Posting pictures on Facebook, Twitter unIslamic: Clerics

NEW DELHI: India's two prominent Islamic helplines are discouraging young callers, especially women, from creating profiles and posting pictures on popular social networking websites Facebook and Twitter on the ground that it is unIslamic.

The heads of the two popular Lucknow-based helplines, run for Shia and Sunni Muslims, have been flooded with phone calls asking if virtual profiles are Islamic.

"You can't see someone's face on Facebook and decide that you want to be friends. Look for 'pyar aur mohabbat' (love) in real life. Virtual relationships are not 'faydaymand' (profitable)," Sunni Mufti Abul Irfan Naimul Halim Firagni Mahli told PTI on phone from Lucknow.

The Mufti wants youngsters to bond in the real and not the virtual world. Of the over 1,000 calls that the Mufti fields in a month on his popular helpline, more than 50 per cent questions are about Internet usage.

"If one is on Facebook for business purposes or for constructive purposes, then the account is justifiable," he said.

However, the Mufti is not pleased about women being on Facebook to make friends and is definitely against them uploading pictures on the social networking site.

"Women should not post pictures on Facebook or anywhere else on the Internet. This is unIslamic," he said.

A Maulana from the minority Shia sect too endorsed the Mufti's views.

"Women are not allowed to show their faces to anyone apart from their 'mehram' (male kin like father and brothers). So posting pictures on Facebook is 'haraam' (banned)," Maulana Saif Abbas Naqvi told PTI.

"We are liberal. We are not Taliban-minded. When youngsters ask us if they can have a Facebook or Twitter profile, we allow that. But the Shariah (Islamic law) does not allow women to post pictures," Naqvi contended.

"Islam has prescribed hijab for women. They have been asked to hide their faces in public, so how can this be allowed on the Internet," he asked.

"We have seen so many relationships that blossomed on the Internet going sour in the real world. 'Dokha aur fareb se bachna chahiye' (We should save ourselves from deceit and fraud)," said the Mufti, who belongs to the famous Ulama-e-Farangi Mahal family of Lucknow.

The number of calls to the Shia and Sunni helplines more than doubled during the just-concluded holy month of Ramzan. Often the questions were about: Is it allowed to log into Facebook during the fast?

"There is a hadith (a saying of Prophet Mohammed) that when the world is nearing its end, Satan will spread lies within minutes. We've seen rumours being circulated on the Internet in no time. It is best to stay away from the virtual world," the Mufti said.