Navigating Fatwa Governance: A Comparative Study of Institutional Centralisation and Religious Legitimacy

The institutionalization of fatwa represents a pivotal shift in modern Islamic legal governance, transitioning from decentralized individual muftis to state-regulated fatwa bodies. This article offers a critical and comparative analysis of fatwa governance structures in Malaysia, Indonesia, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia to examine how centralization influences institutional legitimacy, scholarly autonomy, and the capacity of fatwas to respond to contemporary socio-legal challenges. Employing a qualitative comparative methodology grounded in doctrinal and institutional analysis, the study reveals that while the centralized models of Egypt and Saudi Arabia enhance doctrinal coherence and policy alignment, they often constrain intellectual pluralism and the dynamic exercise of ijtihad. In contrast, the dual or semi-autonomous frameworks observed in Malaysia and Indonesia provide greater latitude for interpretative diversity, yet encounter structural limitations in enforcement consistency and fatwa harmonisation. This study argues for a hybrid fatwa governance model that synthesizes centralisation’s regulatory strengths with the discursive openness of decentralized systems. Such a model must incorporate interdisciplinary scholarly participation, adapt to digital platforms, and respond proactively to evolving sociocultural contexts to sustain fatwa institutions’ relevance, authority, and responsiveness in contemporary Muslim societies.