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Foreign Policy, of all places, has published "The List: The World’s Stupidest Fatwas" (thanks to Hot Air) -- from Rushdie to breast-feeding in the workplace, which I believe we were the first to break, here. The teaser says:
No central authority controls doctrine in Islam, one of the world’s great religions. The result? A proliferation of bizarre religious edicts against targets ranging from Salman Rushdie to polio vaccinations. FP collects some of the worst examples here.
Note that when making fun of something Islamic, you have to include the obligatory "one of the world's great religions," so as to try to head off "Islamophobia" charges -- which are almost certain to come anyway. Note also that the stupid fatawa are ascribed to the lack of any central doctrinal authority in Islam. If that's all it is, one wonders why Congregationalists or Lutherans haven't published a similar number of bizarre rulings.
But of course, Foreign Policy doesn't have the stomach to look into the possibility that these strange fatawa were actually derived from elements of the Qur'an and Sunnah. This header, then, is a species of the same fear and reticence that prevents Western analysts from looking into the elements of Islam that jihadists are using to incite violence, and formulating positive ways to deal with them. While they profess to be supporting Islamic reformers, they are actually undercutting them by effectively denying that there is anything within Islam that needs reform.
Thus this piece on stupid fatawa, as daring as it appears at first glance, given the hair-trigger rage the Islamic world has demonstrated on so many occasions in recent years, is actually just another example of the analytical myopia that prevents us from dealing realistically with the global challenge we're facing.
Posted by Robert at July 21, 2007 6:59 AM
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This is not an analsys of cause, but some funny examples of result. Still worth reading imo.
Posted by: Ruebacca![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at July 21, 2007 8:27 AM
Excellent commentary by Spencer on Foreign Policy's lacking the stomach to tell it like it is.
Posted by: traeh at July 21, 2007 4:01 PM
"If that's all it is..." ..."analytical myopia..." Comments like these cause one to lose interest in the website, as informative as it is, and this is someone who IS on-board... who IS well-aware of the global challenge we are facing. These are the "World's Stupidest Fatwas"...against Pokemon and the Polio Virus Vaccine, for crying out loud. If it is not abundantly clear that there is a fair amount of dysfunctionality here... a religious opinion against a proven medicinal preventative factor, and then you have another religious group issuing a fatwa that the Polio Vaccine is A.O.K. ...then you are never going to get it.
"If that's all it is, one wonders why Congregationalists or Lutherans haven't published a similar number of bizarre rulings."
Oh I don't know... if you go to Bible.com, you will see that certain elements of Christianity have similar problems with the Pokemon as well.
http://bible.com/bibleanswers_result.php?id=221.
This is seemingly a "Christian Fatwa" if you will. as it comes from no central authority and is inspired by Christian scriptures as well. Granted Bible.com doesn't label it as a Jewish Conspiracy, but actually rails in the opposite direction, that is, further EAST, in saying such things as:
The game was created in Japan and the concepts of the game and trading cards reflect the principles of Eastern Religions and the philosophies that influenced them. Pokemon is the result of influences that are completely mystical and that embrace warrior religions. These belief systems are not compatible with Christianity."
...
"Through this children are subtly being indoctrinated into the theory of evolution and mysticism of the eastern religions."
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Foreign Policy, of all places, is jumping on the bandwagon in pointing out the absurdity of the fact that pretty much anyone can issue a religious opinion and that in many cases these opinions could be quite absurd themselves. There is value in this (FP article), and so maybe it doesn't meet the standards of the Jihad Watch...So what. I'm sorry, but that is where you lose me, conceptually....
