< A Reporter Translates Middle East Customs

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Heard on Morning Edition

May 4, 2009 - STEVE INSKEEP, host:

Here's one of the rewards of spending many years in the Middle East. Neil MacFarquhar covered the region for the New York Times. He became known to the militant group Hezbollah. And they began sending him an annual birthday message, like this one from 2003.

Mr. NEIL MacFARQUHAR (Author, "The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday"): Dear Neil, on your birthday I wish all the joy your heart can hold, all the smiles a day can bring, all the blessings life unfold. May you have God's best in everything. Happy Birthday, Haidar Dikmak, media relations.

INSKEEP: In Hezbollah. That's Neil MacFarquhar, reading from his new book called, "The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday." He has spent much of his life coming and going from the Arab world and tries to interpret many of its practices, including one we will discuss this morning. Fatwas, which is a loaded word in the West, is it not, Mr. MacFarquhar?

Mr. MacFARQUHAR: I think there's a certain perception because the infamous Salman Rushdie fatwa from Iran that it always involved death sentences. But people use it all the time for all kinds of daily questions that they have about their sex life, their relationships, politics. It's an attempt to interpret the Koran or the sayings of Muhammad, the hadith, in a way that applies to modern life.

INSKEEP: Just as Christians or Jews ask their clerics for advice, Muslims can ask theirs. And the answer that comes back may be a fatwa, an instruction on how to follow religious law. Neil MacFarquhar says that what's changed recently in Islamic world is the very rapid and very public spread of the fatwa.

Mr. MACFARQUHAR: Now, of course, there's a whole variety of things you can do. You can go on the Internet to ask a sheikh a question. You can call in programs on TV. I got to listening in on a fatwa line that a sheikh runs…

INSKEEP: A fatwa line?

Mr. MACFARQUHAR: Yeah, in fact, dial-a-sheikh. You can call up and get a fatwa from a sheikh. And a fatwa is a very simple thing, it's just a sentence or two, you know. You - people ask a question, and they'll ask a question, like, I own a hotel where I sell liquor, but I give all the profits to charity. Is that okay? And on the question of hotels, the man said, you know, alcohol is a sin no matter what you do with the money, it's tainted and you're going to go to hell unless you sell those hotels or shut down the bars.

INSKEEP: Hum. But who gets to decide whether a fatwa is real or not, given that there's no central authority like the Pope in Islam?

Mr. MACFARQUHAR: That's the problem, and especially in recent years, because there's so many people issuing fatwas, and there's something that people call fatwa shopping, where if you don't like the answer you get from one sheikh, you just go find another one.

I had a photographer, Mohammed, who wanted to go to Mecca with Abeere(ph), another reporter who worked for me, and they had agreed that they would share a car. But he was nervous 'cause they weren't married. So he was in Saudi Arabia and…

INSKEEP: He's a man, she's a woman?

Mr. MACFARQUHAR: He's a man, she's a woman - they're not married. So he called the sheikh and said, can I share the car with a woman who's not my wife? And the sheik said, absolutely not, it's a sin, and it won't…

INSKEEP: You are not supposed to be in close contact with women who are not your relatives if you're a man?

Mr. MACFARQUHAR: Right. A man and a woman are alone in the room, the third person present is the devil. So Mohammed went to Abeere and he said, I'm sorry, but I got a fatwa and the sheikh says we can't ride in a car together. And Abeere says, well that's fine, but an agreement is an agreement, especially under Islam, and you said you were going to pay half the car, so you have to pay half my car and all of your car. At which point Mohammed said, well maybe I can find another sheikh. He did find another sheikh and they shared a car.

INSKEEP: Now, we can laugh at this procedure of having countless clerics, or people who declare themselves to be clerics, issuing religious rulings that they say have the force of law. We can laugh at that, but is there a way that it makes sense? It has evolved this way over time and has been accepted by millions of people.

Mr. MACFARQUHAR: In some ways, it is a positive thing, because people are grappling with issues that they haven't dealt with before, in terms of elections,… But obviously there's a negative aspect to that, too, because it gives the clergy control over what the process of change and what happens.

INSKEEP: Why is that? Why would these fatwas be a force for conservatism?

Mr. MACFARQUHAR: I think - I mean you see, like, there was an election in Bahrain where a woman candidate asked for a fatwa - if it was okay to run for municipal councils and her opponent asked for one. You know, she got one from a progressive sheikh that said, yes. And he got one from a Saudi sheikh that said, absolutely not. I think a lot of the times, these things confirm prejudices that already exist. So the men who didn't want to vote for a woman or thought it was wrong to vote for a woman could point to that fatwa and say, I'm not going to vote for her.

INSKEEP: Is there something oddly democratic about it - small d democratic -because you don't refer everything up the chain and up the chain to the Supreme Court, or to the Vatican, or what have you? It's any individual cleric can make his ruling, and as you point out, they can be very different rulings and they battle it out.

Mr. MACFARQUHAR: I think on the scale, when you know, you know your cleric and you're dealing with an issue in day to day basis, it's a little like confessional to an extent. But I think, where the problem that comes in, is there's just such this vast chaotic atmosphere which nobody really knows what's authentic.

INSKEEP: That's Neil MacFarquhar, author of "The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday."

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