Rulings related to issuing a Fatwa
9-4-2023 | IslamWeb
Question:
Is it permissible for a student of knowledge who follows the ruling that taking digital pictures is absolutely fine as long the face is covered or does not show the facial to PERMIT others to take pictures of him who follows the ruling that it is permissible to take digital pictures without covering the face and or leaving the facial as it is? I'm asking this ruling for men, not for women.
Answer:
All perfect praise be to Allah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah, and that Muhammad, sallallaahu`alayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.
If the seeker of knowledge in question adopts this opinion on the basis of knowledge, personal reasoning (Ijtihaad), preponderance (Tarjeeh), and not imitation (Taqleed), he has the right to issue a Fatwa in light of the conclusions of his personal reasoning, maintaining that he does not have the right to issue any opinion against what he believes to be "correct" or the conclusions of his personal reasoning. That is because Fatwa has to do with informing people of the Sharee'ah ruling.
However, if he adopts this opinion based on the imitation of well-established scholars, imitators are not entitled to issue a Fatwa; rather, they are only allowed to cite the opinions of well-established scholars. In his ʿIlaam Al-Muwaqqiʿeen, Ibn Al-Qayym 
said, “The imitator is not allowed to issue Fatwa in the religion of Allah in terms of matters he imitates others in and on which he has no personal reasoning; the predecessors have a consensus on that. Abu ʿAmr, on his part, said, 'He (i.e., the imitator) is not allowed to issue a Fatwa on that,' meaning that he should not mention the opinions of others as if they are his. Rather he should attribute them to the scholars who originally stated them.
Based on this, those whom we classified under the category of imitating Muftis are not true Muftis; rather they substituted them since they expressed the opinions of the imitated scholars. However, they have to clarify that point (i.e., that they are imitators) by saying, for example, the opinion of the Shafiʿi School of Jurisprudence is so and so, and so on. But, if any of them (i.e., the imitating Muftis) did not do so (i.e., attributing the opinion to their own School of Jurisprudence), he would not be blamed only if these opinions are originally known to be voiced by this School of Jurisprudence or that.
I said, 'Though the opinion of Abu ʿAmr is good, such imitating Muftis are prohibited to quoting "the Shafiʿi School of Law" if they know not these opinions in the exact text issued by the Shafiʿi School of Jurisprudence or unless these opinions are very common among the followers of the Shafiʿi School of Jurisprudence that there is no need to ask about the exact wording of the text, such as the opinions of the Shafiʿi scholars on reciting Al-Basmalah audibly and observing Qunoot in Al-Fajr prayer.”
Haashyatu Ibn ʿAbedeen Al-Hanafi reads, “Legal theorists are of the opinion that the Mufti is the person who practices personal reasoning. As for the person who does not practice personal reasoning but rather memorizes the opinions of the Mujtahid, he is not a Mufti. So, in case this person is asked a question, he is required to mention the opinion of the Mujtahid by means of narration. It is thus clear that the (so-called) Fatwas in our time are not actual Fatwas; rather they are nothing but narrating the opinions of the Mufti so that the questioner would apply it. As for quoting the opinions of the Mujtahid, this person (i.e., imitator) has to adopt one of two choices: either to have his own chain of narration or to quote it from a well-known book widely circulated among people, such as the books of Muhammad ibn Al-Hasan, etc., since it looks like the consecutively transmitted or famous report.”
Allah knows best.