Saudi clerics battle over music fatwas, adult-breastfeeding FEATURE 07/01/2010

Saudi clerics battle over music fatwas, adult-breastfeeding

FEATURE 07/01/2010 RIYADH — One cleric’s endorsement of breastfeeding for grown men and another’s saying music is not un-Islamic have opened up a pitched battle in Saudi Arabia over who can issue fatwas, or Islamic religious edicts. Hardline and progressive religious scholars, judges and clerics have taken the fight public in what some describe as outright “chaos” in the once ivory-tower world of setting the rules that govern much of life in the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom. Much of the fight in the past week has focused on a fatwa endorsing music issued by Adel al-Kalbani, a Riyadh cleric famed as the first black imam at the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Islam’s holiest city. Kalbani, popular for his soulful baritone delivery of Koranic readings, said he found nothing in Islamic scripture that makes music haram, or forbidden. But, aside from some folk music, public music performance is banned in Saudi Arabia, and conservatives say it is haram even in the home. “There is no clear text or ruling in Islam that singing and music are haram,” Kalbani said. Also in recent weeks, a much more senior cleric, Sheikh Abdul Mohsen al-Obeikan, raised hackles with two of his opinions, both of which could be considered fatwas..... MORE Source:  The Daily Tribune URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100701com3.html

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