Moroccan Gov't Silences Influential Sheik

[Kanastrous]

RABAT, Morocco - Authorities have ordered the closure of dozens of schools and a Web site run by a Muslim religious leader who argued that girls as young as 9 could marry, local media reported Friday.

Sheik Mohammed Ben Abderahman al-Maghraoui had issued a fatwa, or religious ruling, on his Web site saying it was lawful for a Muslim man to marry a 9-year-old girl because Islam's Prophet Mohammed had done so.

Moroccan law, however, sets 18 as the minimum age for women to marry, and the Council of the Oulemas — the country's highest religious authority — denounced al-Maghraoui as an "agitator."

"What the Prophet can do is not open to ordinary Muslims," said lawyer Mourad El Bekkouri, who filed a legal complaint this month asking "the king's prosecutor to sue al-Maghraoui for promoting pedophilia and rape."

Government officials said at least three dozen Quranic schools would be shut, according to local media on Friday.

A Religion Ministry official has been fired in the southern town of Marrakech for not catching al-Maghraoui's contentious fatwa, the Al-Ahdath Al-Maghribiya newspaper reported.

None of the newspapers named their sources and Moroccan officials could not be reached Friday for comment. However the lawyer, El Bekkouri, confirmed the media reports.

Al-Maghraoui was not immediately available for comment, but his Web site appeared to be accessible from outside Morocco.

Several newspapers reported that al-Maghraoui's religious schools and his Web site were funded by Saudi Arabia, which promotes a particularly rigorous strain of Islam known as Wahhabism.

Morocco, which is a relatively tolerant Muslim country and a strong U.S.-ally, has been battling a growing tide of radical Islam in recent years. The North African kingdom has tried to balance its courtship of Western tourism with the expectations of traditionalist societies in its population.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26905531/



"What the Prophet can do is not open to ordinary Muslims" sort of sticks out, to me. Isn't Islam supposed to be an absolutely egalitarian religion? Isn't Muhammad depicted as a regular mortal man, not much different from other mortal men, whose significance lies in Allah's choice to communicate the Qu'ran through him...?

So much for emulating the life of the Prophet, I guess.

And, it doesn't say 'influential' in the text of the article, but I'm figuring that someone who operates dozens of Islamic schools in a Muslim nation, likely has some degree of influence.

[Kanastrous]

ghetto edit - Pretty cool that promoting the exact precise interchangeable same behavior as that attributed to your Prophet, is "promoting pedophilia and rape." Meaning, the Prophet engaged in pedophilia, and rape. Pretty strong stuff, coming from a Muslim government.

[DesertFly]

It's comforting that at least some semblance of sanity sustains itself some places. Of course, asking them to make the jump that

People who practice pedophilia are nasty people.
Our prophet was a pedophile.
Our prophet was a nasty person.

seems too much to ask, at least for now.

[KlavoHunter]

Way to go Morocco. A nation's good sense has enabled it to get rid of a harmful influence on society. Morocco's a bit more backbone-laden than some other countries that I can think of.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Morocco is basically caught in a theological Catch-22 like some other relatively progressive but officially Muslim states, which is that Koran pretty much intrinsically demands fundamentalist interpretation. The obvious explanation for the difference in standards is that Mohammad lived in a time and a culture where it was not that big a deal to fuck a nine-year old. It's reprehensible, of course, but people used to do some reprehensible shit. At around the same time the Merovingian King Clothar II tortured his aunt on the rack for three days and then tore her in half between a couple of horses, and while this was remarked upon it was not seriously criticized.

The problem is that the mainstream interpretation of the Koran is that it is literally and unalterably true, and exactly as true today as it was in the seventh century--in effect, a lot of imams will insist that morality hasn't changed since Mohammad was alive, and if it has, it shouldn't have. This is insane, but what can you do? I guess you say, "It's okay for the prophet to fuck a kid, but not for others".

[Kanastrous]

I guess the first part of the brain to go in believers, is whichever center supports one's ability to detect hypocrisy.