A fatwa on football

The legal opinions proclaimed by Islamic scholars, known as fatwas, have proliferated in the Muslim world since the 1980s. The growth in fatwas - some of them contradictory - has led to debate over who can legitimately issue them. As part of a government drive to eliminate frivolous fatwas, the Saudi newspaper Al Watan recently published one such edict setting out new rules for football. We publish an edited translation below.

1. International terminology that heretics use, such as "foul," "penalty", "corner," "goal", "out" and others, should be abandoned and not said. Whoever says them should be punished and ejected from the game.

2. Do not call "foul" and stop the game if someone falls and sprains a hand or foot or the ball touches his hand, and do not give a yellow or red card to whoever was responsible for the injury or tackle. Instead, it should be adjudicated according to Sharia rulings concerning broken bones and injuries.

3. Do not follow the heretics, the Jews, the Christians and especially evil America regarding the number of players. Do not play with 11 people. Add to this number or decrease it.

4. Play in your regular clothes or your pyjamas or something like that, but not coloured shorts and numbered T-shirts, because shorts and T-shirts are not Muslim clothing. Rather, they are heretical and western clothing, so beware of imitating their fashion.

5. If you have fulfilled these conditions and intend to play soccer, play to strengthen the body in order better to struggle in the way of God on high and to prepare the body for when it is called to jihad. Soccer is not for passing time or the thrill of so-called victory.

6. Do not play in two halves. Rather, play in one half or three halves in order to completely differentiate yourselves from the heretics, the corrupted and the disobedient.

7. If neither of you beats the other, or "wins", as it is called, and neither puts the leather between the posts, do not add extra time or penalties. Instead leave the field, because winning with extra time and penalty kicks is the pinnacle of imitating heretics and international rules.

8. Young crowds should not gather to watch when you play because if you are there for the sake of sports and strengthening your bodies as you claimed, why would people watch you? You should make them join your physical fitness and jihad preparation, or you should say: "Go proselytise and seek out morally reprehensible acts in the markets and the press and leave us to our physical fitness."

9. You should spit in the face of whoever puts the ball between the posts or uprights and then runs in order to get his friends to follow him and hug him like players in America or France do, and you should punish him, for what is the relationship between celebrating, hugging and kissing and the sports that you are practising?

10. You should use two posts instead of three pieces of wood or steel that you erect in order to put the ball between them, meaning that you should remove the crossbar in order not to imitate the heretics and in order to be entirely distinct from the soccer system's despotic international rules.

11. Do not do what is called "substitution," that is, taking the place of someone who has fallen, because this is a practice of the heretics in America and elsewhere.

Islam, the second greatest lie Satan ever told.

------
So in summary we conclude this section with a final review of the many startling similarities that exist between the biblical narrative of the last-days and the Islamic narrative of the same period.

· Bible: The Antichrist is an unparalleled political, military and religious leader that will that emerge in the last-days.

· Islam: The Mahdi is an unparalleled political, military and religious leader that will emerge in the last-days.

· Bible: the False Prophet is a secondary prominent figure that will emerge in the last-days who will support the Antichrist.

· Islam: the Muslim Jesus is a secondary prominent figure that will emerge in the last-days to support the Mahdi.

· Bible: The Antichrist and the False Prophet together will have a powerful army that will do great damage to the earth in an effort to subdue every nation and dominate the World.

· Islam: The Mahdi and the Muslim Jesus will have a powerful army that will attempt to control every nation of the earth and dominate the World.

· Bible: The False Prophet is described essentially as a dragon in lamb’s clothing.

· Islam: The Muslim Jesus literally comes bearing the name of the one that the world knows as “The Lamb of God: Jesus Christ.” Yet the Muslim Jesus comes to murder all those who do not submit to Islam.

· Bible: The Antichrist and the False Prophet establish a New World Order.

· Islam: The Mahdi and the Muslim Jesus establish a New World Order.

· Bible: The Antichrist and the False Prophet institute new laws for the whole earth.

· Islam: The Mahdi and the Muslim Jesus institute Islamic law all over the earth.

