Reddit’s major subreddit for Islam, /r/islam, really needs a resident mufti. Or at least it needs a place for redditors to get serious answers. Take this new thread for example, where someone asks

Q. Is it haram for a young Muslim woman to move out?

Before this can be answered, we first need to know some details about the person’s situation, motives, and foreseeable consequence – as all of these can play a role in the ruling. Moving out due to fear for one’s religion, life, intellect, dignity, or wealth has one answer; leaving a safe location for one where any of those are likely to be put into jeopardy has another. Moving out knowing that their parents are fine with it is one thing – moving out against their wishes and knowing it will break their hearts is another. Moving beyond the distance for shortening prayers to a place without a maḥram also presents some issues. These and many other things need to be known before anyone can give an answer. Yet, without any addition details, we get:

A. No. You can live alone provided that you are a sound person.

Interesting, but not really adequate. So what about a woman who has done something wicked and knows that she will do the again if she stays? And what about unsound people living amongst people who are even worse? This reason (if you are a sound person) is more appropriate when answering a parent asking and not when answering a[n adult] child.

Reddit has a community convention of using /r/ask* for subreddits where specialists in a field answer question related to that field. These subreddits are moderated: top-level answers must come from specialist and must be documented – or at least well-documented and well-written. Examples of this include /r/askhistorians and /r/askphilosophy . Something similar to this is needed for Islam. Unfortunately, /r/askislam is taken and it’s private. So I propose that /r/askilm be used for presenting questions and answers related to traditional Islamic disciplines (‘ilm and ‘ulūm), following guidelines similar to the ones used by the rest of the /r/ask* family. Its moderators will need to ensure that scholarship is key and keep a close eye out for dodgy answers and abuse. It’s just a proposal. It won’t work without advanced students and scholars committing to answering.

UPDATE. This is being discussed on /r/islam. (Yes: I am /u/musafurber.)