Tuesday, January 16, 2007
So, first there was the inane banning of Pokemon -the banning of pet dogs -and now another in the barrage of preposterous fatwas forthcoming from the "Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice".
"...The letter "X" soon may be banned in Saudi Arabia because it resembles the mother of all banned religious symbols in the oil kingdom: the cross.
The commission's damning of the letter "X" came in response to a Ministry of Trade query about whether it should grant trademark protection to a Saudi businessman for a new service carrying the English name "Explorer."
"No! Nein! Nyet!" was the commission's categorical answer. Why?
Well, never mind that none of the so-called scholars manning the upper ranks of the religious outfit can speak or read a word of English. But their experts who examined the English word "explorer" were struck by how suspicious that "X" appeared. In a kingdom where Friday preachers routinely refer to Christians as pigs and infidel crusaders, even a twisted cross ranks as an abomination." (source)
Of course none of these compare to the 1974 fatwa that "declared the world was flat and immobile".
I guess the Nation of Islam members won't be traveling to Mecca anytime soon...