`Fatwa Chaos' Bewilders Muslims as Clerics Duel on Sex, Suicide
2007-11-05 17:14 (New York)
By Daniel Williams
Nov. 6 (Bloomberg) -- A century ago, the fatwa department
at Cairo's Al-Azhar University issued fewer than 200 edicts a
day. Now it turns out about 1,000.
The university, a center of Islamic learning for more than
a millennium, isn't alone. Around the world, an explosion in
the number of fatwas -- pronouncements by religious leaders
intended to shape the actions of the faithful on everything
from sex to politics -- is sparking efforts by prominent
Muslims to rein in the practice. That's proving a nearly
impossible task, given Islam's decentralized nature and the
growing number of outlets for the edicts.
Muslims in Egypt seeking religious guidance may now turn
to satellite television and the Internet for opinions from as
far afield as Indonesia and Morocco -- unless they follow the
fatwa issued in 2004 by the Dar ul-Ulum, India's largest
Islamic seminary, that ruled Muslims shouldn't watch TV.
With no pope or patriarch to arbitrate orthodoxy, ``it's
the nature of Islamic thought to have many options,'' says
Abdel Moti Bayoumi, who heads the Islamic Research Compilation
Center in Cairo. ``But there are too many unqualified opinions
being spread, and this is wrong.''
The result is what MENA, Egypt's official news agency,
calls ``fatwa chaos.''
Proliferation
Mainstream Islamic scholars blame TV and the Web for the
proliferation of pronouncements, which are supposed to be based
on the Koran and words attributed to Mohammed, the founder of
Islam. Confusing opinions are reaching millions of believers,
these critics say.
Dissident preachers fault establishment clerics for
issuing what they consider abstruse and sometimes ridiculous
judgments. As evidence, they cite recent fatwas from the
university that ban sculptures, authorize female circumcision
and one in May saying women who meet alone with men ought to
breastfeed them to create a ``maternal'' bond that precludes
having sex.
Among non-Muslims in the West, fatwas burst into
prominence in 1989, when the late Iranian leader Ayatollah
Khomeini put a death sentence on author Salman Rushdie for
supposed blasphemy in his novel ``Satanic Verses.''
Clerics are supposed to have religious and legal training
on which to base their authority. Even trained scholars have
issued contradictory fatwas about whether suicide bombing and
attacks on civilians are justified, creating political and
theological controversies.
Unified Standards
After the breastfeeding edict gained worldwide notoriety,
Ali Gomaa, the chief scholar at Al-Azhar mosque, suggested that
Muslims establish unified standards for pronouncing fatwas.
On Sept. 28, Al-Azhar University, which is affiliated with
the mosque, announced it is setting up its own TV station to
issue proper edicts and avoid ``fatwa chaos,'' according to
MENA. A week later, the Council of Senior Muslim Clerics in
Saudi Arabia said it is creating a Web site to provide quick
access to its rulings.
The mishmash of opinions has created ``crises and
confusion'' at a time when Muslims are ``in utmost need of
coherence and unity,'' Seif Abdul Fattah, a professor of
Islamic political thought at Cairo University, wrote in an Oct.
4 article for Al-Ahram newspaper.
The Web site for Dar al-Ifta, Al-Azhar University's fatwa
department, currently includes pronouncements about the
propriety of keeping dogs indoors (no, because ``dogs are
filth'') and stealing using credit cards to strike back at the
United States and Israel for ``waging war'' on Muslims (credit-
card fraud ``does not conform to the teachings of Islam'').
Criticism
Mohammed Salmawy, head of the Egyptians Writers Union,
wrote a sardonic column in the Oct. 20 edition of Cairo's Daily
News newspaper criticizing fatwas that urge women to cover
themselves from head to foot and travel in taxis only in the
company of a male relative -- practices uncommon in Egypt.
``The competition between our revered sheikhs has reached
such heights that not a week goes by, after an issuance of a
new and ingenious fatwa in one country, before another fatwa
crops up in another to out-do-it,'' the secular commentator
wrote.
Adding to the tension is a rivalry between establishment
clerics and a new breed of television preachers, says Amr
Khaled, a former accountant turned ``tele-imam'' who eschews
the customary robes of Muslim imams for a coat and tie. His
show, ``Paradise in Our House,'' appears on four Middle East
satellite stations, and Time Magazine picked him as one of its
100 most influential people for 2007.
Optimistic Style
Khaled, 40, acknowledges that he lacks formal theological
training and models his program on Oprah Winfrey's optimistic
style seasoned with religious teaching. He says mainstream
scholars are out of touch with the needs of young people,
especially women.
``If I can take viewers away from following bad fatwas, I
will,'' he says. ``Unfortunately, there's some injustice said
in the name of Islam, and they come out of even respected
institutions.''
Even if tele-imams like Khaled don't issue formal edicts,
``it is a fine line between giving advice and fatwas, and
people are rightly confused,'' says the Islamic Research
Compilation Center's Bayoumi.
``The real problem is that religion is being put out front
at all times and injected into everything,'' says Aly Elsamman,
head of Al-Azhar University's Dialogue and Islamic Relations
Committee. ``This makes the need for knowledge more pressing,
but the need isn't met.''
