JEDDAH, Aug 12: King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia on Thursday issued a decree stating that only senior clerics are permitted to issue fatwas, or Islamic religious edicts, the official SPA news agency said.

It cited the text of the decree as saying that for the time being, only members of the Council of Senior Ulema (scholars) will be allowed to issue fatwas.

The ruling comes during the first week of holy Ramazan.

In the decree, the Saudi king also asks the grand mufti, who heads the council, to submit a list of others who are qualified to issue fatwas.

The limitation is necessary because many individuals have started surpassing the authority of official religious bodies and have issued fatwas that cause disputes and dissent among Muslims, the decree said.

“We have followed this issue and noted many violations that we cannot allow. It is our religious obligation to confront it firmly to safeguard religion, preserve unity and to prevent evil,” it said.

“All those who violate this order subject themselves to accountability and punishment, whoever they are, because the interests of the religion and the nation are above anything else,” the king warned in the decree.

In recent months, one Saudi cleric saying music is not un-Islamic and another endorsing breastfeeding for grown men sparked a pitched battle in the ultra-conservative kingdom over who can issue fatwas.

Riyadh cleric Adel al-Kalbani said that “there is no clear text or ruling in Islam that singing and music are haram” or religiously forbidden.

Aside from some folk music, public performances of music are banned in Saudi Arabia, and conservatives say it is haram even in the home.

A more senior cleric, Sheikh Abdul Mohsen al-Obeikan, raised hackles with two of his opinions, both of which could be considered to be fatwas.

First, he endorsed the idea that a grown man could be considered the son of a woman if she breast-feeds him.

The issue, based on an ancient story from Islamic texts and source of a furore last year in Egypt, is seen by some as a way of circumventing the Saudi religious ban on unrelated men and women mixing.

Obeikan also angered conservatives when he said the compulsory midday and mid-afternoon prayer sessions could be combined to help worshippers skirt the intense heat of summer.

The country's grand mufti, Sheikh Abdulaziz al-Sheikh, has warned of a fatwa crackdown, saying on Al-Majd television in late June that “if a person comes out (with fatwas) and he is not qualified, we will stop him.”—AFP