Muslim Views, April 2020

Building scientific and fiqh literacy: lessons from the COVID-19 crisis

by DR AUWAIS RAFUDEEN

MUSLIM doctors and nurses, organisations, scientists and religious scholars in South Africa have been doing sterling work in responding to the current COVID-19 crisis.

Organisations such as Gift of the Givers, South African National Zakah Fund and others have been distributing food parcels to the poor in order to lessen the economic burden of the lockdown.

Muslim scientists have been providing their expertise at both national level, where they are helping to shape policy that deals with the pandemic, and at community level, where they have been educating the ordinary Muslim about the virus.

The Islamic legal specialists among the ulama (Islamic religious leaders) have brought compelling Islamic legal (fiqh) arguments as to why we need to adhere to the lockdown regulations. It is a fundamental requirement of Islam, they say, that we preserve life.

And other ulama, like religious leaders in other traditions, have productively tapped into online resources to continue their teaching and guidance activities.

But despite these positive developments, there still appear to be stubborn elements that resist mainstream scientific thinking as well as the fiqh of the majority of the ulama.