Now they’re coming for the…smileys?

From World’s Craziest Fatwas

The Evil Emoticons

The Fatwa: Multaqa Ahl al Hadeeth: Emoticon fatwa

I can almost get behind this one. Sure, they’re annoying, but evil? Really? Well, to a Muslim forum looking to make a name for itself—yes.

According to Muslim Internet Forum Multaqa Ahl al Hadeeth, “Emoticons are forbidden because of its imitation to Allah’s creatures whether it is original or mixture or even deformed one and since the picture is the face and the face is what makes the real picture then emoticons which represent faces that express emotions then all that add up to make them Haram.” Um…so should I hide away all of my child hood drawings while I’m at it? I sucked at art.

Additionally, “A woman should not use these images when speaking to a man who is not her mahram, because these faces are used to express how she is feeling, so it is as if she is smiling, laughing, acting shy and so on, and a woman should not do that with a non-mahram man. It is only permissible for a woman to speak to men in cases of necessity, so long as that is in a public chat room and not in private……Define ‘necessity’….hormones count? or a really big smiley face…

Verdict: How do they find the time to think about this crap? 🙂 XOXOX 😉 XOXOX 😛 XOXOX 😀

Many more here.

I don’t know whether this involved a formal fatwa, but still…

Pakistan: Taliban make bonfire of un-Islamic cloth in Wana

(h/t: Blazing Cat Fur)

July 26, 2011

PESHAWAR, Pakistan: A Taliban group in Pakistan on Tuesday burned a huge quantity of cloth taken from shopkeepers, saying it was too thin to be made into suitably modest garments, officials said.

The Islamist extremists stormed shops in Wana, the main town of the lawless South Waziristan tribal region, which borders Afghanistan, and made a bonfire of the cloth in a public area near the bazaar.

Shopkeeper Rahimullah Khan told AFP that at least eight armed men burst into his premises and took away bundles of raw cloth that they said was too thin to make respectable clothing.

“They said it was un-Islamic to wear clothes that don’t properly cover the human body,” Khan said.

More here.

By that logic, Pakistani Muslims of both sexes aren’t allowed to have cloth to make underclothes or sleepwear. They have to wear the same oppressively hot, heavy outerwear day and night, with no undergarments to absorb their sweat. Glad I don’t live there!