| Submit your comments on this article |
| Arabia |
| Top Saudi clerics rebuff outspoken religious cop |
| 2010-04-29 |
| Saudi Arabia's top Islamic rule-makers reiterated on Wednesday that Muslims should pray in congregation in mosques. The clerics rebuffed an outspoken religious police official who nearly lost his job for saying that praying alone is fine. The Standing Committee for Scientific Research and Issuing Fatwas Scientific research AND fatwas? weighed in on the controversy over prayer sparked last week by Sheikh Ahmed al-Ghamdi, the reformist head of the religious police, or muttawa. The committee cited Islamic tradition and texts to argue that congregational prayer in a mosque is a must, saying that even in a town with only three men, they must pray together, the official SPA news agency reported. “These days some newspapers publish articles by some authors who brush aside the importance of group prayer in the mosque,' the committee of top clerics said in remarks carried by the SPA. “There is no doubt that it is obligatory to follow the evidence from the Koran and the Sunnah which both call for group prayer in a mosque,' they said. In an interview last week, Ghamdi had said Muslim men were not obligated to undertake the prayers in congregations, in or outside mosques. That outraged the country's highest cleric Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh and within two days the president of the religious police — whose cops have the duty to press men to attend prayers — announced Ghamdi had been replaced. However, the announcement was mysteriously revoked hours later, with newspapers reporting that there was high-level intervention in the case. Ghamdi also made news arguing that there was no foundation in Islamic law for Saudi rules banning mixing by unrelated men and women — another key enforcement role of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, or religious police. Debate over the issue has heated up ever since King Abdullah opened a new science research university in September that allows an international body of students and professors to freely mix. Tightly restricted entry to the campus near Jeddah ensures few Saudis witness it, and the virtue-and-vice commission's enforcers are not allowed to enter. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #1 Yeah. You need to be here five times a day so we can keep tabs on ya. And,and, if you pray alone, you might get some nutty ideas. |
| Posted by: Mullah Moola 2010-04-29 15:08 |