The twenty-fifth session of the International Islamic Fiqh Academy (IIFA) conference kicked off today Monday 20 February 2023 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

The session started with the holding of the organizational meeting of the IIFA Council, chaired by His Excellency the IIAF President, Sheikh Saleh bin Abdullah bin Humaid, in the presence of the IIFA Secretary-General Professor Koutoub Moustapha Sano.

During the meeting, the work of the current session was organized, the members of the IIFA bureau were elected, and the rapporteur of the session’s work and the general drafting committee for resolutions were appointed.

The meeting also approved the organizational meeting minutes of the twenty-fourth session held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates in 2019.

During the meeting, the recommendations of the seminars held by the Academy during the past period were presented, and the IIFA Council was briefed on the scientific outputs and deliberations included in these seminars.

The IIFA Secretary-General emphasized that this session is unique because it discusses emerging issues and is the largest in terms of participation, with more than 200 male and female scholars from all over the Islamic world and Muslim communities.

The first day of the session witnessed the convening of 3 panel discussions. The first dealt with “clarifying the shariah ruling on compulsory education (religious and worldly) for both males and females in Islam”. The second was dedicated to studying “The impact of Corona pandemic on the Shariah rulings on worships, family and crime” and “The impact of Corona pandemic on the legal rulings on contracts, transactions, and financial liabilities”.

The third panel discussion investigated the ruling on performing prayer (Salah) in a language other than Arabic with or without excuse and the ruling on following a prayer by listening to the mobile phone or the radio.

It is expected that the IIFA will issue resolutions dealing with these emerging issues within the framework of the original collective jurisprudential reasoning (ijtihad) of the scholars of the Islamic world in the current era.

The current session witnesses the participation of 200 scholars from the OIC member states with expertise and specialization in Sharia disciplines, economics, medicine, and sociology to discuss 160 research papers on the issues and topics of the session.

It is noteworthy that the IIFA is a universal scholarly organization and a subsidiary organ of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. It was established following a resolution at the Third Islamic Summit in January 1981, with a headquarters in Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.