COMMENT: AAP's Arabic language skills on show ...

AAP reported a story about a Nigerian man who married 86 women and kept them simultaneously as wives. The man was being prosecuted by one of Nigeria's state sharia courts which implement sections of Islamic sacred law. In the case of Muhammadu Bello Masaba, the 84-year-old with 86 wives, the relevant sharia court judge has ordered that his case be referred to a secular magistrates' court.

The AAP also reported (emphasis mine) that ...

The case of Masaba, an Islamic cleric, captured public attention some three months ago when he admitted to having 86 wives.

The revelation attracted sharp criticism and indignation from Islamic clerics with the Jama'atu Nasril Islam (JNI), the Nigerian Muslim umbrella body that slammed a fatwa, or death sentence, on Masaba.

The word fatwa has been translated as "death sentence". I'm not sure where AAP managed to generate or manufacture this translation.

Even someone with the most elementary knowledge of Arabic knows that the term fatwa has little or no relation to death. The Arabic word for death is mawt, and the word for killing is qatl. Neither of these words have an relation to fatwa.

Indeed, the term fatwa refers to an influential but non-binding legal opinion on the application of Islamic sacred law to novel situations. Islamic sacred law's criminal jurisdiction does contain a small number of offences carring capital punishments, known as hudood. Little novelty is involved in these areas of criminal law.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf