Inappropriate contact between men and women on buses doesn’t invalidate the fast: cleric

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By Omar Bihmidine

Morocco World News

Tangier, July 13, 2013

According to Al Akhbar newspaper, controversial Moroccan “cleric” Abdelbari Zamzami recently issued a fatwa, which states that physical contact between men and women on buses does not break the fast.

“Touching and physical contact do not break the fast even in the case of ejaculation,” Zamzami said in an interview.

The fatwa which went viral on Facebook social network sparked much uproar and received harsh criticism from a number of Moroccans.

“Ejaculating semen intentionally breaks the fast. How come this cleric said it does not?” a Moroccan adult who opposed the cleric so-called fatwa told MWN.

“This person is a disaster,” a Moroccan journalist from Tangier posted on her Facebook page upon learning of Zamzami’s statement.

“A complaint should be filed in the court against this category of human who sully religion with their so-called Fatwas,” a Moroccan resident in New Jersey city, who was outraged by Zamzami’s statement, told MWN.

“Despite arousing sexual desire, this physical contact does not lead to breaking the fast,” Zamzami was quoted by the newspaper as saying.

“Because men and women get on crammed buses, they can not help touching one another. Yet, there is no harm in that as touching and ejaculating won’t break your fast,” Zamzami added.

The cleric based his fatwa on the fact that “the act of touching is not meant to satisfy one’s sexual desire” and that “kissing one’s wife during the holy month of Ramadan doesn’t spoil the fast.”

This is not the first time Zamzami comes up with statements, considered by some as fatwas, that stir uproar in Morocco.

In early 2012 he said that a Muslim is allowed to make love to his dead wife, a form of necrophilia, and that it is strictly forbidden for Moroccans to take to the street after the king’s speeches. In another “fatwa” he said that women are allowed to have recourse to masturbation to satisfy their long-repressed sexual desires.