Fatwa: what Wikipedia removed
Fatwa is the general article on Islamic legal rulings. Through 2005 the opening’s example was Osama bin Laden’s 1998 fatwa, issued with Ayman al-Zawahiri in the name of the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders, declaring the killing of Americans and their allies an individual duty. Today the opening carries no mention of bin Laden’s fatwa at all, and jihad does not appear there though it survives 12 times elsewhere in the article. A reader today learns what a fatwa is in the abstract, and not that the article once opened with a fatwa whose declared purpose was jihad against Jews.
The word “jihad” appeared 1 times in this article’s opening at its peak, in 2005. Today the opening carries none; the body carries 12. Checked against the full current article on 2026-08-01.
The tracked words, snapshot by snapshot
Section titled “The tracked words, snapshot by snapshot”| word | 2005 | 2010 | 2015 | 2020 | 6 October 2023 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| jihad | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| colonial | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| resistance | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Counts are of the opening paragraph only, the part most readers, search engines and AI training sets ever quote.
What was taken out
Section titled “What was taken out”- The name and text of bin Laden’s 1998 fatwa, the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders, was dropped from the opening.
How it opened then, and now
Section titled “How it opened then, and now”2005 (revision 15909019):
A fatwa ( Template:Lang-ar ) plural fatāwa ( Template:Lang-ar ) , is a legal pronouncement in Islam , issued by a religious law specialist on a specific issue. Usually a fatwa is issued at the request of an individual or a judge to settle a question where ’’ fiqh ,’’ Islamic jurisprudence , is unclear. A scholar capable of issuing fatwas is known as a Mufti . Because Islam has no centralized priestly hierarchy, there is no uniform method to determine who can issue a valid fatwa and who cannot. Some Islamic scholars complain that too many people feel qualified to issue fatwas. Different Islamic clerics can issue contradictory fatwas. The effect depends upon whether or not this takes place in …
2025 (revision 1293932930):
Nonbinding legal opinion in Islamic law For the films, see Fatwa (2006 film) and Fatwa (2018 film) . A fatwa ( UK : / ˈ f æ t w ɑː / ; US : / ˈ f ɑː t w ɑː / ; Arabic : فتوى , romanized : fatwā ; pl. فتاوى , fatāwā ) is a legal ruling on a point of Islamic law ( sharia ) given by a qualified Islamic jurist ( faqih ) in response to a question posed by a private individual, judge or government. A jurist issuing fatwas is called a mufti , and the act of issuing fatwas is called ifta’ . Fatwas have played an important role throughout Islamic history, taking on new forms in the modern era. Resembling jus respondendi in Roman law and rabbinic responsa , privately issued fatwas historically served …
Related
Section titled “Related”- The drift report: what changed across all 61,944 watched articles
- The case file for this article, with every snapshot and every marked removal
- Who made the cuts: removals grouped by the account that made them
- The live article on Wikipedia
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