One of the more difficult things I do is to answer questions nearly every day on my website. As people are free to ask me questions on any subject at all, I am often thrown by the kinds of things that crop up. Frequently, somebody will mention a recent event or quote a recent statement and ask me to comment on it. Often I have no idea what they are talking about. And when I am abroad, the disconnect becomes even more painful.

   Fortunately, I get many more questions each day than I can answer and so I can pick and choose the ones I want not just on the grounds of relevance and general interest but also so that they reflect what I do know rather than what I do not.

   Over the last few days, I have been mystified by questions about a fatwa from Darul Uloom Deoband about working women. According to my questioners, who were quoting news reports, the Deobandis had issued a fatwa saying that it was illegal, according to Shariat, for a family to accept a woman’s earnings. This law flowed from the Shariat prohibition of the proximity of men and women in the workplace. Muslim women should not work in offices where they have to talk to men or appear without veils.

   I was mildly surprised by the reports but not shocked. These days every crank issues a fatwa of some regressive nature so the content did not surprise me. But Darul Uloom Deoband? I thought those guys were trying to be more liberal these days.

   Then, on Monday morning, I came across an excellent article by Syeda Hameed in the Indian Express on this issue. She was intrigued by the fatwa and tried to track its origins.

   She discovered that the department of Darul Uloom that issues fatwas is called Darul Ifta. Just as my website has a section in which questions on all subjects are answered, so does Darul Ifta. Hamid says that these questions “read much like questions to agony aunts and their clones in popular magazines. And the answers are much like the magazine answers.” Which is not how I would describe the questions and answers on my own website but I guess that all of us who agree to answer questions on everything set ourselves up for such scorn and even religious organisations are not exempt.

   One of the questions on the Darul Ifta website was as follows, “Can Muslim women in India do government or private jobs? Shall their salary be halaal or haraam?”

   To which, the junior cleric in charge of answering questions that day responded: “It is unlawful for Muslim women to do a job in the government or private sector where men and women work together and women have to talk to men frankly and without a veil. But Allah knows best.”

   You can draw your own conclusions about this answer. If Allah knows best, then why is this fellow offering his own two bits? Why is it unlawful for women “to talk to men frankly”? Is it better if they tell the odd lie instead? And of course, who the hell are these guys to hold forth on what Muslims should do? Who appointed them guardians of the community?

   But, here’s the thing: nowhere does the cleric say that the salary is haraam. Yes, that was part of the question but it was not a part that was ever answered.

   So, why was this the focus of so many news reports? Why did nobody focus on the fact that the answer ends with “Allah knows best” which Hameed interprets as meaning: “This is my opinion. You decide for yourself because Allah knows best.”

   And why do so many people believe that an answer on a website constitutes a fatwa? It is quite clear that no fatwa was ever issued. So, why report it as such?

   These are valid questions and they lead to Hameed’s conclusion that “stereotypes were re-affirmed in the minds of many unthinking readers”.

   As Hameed concedes, the content of the answer is objectionable. She argues that it is also not supported by the tenets of Islam.

   But those are separate arguments. My concern this week is whether we in the media are only too willing to run stories that show Islam in a reactionary light. In this case, because no statement – let alone a fatwa – was issued, somebody must have gone through the question and answer section on the website to find something provocative before writing the story. By the time Darul Uloom issued a denial and made it clear that there was no fatwa, it was too late. The damage had been done.

   I can understand why stories about Muslim intolerance are readily believed. Though this is no reflection on the community as a whole, there is no doubt that the clergy has its share of publicity hounds who will issue absurd proclamations in the hope of attracting some attention to themselves. And while this fatwa could not have been issued by an important school of Islam that was trying to be regarded as liberal, some small-time preacher could easily have issued something very like it.

   Nevertheless, I understand Hamid’s frustrations. Liberal Muslims are fed up of the lunatics within their own community who are determined to drag Islam back to the middle ages. They are annoyed also by the tendency of the media to regard any publicity-hungry clergyman as worthy of interest.

   But when false stories appear; when non-existent fatwas are reported; and when the media seem to go out of their way to look for instances of intolerance, liberals have a right to get angry.

  So, for everyone who has written in asking for a comment about the fatwa, here’s my response: fatwa? What fatwa?