Clerics in Saudi Arabia warns Arab media against publishing horoscopes

RIYADH, Oct 8: Powerful clerics in Saudi Arabia have warned Arab media against publishing ''forbidden'' horoscopes, which are hugely popular despite a clerical ban.

''This is astrology, which is forbidden and is considered as a form of magic,'' a committee of senior Saudi clerics said in a statement published on state news agency SPA late yesterday.

''The committee reminds Muslims and journalists in particular that it is their obligation to take advice from God, His Prophet and the clergy,'' it said, adding that all schools of Islamic law forbid such practices.

In Saudi Arabia, clerics of a puritanical school of Islam known as Wahhabism oversee the strict application of their reading of Islamic Sharia law. But they are concerned about liberal trends spreading in the Gulf Arab country of 24 million.

''Believing that a certain star can be the cause of happiness or misfortune is a superstition from the pre-Islamic age...,'' the prominent clerics said.

Saudi-owned newspapers based in London such as Asharq al-Awsat and al-Hayat have started publishing horoscopes in recent years and fortune tellers appear on Saudi-owned television stations based outside the kingdom.

Papers within the kingdom stick to the Wahhabi line.

''Many Saudis don't know their birth date on the Christian calendar so they don't care about horoscopes, but the new generation is obsessed by them,'' the editor of a popular Saudi daily told Reuters. He did not want to be identified.

''It's blatantly un-Islamic, we won't do it,'' he added.

Reuters