My friend Andrew McCarthy just sent me an amusing news item from Al Arabiya. The humor, I hasten to add, is entirely inadvertent. Do you, like the current President of the United States, spend a lot of time thinking about “going green”? Do you long for a smaller carbon footprint the way some women long for smaller waistlines? If so, you doubtless champion vehicles powered by ethanol and other “bio fuels.” I hate to introduce a fly into that ointment, but according to Al Arabiya, the prophet Mohammed may frown upon such sanctimonious expedients. It’s the alcohol, you see: he didn’t like the stuff, and didn’t want you to, either. Hence this little causerie:
A prominent Saudi scholar warned youths studying abroad of using ethanol or other fuel that contains alcohol in their cars since they could be committing a sin, local press reported Thursday.
Sheikh Mohamed Al-Najimi, member of the Saudi Islamic Jurisprudence Academy, based his statement on a saying by the prophet that prohibited all kinds of dealings with alcohol including buying, selling, carrying, serving, drinking, and manufacturing, the Saudi newspaper Shams reported Thursday.
Saudi and Muslim youth studying abroad would violate the prohibition if they used bio fuel, he said, since it “is basically made up of alcohol.”
Oh dear. You’ll be happy to hear, however, that the thoughtful Majimi “stressed that his statement should not be considered an official fatwa, but is rather a personal opinion.”
Funniest line in the piece: ” He noted that this is an important issue that needs to be studied by the relevant religious bodies.” The relevant psychiatric bodies is more like it.
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