Adherence to the Well-Known in Al-Shatibi’s Fatwas: A Reading of the Methodological Function of ‘Taqlid’ in the Context of Granada

Abstract

This study explores the seeming tension between Imam Al-Shatibi’s reformist vision in Al-Muwafaqat and his reliance on the established Maliki school in issuing fatwas, arguing that this reliance was not a retreat into traditionalism but a deliberate methodological strategy shaped by Granada’s turbulent political, intellectual, and social climate. By reconstructing this context—marked by a crisis of legal knowledge, contested authority between scholars and rulers, and the interpretive weight of innovation (bid‘ah)—the research demonstrates that adherence to precedent served crucial functions: curbing individual whims and the search for dispensations, limiting the authority of the mufti, and preventing fatwas from being co-opted by political power through their anchoring in doctrinal institutions. Ultimately, the study concludes that Al-Shatibi’s fatwas were not a departure from his reformist project but its practical extension, designed to safeguard the binding relationship between divine law and the believer, and that his reliance on precedent was itself a form of methodological ijtihad aimed at stabilizing the field of fatwas against social and political upheaval.