Fatawa-e-Alamgiri

Fatawa-e-Alamgiri (also known as Fatawa-i-Hindiya and Fatawa-i Hindiyya) is a compilation of law created at the insistence of the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb (who was also known as Alamgir). This compilation is based on Sunni Hanafi Islam's Sharia law, and was the work of many scholars, principally from the Hanafi school.

In order to compile Fatawa-e-Alamgiri, Aurangzeb gathered 500 experts in Islamic jurisprudence (Faqīh), 300 from the South Asia, 100 from Iraq and 100 from the Hejaz (Saudi Arabia). Their work over years, resulted in an Islamic code of law for South Asia, in late Mughal Era. It consists of legal code on personal, family, slaves, war, property, inter-religious relations, transaction, taxation, economic and other law for a range of possible situations and their juristic rulings by the Hanafi jurists of the time.

The Fatawa-e-Alamgiri is notable for several reasons:

The Fatawa-i Alamgiri (also spelled Fatawa al-Alamgiriyya) was compiled in late 17th century, by 500 Muslim scholars from Medina, Baghdad and South Asia, in Delhi (India) and Lahore (Pakistan), led by Sheikh Nizam Burhanpuri. It was a creative application of Islamic law within the Hanafi fiqh. It restricted the powers of Muslim judiciary and the Islamic jurists ability to issue discretionary fatwas.

The document stiffened the social stratification among Muslims. For the same crime, it declared that Muslim nobles such as Sayyids were exempt from prison, humiliation as well as physical punishments, the governors and landholders could be humiliated but not arrested nor physically punished, the middle class could be humiliated and put into prison but not physically punished, while the lowest class commoners could be arrested, humiliated and physically punished. The emperor was granted powers to issue farmans (legal doctrine) that overruled fatwas of Islamic jurists.

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