What is a fatwa? A fatwa is an Islamic ruling issued by a ‘recognized’ religious figure. These laws are generally proclaimed by a person who is known to be knowledgeable, all wise, and is a bearer of basic common sense.
Thankfully, as believed by many, fatwas are not binding. If we were to start following every fatwa that some moron, I mean, knowledgeable intelligent scholar, put a stamp on, we would all be standing outside Walt Disney with a sword in our hands chanting, “Mickey Mickey Mickey!”
Don’t believe me? Here are some of the fatwas that would make you wonder if the person who issued them had had a lobotomy the night before.
Muhammad Al-Munajid, a former diplomat at the Saudi Embassy in Washington D.C put a bounty on Mickey Mouse’s head stating that Mickey was ‘one of Satan’s soldiers.” He said all mice and their cartoon counterparts must be killed.
Good luck getting Jerry; it’s been decades and Tom still has not been able to do jack.
Any thoughts how Donald Duck got away unnoticed though? He comes to every show, stares Mickey in the face, without any pants!
The Grand Mufti Sheikh Ibn Baaz (why must they always have GRAND in their name?) declared that the earth is disk shaped, flat and the sun revolves around it. The fatwa itself was called “The Transmitted and Sensory Proofs of the Rotation of the Sun and Stillness of the Earth.” Yes, he clearly believes that if it sounds scientific enough, it must be true. The Grand sir also said it was a Western Conspiracy to make fools of us Muslims. Every satellite image that you see was photoshopped by them.
Rip those geography books. Rip them all! They are all lies!
In 2007, Ezzat Attiya (ironically Ezzat means honor) wondered how to show everyone that Muslims are in fact progressive people and they have no issues with women working with ‘namahram’ men. The solution? Breast-feed the man five times. This way she would become his mother (Are you reading this Freud?) and thus be able to work with no issues (Sure!) with her new son.
Thankfully, even the aliens from Pluto lol’ed at this and poor honorable Ezzat lost his job. He did try to clear it up by saying people just didn’t understand what he was trying to say. I guess he meant four times and not five times.
Muslim women cannot buy bananas or cucumbers. I don’t… I can’t…. I just can’t. Tough luck for vegetarians though!
Girls cannot be tomboys! The Malaysian National Fatwa Council came up with this gem. The I-am-Hercules council thought un-lady-like women who wore pants would forget their place, which is to stay home and take care of babies. And they might go out in the world and demand the same as men!
An Internet forum, Multaqa Ahl al Hadeeth came up with the one that most of us would want to go with actually. The ‘Emoticon fatwa.’ Because emoticons are just plain annoying!
They said and I quote word for word “Emoticons are forbidden because of its 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 then all that add up to make them Haram.” Also, “A woman should not use these images when speaking to a man who is not her mahram, 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.”
Maybe if she breastfed the man all of five times, and then sent emoticons, it would be ok.
Apparently the devil wears Manchester United t-shirts. Muslim football fans were told by Malaysian clerics not to wear the team shirt because the club crest glorifies the devil. If you get it as a gift, you must drop down and start praying immediately to ward off any Iblees-y symptoms. Ok, I made up this last bit, but is it any less absurd than the actual ruling?
In Morocco, a fatwa was given which stated that pregnant women who have a craving for alcohol, could drink it without any reservations. So the one thing that doctors all around the world tell pregnant women not to do, the cleric gives two thumbs up!
No to Namaste. Malaysian (you have been busy) and Indonesian clerics issued a fatwa that if a Muslim practices yoga, it will destroy his faith. Uhm, I don’t know, is this because the person might find inner peace and forget to go kaboom?
Pakistan’s (a list like this without Pakistan? Impossible!) now defunct largest Islamic group, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) stated that polio drops to immunize children were a Jewish conspiracy to make Muslim men impotent. Had that been true, it might not actually have been such a bad thing. The Taliban banned the entry of all polio drops health workers. See what I mean? With these idiots running the show, the Jewish conspiracy would have been a good thing!
Sadly, Pakistan still remains to this day as one of the three countries of the world, where polio is still endemic.
The very cool Saudi Sheikh Ali al Hemki, with obviously more money than brains, issued a fatwa against anyone wanting to travel to Mars. Maybe he doesn’t like the color red. Perhaps he thought one couldn’t blow up the planet. Whatever the case, he said that the Mars One project to organize a commercial mission to Mars was a no go area for Muslims. So if you are a Muslim and you really want to go, eat a Mars instead.
Aah, the infamous fatwa on women not being allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia. Basically because driving makes women lose their modesty and femininity. Yes, because the minute a woman sits in a car, she throws one hairy leg out the window and starts to belch out the alphabet. Also, and I quote “It will be a tool of rebellion against husbands and families in that if a woman is upset she can get in her car and go someplace to cool down.” I don’t know how the Saudi men think, but an angry wife cooling down all by herself, isn’t that a good thing?
A Moroccan man of science and the Head of the Moroccan Institute of Studies and Research, (wow, sounds really smart) put out a fatwa that a husband may still sleep with his wife even if she’s dead.
The Sleeping Dead? Fan of Zombies, no doubt!
Yemeni Al-Habib Omar Bin Muhamad fatwa’d that women should not sit on chairs. Because ‘Jinns’ might get kinky with them. So should they stand up? Lie down? Play dead? No don’t play dead, see above fatwa for zombies.
Here is one for bathroom etiquette. Sheikh 'Abd al-Wahhab al-Turayri stated that one must never talk when relieving themselves in the bathroom, unless to ask for water. I wonder if one could talk to oneself? Singing would be out of the question too I suppose. How about if you sing out loud “Give me waaateeer!”
The Somalians didn’t want to be left behind, so they fatwa’d that one must not eat a Ramadan treat called 'sambousak.' It looks like a samosa, the triangle thus symbolizing the Christian Holy Trinity of God. Others came up with better theories that the somasa is in fact part of the Illuminati.
We all know this one. The sea is masculine so a woman should not go swimming in it. If she does, she becomes an adulteress. This literary genius bit of fatwa was issued by the Al Ahzar Fatwa Committee. I wonder how many hours they spent ogling the women at the beach before coming up with this.
Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi, one of Iran’s highest clerical authorities said that access to high-speed and 3G Internet is “against Sharia” and “against moral standards.” So all you high speed lovers, it’s haram for you! Go back to dial up. And while waiting, eat a samosa. Oh wait….
So many fatwas, so little time. I would continue as there are so many more but my head hurts and just can’t take any more face palms.