Over at Frontpage Magazine (via RaymondIbrahim.com), I expose some of Egypt’s most scandalous fatwas of 2012:
In previous decades in Egypt, the fatwas, or legal decrees issued by learned Muslims and based on Sharia law, revolved around questions like proper prayer, when and where women should wear the hijab, and if smoking was forbidden or permissible.
That was then.
The fatwas issued in the year 2012″”the year when Islamists, spearheaded by the Muslim Brotherhood, assumed formal power””are, as one would expect, markedly different, that is, much less restrained. The popular Egyptian Arabic website El-Watan News recently compiled a list of 2012″s most “notable” (a euphemism) fatwas. I translate a summary of their findings below, augmented with additional observations:
Destruction of the Pyramids and Sphinx
In November, Sheikh Murjan Salem al-Jawhari, a Salafi leader, called for the destruction of all idols, relics, and statues in Egypt, specifically mentioning the Sphinx and the Great Pyramids. He called on Muslims to destroy such “idols” just as they destroyed the Buddha statues in Afghanistan. Of course, several months earlier, in July, I reported how several prominent Islamic clerics were calling on President Morsi to “destroy the Pyramids and accomplish what the Sahabi Amr bin al-As [the first Muslim invader of Egypt] could not.” Then and now, the MSM scoffed at the very idea, portraying it as a “hoax.” To date, reports from Egypt confirm that “some of the statues have already been destroyed by those belonging to the political Islamist parties.”
Marrying Minors (i.e., Pedophilia)
Dr. Yassir al-Burhami, Vice President of the Salafi Da”˜wa movement, and thus an authoritative figure among Egypt’s Salafis, who are playing a prominent role in the nation’s new parliament, opposed setting a minimum age in the new constitution concerning the marriage of minor girls, saying “they can get married at any time,” and insisting that Sharia law is clear on this matter. Indeed, earlier, another cleric and member of Saudi Arabia’s highest religious council, after saying that girls can be married “even if they are in the cradle,” explained the fundamental criterion of when they can copulate: whenever “they are capable of being placed beneath and bearing the weight of the men,” which has less to do with age and more to do with individual capacity…