Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Saudi Arabia Puts the Breaks on Fatwas

Remember that advice your mother used to give you? That’s right, don’t open your mouth unless you’ve got something nice to say.

These days, it looks like Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah is taking a maternal role when it comes to some of the country’s more virulent Islamic clerics. In order to curb what are seen as misguided fatwas, the Los Angeles Times reports, a royal decree issued last week says that religious edicts can only be announced by “Saudi clergy approved by King Abdullah.”

In the eyes of royal authority, some fatwas issued by Saudi clerics — on the fringe and in the mainstream — threaten to undermine the country’s social and religious order. In one edict, Sheikh Abdel Mohsen Obeikan, a royal adviser, said that for unrelated men and women to socialize in public, the man must drink the woman’s breast milk so as to “establish a maternal bond.”

Authorities quickly removed Obeikan’s radio program, “Fatwas on Air,” from the airwaves.

Less unusual, but more relevant, was a fatwa calling for a boycott of Panda, a major Mideast supermarket chain, because it employs women. The fatwa may have angered some in the business sector, the Times article speculates, prompting its denunciation.

This all seems to be part of a larger effort to reign in imams who deliver unwieldy and incoherent sermons.

“The impact of the sermon is not measured by its length but by the eloquent, concise and precise wording,” said one official cleric. “Imams should refrain from flowery and bombastic language and delve directly into the core of their sermon.”

Since King Abdullah is generally recognized as a secular voice, what his ruling means for public Islamic discourse in Saudi Arabia remains to be seen.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.