Does Islam prohibit entertainment? Are those playing football crazy and foolish people? Why do people have to "maneuver" and hide to watch football matches "in secret," out of fear of being killed or targeted by rulings which may threaten their lives? Does an extremist group have the right to impose its "tutelage" on a community and exercise lashing, beating and killing against it because it watched a football game? What is happening in Somalia during the World Cup season because of "a ball"? Does the Islamic world need more Takfiris who are trying to hijack the Islamic religion and turn it into hell over a piece of leather based on their own principles and criminal methods? In Somalia, a "frail," "weak" and quasi-"dead" government which is only controlling small parts of the capital Mogadishu is claiming to rule Somalia, while the Islamic groups are banning music, football and any form of entertainment. In Somalia, the people are living a life of disgrace and are being subjected to mass extermination by extremist groups, which are holding on to the peals and rejecting the principles and tolerance of the Islamic religion. Why would there be governments claiming legitimacy and power, if they are unable to contain the extremists and the rogue based on the laws of the state? It is a suspicious thing for extremist groups to exercise beating, whipping and maybe even killing against anyone watching the World Cup after it was prohibited by an extremist group in Somalia under the pretext that those who play football are "crazy men jumping up and down while chasing after an inflated object." The most famous modern study that the fatwas banning football relied on is the 40-page study of Abdullah al-Najadi that was published in 2003 and in which he banned football except when meeting odd restraints and conditions, namely the elimination of the "foul" or the "penalty" and the annulment of the "yellow and red cards." Al-Najadi's study also featured what he referred to as being the facts and history of football, in order to confirm its prohibition while attributing the related fatwas to "Wahhabism." In this context, I recall the story of the terrorist who was arrested by the Saudi Interior Ministry in 2003 during a raid conducted on an apartment in Al-Khalidiya district in the Holy Mecca. At the time, the security forces arrested a Chadian or Malian national nicknamed "Abu Abdullah al-Makki," whose real name was Abdul Hamid al-Tarawi. Before his arrest - as he was booby-trapping Korans and misleading children - the latter was a mosque speaker in Mecca who publicly banned football for being a Western product which distracted Muslims from their religion. In these current World Cup days, reports coming from Somalia are saying that football fans are undergoing a great predicament and a major threat, after they were prevented by Islamic movements from watching the World Cup games by force, a thing which reached the level of killing two among these "weak" viewers. There is no doubt that the fatwas banning football are not new and that most of them revolve around the proscription of football because it carries prohibitions as claimed by the "prohibitors," seeing how the Book Al-Durrar al-Sunniya' banned football due to the negative consequences its entails, namely in terms of imitation, leisure and gambling among others. In Saudi Arabia, the clerics allowed football but with restrictions, including the non-exposure of sensitive body parts and the non-distraction of the people from performing prayer. However, Sheikh Nacer al-Hanini previously issued a fatwa allowing the people to watch football based on the latter conditions, while recommending whoever asked him to quit watching football even if the latter conditions are available. Also, a couple of months ago, Dr. Youssef al-Ahmad issued a fatwa banning the dispatch of the children of Muslims to train in the Spanish Real Madrid Club because it entailed traveling to the countries of the unbelievers. There were no famous fatwas preventing football in certain Islamic countries, but on the other hand, a dispute erupted between Egyptian and Tunisian scholars over prostration on the field after scoring a goal. This was banned by Tunisian scholars but permitted by Egyptian scholars who considered it conveyed thanks to Allah, at a time when some Saudi scholars tend to ban it, describing it as being "offensive to Islam." Personally, I do not care much about football and the game does not mean anything to me. However, these fatwas and what is seen in Somalia and elsewhere in terms of the attempts to hijack religion by force, prove that the Islamic world is going through a "crisis" which will not stop at the prohibition of football or the extremism of one group. There is a much "deeper" problem in the presence of "stringent and politicized" minds trying to poison the simple people in the name of religion. In reality, they are "shallow minds" incapable of waking themselves up to think before issuing "booby-trapped" fatwas relying on accusations of infidelity and murder, amid the "silence" of the governments and the legitimate Islamic organizations.
