Middle East Focus: Reckless Fatwas and Class Warfare

Arabia Deserta

Reckless Fatwas and Class Warfare

“Several Saudi teachers have protested a fatwa issued by a professor of Islamic Studies that bans a female teacher from marrying her driver (chauffeur). Shaikh Najmi said that the marriages are done for benefit only since the teachers need the men to drive them to their places of work and they cannot drive, take public transport, walk, or call a taxi. Apparently some teachers develop affection with these drivers and some marry them. As husbands the men can then drive the wmen to work without a problem…..“

"Abu (…..) said that many teachers fear that they will get pat the marrying age, and hence are willing to marry the nearest man……

“An angry teacher retorted that’I married my husband legally, and we get along, so should I divorce him because of this fatwa?........Um Fahd plans to marry her son, who is a driver, to a teacher, complains that ‘are we now untouchables in our own country?’….Her son Fahd the driver said that his job is honest and he doesn’t care about these individual fatwas.”

So: “…Shaikh Najmi said that the marriages are done for benefit only since…”: and I had thought these dour polygamist shaikhs frowned upon love and affection as a factor for marriage. I bet they are against dating as well!

I have seen many fatwas by these shaikhs. Many of them are sectarian, tribal, and oligarch-serving, among others. In fact most of them are downright oligarch-kissing enough to remind one how independent the Orthodox Church in Tsarist Mother Russia was in comparison. There has always been a degree of class distinction element in these various fatwas, but this one is more overt.
Cheers
mhg
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