Deoband's Fatwas on Women

The Deoband Dar ul-Uloom's recent fatwa on Muslim women working outside the home and a host of other women-related fatwas close almost all sources of employment. An accepted principle of Islamic jurisprudence holds that fatwas must be related and responsive to the social and temporal context which they intend to address. It is because the Deobandis are hardened followers of the Hanafi school of Sunni jurisprudence and insist on blind imitation of past juridical precedent that they seem unwilling to understand the need for contextually-relevant fatwas.