Fox News
Muslim Organization Issues Fatwa on Cell Phone Use Tuesday, April 14, 2009
People who use verses from the Koran as ring tones and answer their cell phone midway through the aayat are committing a sin, a Muslim organization ruled.
"Listening to aayats partially is anti-Islamic," Ghyasuddin, a senior cleric with the Islamic group Jamia Ashraf-ul-Madaris told the Press Association. "This kind of action amounts to a gunah (sin)."
He said the practice leaves a bad impression on young children.
The panel of clerics in Kanpur also denied people the ability to put their phones on vibrate during prayer services and denounced the use of cell phones while in the bathroom.
"If the phone rings and an aayat can be heard in the toilet, it is a sin," Ghyasuddin told the Press Association.
A fatwa is an Islamic legal decree made by someone who has extensive knowledge of the Sharia law.
-- My humanity is in feeling we are all voices of the same poverty. - Jorge Louis Borges