Storm Track Disinformation: Psst!? Hey, Buddy. Wanna Buy a Fatwa?

What’s this? Muslims turning against their own clerics? Can it be so?

Time Magazine reports:

Last week, many Muslims in India, like their counterparts around the world, gathered on the streets to burn effigies of the Pope and shout slogans denouncing him for his remarks on Islam and violence. Even before that fully died out, however, a new controversy erupted — one that has turned Muslim ire against some of their own local clerics. India's "cash-for-fatwas" scandal broke out last weekend when a TV channel broadcast a sting operation that showed several Indian Muslim clerics allegedly taking, or demanding, bribes in return for issuing fatwas, or religious edicts.

Oh, the horror! The horror!

The bribes, some of which were as low as $60, were offered by undercover reporters wearing hidden cameras over a period of six weeks. In return for the cash, the clerics appear to hand out fatwas on subjects requested by the reporters. Among the decrees issued by the fatwas: that Muslims are not allowed to use credit cards, double beds, or camera-equipped cell phones, and should not act in films, donate their organs, or teach their children English. One cleric issued a fatwa against watching TV; another issued a fatwa in support of watching TV.

Dueling Fatwas? Maybe a new reality show here for Fox.

Adding to the shock in India, home to the world's third-largest Muslim population (approximately 150 million), is that some of the clerics apparently caught in the sting operation teach at important institutions — one belongs to India's most famous Islamic seminary, the Darul Uloom at Deoband. At least two of the clerics have been suspended from their posts, but that hasn't satisfied everyone. Students at one madrassa in north India denounced the clerics, and in the city of Meerut, where a mufti, or cleric, had been caught on camera, the congregation at one mosque refused to offer prayers until he came before them, admitted to taking the money, and apologized.

Paging Tammy and Jim Baker! You’re needed in India.

The "cash-for-fatwas" scandal has also led to a renewed debate on what constitutes a fatwa, and who has legitimate authority to issue one. Fatwas — like the one passed by Iran's Ayatullah Khomeini in 1989 against the novelist Salman Rushdie, or those issued by Osama bin Laden in 1996 and 1998 against America — have come to epitomize the intolerance of Islamic fundamentalists. Yet many Muslims argue that the purpose of fatwas has been misunderstood: A fatwa is, technically speaking, a ruling on a point of Islamic law made by a recognized Muslim scholar in response to a question put to him.

Unless you pay him for what you want heard.

Since Osama bin Laden is no Islamic scholar, many deny his right to issue a fatwa. The sway that fatwas hold over Muslims is also not as great as many outsiders think.

Uh Huh. Tell that to the 3000 dead on 9-11.

India's Muslim leaders announced that they will soon create a new body that will monitor the passing of fatwas in the country, in a bid to preserve that influence, and nip the popular anger swirling around this scandal.

Paging the Muslim Pope. Anyone there?