The federal government is cancelling the contracts of non-Christian chaplains at federal prisons. An imam, Zia Khan, doesn’t like this much; in fact, he dislikes it so much (nothing to do with the money, I’m sure) that he has declared it a fatwa against – he doesn’t actually say, but Islam, presumably.

The only problem is, ‘fatwa’ means ‘a ruling on a point of Islamic law given by a recognized authority.’ So by declaring this a fatwa, the imam is recognising at as a legitimate ruling of sharia law. Why is he complaining, then? He is complaining because he is using ‘fatwa’ in a more westernised colloquial sense of issuing a death sentence against someone.

Clearly, Zia Khan needs to go back to imam school for re-education – before he goes too far towards a wrong end.

From here:

Zia Khan is an imam and the director of the Centre for Islamic Development in Halifax.

He has visited about 70 inmates over the past two years; until the word came last week that their contracts will not be renewed.

“Last time we went, we said, ‘See you in the beginning of October,’ and all of a sudden, this fatwa, if you would call it, came down from the mountain,” he said.

“It’s an egregious violation of the charter, and I think people need to stand up and really say something because I think the country is starting towards a wrong end.”