No Football Please- Unislamic!

Hey all,

How many of you read this fatwa issued by one scholar in Saudi claiming that playing football is unIslamic? I read it and I was appalled. I was shocked. Here are some of the arguments as proposed by scholar:

"1. That players should not wear T-shirts with numbers on them, trousers, or shorts, and only play with their sleeping clothes, as wearing the previously mentioned items would be copying the infidels." [sleeping clothes...right, let's all wear our pajamas and play the championships!]

2. That there be three periods instead of two, so that it would not comply with the international standards of soccer set by the infidels. [right, so when Saudi team is playing matches in foreign countries, only the Saudi should be split into thirds....]

3. That players should spit in the face of the striker if he rejoices in scoring a goal in the opposing team's net, as the purpose of the game is to be fit only, not for rejoicing in scoring. [ok, mr. striker, be prepared to be spit on...]

4. The utterance of all words such as "foul", "penalty", "out", and others is sinful since they are made up by the infidels who set soccer rules. There should also not be a crowd watching or cheering the game. " [ok, let me look for other words for these sinful words, and we might as well play in our backyards away from the crowds...]

The article goes on: "Instead of those three Saudi players enjoying themselves and making use of their leisure time in something that would benefit them, they have now been brainwashed by a fatwa and have gone to the extreme. From being good citizens they have now become the worst of humanity: Sleeping suicide bombers."

I mean, what is this? You have scholars like these issuing such kind of fatwa, and brainwashing these youngsters to go to Iraq instead of playing football. Ok, if you want to encourage them to go to Iraq, by all means do it, I have no problem there. But to tell them to stop playing football because it is "copying the infidels" is baseless, unfounded and totally childish. I wonder what the logic was behind this fatwa? What about basketball? Swimming?

Well, THANKFULLY TODAY, the grand Saudi Mufti has started to look over such kind of fatwas being issued in the country. Thankfully there is someone sane out there to go against such kind of religious rulings. There should be a system where only one main person can issue a legal fatwa, instead of having many different scholars issuing fatwas on their own. Well done Grand Saudi Mufti-- you've brought some sanity into this insanity!

Mansur