Following its usual practice in the past years, Egypt’s Dar al-Ifta has produced an accurate and detailed account of its pursuits in 2020. Making available to decision makers, observers, researchers, and followers Dar al-Ifta's most notable accomplishments over the course of the year. All this stems from Dar al-Ifta’s belief in the importance of transparency and in the role of objective media and society as equitable judges of the efforts made both inside and outside Egypt.

“This year was fraught by a major challenge with the spread of COVID-19”, Egypt’s Dar al-Ifta stated in the documentary. This has placed fatwa authorities and juristic assemblies in the face of great challenges to demonstrate the extent of the contemporariness of the institution of fatwa and its ability to keep pace with all emerging issues. As well as of its reliability on modern sciences and medicine in assessing and judging matters. All these considerations are manifest in many of the fatwas issued by Dar al-Ifta during the Corona pandemic.

According to the documentary, Dar al-Ifta's main successes this year are as follows:

First: Fatwa statistics

The number of fatwas issued by Egypt’s Dar al-Ifta in 2020 exceeds one million and three hundred thousand, two hundred thousand fatwas more than last year.

Second: The development of fatwa services

Since the beginning of the coronavirus crisis, Egypt’s Dar al-Ifta has placed an alternative work plan to communicate with the public through creative means. These include establishing a fatwa hotline for communicating with fatwa councilors, increasing the hours of live transmission on Dar al-Ifta’s official Facebook page, and activating e-fatwas via Dar al-Ifta’s website and application

 

Third: Training and qualification

To maintain the methodology of sound ifta` in the face of modern day challenges and in our belief of the influential role it plays in juristic renewal, Egypt’s Dar al-Ifta has set up a number of in-class and e-training programs, as well as zoom training sessions, The number of programs implemented by Egypt’s Dar al-Ifta inside and outside Egypt this year are four basic programs.

Fourth: The "Hidaya Platform”

The platform was developed two years ago to create a scholarly environment where people can feel safe for themselves and their children in that they receive a genuine learning experience of Islam. This year, Hidaya platform has added three thousand hours of audiovisual content, bringing the total number to eight thousands

Fifth: Social media websites

Dar al-Ifta’s experience in this field is truly pioneering, considering it is the foremost religious institution in Egypt and the Arab and Muslim world that has profited from these means in disseminating its message. We are present on 18 social media platforms. Dar al-Ifta’s Facebook page is its largest and most important portal. It was created in 2010 and was approved and accredited by the Facebook administration. Presently, we have more than ten million members.

Sixth: The image of Egypt’s Dar al-Ifta in the world

The number of published media content across newspapers, magazines, and websites addressing news of Dar al-Ifta has exceeded 88,000

Seventh: Scholarly output

The most important of these are:

The new edition of the book “Fatawa al-Jundiyyah” which was written especially to help the armed and police forces in relevant fatwa matters; the encyclopedia of “Jamharet A’lam al-Muftiyeen”, the third division in four parts; Six volumes of the encyclopedia of “The Juristic Deviations of Extremists”; the sixth and seventh volumes of “The Encyclopedia of Methodological Fatwas”; “The Encyclopedia of Fatwas and Social Sciences”; a Directory of Fatwa Skills; “Jusoor Newsletter” designed to build communication between fatwa authorities across the globe; Da’am, a newsletter designed to provide aid to postgraduate students of fatwa and ifta` studies and other important publications that were published this year.