“A fatwa (religious edict) against “all you can eat” buffets by a Saudi cleric has stirred debate among users of social networking site Twitter. The cleric, Saleh al-Fawzan, recently issued a fatwa through a kingdom-based Quranic TV station prohibiting open buffets, saying that the value and quantity of what is sold should be pre-determined before it is purchased. “Whoever enters the buffet and eats for 10 or 50 riyals without deciding the quantity they will eat is violating Sharia (Islamic) law,” said Fawzan on al-Atheer channel. Using the Twitter hashtag “prohibiting-open-buffet” …………”
Shaikh Saleh al-Fawzan is usually an outspoken cleric. It was a matter of time before he came up with a new doozy.
No more buffet. The Wahhabi cleric bases his ban fatwa on a technical point. It is purely scientific but in a Wahhabi way, perhaps based on old usury laws. I imagine the Mufti, the chief mufti Shaikh Al Shaikh, is royally pissed, in a Wahhabi sort of way. Doing a V-8: slapping his forehead with the heel of his hand: “Now why didn’t I think of that?” If this stands: no more all you can eat in Riyadh and Burayda and even in Mecca where the more privileged five-star and seven-star pilgrims like to tuck it in between bouts of spiritual piety. No more shoveling it in, even if you are at a 7-star hotel and hence closer to God than others. Which can be a good healthy thing. Of course some rude glutton might complain that ‘it is none of his fucking business‘, but not me. Freedom of Fatwa is guaranteed in the kingdom, even if nothing else is.
On the other hand, and more ominously, expect more. Expect the unexpected. Next to be fatwa-d into oblivion are the famous happy hours of Riyadh. Without the money-making Happy Hours, the famous watering holes from Najd to Hijaz to the Empty Quarter will go out of business. It is a good thing they don’t have any Hooters other than owls and some local singers in the kingdom……….
Cheers
mhg