Fatwas that stirred controversy
Aug 04, 2010 at 13:02

http://www.business.maktoob.com/20090000504452/0/PrintPage.htm


Check out some of the most high-profile religious edicts in recent
years such as the ban on using Facebook.

DUBAI - Saudi authorities are toughening rules for Islamic clerics who
wish to issue fatwas, or religious edicts, urging them to check with a
Saudi ministry before approaching the media to avoid controversy and
embarrassment.

The call comes after a fatwa issued in May said that women should
donate their breast milk to men in an attempt to get around the
kingdom’s ban on the mixing of unrelated men and women.

Women in the kingdom threatened to adopt the controversial fatwa and
breastfeed their drivers to turn them into their relatives.

Yahoo! Maktoob News takes a look at some of the most high-profile
fatwas in recent years.

BREAST MILK FOR UNRELATED MALES

Saudi scholar Sheikh Abdul Mohsin al-Abaican suggested in May 2009
that women should donate their breast milk to men in an attempt to get
around the kingdom’s ban on unrelated men and women mixing.

“The man should take the milk, but not directly from the breast of the
woman," Abaican was quoted as saying in Saudi newspaper. "Drinking the
milk makes the man a relative of the family, "a fact that allows him
to come in contact with the women without breaking Islam's rules about
mixing".

Saudi citizens and bloggers have slammed the fatwa saying it is
“totally unrelated to reality” and have called on scholars to focus on
“much more significant issues”.

WORKING IN BANKS IS UNISLAMIC

Darul-Uloom Deoband, India’s oldest Sunni-run seminary, issued a fatwa
in May 2010 against Muslims working in banks, newspapers in the
country reported.

“According to the tenets of Islam, Muslims must not work in banks
because as employees they would have to deal with transactions
involving interest and also make interest entries in bank ledgers,”
the group said.

“That is a violation of sharia ... Interest is strictly banned under
sharia law. Anyone having anything to do with interest is clearly
committing an illegal act."

The same group in 2006 issued a fatwa against Muslims buying life insurance.

DOGS ‘UNCLEAN’, NOT FIT TO BE PETS

Senior Iranian cleric Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi decreed in June
2010 that dogs are "unclean" and should not be kept as pets.

His fatwa, aimed at discouraging Western-style dog ownership in the
Islamic state, could see people who carry dogs in their cars or take
them to public places stopped by police and fined.

"Friendship with dogs is a blind imitation of the West," the cleric
was quoted as saying in Iranian daily Javan. "There are lots of people
in the West who love their dogs more than their wives and children."

The Koran does not explicitly prohibit contact with dogs, Shirazi
said, but Islamic tradition showed it to be so. "We have lots of
narrations in Islam that say dogs are unclean."

EMOTICONS ARE EVIL

Many finds emoticons, facial expressions such as a frown or smile sent
by SMS or email, annoying and dramatic.

But Muslim Internet Forum Multaqa Ahl al Hadeeth, which calls itself a
"meeting place of students of knowledge, said in February 2008 that
emoticons are "forbidden" under Islam because of their "imitation to
Allah’s creatures whether it is original or mixture or even deformed
one and since the picture is the face and the face is what makes the
real picture then emoticons which represent faces that express
emotions … all that (adds) up to make them Haram.”

This virtual forum of Islamic intellectuals added: “A woman should not
use these images when speaking to a man who is not her mahram
(relative), because these faces are used to express how she is
feeling, so it is as if she is smiling, laughing, acting shy and so
on, and a woman should not do that with a non-mahram man. It is only
permissible for a woman to speak to men in cases of necessity, so long
as that is in a public chat room and not in private correspondence.”

FACEBOOK IS HARAM

A prominent Egyptian cleric issued a fatwa in February 2010 forbidding
Muslims to use Facebook, blaming the popular social networking site
for rising marital infidelity and divorce.

Sheikh Abdel Hamid al-Atrash labelled those using Facebook “sinners”
and said the site “endangers the Muslim family”, , Daily News Egypt
reported, citing an interview in London-based daily Asharq Alawsat.

"It's an instrument that destroys the family because it encourages
spouses to have relations with other people, which breaks Islamic
sharia law,” said Atrash, former head of the fatwa commission at
Cairo's Al-Azhar University.

"While one or other of the spouses is at work, the other is chatting
online with someone else, wasting their time and flouting the sharia."

He later lashed out at media for misrepresenting his quotes. A week
after his controversial comments, Dubai’s Iftaa committee decreed
sites such as Facebook are not forbidden in Islam as long as users
surf them for the correct reasons.

MALAYSIAN TOMBOYS CONDEMNED

Malaysia’s National Fatwa Council in Oct 2008 issued a fatwa banning
tomboys, saying girls who act unlady-like violate the tenets of Islam.

Newspapers in the country and abroad reported that the council deemed
tomboys as showing little respect for the faith.

Harussani Idris Zakaria, mufti of the northern Perak state, said that
the behaviour and dress of this growing number of “disrespectful”
young women can turn some of them to homosexuality. “It doesn't matter
if it's a law or not. When it's wrong, it's wrong. It is a sin ...
Tomboy (behaviour) is forbidden in Islam.”

It was not clear at the time what punishment awaited the tomboy fatwa violators.

HINDU YOGA CAN CORRUPT MUSLIMS

On the heels of banning tomboys, Malaysia's top Islamic body in
October 2008 decreed that Muslims should not practice yoga.

Newspapers around the world quoted Abdul Shukor Husin, the chairman of
Malaysia’s National Fatwa Council, as saying that elements of Hinduism
in the ancient Indian art of exercise could corrupt them.

"We are of the view that yoga, which originates from Hinduism,
combines physical exercise, religious elements, chanting and
worshipping for the purpose of achieving inner peace and ultimately to
be one with god," he said.

Marina Mahathir, an activist in the country, wondered what the council
would ban next.

"Gyms?" she questioned. "Most gyms have men and women together. Will
that not be allowed anymore?"


Rajiv Sekhri

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