Mediated Muftis: Seeking Islamic Guidance in Sefrou

This research explores how Muslims navigate living an ethical life through seeking expert guidance in the form of fatwas (non-binding Islamic legal opinions) in multi-mediated environments like Morocco. In September, I began conducting fieldwork in Sefrou, Morocco addressing state radio and television fatwas in addition to in-person oral and telephone fatwas at the local Sefrou Religious Council to understand the interplay between multiple forms of mediation and hierarchical Islamic guidance. I work specifically with petitioners to determine the importance of fatwas, their use, and the types of guidance consumed. The research envisions each context for seeking guidance as existing within a particular “media matrix”. Each matrix has a series of possibilities, different mixes of types of media as well as degrees of mediation for each medium. In light of the variety of fatwa ‘platforms,’ the research thus explores the questions asked to different media, the decisions Sefrouis make when they approach one medium over another, and the impact of the final answer on their lives. According to the existing literature, even if subtle, the networks and mechanisms of different media can have profound effects on the final mediated product. I expect to find similar results in how modern Moroccans use multi-mediated fatwas to live ethical lives. This research complicates existing narratives in the wider literature. Islamic new media studies either rely on the notion of ethical self-cultivation or focus on changes in authority, re-emphasizing a top-down approach to the fatwa and telling us little about how everyday Muslims engage with these new forms of ifta’. Yet ethnographic studies of the pedagogical in-person interaction also do not fully encompass the multi-mediated possibilities available for seeking guidance. Media matrices, which combine the value of both literatures, can better explain what seeking expert guidance means in an everyday context.