Lucknow cleric on women following football: Watching men ‘play with bare knees’ is un-Islamic

The Fatwa comes at a time when even the Sunni Muslim kingdom of Saudi Arabia has allowed women in to watch matches in soccer stadiums earlier this month.

A senior cleric at an influential Islamic seminary in Lucknow has issued a fatwa saying that Muslim women should not watch men playing soccer.

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Mufti Athar Kasmi said over the weekend that watching men “playing with bare knees” violated the tenets of Islam. Kasmi is cleric at Darul Uloom, Asia’s largest Sunni Muslim seminary in the northern town of Deoband.

Kasmi’s decree comes even as Saudi Arabia has allowed women in to watch matches in soccer stadiums earlier this month.

A fatwa is a religious opinion or interpretation given by a learned scholar that is not binding. T he majority of Indian Muslims are Sunni but the country’s secular constitution ensures that decrees such as Kasmi’s have no legal force.