A new Fatwa in the United Arab Emirates forbids as desecration the use of Qur'anic verses as ring tones. The justification is that the telephone may ring in inappropriate places where such verses should not be heard and that if you answer your cell in the middle of the verse, people will not hear the whole verse which may distort its meaning.
Don't these concerns apply to playing Qur'anic verses in other public places? In a taxi, in a cassette store, in a coffee shop, on a university campus? on Radio, on TV?
Anyway, I had no idea people did that! I will never catch up with all these high tech gadgets! How frustrating.
4 comments:
Well, I see where they are coming from, and disagree with your comparison with playing quran in other places. Because when a taxi driver has quran on, he is listening to it, and when it is played on TV and on the Radio, whole verses are recited, it becomes the listeners responsibility to listen to the whole thing or not.
My only problem would be with people using the quran as background sound, while working/talking over it.
you address only one part of their justification--the fragmentation. But even that concern is applicable to the other locations mentioned: for instance, a woman walking to work hears a fragment of a verse playing from a store. Is it reasonable to expect her to stop to listen to the whole verse to avoid misinterpretation?
Similarly, and to extend your own reservation, isn't a taxi driver listening while working. He after all should be focused on the driving--that's his ethical responsibility--and his listening is secondary, i.e. "background." Also does this mean if the Qur'an is palying, passengers should be silent. Can they interrupt to say they want to get off?
What if someone does not understand Arabic or does not understand the Quran even though he or she understands Arabic, what if that person is attracted to the musicality of the recitations of Basset and not getting his way with the words and wants to enjoy the sounds while doing other things? But, anyhow, would it not just be empty piety to regulate how people should relate to the Quaran or to Islam or to anything, especially when it comes from a petty, proxy , and by all means the most Westernized government and country in the Gulf?
Ah, please!!!
ng
exactly my point, ng. I'm so tired of this orgy of fatwas, as if Muslims are infants who need to be guided every time they sneeze.
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