Fatwa

Re "A Call for Assassination Brings a Cry of Outrage," Aug. 24 The Bush administration calls televangelist Pat Robertson's call for assassination of the Venezuelan president "inappropriate." No, its non-condemnation is "inappropriate"; Robertson's statement is criminal. Or maybe this administration doesn't have a problem with religious leaders who advocate murder. KEN NARASAKI Venice Might the Federal Communications Commission investigate Robertson's "warmongering malfunction" with the same fervor it investigated Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction"?

Re "A welcome fatwa," editorial, Aug. 2 Muslims have been condemning all acts of terrorism -- either in the name of Islam or otherwise -- before and since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and it is very frustrating to always be accused of not condemning terrorism or not condemning it enough. Thank you for drawing attention to the many anti-terror/anti-violence fatwas that have been issued here and abroad. One of the problems that Muslims in the U.S. still face is wider access to the media, but hopefully this new initiative is successful in reaching more of the general public.

The surgeon general of the United States has hit the American people with a public health bombshell: Being too fat can be bad for your health. David Satcher vows that he will launch a campaign against girth that is equivalent to the one the office launched in 1964 against smoking. Annually, 300,000 Americans die because of obesity, he tells us. Tommy Thompson, secretary of Health and Human Services, has chimed in with a request that all Americans--as their patriotic duty--lose 10 pounds.

A second prominent Saudi religious leader has renounced militancy and attacks against innocent people during an interview aired on state-run TV Saturday. Nasser Fahd made his remarks four days after Ali Khudair also reversed his fatwas -- or religious edicts -- promoting violence.

Indonesia's most powerful Islamic scholars weren't looking for a debate when they handed down their latest fatwas on how to be a good Muslim. But they still got an argument and, perhaps worse, a chorus of "Who cares?" after decreeing that it is haram, or forbidden, to smoke in public, or for children and pregnant women to have a puff of tobacco anywhere. It didn't matter that the clerics were providing sound health guidance.

The Mississippi-based American Family Assn. last week issued a fatwa against Gap Inc. -- the retailing giant whose brands include Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic -- calling for a "two-month boycott over the company's failure to use the word 'Christmas' in its advertising to Christmas shoppers." The War on Christmas season has officially begun. Gap "does not use the word 'Christmas' to avoid offending those who don't embrace its meaning," writes Buddy Smith, executive assistant to the president of the AFA, on the organization's website.

BEIRUT -- The embattled Syrian government took the unusual step Wednesday of denying reports that young men were being grabbed at checkpoints and drafted into the army as part of a new general call for military conscription. The official news service also dismissed suggestions that almost two years of fighting an internal rebellion had eroded the capabilities of Syria's once imposing military, which has suffered heavy casualties and mass desertions. The Syrian military is at its “highest levels of readiness and capability, and [is]

ON JULY 6, 170 of the world's leading Muslim clerics and scholars gathered in Amman, Jordan, where, in an unprecedented display of inter-sectarian collaboration, they issued a joint fatwa denouncing all acts of terrorism committed in the name of Islam. Never before had representatives of every major sect and school of law in Islam assembled as a single body, much less addressed issues of mutual concern.

It was to be Britain's biggest, most prestigious TV drama production of 1998, a lavish five-part serial based on a novel widely agreed to be among the finest written in the latter half of this century. A massive 110 speaking parts had been cast. The first sets were already built, and cameras were due to start rolling on Jan. 26 for four months of filming. Tentative broadcast dates had been set for October or November. It isn't going to happen. Indeed, it may never happen.

Political infighting blocked lawmakers from opening debate Wednesday on legislation to oversee the oil industry as Iraqi and U.S. leaders used the Fourth of July holiday to call for reconciliation among Iraq's feuding factions. An influential group of Sunni Muslim clerics, the Assn. of Muslim Scholars, joined the fray surrounding the oil bill Wednesday by issuing a fatwa, or religious edict, forbidding legislators to vote for it.