at July 22, 2007 12:29 AM
I disagree very strongly with ThinkForYourself's assertion that the link he provided is evidence of sorts for a christian type of FATWA. In christianity - in protestantism - there is no such thing at all, unless you want to declare the 95 theses of Martin Luther a form of Fatwa. Declarations out of the vatican over faith and dogma are also elaborations on the scriptures, but I would hardly call them FATWAS. Not only that, the vatican has in the past showed a willingness to correct mistakes of the past (see: Vatican II)
In judaism, the auxiliary books to the Torah (Mishnah, Talmud, Gemarrah, Zohar and most importantly: halakhik and haggidic Midrash) are all books that try to interpret the bible or to interpret the books interpreting the bible, remembering that there were once two concurrent rabbinic traditions: one in the holy land and one in Babylon. None of these things, however, is even remotely related to a FATWAH, and while Islam is moving to a more stricter and harsher and more exclusine interpretation of Kur'an and Co., the auxiliary books to the Torah and Haftorah actually moved AWAY from such and more to a life of prayer and inner reflection. For instance, in the case of the Midrash, when the Jews returned from Babylon, the Torah was the sole authority, but the people needed to understand and apply the meanings to the new situations following the fall of Babylon. For this reason the Midrash. The Zohar,on the other hand, delved into the mystical: The Zohar makes appeal to the inner meaning of the biblical texts, referring to the literal understanding as outward clothing, hiding the deeper inner meaning. Meaning in black and white: there is no black and white, absolute literal interpretation of scripture without common sense always leads to doom.
Alone the supposition that no central authority which controls doctrine (dogma) in Islam is already a very, very bad sign for what is supposed to be "one of the world’s great religions."
One of the worst mistakes we can make is to constantly compare these three religions, only searching for similarities. Indeed, there are many more direct similarities between judaism and christianity: Jeshua himself was a jew, as was his mother Miriam (though the palis just love to claim her as their own these days) and the new testament is directly built upon the old testament. HOwever, the christians believe in Jeshua as the messiah, whereas the jews are still waiting for the messiah to arrive. A growing number of christians, jews and messianic jews are beginning to believe that the second coming (according to christian doctrine) will be seen by the jews as the true coming of Moshiach (the messiah).
The Kur'an however, is a completely different story. Mohammed was neither a christian nor was he a jew, and suddenly he came up with a book claiming to be better than both religions before him, with no real evidence to back up his outlandish claims. Retelling the story of the Exodus more than 30 times in Kur'an, each time a little differently and more twisted, is absolutely no evidence that Islam is somehow related to christianity or judaism nor can muslims provide real evidence that arabs are the direct descendants of Ishmael (the son of Abraham and his indentured servant Hagar). Any Tom-Dick-or-Harry can shout from the mountaintops that he is the descendant of either Isaac or Ishmael, it's not as if genealogy.com existed 3000 years ago. There are absolutely no genealogical documents to back up this claim. And finally, because of these two points I respectfully make, there is therefore no real evidence that muslims worship the same God that christians and jews do. Just as muslims, in their well-known and extremely distasteful hubris, claim that only the word Allah can be used for "God" and that all non-believers (meaning, all non-muslims) are automatically an insult to Allah, are therefore not to be classified as innocent and can be legally killed by a number of barbaric means, christians and jews alike can just as easily claim that Islam is not only a flawed religion, but a FALSE religion serving a false God, meaning that their ALLAH is not the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, which would mean that Islam is nothing more than a dangerous cult with 1.3 billion members.
And from a dangerous cult one can expect many more bizarre and stranger than science-fiction fatwahs.
Believe me, God in heaven is laughing at this utter nonsense.
Posted by: bonncaruso at July 23, 2007 7:50 AM
"I disagree very strongly with ThinkForYourself's assertion that the link he provided is evidence of sorts for a christian type of FATWA."
First of all, I put Christian Fatwa in quotes for a reason... I didn't mean it literally. And secondly, A fatwa is a religious opinion that pretty much any cleric can give. Robert pondered why Christian groups hadn't published any such bizzare rulings, and I pointed out where such a publication has been made on the very same topic (pokemon) that was brought up in the Bible, on Bible.com, which is the 3rd entry from the top when you google "bible". That's pretty significant. I'm not trying to compare Christianity as a whole to Islam as a whole. And you can disagree with my statements as strongly as you'd like, but that does not change the fact that what I say is true. ;)
Posted by: ThinkForYourself at July 23, 2007 9:59 AM
"Alone the supposition that no central authority which controls doctrine (dogma) in Islam is already a very, very bad sign for what is supposed to be "one of the world’s great religions.""
And further, you could say the EXACT same thing about the Christianity, where you have the Church of Christ which declares that they are the only true believers, and the Pope who states that the loose federation of Western protestant type churches are not in fact really churches, and that the eastern orthodox churches, because they have apostolic tradition ARE churches, but they have become wounded.
No thanks.
Posted by: ThinkForYourself at July 23, 2007 10:06 AM
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