al-Durar al-Bahiyya min al-Fatawa al-Kuwaytiyya

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Fatwa Administration at the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs in the State of Kuwait

al-Durar al-Bahiyya min al-Fatawa al-Kuwaytiyya (The Splendid Pearls from the Kuwaiti Fatwas) is a multi-volume reference work compiling and organizing official Islamic legal verdicts issued by the Kuwaiti Fatwa Board and its specialized committees under the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs in Kuwait .

Background and Purpose

The book is an abridgment and thematic reordering of the multi-volume chronological collection Majmu'at al-Fatawa al-Shar'iyya, which compiled thousands of fatwas issued by the Kuwaiti Fatwa Board and had exceeded twenty-five volumes . The Fatwa Administration initiated this project covering the first twenty-three volumes of the original series, spanning the period from 1977 to 2007 CE .

The abridgment was undertaken to resolve several practical difficulties associated with the original serial format:

  • The escalating volume count and high printing costs that hindered widespread circulation .
  • The repetition of questions and answers across consecutive years .
  • The need to filter out earlier rulings that had subsequently been reconsidered or reversed, thereby presenting only the board's settled positions .
  • The exclusion of non-jurisprudential inquiries, such as procedural referrals to the judiciary or general advisory counseling .

Compilation Committee

The work was prepared by the Scientific Research Unit within the Fatwa Administration of the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs . The compilation team comprised:

  • Shaykh Turki Isa al-Mutayri (Head)
  • Dr. Ayman Muhammad al-Umar (Member)
  • Shaykh Nur al-Din Abd al-Salam Mas'i (Member)
  • Shaykh Ahmad Abd al-Wahhab Salim (Member)
  • Dr. Mahmud Muhammad al-Kabsh (Member)

Methodology and Scope

The compilers organized the fatwas systematically according to standard classical fiqh chapter headings . The editorial methodology included:

  • Selecting the most comprehensive and chronologically latest rulings when multiple fatwas addressed the same subject .
  • Replacing specific individual case inquiries with comprehensive normative rulings on the underlying legal issue .
  • Preserving the original wording of questions and responses while correcting typographical and linguistic errors, and restoring missing passages by cross-referencing the official session minutes .
  • Numbering all fatwas sequentially and providing bracketed cross-references to the volume, page, and serial number of the original printed collection .
  • Referencing Quranic verses within the text and sourcing Hadith narrations in footnotes .

Structure

The compendium spans twelve volumes covering all major legal branches, including acts of worship (ibadat), commercial transactions (mu'amalat), personal and family status (al-ahwal al-shakhsiyya), and contemporary unprecedented issues (al-nawazil wa-al-mustajaddat) . The final volume (Volume 12) is dedicated to official public communiqués, administrative circulars, and collective resolutions issued by the Fatwa Board on contemporary public matters . The work also includes comprehensive indexes for Quranic verses, Hadiths, legal maxims, and jurisprudential topics .

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