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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 21 - 27 September 2000 Issue No. 500 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 21 - 27 September 2000 Issue No. 500
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Elections Development Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Special Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Secondary smoking conundrum
By Nadia Abou El-MagdA fatwa (or religious ruling), issued recently by Egypt's Grand Mufti, Sheikh Nasr Farid Wassel, has raised quite a few eyebrows, while pitting the mufti against Islam's other top religious authority in the country, the Sheikh of Al-Azhar.
The controversial fatwa considers smoking, as much as alcohol drinking and drug taking, to be among al-Kaba'er, or major sins, prohibited by Islam. As such, the Mufti has ruled that a spouse's smoking is sufficient ground for divorce. The husband's right to divorce is unrestrained under Islamic law, which makes women the real potential beneficiaries of the fatwa.
According to Wassel, who issued the fatwa at the request of an anti-smoking group, there is no doubt that "a person who is addicted to alcohol, drugs or smoking harms his wife and children and squanders money by buying these religiously forbidden substances, and it should be taken into consideration that divorce will not cause greater or even equal harm," said Wassel.
For his part, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Sheikh Mohamed Sayed Tantawi believes smoking cigarettes or water-pipes is a choice that should be made by the two spouses. He said it is up to the judge to decide whether a husband's smoking habit is a valid reason for the wife to gain divorce. And while a Muslim man has the right to divorce his wife without giving reason, "he would bear the religious responsibility before God and moral responsibility before his family and society. Divorce is not a game," Tantawi told Al-Ahram Weekly.
The anti-smoking edict is the latest of Wassel's controversial fatwas. Earlier, he was quoted by newspapers as saying that smoking is more haram (sinful) than alcohol, presumably because it harms other people.
Islam forbids alcohol drinking, considering it a major sin, but there is no mention in the Qur'an of smoking or drug use -- tobacco and drugs being unknown at the advent of Islam. The fatwa committee of Al-Azhar issued its first anti-smoking fatwa in 1977: "Having established with all certainty the harm that smoking causes to health, such as lung and throat cancer, in addition to its financial harm; therefore, smoking is haram."
Wassel
Tantawi
Islamic scholars who hold that smoking and drug use are also forbidden in Islam subscribe to the belief that the religion bans alcohol because of its equally negative effects on the mind and general health.
Sheikh Tantawi thinks otherwise. "I don't agree. No sensible man would ever say that smoking is more harmful than alcohol, which is one of the major sins in Islam," Tantawi told the Weekly.
Last year, Wassel won an award from the World Health Organisation (WHO) for his anti-smoking fatwas and efforts. Despite campaigns by anti-smoking groups and the Health Ministry, 13 million Egyptians smoke 85 billion cigarettes annually, burning LE2 billion in the air.
According to Health Ministry statistics, smokers, half of them under the age of 16, increase by nine per cent annually. Official figures show that 40 per cent of Egyptian men and eight per cent of women smoke. The Egyptian family spends five per cent of its income on smoking, two per cent on medical care and 1.2 per cent on entertainment.
Wassel and Tantawi disagree on more than one issue. Last year, the Mufti stated that a woman who was a rape victim is entitled to undergo surgery "to regain her virginity." The Sheikh of Al-Azhar disagreed, saying this would be cheating. Female circumcision is another thorny issue the two men do not see eye-to-eye on.
Wassel was appointed Grand Mufti in 1996, replacing Tantawi who had served in the post for 10 years. Dar El-Iftaa (the Mufti's headquarters) was established in 1895 and has issued around five million fatwas since.
Sheikh Abdel-Moeti Bayyoumi, dean of the Faculty of Religion Fundamentals at Al-Azhar University and one of the sheikhs who provide religious counsel on an Islamic telephone service, said, "Smoking is not a reason for divorce. This is ijtihad (discretionary interpretation) by the Mufti, and Islamic jurisprudence is full of ijtihad."
