Fatuous fatwa | Ian MacKinnon
Cif beliefReligion This article is more than 15 years oldFatuous fatwa
This article is more than 15 years oldIan MacKinnonA group of Indonesian Muslims declares yoga beyond the pale – but is anyone listening to them?The ruling by Indonesia's top body of Islamic lawyers banning the country's Muslims from practising yoga provoked a torrent of astonished headlines that condemned the fatwa "unnecessary" and "pointless". Indonesian liberal commentators piled in, intoning that the edict would "kill the country's democracy and [religious] plurality".
But in issuing the ruling – which is not legally binding – the clerics struck another blow for narrow conservative values, following the lead of Malaysia's national fatwa council, which took the same stand last year.
As in Malaysia, it was fuelled by suspicion. The fear is that the ancient Indian exercise with it roots in Hinduism would erode the faith of Muslims foolish enough to practise yoga. But in Malaysia the demographic landscape is different. The predominantly Muslim country plays host to mainly Hindu ethnic Indians, who make up 8% of the population. Ethnic rivalries are never far from the surface. Yet even for Malaysia's prime minister Abdullah Badawi, scion of a prominent Muslim family, the council's edict was a step too far. He quickly insisted Muslims could practise yoga, provided they did not the chant mantras associated with Hindu rituals.
Indonesia's Council of Ulemas (MUI) at first seemed relaxed about the practise of yoga in a country of 234 million, 90% of whom cleave to Islam, making it the world's largest Muslim country. Even the group of clerics set up to further examine yoga appeared to find no fault when it visited studios and questioned teachers across the country, searching for signs that it was corrupting Muslims' faith.
Yet on Sunday the 700 clerics meeting in Padang Panjang, a village in West Sumatra, declared yoga "haram", a Arabic word meaning forbidden by Islam. It softened its stand by saying Muslims could still practise yoga if, like Malaysia's modified edict, they refrained from the chanting and treated it purely as a form of physical exercise.
The MUI's fatwa reflects a creeping conservatism influenced by an increasingly vocal extremist fringe, in a country where most observe a moderate brand of Islam. It is a situation mirrored in Malaysia. Yet the Indonesian decision is as much about the MUI's quest for greater political influence less than three months ahead of the slated general election. The MUI, set up by the dictator Suharto as a bridge between the religious elements and the secular government, hopes to burnish its conservative credentials with the fatwa.
Its edict speaks to ordinary Indonesians, who for the most part do not practise yoga. But among the middle classes, where yoga has become an increasingly popular part of their fitness regimen, the fatwa will be ignored as another piece of the MUI's irrelevant lunacy. It is not the first time the council as Indonesia's religious advisor has embarked on a course out of step with its Islamic flock and found itself ignored. Advice to Indonesians to abandon conventional banks in favour of Islamic banks flopped. With the yoga edict the MUI credibility will be damaged further, reflected in the tenor of the rash of negative headlines.
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