WORLD'S STUPIDEST FATWAS from the Foreign Policy list. Here's one:

Pokémon

Who: Saudi Arabia’s Higher Committee for Scientific Research and Islamic Law

What: Denouncing the lovable Japanese cartoon characters as having “possessed the minds” of Saudi youngsters, Saudi Arabia’s highest religious authority banned Pokémon video games and cards in the spring of 2001. Not only do Saudi scholars believe that Pokémon encourages gambling, which is forbidden in Islam, but it is apparently a front for Israel as well. The fatwa’s authors claimed that Pokémon games include, “the Star of David, which everyone knows is connected to international Zionism and is Israel’s national emblem.” Religious authorities in the United Arab Emirates joined in, condemning the games for promoting evolution, “a Jewish-Darwinist theory that conflicts with the truth about humans and with Islamic principles,” but didn’t ban them outright. Even the Catholic Church in Mexico got into the act, calling Pokémon video games “demonic.”

Funny, they don't look Jewish...

The evolution angle is interesting though. In an article in The New York Times, Biologist Kenneth Miller describes a book against evolutionary theory that the Muslim author is sending to scientists:

That’s troubling, he said, because Mr. Yahya’s ideas “cast evolution as part of the corrupting influence of the West on Islamic culture, and that promotes a profound anti-science attitude that is certainly not going to help the Islamic world catch up to the West.”

Then again, 'catch up' is not exactly what many of them have in mind.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Pokemon and Fatwas and Creationism and Islam and Evolution and Darwin.