Sharia is not fun

Haider Ala Hamoudi, Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Pittsburgh, is criticizing the many fatwa's of salafi Muslims that seem to aim at taking any join out of life. Watching Mickey Mouse is haraam, the eating of certain deserts, flying kites... is Islam against joy in life?

Hamoudi considers the fatwa's 'mostly for vulgar entertainment value (it really can be funny how ridiculous some of these things get, it's my version of Jerry Springer to look through them), but I've sort of noticed a pattern'. What is the pattern? According to Hamoudi:

If I might proffer a simple, additional reason that some of this might be coming about is that for the most part, the Islamist resistance is filled with angry and frustrated people, in many cases very extreme ideologues, who don't really think very highly of fun, as might be said of ideologues the world over, whether Marxists or abortion doctor killers or whoever. To them, the world is serious business, not to be laughed at, and ideas in their purity meant to prevail. The notion that their ideas aren't entirely consistent in application (it's the world, they never will be, when you try to force the world into the consistent idea, it usually ends pretty badly) engenders a furious reaction. They don't believe it, they insist it is consistent, and pure, and comprehensive and absolute.

Interesting reading - and funny because of the examples Hamoudi uses. Read more on his website. For this very article by Hamoudi, see HERE.