It's fizzy, and it's sold in a can, but that's about where the similarity stops. In any event, here is a fine case of a government that is enforcing Sharia intruding arbitrarily on people's lives, and doing so in an apparent rush to judgment. To challenge them would put one in danger of being accused of going against Islam itself, and that's been known to endanger life and limb, even in Chechnya. "Chechnya says energy drinks are un-Islamic and imposes sales ban," from Reuters, July 18:
Chechnya is to ban the sale of energy drinks such as Red Bull to under 18s, saying they are un-Islamic and dangerous, health officials said on Monday.
The ban would be the latest restriction from authorities in Chechnya, where shops can only sell alcohol during a small morning time frame, restaurants and cafes are shut during the Ramadan fasting month, and women must wear headscarves in state buildings.
"Energy drinks are comparable to beer," the deputy minister of health, Rukman Bartiyev, said, adding that they were harmful to health.
The proposed ban was met with praise from the more conservative sectors of society, but angered ordinary Chechens who are growing increasingly frustrated at laws that only apply to Chechnya and sometimes contradict the Russian constitution.
"There are just too many restrictions lately. We are building a small Islamic state in Russia that looks like Dubai," said a Grozny resident who gave her name only as Aset, 41.
A decade after Moscow drove separatists out of power in the second of two wars since the 1991 Soviet collapse, the Kremlin relies heavily on Chechnya's strongman leader Ramzan Kadyrov to keep insurgents in check and maintain a shaky peace.
But critics of the hardliner say he runs the republic of 1.1 million as a fiefdom, consolidating power by leading a violent crackdown on opponents and imposing his own vision of Islam, leading analysts to warn that Chechnya could move to autonomy once again.
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Alcohol fatwa sparks controversy
11 April 2008
A prominent Egyptian cleric has created controversy by issuing a fatwa that says tiny amounts of alcohol are permissible in Islam.
Yusuf al-Qaradawi's fatwa says a level of 0.5% is allowed, whereas most Muslims would say alcohol of any quantity is banned.
Sheikh Qaradawi was recently refused entry to Britain as the UK government said his views could spark violence.
He issued his fatwa in response to a question about high energy drinks.
'Distorted'
Sheikh Qaradawi is talking about tiny quantities of alcohol - equivalent to about one-eighth of a unit of alcohol.
He ruled there was no religious ban on consuming drinks with a minute amount of alcohol in them if it was formed naturally through the process of fermentation.
He quoted the rule derived from the sayings of the Prophet that if drinking a lot of alcohol makes you intoxicated then drinking a little is also forbidden.
Sheikh Qaradawi argued that any person who consumed a large amount of high energy drink would not become intoxicated, therefore they were permissible, even though they contained tiny amounts of alcohol.
But this logic has not gone down well.
The editor of a newspaper in Qatar, where Sheikh Qaradawi lives, complained that the sheikh had just stirred up a controversy that everyone could have done without.
The editor said the fatwa from a cleric of the status of Sheikh Qaradawi would inevitably be misunderstood and distorted to suggest he was giving permission to Muslims to drink alcohol.
Sheikh Qaradawi, who is a well-known TV figure, views himself as a moderate voice of Islam.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7342425.stm
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Energy drinks may be an emerging market in the Middle East since Muslims don't drink alcohol.