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What's the story?
A Lucknow cleric from an Islamic seminary has issued a fatwa which says that Muslim women should not watch men play football with bare knees.
In case you didn't know...
Darul Uloom Deoband is Asia's largest Sunni Islamic school located in North India at Deoband, a town in the Saharanpur district in Uttar Pradesh.
A fatwa is a ruling on a point of Islamic law that has been given by a recognized authority in the Islamic community. The Darul Uloom Deoband school has been in news earlier concerning the issue of controversial fatwas during the past years.
The heart of the matter
A high-level cleric from Darul Uloom Deoband, a Sunni Islamic seminary from Deoband in Saharanpur, Uttar Prades has created controversy after he issued a fatwa that deemed Muslim women watching men play football as un-Islamic.
Mufti Athar Kasmi, the cleric in question said that Muslim women watching men 'playing with bare knees' violates the tenets of the Islamic faith.
"Muslim women shouldn't watch men play in shorts as it violates the tenets of Islam as a religion, they should not watch Men baring their knees as it is blasphemy."
What's next?
The fatwa issued by the cleric has been met with stringent criticism from people all around India.
Author's take
Kasmi's fatwa comes to the forefront in India even as Saudi Arabia has allowed their women to watch matches in the football stadiums after decades of regressive restrictions for women in the middle-east Asian country.
In fact, Saudi women attended a clash between Saudi Premier League clubs Al-Ahli and Al-Batin in the city of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.
It is shocking that in such a day and age, a cleric can issue such a fatwa but then again, a fatwa is a religious opinion or interpretation and it is not binding.
