Fatwa: Depicting Israel Forbidden, As Negev Shape Too Erotic

“There is a violation of modesty, often in public, that occurs when one displays such an image.”

Cairo, June 5 – A new religious ruling by one of the Muslim world’s leading clerics makes it a violation of Islamic principles to show the shape of Israel, especially in a map of the region, because the shape of the country’s southern section as it connects with neighboring Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula resembles a woman’s groin area.

Imam Aisi Buti of Egypt’s Islamic Academy, the foremost institution in Sunni Islam, issued a fatwa today forbidding all Muslims from depicting the southern portion of Israel in its entirety, regardless of whether one call the country by its name or Palestine, for reasons of modesty.

“The borders with Egypt and Saudi Arabia create an image evocative of a woman in a high-cut swimsuit or underwear, seen from the front,” wrote Imam Buti. “As such, beyond the problematic question of dignifying the illegitimate Zionist Entity with actual depiction, there is a violation of modesty, often in public, that occurs when one displays such an image.”

“The use of such a picture with the border lines drawn poses a grave risk to public morality,” continued Buti. “We cannot have our men driven to licentious behavior as a result of seeing the eastern and western borders of the Negev converge as they move south, much as a woman’s lingerie narrows as it moves from the hips down between her legs.”

“It is not such a stretch to imagine the woman’s right leg is the Sinai Peninsula and her left is Arabia, with the cities of Aqaba and Um Rash-Rash corresponding to the crotch of a bikini bottom, at its narrowest,” the fatwa went on, using the Arabic term for the Israeli city of Eilat. “Gazing at such a sight corrupts the mind and heart that should be devoted to serving Allah, and not imagining what one would do if he could get, for example, his hand beneath the garment.”

Imam Buti’s ruling has generated a mostly positive reaction from Egyptian Muslims. “I think it’s exactly on target,” said Kamil To, a Port Said day laborer. “We all know how easily one can stray from the right path if one’s eyes and mind are not in the right place. I fully understand the desire to eliminate this image from textbooks and the media, showing as it does the contours of a woman’s front where her lower abdomen meets her legs and invites lucid erotic fantasies. If I look at a more detailed map, will the topographical features of the Negev – such as hills and valleys – also be reflected in the sensibilities of this fatwa? I need to know.”