if Saudi Arabia can produce such scholars, we should not be surprised that Muslims are in such a mess today
KARACHI: This is with reference to the news story titled, “Saudi cleric claims Earth is stationary, does not revolve around Sun” published in The Express Tribune on February 17. This is not the first time a Saudi scholar has made bizarre claims like this one. In the 1980s, another Saudi cleric had declared that it was un-Islamic to say that the Earth is round, and any Muslim who did so risked being put into fire after death.
We sometimes despair about the state of education in Pakistan, but if Saudi Arabia can produce such illiterate so-called scholars (despite being perhaps the richest country in the Islamic world), we should not be surprised that Muslims are in such a mess today.
Shakir Lakhani
Published in The Express Tribune, February 20th, 2015.
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