2007-11-05 17:14 (New York)
By Daniel Williams
Nov. 6 (Bloomberg) -- A century ago, the fatwa department
at Cairo's Al-Azhar University issued fewer than 200 edicts a
day. Now it turns out about 1,000.
The university, a center of Islamic learning for more than
a millennium, isn't alone. Around the world, an explosion in
the number of fatwas -- pronouncements by religious leaders
intended to shape the actions of the faithful on everything
from sex to politics -- is sparking efforts by prominent
Muslims to rein in the practice. That's proving a nearly
impossible task, given Islam's decentralized nature and the
growing number of outlets for the edicts.
Muslims in Egypt seeking religious guidance may now turn
to satellite television and the Internet for opinions from as
far afield as Indonesia and Morocco -- unless they follow the
fatwa issued in 2004 by the Dar ul-Ulum, India's largest
Islamic seminary, that ruled Muslims shouldn't watch TV.
With no pope or patriarch to arbitrate orthodoxy, ``it's
the nature of Islamic thought to have many options,'' says
Abdel Moti Bayoumi, who heads the Islamic Research Compilation
Center in Cairo. ``But there are too many unqualified opinions
being spread, and this is wrong.''
The result is what MENA, Egypt's official news agency,
calls ``fatwa chaos.''
Proliferation
Mainstream Islamic scholars blame TV and the Web for the
proliferation of pronouncements, which are supposed to be based
on the Koran and words attributed to Mohammed, the founder of
Islam. Confusing opinions are reaching millions of believers,
these critics say.
Dissident preachers fault establishment clerics for
issuing what they consider abstruse and sometimes ridiculous
judgments. As evidence, they cite recent fatwas from the
university that ban sculptures, authorize female circumcision
and one in May saying women who meet alone with men ought to
breastfeed them to create a ``maternal'' bond that precludes
having sex.
Among non-Muslims in the West, fatwas burst into
prominence in 1989, when the late Iranian leader Ayatollah
Khomeini put a death sentence on author Salman Rushdie for
supposed blasphemy in his novel ``Satanic Verses.''
Clerics are supposed to have religious and legal training
on which to base their authority. Even trained scholars have
issued contradictory fatwas about whether suicide bombing and
attacks on civilians are justified, creating political and
theological controversies.
Unified Standards
After the breastfeeding edict gained worldwide notoriety,
Ali Gomaa, the chief scholar at Al-Azhar mosque, suggested that
Muslims establish unified standards for pronouncing fatwas.
On Sept. 28, Al-Azhar University, which is affiliated with
the mosque, announced it is setting up its own TV station to
issue proper edicts and avoid ``fatwa chaos,'' according to
MENA. A week later, the Council of Senior Muslim Clerics in
Saudi Arabia said it is creating a Web site to provide quick
access to its rulings.
The mishmash of opinions has created ``crises and
confusion'' at a time when Muslims are ``in utmost need of
coherence and unity,'' Seif Abdul Fattah, a professor of
Islamic political thought at Cairo University, wrote in an Oct.
4 article for Al-Ahram newspaper.
The Web site for Dar al-Ifta, Al-Azhar University's fatwa
department, currently includes pronouncements about the
propriety of keeping dogs indoors (no, because ``dogs are
filth'') and stealing using credit cards to strike back at the
United States and Israel for ``waging war'' on Muslims (credit-
card fraud ``does not conform to the teachings of Islam'').
Criticism
Mohammed Salmawy, head of the Egyptians Writers Union,
wrote a sardonic column in the Oct. 20 edition of Cairo's Daily
News newspaper criticizing fatwas that urge women to cover
themselves from head to foot and travel in taxis only in the
company of a male relative -- practices uncommon in Egypt.
``The competition between our revered sheikhs has reached
such heights that not a week goes by, after an issuance of a
new and ingenious fatwa in one country, before another fatwa
crops up in another to out-do-it,'' the secular commentator
wrote.
Adding to the tension is a rivalry between establishment
clerics and a new breed of television preachers, says Amr
Khaled, a former accountant turned ``tele-imam'' who eschews
the customary robes of Muslim imams for a coat and tie. His
show, ``Paradise in Our House,'' appears on four Middle East
satellite stations, and Time Magazine picked him as one of its
100 most influential people for 2007.
Optimistic Style
Khaled, 40, acknowledges that he lacks formal theological
training and models his program on Oprah Winfrey's optimistic
style seasoned with religious teaching. He says mainstream
scholars are out of touch with the needs of young people,
especially women.
``If I can take viewers away from following bad fatwas, I
will,'' he says. ``Unfortunately, there's some injustice said
in the name of Islam, and they come out of even respected
institutions.''
Even if tele-imams like Khaled don't issue formal edicts,
``it is a fine line between giving advice and fatwas, and
people are rightly confused,'' says the Islamic Research
Compilation Center's Bayoumi.
``The real problem is that religion is being put out front
at all times and injected into everything,'' says Aly Elsamman,
head of Al-Azhar University's Dialogue and Islamic Relations
Committee. ``This makes the need for knowledge more pressing,
but the need isn't met.''
