Fatwa against yoga under fire in Egypt

A recent edict by the Egypt's highest religious authority forbidding yoga, is intolerant and damages Islam's name, according to Muslim scholars and writers.

"Yoga is a philosophy like any other philosophy. It has nothing to do with Hinduism," said Manae Abdul Halim, a professor of Islamic theology.

"Prohibiting it is yet another sign of our cultural stagnation and isolationism," he told Gulf News.

Answering a question, Gar Fatwa (House of Fatwas), Egypt's highest religious institution, said the yoga was an un-Islamic 'aberration'.

"Yoga is an ascetic Hindu practice, which should not be adopted as a sport or a worship," reads the fatwa (religious edict) of the Gar Fatwa, which is an independent religious body.

Though there was no confirmed figure about its membership in Egypt, yoga classes have been increasingly popular with locals and foreigners.

"If we are teaching different philosophies, including yoga, in Al Azhar, then there should be no talk about branding yoga as an aberration," added Abdul Halim, dean of the Cairo Theology College at Al Azhar University, which is the Sunnis' oldest seat of learning.

"It is taught to students to help them know about it, not to believe in it."

"Restrictions on knowledge are among the Arab world's key intellectual problems. This is regrettable and pathetic," he added.

Mahmoud Nafae, a writer in the semi-official newspaper Al Gomhuria, described the fatwa against yoga as a "shock to the mind". "I swear that 90 per cent of Muslims practising yoga have no idea about its origin," he said.

"For them, it is just a sport, which they practise in good faith. When they finish the session, they have a shower and go to the mosque to perform prayers like other Muslim fellows."

Approving the fatwa on yoga, Mohammad Al Musayar, an Al Azhar professor, exhorted Muslims, who practise yoga as a mental exercise, to shift to Islamic alternatives.

"In Islam, we have many ways to attain spiritual purity and clear-headedness," he said in recent press remarks.

"For example, the Muslim can wake up at midnight and gaze in meditation at the sky while reciting (certain) verses from the Holy Quran."

The writer is an Arab journalist based in Egypt.