Posted on 10/13/2010 2:19:14 PM PDT by La Lydia
The ideology that reigns in Saudi Arabia comes into plain view on the website of the Council of Senior Religious Scholars, where boys and girls sharing a swimming pool causes "mischief and evil" and bringing flowers to a hospital patient is discouraged because it's a foreign custom that "imitates Allah's adversaries." And those fatwas come from the government-appointed body of clerics who are the guardians of the kingdom's ultraconservative Wahhabi school of Islam. But there's also a whole other world of independent clerics issuing their own interpretations, often contradictory...
Now King Abdullah is moving to regain control over this abundance of fatwas. Under a royal decree..only the official panel may issue the fatwas that answer every question of how pious Saudis should live their lives...In recent weeks, websites and a satellite station where clerics answered questions have been shut down. One preacher was publicly reprimanded for urging a boycott of a supermarket chain for employing female cashiers. Some Saudis wonder whether any of this points the way to a more liberal code. Saad Sowayan, a Saudi historian, thinks it does. "The state wants to take the lead in shaping public opinion and this serves the issue of secularism and modernity..."
But many of the powerful clerics on the 21-member council are themselves hard-liners. Beyond strict edicts on morality, they reinforce a worldview whereby non-Muslims and even liberal or Shiite Muslims are considered infidels, and their stances on jihad, or holy war, at times differ only in nuances from al-Qaida's....
Saudi media have speculated that the king's resolve may have been hardened by a recent fatwa that provoked particular public uproar. Sheik al-Obeikan ruled that if a woman needs to appear without her veil in front of an adult, unrelated male, she has the option of breast-feeding him....
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
A fatwa on fatwas?
And a nice, sharp sword to thin the herd on occasion.
I guess. Unauthorized fatwas are haram.
They need a Fatwa superhighway
Always curb your fatwa.
Sheik al-Obeikan ruled that if a woman needs to appear without her veil in front of an adult, unrelated male, she has the option of breast-feeding him....
WTF?!?! So, in order to prevent his mind from being enticed by simply her unveiled face, she should distract him by sticking a boob in his mouth? Yeah, this will turn the guy off.
That’s actually in the Quran.
What’s a misogynistic pseudo-religious political system without a good dose of rape and sexual harassment?!
So His Majesty has declared jihad on fatwas?
Sheik Abdul-Rahman al-Barrak
Any relation to Caliph Hussein-Obama al-Barack?
Saudi Arabia = Arab = Muslim = Islam = Islamic State
Saudi Arabia is the head of all Islam; this is the nation which is at war with the world through its surrogates!
Yes. You are beginning to appreciate the subtleties of the Muzlim mind. But you will note that this was too nutty even for the king.
Islam is a catch-all phrase for followers of Mohammed and the Koran. There is no hierarchy, there is no leadership deciding scriptural or Koranic matters, there is no training system for “Imams.” The Saudis, as the holders of the 2 holy cities Mecca and Medina have tried to claim some authority for themselves, but otherwise it is nearly “anything goes” - and in such systems, it is the loudest and most violent who get the most attention.
That is why it is complete bollocks to think you can “negotiate” with Islam, apologize to Islam, or call a charlatan like Abdul Faisal Rauf, who represents nothing, an “Imam”
“Sheik Abdul-Mohsen al-Obeikan ruled that if a woman needs to appear without her veil in front of an adult, unrelated male, she has the option of breast-feeding him, because it establishes a mother-son bond in Islamic tradition. That reasoning has been heard in a few fatwas by other sheiks, but is rejected by most scholars.”
So if I become a muslim, and want some boobie action, I simply need to engineer an “accidental” removal of her veil, and then demand boobie compensation. Sweet.
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