Services We Support

From our initial efforts at serving a small community of users, we have flourished into a popular Q&A service. Over 90% of these questions are answered privately; when the answers are of public benefit, they are posted to the SunniPath website and mailing lists after omitting the questioner's name and contact information. It is estimated that website visitors and mailing list subscribers jointly view 300,000 answers every month. To sustain a persistently increasing load of questions requires the collaborative effort of scholars, students of knowledge, administrators, and technologists.

Each question answered requires approximately $12 of funding. We receive around 1,000 questions a month. Thus, it takes around $12,000 a month to properly run the Answers service. Currently this service is not up to the par due to a shortage of funding.

Your contributions will help us answer more questions, improve response times to questions, develop new website features such as glossaries and cross-referencing, and research ways to post timely and relevant information via the mailing lists. We will also use funding to hire 4-6 additional teachers to answer questions, including a Maliki fiqh scholar in order to launch a Maliki fiqh list. Most importantly, your contributions will assist us in continuing to provide this much needed service completely free of charge.

About SunniPath Answers:

The Prophet (God bless him and give him peace) said, “The cure for confusion is asking” [Abu Dawud, 336; Ibn Maja, 572; Ahmad, 3057; a sound hadith]. The focal point of traditional Muslim communities has always been the local religious scholar who directed them to God and taught them how to live. Such communities are now numbered and scholars firmly grounded in Islamic knowledge are rare, but the need of religiously concerned Muslims to have easy access to reliable scholarship has only increased. SunniPath meets this need for daily guidance through its email Question & Answer service.

Questions are submitted through our website and the questioner receives a personal email response. When the answers are of public benefit, they are also posted on the SunniPath mailing lists after omitting the name and contact information of the questioner. Although most answers are about rulings related to personal worship and interpersonal dealings, we also give general advice on the problems of life, clarify the meanings of Qur’anic verses and prophetic hadiths, and remove faith-related doubts through rational reasoning.

All our teachers only answer questions after being authorized by leading scholars in the Muslim heartlands. They are circumspect and their answers are taken from the relied-upon books of one of the four Sunni schools of law. For contemporary issues, they consult living scholars. Most of our teachers have been raised in the West and are sensitive to the needs of Muslims living in the modern world.

Our question-answer service is free, and receives one thousand new questions a month. Answers posted on the mailing lists are categorized by topic and can be browsed or searched through our website.

“In this age, when it is difficult to find traditionally-trained scholars in every town, it is a relief to know that with the click of a few fingertips, I can have my fiqh questions answered by educated, compassionate, and reliable teachers. You get the sense that there is a living heart, full of mercy and understanding for the issues we face in this modern world, behind the Q and A's. I am never hesitant to forward on Sunnipath responses to friends and family, knowing that the answers are based on sound scholarship, written with humility and gentleness...not to mention written with an ear for good English and proper grammar too, alhamdulillah!”
— Hina M., San Ramon, USA

Read about the other services we support:
SunniPath Library
Free Courses and Workshops
SunniPath Academy
Scholarships
Need-Based Aid
New Muslim Program