Fatwa

Wed, 07 Jun 2006 13:05:57 GMT

What a strange, strange world.

The BBC reported in May this year on a ruling, or fatwa, issued by Egypt's highest religious authority, the Grand Mufti. Ali Gomaa quoted a saying of the prophet Muhammad (PBUH) that sculptors will be among those receiving the harshest punishment on Judgment Day. 'The influential Sheikh Youssef Al Qaradawi agreed that "Islam prohibits statues and three-dimensional figures of living creatures" and concluded that "the statues of ancient Egyptians are prohibited."'

This fatwa aroused very strong consternation and criticism amongst Egypt's artists and intellectual class, given that the entire country is scattered with pharoaonic statuary, upon which its multi-billion tourist industry is based.

Memories of the destruction by the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001 of two giant Buddhas dating from the 3rd and 5th centuries AD are still fresh. That people could attack their historical heritage in the name of religious zealotry is a totally alien notion to many. Although I suspect that the practice was much more widespread in the past when armies and empires went invading.

Notably, the Moslems who originally invaded Egypt did not demolish the statues.

Moslems are turning increasingly to their religious leaders for guidance on all sorts of matters. This particular ruling came into existence because a member of the public asked whether it was OK to have statues in his home.

Ironically, the Egyptian government appoints the Grand Mufti and his advisors in an attempt to control the issuance of fatwas which can be subsumed into Islamic law. I'm not sure the government was happy with this particular decision.

In reality, questions are frequently trivial. During Ramadan in Oman, I recall reading year after year questions about whether a man had broken his fast because he had had sexual relations between the two sets of morning prayers at the start of the day. And yes, he had broken his fast.

It seems absurd that people could agonise over such details, when you would think there would be bigger problems to focus on.

The article in the Christian Science Monitor listed some notable fatwas, amongst which I noted that, on 'August 9, 2005, Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a fatwa against the production, stockpiling, and use of nuclear weapons. The fatwa is published in a press release from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).'

Egypt announced plans in 2005 to start research on stem cells taken from the umbilical cord. The country's leading IVG clinic also revealed that it would like to use surplus 'early embryos' from IVF couples and is open to the possibility of therapeutic cloning.

The Islamic states of Iran, Turkey and Malaysia have undertaken and support both embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning.

I'd think that rulings on the ethics of cloning would be much more challenging conceptually, than deciding if a representational art form is evil.

I suppose, in one way, it confirms a popular stereotype about commonplace Islamic thinking, harking back to the past rather than embracing the present and future. It's symptomatic of how I was as a child, afraid of what might happen, and telling myself that if I avoided the cracks in the pavement, I'd be alright.

And I don't think it's just some Moslems who evince such behaviour. I'd challenge the promoters of creationism as a 'real' alternative to Darwinist theory.

For what does it all reveal? That we don't want to accept the notion that we are all ultimately responsible for our fate. Big Daddy isn't going to step in to change it all for us, so there's no point in trying to appease Big Daddy. Rather, how can we meet everybody's dream of finding lasting happiness, which, perhaps ironically, is set out in moral codes dating back through the millenia.

Do you know what the reaction to this will be in some Islamic communities? I am symptomatic of the Western hatred of Islam.

Unsettling times

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 14:54:08 GMT

The news is full of arrests in Birmingham and the capture of one of last week's failed London bombers. Incredibly, he was alleged to be wearing a rucksack at the time of the arrest. This is supposed to make us connect the methods used to convey the home-made bombs with the threat that he was about to set out to make sure he killed himself, and as many others as he could, early this morning.

We need positive news. We need to believe that the police know what they are doing and that they are genuinely developing intelligence. But there was no intelligence before which had alerted anyone to these individuals.

Today, it has emerged that all the suspects from last week were asylum seekers. This really must play into the hands of the anti-immigration lobby. Are they asylum seekers because they are unsatisfied people, who had thought that life might be easier here? What could they possibly have been escaping from in their own countries? Why were they given shelter in Britain?

Identification of asylum seekers with terrorists makes it very hard for British citizens to empathise with the plight of genuine refugees, although the July 7th bombers were all British citizens too. What could possibly have motivated them to give up their lives? Is it really so bad here? Is it a failure of their vision that they could not see anything else in life but bleak monotony and a shoestring existence, perhaps? Was that, for them, an absence of Allah?

I think it's even more disturbing that the police now have authority to shoot to kill anyone they think COULD be a suicide bomber, without warning him or her first. Just don't wear a padded jacket guys!

There's a report on the web which I think everybody ought to try and read. It's called The Hijacked Caravan and you can find it at Ihsanic Intelligence. This Islamic think-tank has been searching Qu'ranic scriptures, writings and the news for over two years now, to formulate this total refutation of 'suicide bombings as martyrdom operations in contemporary Jihad strategy.'

It concludes, "The technique of suicide bombing is anathema, antithetical and abhorrent to Sunni Islam. It is considered legally forbidden, constituting a reprehensible innovation in the Islamic tradition, morally an enormity of sin combining suicide and murder and theologically an act which has consequences of eternal damnation."

The kitchen drawer: Islam

Fatwa

Unsettling times