A Saudi cleric who has issued a controversial religious ruling forbidding Muslims from creating snowmen has started people talking. Snowmen labeled as anti Islamic have been forbidden, and the controversy started with a simple question on a religious website. The northern part of Saudi Arabia experienced an unusual snowstorm, and a father wanted to know if it was okay for men to spend time with their children by building a snowman. The reply by Sheikh Mohammed Saleh al-Munajjid stated “It is not permitted to make a statue out of snow, even by way of play and fun.” The argument made by the cleric was that snowmen were in the image of human beings, and to create one was a sinful act under the strict interpretation followed by the Sunni Muslims, who make up a majority of the population in the country.
Whether having snowmen labeled anti-Islamic was an accurate reading of the scriptures is open to interpretation, but the Saudi cleric explained that “God has given people space to make whatever they want which does not have a soul, including trees, ships, fruits, buildings and so on.” Soon after the statement over the controversial religious ruling was issued people with Arabic names responded in Arabic on Twitter. One user tweeted “They are afraid for their faith of everything … sick minds.”, and another responded with a comment about two types of people, saying “A people looking for a fatwa (religious ruling) for everything in their lives, and a cleric who wants to interfere in everything in the lives of others through a fatwa.”