Rest easy, Pokémon Go fans in the United Arab Emirates. The Saudi government has quelled the horrific rumor you love that you might not be able to play the game. All is right with all the globe.

The game who has grabbed the minds and systems of people everywhere, from the Las Vegas Strip to UK bookmakers lines that are offering just how quickly the game would fall from favor, is A-OK for the UAE as well.

Within an official statement issued late last week, the government assured players they were safe to enter guy holes and cause enormous traffic pileups, just like Pokémon Go aficianados the world over have been doing since the insanely popular app to enter the market simply this month.

‘ No religious fatwa came through the council for senior scholars in Saudi regarding the Pokemon Go game,’ was your message from the government, although no specific attribution was given to this declaration, so just take that under advisement.

You might be challenged also finding the app, because theoretically, it’s not yet regarding the market that is saudi. you understand what will minimize someone determined to enter in the latest trend: nothing nada bupkes. Apparently, some clever Saudis have figured away just how to download the app their own way.

Exactly What’s the situation?

From whence did all this hysteria arise, anyway?

Apparently, if the very first version of Pokémon emerged around 2001, Fatwa #21758 (that is plenty of fatwas) hit the street, declaring the game unfit for Muslims as it embraced non-Muslim religious ideas, including gambling and that man is descended from apes, à la Darwin.

As soon as the newer variation hit the globe, rumors circulated that 78-year-old Saudi cleric Sheikh Saleh Al-Fozan, a member of the Council of Senior Scholars, said that the fatwa that is original be revived, effectively banning the mobile app version from the conservative Wahhabi kingdom.

‘The theory of development is a main element,’ explained the initial edict that is religious. ‘One of the very most things that are important makes man condemn this game is adopting the idea of evolution produced by Darwin.

‘This theory states that most species of organisms evolve and that the origin of man had been an ape. Astonishingly, the kiddies often use the phrase ‘evolution’ inside and outside the game. They can be heard by you saying that this creature included in the card has evolved to another kind.’

Devious Companies

The fatwa apparently went on to complain that the game also included symbols ‘associated with Judaism,’ particularly a star that is six-pointed also Christianity, specifically a cross, since well as ‘angles and triangles’ used by many ‘devious businesses.’

‘This game encourages and circulates the symbols of disbelievers and also the images that are forbidden. It can also be a type of consuming money unlawfully,’ said the fatwa. The Pokémon cartoons, meanwhile, occur to ‘possess the minds’ of children, the opined that is cleric.

Al-Jazeera reported this week that the kingdom’s Communication and Suggestions Technology Commission (CITC) has waded into the debate, warning that apps like Pokémon Go could expose an individual’s location to ‘prying eyes,’ an assertion that has really been made by a great amount of non-Saudi organizations also.

There have even been reported situations of muggings whenever crooks could actually track specific places of Pokémon Go users.

Chess Ban Also

Pokémon Go has not been the only game to receive the cold shoulder through the Saudi Ulama. Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Al-Sheikh recently declared chess to be a ‘work of Satan,’ banning it on the grounds that it was ‘a waste of the time.’

Meanwhile, Pokémon Go is also ruffling feathers in Egypt, where deputy chief of the Al-Azhar Islamic institution Abbas Shuman has called it a ‘harmful mania.’

‘This game makes people look like drunkards within the streets and on the roads while their eyes are glued to your screens that are mobile them to the imaginary Pokémon into the hope of catching it,’ Shuman stated.

Well, we can’t really argue with the man on that one.