Pokemon Go has become a rage across the world including Middle-East. No wonder, it has now attracted the attention of clerics. 16 years ago, Clerics from General Presidency for Scholarly Research and Ifta in Saudi Arabia had issued fatwa against Pokemon. As per the clerics, Pokemon game encourages gambling, which is forbidden in Islam. This fatwa has been renewed now. As per the clerics, the new Pokemon Go game promotes Polytheism, gambling and evolution, hence it should be banned. They have called on the Muslims to stop playing Pokemon Go.

pokemon

(Screenshot of ArabNews.com, taken on 20th July 2016).

People across the world are mocking the fatwa. For majority of the Muslims, the headlines (or news) about a fatwa to a silly game has come as a surprise and many of them feel let down by the clerics, who keep on threatening them with fatwas.

Why Muslims feel their Clerics are letting them down?

It’s time for Muslims to seriously have a conversation with their clerics. Here are few reasons why Muslims feel their clerics are letting them down:

  1. One of the fundamental premise in Islam is the superiority of Humans over all other creations of God. God asked all the angels to bow down before Adam, to establish the superiority of human beings.  So, when the clerics claim that Muslims can get influenced towards polytheism by a fictional game, it really undermines the power granted to Human beings by the God itself within the framework of Islam. It’s like clerics are saying, while Allah might have called Human beings as the most superior among all creations, but we believe that Muslims are dumb enough to get influenced by a fictional game, so let’s issue a fatwa against the game.
  2. Muslims genuinely believe that they are mature enough to understand the difference between theory and real scientific fact. A theory is our best probable guess about a natural phenomenon or occurrence, whereas a scientific fact (or theorem) is an actual proven statement via experiment and observation.  Darwin’s theory of evolution is a THEORY. The name itself makes it explicitly clear that it’s a theory. There is absolutely no point in getting over agitated or worked-up regarding a theory that is in contradiction with Islam. Islam’s Holy Book (The Quran) makes an explicit challenge to entire mankind to prove any of the verse wrong or accept that it’s truthful.  As a Muslim, one must believe with 100% confidence that, every verse is truthful and shouldn’t get insecure about the advances of Science and Technology. Ultimately, science and technology accepts only those statements, which are proven through experimentation and observation. So, Muslim clerics must have patience with science and technology.
  3. Muslims across the world feel that clerics are making Islam a very complicated religion, whereas Islam itself claims that, it’s a simple and easy religion. By making Islam appear complicated, the clerics are going against verses of Holy Quran and Hadith.
  4. Muslims across the world believe fatwas must be issued on extremely significant issues such as Terrorism, Women Empowerment, Gay rights, etc. However, the authority is being misused by clerics by giving fatwas on irrelevant topics such as Pokemon Go and WhatsApp. Every month, the press covers absurd fatwas issued by some random Muslim clerics and the Muslims across the world have to face the humiliation of giving explanation of such absurd fatwas to non-Muslims.

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