ankit

Does it say anywhere in the Quran that the earth is flat? I know that Sheik Abdel-Aziz Ibn Baaz declared a fatwa against anyone that believed in a round earth in 1993 but I can't find anything in the Quran that depicts a flat earth.

Boro Nut

Well, normally I would put my faith in years of scientific discovery, a large body of irrefutable facts and a mountain of easily testable proofs. But if Sheik Abdel-Aziz Ibn Baaz says it's flat then that's good enough for me.

Boro Nut

diana

I'm not sure. Surely it must imply it, or Sheik Whatever Ibn Something wouldn't be so certain of it.

Looks like the Muslims and the Xns and the Jews are in the Flat Earth boat together.

It also looks like this is in the wrong forum.

d

lpetrich

Quran-18:86: Till, when he (the traveler Zul-qarnain) reached the setting-place of the Sun, he found it going down into a muddy spring…

Quran- 18:90: Till, when he reached the rising-place of the Sun, he found it rising on a people for whom We had appointed no shelter from it.

Which suggests flat-earthism.

ankit

Thats not really a strong indication, i'm surprised a fatwa was issued over this.

Selsaral

I'm not. The last couple fatwas I remember being issued were over ridiculous things like western authors publishing books, and theatrical plays in london. These guys are so absurdly touchy that they advocate murdering people over the fact that their misunderstanding made them feel insulted. Obviously they love the idea of murdering people for simply talking ("I think the earth is round").

Aerik Von

Most Islams I know are generally tense and reactionary...this might be a trend due to the extremely tense nature of the laws/practice. Who knows?

bagong

A lot of Westerners seem to have an inaccurate impression of what a fatwa is. A fatwa has a very strict definition: it is a legal opinion based on Islamic law in response to a question, pronounced by a person trained in the principles of Usul-al-Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence).

Fatwas are issued when situations arise which are not explicitly dealt with in the Qu'ran and Ahadith. Example: Recent scientific advancements make cloning of animals possible. A pious Muslim will want to know whether this is permissible according to Islam, but as there is no explicit statement concerning the matter in the Qu'ran or Ahadith, s/he requires a fatwa from an Alim (scholar of Islamic jurisprudence). The Alim will use Ijtihad (reasoned interpretation of Qu'ran and Ahadith) in strict accordance with Usul-al-Fiqh to determine whether animal cloning is permissible under Islamic law. This-and only this-is considered a fatwa. The example I picked is a weighty moral issue, but the vast majority of fatwas concern trivial (for non-Muslims) issues like: Can a Muslim celebrate Valentine's Day, Does brushing your teeth break your fast during Ramadhan, etc. etc. etc.

The point is that Muslim clerics cannot just issue blanket death sentences whenever they feel like it. First, they must be trained at a university of Islamic jurisprudence (this rules out all of Osama's "fatwas"). Secondly, they must show why a particular action warrants a mandatory death sentence under Islamic law. For people living in an Islamic state, there are only 3 such cases: murder, adultery, and apostasy (the last one applies only to Muslims). Contrary to popular belief, there are *no* mandatory death sentences for non-Muslims living outside of Islamic states; at most an Alim can determine that their actions are sufficient grounds for declaring a state of war, which makes it permissible to kill enemy combatants.

In this case, the only possible way in which belief in a round earth could be subject to a mandatory death sentence is if it is considered a form of Irtidad (Apostasy). As Irtidad is already quite specifically defined as a direct denial of the existence of Allah, I see no way in which this could possibly be argued with sound use of Fiqh. Therefore, I highly doubt the authenticity of this "fatwa" (combined with the fact that all the references to this I found on the internet were from plainly anti-Islamic sources).

Disclaimer: I am not Muslim, I just come from a Muslim country and have some familiarity with Islamic law. I thought it would be helpful to clear up some misconceptions many non-Muslims have about fatwas; please don't interpret me as an Islamic apologist!

VonEvilstein

bagong,

I thank you for today's lesson. I leave this thread a wiser man. Considering that 70% of the population in my my part of town is Muslim, I consider becoming better informed about their culture and traditions to be a Good Thing.

Shake

bagong said:The disclaimer is largely unnecessary. For many of us here, the IIDB is a place to learn about other belief systems and clear up misconceptions that we may have. I commend and applaud you for this informative post! Like VonEvilstein, I've learned something today that I didn't know. I had a vague notion of what a fatwa was, but now have some good clarification so that I can now talk about them intelligently, and correctly!

Thanks!