Sufficient Defense Fatwa: Media Dimensions and Influence on Public Opinion

Abstract

Religious authority enjoys significant religious, intellectual, and spiritual status among Shia Muslims. This status is the product of long experiences during which religious authority proves its foresight and success in reading reality , anticipating its future repercussions and taking decisive and firm positions to confront challenges and threats. Among the most prominent dangers confronted by religious authority are the first takfiri tide represented by Wahhabi attacks on Najaf and Karbala during the time of religious authority Sheikh Jaafar Kashif al-Ghita at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century, and the second takfiri tide represented by the terrorist ISIS organization during the time of religious authority Sayyid Ali al-Sistani. The two great authorities issued fatwas for jihad in a span of two centuries between them , but they share the same vein : defending religion and sanctities.