A Really Phat Fatwah

Maybe the Islamist economies can recover from their stupid insistence on muzzling half of their creative and economic power, their women.

Yes, there may be a way around the Koranic interpretations that keep Muslim women far out of the mainstream:

The head of the Hadith Department in Al-Azhar University, Dr. Izzat Atiyya, recently issued a controversial fatwa dealing with breastfeeding of adults. The fatwa stated that a woman who is required to work in private with a man not of her immediate family - a situation that is forbidden by Islamic law - can resolve the problem by breastfeeding the man, which, according to shari'a, turns him into a member of her immediate family. (MEMRI)

Ay, that'll do the trick, Matey! It seems a bit hard to align this fatwah with all that stuff about women needing to display extremely modest dress, but I'm sure the idea will have some appeal among the leagues of lecherous Muslim men who have been fearfully deprived of cleavage on display.

And what an incentive for Muslim women to go to work! Leave the repression of the home, enter the sexual exploitation of the office!

Atiyya's fatwah created quite a stir. Muslim Brotherhood members of the legislature brought the matter up for debate, and in typical free-spirited Islamic discussion of ideas, the government seized every copy of the newspaper that published it.

Atiyya apologized, but was suspended nonetheless. And in his apology is the fruit of this story:

Dr. Atiyya, on his part, published a retraction and apologized, saying that the fatwa was no more than a personal interpretation of a certain hadith [verse from the second most holy book of Islam], and furthermore, that the hadith in question relates a particular incident that occurred under specific constraints, and has no general applicability. However, Al-Azhar refused to accept his apology.

Oh, so you mean all these fatwah that are being written about jihad this and death to the infidels that are nothing more than personal interpretations? Opinions that might be withdrawn in the face of suspensions, investigations, pressure?

Then where are the moderate Muslims? Where are their suspensions and investigations of jihadist fatwah-writers; where is their pressuring for and end to the fatwahs that have made Islam the enemy of all peace-loving nations that happen to not fall prostrate before their sick religion?

Where indeed?

hat-tip: memeoranum