The effect of epidemics on fiqh provisions: The example of COVID-19 pandemic

Throughout history, humanity has experienced numerous extraordinary situations like epidemics and they have given rise to enormous disasters. These disasters not only effected economical, political, social fields but also effected religion and judiciary and led to some precautions proposed by the scholars. Currently, with the Covid-19 pandemic,which emerged from the Wuhan, province of China, and showing itself by the symptoms such as high fewer, cough, some precautions have been taken by the authorities as it happened in the past. Owing to this fact, religious authorities and constitutions issued fatwas in religious perspective about the problems resulting from Covid-19 in consideration of Qur'an (The holy book of Islam) and Hadiths (Prophet Muhammad's words and actions). In this study, I primarily focused on some certain epidemics occured in the early days of Islam and also in the Ottoman era. I clarified how and in what extent pandemic effected the society, worship religious attitudes and also how did the scholars attitudinize towards epidemics and what kind of ijtihads (religious jurisprudence) emerged in that era. Lastly, I put forward in what extend worship and religious attitudes, which are parts of the Sharia (Fıqh), have been effected during the Covid-19 pandemic, which led thousands of death. The need of fatwas has emerged in some situations that occured with the Covid-19 outbreak, owing to this fact, religious authorities and institutions issued fatwas regarding to prevent spreading of the virus. With this, I included opinions of scholars and fatwa institutions, how fıqh functions in this kind of situations and guides the society, then I proposed solutions referring to the problems resulting from Covid-19 outbreak. Keywords: Islam Law, Fıqh Provision, Epidemic (Covid-19), Worship, Attitudes.