Lucknow, India - A powerful Islamic seminary in India has issued a fatwa or decree against Muslims buying life insurance, a spokesman said Thursday.
The binding edict by the Sunni-run seminary of Deoband in northern Uttar Pradesh state was announced after some Muslims sought its permission before buying insurance.
"A true Muslim should never go for life insurance as this is against the tenets of Islam," seminary spokesman Maulana Shahid Rehan said.
"Life is given by Allah and to insure it or assure it is a crime in the eyes of Allah," Rehan said by telephone from Shaharanpur, 500 kilometers (300 miles) northwest of the state capital Lucknow.
The decree, issued earlier this month, has been greeted with ridicule from Shiites.
"For us, buying insurance is not illegal," announced Sajid Nomani, a prominent Shiite Muslim cleric from Lucknow.
Fatwas issued by the 100-year-old seminary in Shaharanpur are binding on Sunnis in India and a section of Muslims in Pakistan also honors them.
However, the autonomous All India Muslim Personal Law Board, which is headed by a Sunni cleric, spurned the decree.
"Insurance is legitimate as per Islamic laws governing the Shiite sect," said Maulana Kalbe Sadiq, vice-president of the board, an apex body that frames civil legislation for all India's 130 million Shiites and Sunnis.
Board President Mirza Athar, a Sunni, ridiculed the decree.
"In today's modern world Shiites do not believe in edicts and moreover such decrees are not binding on the Shiites."