These stories are not recent. However they do illustrate that on any given day, in any given month of any given year, one can find the ridiculousness that can be found in obsessive Islam. They remind me of the stories of the woman who found a message from Allah in her rotted mango, the Quranic script found on zucchini leaves by Imams in California and the complaint initiated by a Muslim in Canada over a Dairy Queen soft-serve tip-swirl which resembled some holy something in some Islamic text. You might as well laugh as cry.
From the Stupid Muslim Tricks file.
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Iran: Artist gets five year jail term for musical Koran
Tehran, 13 July (AKI) – An Iranian artist has been sentenced to five years in prison for having put the Koran to music. According to ‘Fardanews’, the Iranian authorities considered the move “offensive to Islamic morality”.
Mohsen Namju is accused of having ridiculed the Koran, “reciting it in a western and anti-Islamic style”.
One of the major experts on recitation of the the Koran in Iran, Abbas Salimi, reported the musician to the Islamic court in Tehran.
The court found the artist guilty for having breached “Islamic morality”.
After the sentence, Abbas Salimi was reportedly “very satisfied” and underlined the importance of “defending the sacredness of god’s book”.
“No-one should be able to ridicule it,” he said.
Under Islamic law, music is allowed if it does not result in provoking the faithful.
Combining the recitation of the Koran and popular songs, like the Iranian artist, is not tolerated under Islamic Sharia law.
Religion
UAE: ‘God’ shoes confiscated for breaking Islamic law
Dubai, 23 July (AKI) – A large quantity of women’s shoes have been confiscated from a shop by the inspection and customer protection section of the United Arab Emirate’s department of economic development because they had the word God, or Allah, printed on them.
Dubai-based daily Gulf News, reported the confiscation on Thursday and said the head of the department said that the shop where the seizure took place is one of the Emirate’s biggest fashion showrooms specialising in selling women’s shoes.
The official said they confiscated the shoes and issued a fine against the store after receiving multiple complaints from the public.
The deputy director of the economic development department, Hamad al-Shamsi, said that other legal measures will be taken against the shop for infringement of the Islamic moral code.
Al-Shamsi said that their action follows Article 10 of the so-called Violations and Fines List. The article says that the department will punish and impose fines to all those who sell or display publicly products that can directly violate the decency code or Islamic regulations.
This is not the first instance with the printing of Allah on shoewear.
In 1997, the sportswear company Nike was forced to recall a pair of basketball shoes because of a symbol on the back that accidentally resembled that of the Arabic script for Allah.
Nike later apologised after realising what they had done.
Printing God, or Allah, on shoes is considered morally wrong because in the Muslim faith the sole of the shoe is the most unclean part of an unclean object and shoes are considered ritually unclean.