· Bible: The Antichrist is said to “change the times.”

· Islam: It is quite certain that if the Mahdi established Islam all over the earth, he would discontinue the use of Saturday and Sunday as the weekend or days of rest but rather Friday, the holy day of Islam. Also, he would most certainly eliminate the Gregorian calendar (A.D.), and replace it with the Islamic calendar (A. H.) as is used in every Islamic country.

· Bible: The Antichrist and the False Prophet will both be powerful religious leaders who will attempt to institute a universal world religion.

· Islam: The Mahdi and the Muslim Jesus will institute Islam as the only religion in the earth.

· Bible: The Antichrist and the False Prophet will execute anyone who does not submit to their world religion.

· Islam: Likewise, the Mahdi and the Muslim Jesus will execute anyone who does not submit to Islam.

· Bible: The Antichrist and the False Prophet will specifically use beheading as the primary means of execution for non-conformists.

· Islam: The Mahdi and the Muslim Jesus will use the Islamic practice of beheading for executions.

· Bible: The Antichrist and the False Prophet will have a specific agenda to kill as many Jews as possible.

· Islam: The Mahdi and the Muslim Jesus will kill as many Jews as is possible until only a few are left hiding behind rocks and trees.

· Bible: The Antichrist and the False Prophet will attack to conquer and seize Jerusalem.

· Islam: The Mahdi and the Muslim Jesus will attack to re-conquer and seize Jerusalem for Islam.

· Bible: The Antichrist will set himself up in the Jewish temple as his seat of authority.

· Islam: The Mahdi will establish the Islamic Caliphate from Jerusalem.

· Bible: The False Prophet is said to do many miracles to deceive as many as possible into supporting the Antichrist.

· Islam: The Mahdi himself is said to control the weather and the crops. His face is said to glow. We can also assume that since Jesus is viewed as having been empowered by Allah to work miracles when he was here on earth the first time, he will most likely be expected to continue to do so when he returns.

· Bible: The Antichrist is described as riding on a white horse in the Book of Revelation

· Islam: The Mahdi is described as riding on a white horse (ironically from the same verse).

· Bible: The Antichrist is said to make a peace treaty with Israel for seven years.

· Islam: The Mahdi is said to make a peace treaty through a Jew (specifically a Levite) for exactly seven years.

· Bible: Jesus the Jewish Messiah will return to defend the Jews in Israel from a military attack from a vast coalition of nations led by the Antichrist and the False Prophet.

· Islam: The Dajjal, the Islamic Antichrist will gain a great Jewish following and claim to be Jesus Christ and fight against the Mahdi and the Muslim Jesus.

· Bible: The antichrist spirit specifically denies the most unique and central doctrines of Christianity, namely the trinity, the incarnation and the substitutionary death of Jesus on the cross.

· Islam: Islam doctrinally and spiritually specifically denies the most unique and central doctrines of Christianity, namely the trinity, the incarnation and the substitutionary death of Jesus on the cross.

· Bible: The primary warning of Jesus and the Apostle Paul was to warn Christians of the abundance of deceit and deception in the last-days.

· Islam: Islam is perhaps the only religion in the earth that practices deceit as one of its tools to assist its own ascendancy. It actually has a specific doctrine which allows and even calls for deception to be used to achieve its desired end.

· Bible: The specific nations pictured in the Bible as being part of the final empire of the Antichrist are all Islamic nations.

· Islam: All Muslims are commanded to give their allegiance to The Mahdi as the final Caliph and Imam (leader) of Islam.

· Bible: From the Bible and History we learn that the final Antichrist empire will be a revived version of the Empire that succeeds the Roman Empire

· Islam: The Empire that succeeded the Roman/Byzantine Empire was the Islamic Ottoman Empire

· Bible: When Antichrist emerges, there will already be some form of system in place that will be poised to receive him as a Savior and to give allegiance to him.

· Islam is already the second largest religion and will at present growth rates become the largest religion within a few decades. Islam is awaiting the coming of the Mahdi with a universal anticipation.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.