Are Saudi Arabian clerics running wild?
Sheikh Abdel Mohsen Obeikan, a former royal court advisor with his own radio program, "Fatwas On the Air", caused an international stir a few weeks ago when he issued a fatwa (IE: religious edict) allowing unrelated men and women to mingle in public so long as a woman allows the guy to drink her breast milk in order establish a maternal bond.
UAE-based Gulf News quotes Obeikan as saying, "The man should take the milk, but not directly from the breast of the woman. He should drink it and then becomes a relative of the family, a fact that allows him to come in contact with the women without breaking Islam's rules about mixing."
This week another cleric, Youssef Al-Ahmed, issued another fatwa, this one urging the faithful not to shop at a Saudi Arabian supermarket chain because it employs women as cashiers, a job that allows them to mix with men. The fatwa forced the chain to reassign 11 female employees.
Of course these are just some examples from the last few weeks. Here are a few older ones.
In 2000, Saudi Arabian Grand Mufti Sheikh Ibn Baaz asserted that the earth was flat and disk-like and that the sun revolved around it. He had insisted that satellite images to the contrary were nothing but a Western conspiracy against the Islamic world. (Source: Al-Ahram Weekly Issue 477, 13-19 April, 2000)
In 2008, Saudi Arabian cleric Sheikh Muhammad Munajid called for the death of Mickey Mouse. "Mickey Mouse has become an awesome character, even though according to Islamic law, Mickey Mouse should be killed in all cases," said Munajid. He also called Mickey “one of Satan’s soldiers.” (Source: The Daily Telegraph)
Other Saudi fatwas have included ones against football such as "do not play with 11 people like the heretics, Jews, and Christians”, "remove the crossbar in order not to imitate the heretics and in order to be entirely distinct from the soccer system’s despotic international rules” and “play in your pyjamas or regular clothes (because) colored shorts and numbered T-shirts are not Muslim clothing”. (Source: The Guardian, Monday 31 October 2005)
Now, however, the Kingdom is striking back. A royal decree from King Abdullah, Custodian of the Two Mosques, has restricted the issuing of fatwas to only those clerics approved of by His Majesty and his authorities.
Sheik Obeikan's "Fatwas On the Air" has been taken off the air and Youssef Al-Ahmed, the cleric who disaproves of female cashiers, has been told in effect, to sit down and shut up.
According to an August 27th article in the Los Angeles Times, Saudi authorities are fed up with the international embarrassment caused by "wacky, sexist or just bizarre religious edicts."
"The battle to silence the clerics may also be part of a broader attempt by King Abdullah to put the clergy in its place, like the battles between emerging European states and the Catholic church centuries ago," the article says.
Additionally, "Saudi's Ministry of Islamic Affairs has ordered clerics to keep their Friday sermons short and smart." Clerics whose sermons are overlong, ambiguous or who plagiarize the works of others (some even copying their sermons directly off the Internet), may be subject to punishments such as having to go through retraining or even having their government-issued paychecks docked.
The problems the Kingdom wants to address are not new ones either in Saudi Arabia or the rest of the Muslim world. They arise from a lack of any central authority in Islam such as the Pope provides for Catholicism or conclaves do for other denominations. The Kingdom has tried to reign in rogue clerics on other occasions and only time will tell if this attempt will be any more successful than the others.
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Comments
"In 2000, Saudi Arabian Grand Mufti Sheikh Ibn Baaz asserted that the earth was flat and disk-like and that the sun revolved around it. He had insisted that satellite images to the contrary were nothing but a Western conspiracy against the Islamic world. "
A Terry Pratchett fan, no doubt.
Ah, but the Grand Mufti was not granted the entire vision. Otherwise he would have known that the disc of the world rests on the backs of 4 giant elephants who themselves stand atop the shell of an immense turtle that swims endlessly through the aether!
Some of your sources are made to appear totally oblivious of reality. Why would that be? They seem to have a lot going for themselves here in the states, that is as Islamic human beings. So it is the modern clerics that are confused because we separate our church from our state and they cannot. Abserd fatwas can only separate the common muslim on the street from any obligation to such brainless leadership. They need to relax here, experience our freedoms, and let their motherland customs go. Thanks.
A vision of a creationist future.
Just look at Terry. He's already been arguing over whether YEC's and OEC's are correct. (And for those who don't know, he is a YEC).
That doesn't have anything to do with creationism. That's the legalism that's typical of Islam, and that pervades its founding documents.
I wasn't disputing that Terry. I was merely pointing out that religious fundamentalism (which is not restricted to Islam as we well know) inevitably leads to absurdity, the consequences of this can lead back to dark age thinking.
But then you did refer to the enlightenment as "so-called".
sorry I don't get this post at all
What's hard to get about it, Carol? It's just an extreme example of how religion twists the human intellect.
The clerics in this story are not stupid men. They had to study for years to achieve the level of ignorance and arrogance they now display. It's not just anyone who gets to be a cleric. These men are accomplished scholars. Most entered madrassahs as small children and worked for decades to learn the tenets of their faith.
Today there are two ways to achieve backward or twisted views of the world. One is to be uneducated. The other is to be educated in religion.
how do you not get this? What about this story don't you get? It's content is simple enough for a child to understand.
The only viable Fatwa that should be issued in Saudi Arabia, would be one which outlaws Islam. Only then can they progress as a nation. Interesting that the Saudi government pays these folks to be clerics for Islam. Saudi Arabia, and the religion of Islam, is on a flight towards the religion of the absurd. Their view of the world at large surely must be flat. What they should do is travel to the edge of the Islamic flat world and just jump off.
It's worth keeping in mind that creationists in the US are attempting to accomplish the same as them. "De-educate" was the term Terry used if I recall.
Oh!
Wow!
Our DE now tosses us THIS delicious, meatless bone upon which to chew:
"Today there are two ways to achieve backward or twisted views of the world. One is to be uneducated. The other is to be educated in religion."
This positive assertion is just past-wonderful!
As possibly re-arranged we can learn form it that, obviously according to our DE, to be backward and/or twisted ', all one has to do is become ". . . educated in religion."!
So, given this scintilla come from the unknown, might one not PRACTICE religion with the very least possible of education in it, and thereby avoid being backward, or, twisted as to worldly perception?
Sounds good to me. Thanks, Hugh. I could nor would ever have thought of this myself.
(One learns something new every day!)
An interesting article, as most from here are.
Now, back to my stamps . . .
Sorry.
That last anonymous effusion was mine.
Forgot to sign it.
Forgetting to just PROVES one aspect of my twisted world view . . .
You're forgetful and twisted? (shrug)
There wasn't any need to sign it, spotted you from the first couple of sentences.
Your writing style at least is unique, shame it's so nonsensical.
this is why atheism is much more logical than following this stupidity
Some of these example are hilarious. On a more serious note, banning frivolous fatwas prevents the faithful from shopping for clerics who will issue favorable rulings (sort of like shopping for MDs who will write the desired Rx).
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