said “that we prepare for a crisis before it happens, so that we know in advance, how to deal with it, and come safely out of it.”

But what this also means is that we need to revisit the fiqh of dealing with this kind of challenges - maybe something like fiqh al-istikhlaf or fiqh al-istidamah. Current approaches are inadequate to prepare us for what is to come, if we want to be the generation that can make a real difference. Although it must be said we already have many tools buried in our turath, but we must refresh the ways in which we can employ these tools, and how to piece them together, to confront big and complex challenges.

We are pleased that the Fatwa Lab has started to bear fruits by directly contributing to the fatwa formulation process. One was on lab-cultivated meat. The Fatwa Lab team studied the issue carefully using the framework of the Maqāsid al-Sharīʿah, the Higher Objectives of Islamic Law. Their research evaluated the maṣlaḥah and mafasadah of lab-cultivated meat and concluded that the potential benefits of cultivated meat outweigh its harms, making it a viable innovation in food technology.

Recently, a Fatwa Lab team comprising four young religious graduates worked on a new biomedical advancement available in Singapore – which is carrier screening, to screen for serious genetic diseases that could impact on quality of life.

The research was presented to the Fatwa Committee for deliberation and we will share this fatwa with members of the public soon.

I have also asked the Fatwa Lab to focus on the use of generative AI, not to replace the Fatwa Committee or to replace the Mufti, but to strengthen fatwa research – by speeding up the research process and by ensuring greater thoroughness and comprehensiveness. We are not jumping on the AI bandwagon because it is a fad or because it sounds exciting or fanciful. But because our duty and amanah is to deliver the best for the ummah (ʾan yuṭqinahu), by making the best preparations possible to address difficult and complex problems. Therefore, our fatwas too, must be of the highest standards - that truly inspire confidence, resilience and empowerment.

We hope to expand the Fatwa Lab research further, so that more of you can join in this enterprise.

May this Symposium help us in efforts to further strengthen religious guidance for the community, and may Allah guide us to the highest good and bless our efforts.

Wassalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.