A growing trend among Muslim cell phone owners is the use of verses from the Quran or the Muslim prayer call for ringtones. The Grand Mufti of Egypt and the country‘s highest religious legal authority, Mufti Ali Gomaa, is denouncing the use of Muslim prayer or verses from the Quran as cell phone ringtones. Mr. Gomma says, “ It trivializes the word of God and violates the sanctity of the divine words.” The Grand Mufti issued a fatwa, Islamic religious ruling, about the religious ringtones after he received inquiries regarding its appropriateness.
The Arabic and Muslim new site Al Arabiya quoted the fatwa saying, “Picking up the phone is sure to interrupt the verse and this is disrespectful to the holy book. Prayer calls should not be used as ringtones because it might confuse people and make them believe it was actually time for prayer.”
I found this blog from the Wall Street Journal interesting because I think as a culture we tend to take for granted the freedoms we have, especially pertaining to First Amendment rights. Obviously other countries and cultures don’t exercise these same rights. And while it might not be in good taste to quote bible excerpts as cell phone ringers, we can still do it.
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/01/22/a-fatwa-against-muslim-prayer-ringtones/?mod=
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