Jihadists issue fatwa against soccer rules

[DBear]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/o...4db4ca1f47440f&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Yet criticizing fatwas about divisive issues like the propriety of killing civilians and Shiites can be dangerous for officials. So the Saudi government is trying a different tactic, zeroing in on what it considers frivolous fatwas in order to rally support for tougher measures on who can and who cannot issue opinions. Recently, Al Watan, a semiofficial Saudi daily newspaper, reported that a young athlete had joined the jihad in Iraq under the influence of a fatwa forbidding playing soccer by regular rules. The newspaper also republished the fatwa, said to have originally appeared on an Islamic Web site. Portions of the fatwa, which I translated from the Arabic, follow.
- GEOFF D. PORTER

This almost belongs in humor and jokes. Here are some of the excerpts from the fatwa:

4. Do not follow the heretics, the Jews, the Christians and especially evil America regarding the number of players. Do not play with 11 people. Instead, add to this number or decrease it.

7. Do not set the time of play at 45 minutes, which is the official time of the Jews, Christians and all the heretical and atheist countries. This is the time used by teams that have strayed from the righteous path. You are obliged to distinguish yourself from the heretics and the corrupted and must not resemble them in anything.

8. Do not play in two halves. Rather play in one half or three halves in order to completely differentiate yourselves from the heretics, the polytheists, the corrupted and the disobedient.

13. You should spit in the face of whoever puts the ball between the posts or uprights and then runs in order to get his friends to follow him and hug him like players in America or France do, and you should punish and reprimand him, for what is the relationship between celebrating, hugging and kissing and the sports that you are practicing?

 

[MCdread]

Yeah, I wonder myself if the website where it appeared first wasn't some humour and jokes forum. How can some people not have any notion whatsoever of the ridicule. Those you quoted are so bizarre that deny beleif, but there's another great one:

3. Do not call "foul" and stop the game if someone falls and sprains a hand or foot or the ball touches his hand, and do not give a yellow or red card to whoever was responsible for the injury or tackle. Instead, it should be adjudicated according to Sharia rulings concerning broken bones and injuries. The injured player should exercise his Sharia rights according to the Koran and you must bear witness with him that so-and-so hurt him on purpose.

Geez, I wonder what the Sharia determines for some of the fouls and injurees that happen in football, and I can already picture the assistance discussing with excitement the penalty and it's accordance the law of the Prophet... Oh, wait, there's point where they say there should be no audience.

 

[Gr3yL3gion]

Hmm, they should add another one:

Do not breath while playing. We can't breath the same air as the infidels.

Stupid rules.

 

[classical_hero]

Do not listen to these Idiots

 

[MCdread]

What about when we were kids playing football in the street or wherever we could find a spot and marked the goal with just a couple of stones or sticks? They're gonna have to find a different way other than just taking off the upper bar like they say somewhere in the article, becasue the children of the infidels have thought on that first...

 

[Timko]

8. Do not play in two halves. Rather play in one half or three halves in order to completely differentiate yourselves from the heretics, the polytheists, the corrupted and the disobedient.

Now commentators will have to say `It's a game of three halves.'

Maybe they should also change it so that the team who scores fewer goals wins.

You know a lot of Christians walk upright on their two feet, perhaps they should issue a fatwa against that, and all start walking on all fours?