A fatwa is merely one scholar’s opinion, it is not binding on all Muslims. A lot of Muslims criticized the logic of the ruling.
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I think a lot of people would argue that suicide bombers aren’t “true” muslims, but I think your sentence about ignoring the inconvenient parts is pretty spot-on.
Why they might get on with the Martians canny, then.
How does that prevent them from having an opinion? We don’t have any spaceships that can get humans to Mars either, but religious leaders have still spoken up about it.
“Shared beliefs” does not mean they’re a monolithic group that all falls under the same authority. There are several sects of Islam, and Islam tends to be non-hierarchical (if often bad about separation of church and state). A fatwa is far less binding than one might presume – in some sects, it is completely non-binding, simply a statement of opinion, on the level of a local preacher declaring that flu shots are sinful. For the most part, Muslims choose which scholars to pay attention to.
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Muslim clerics are discouraged from issuing fatwas that aren’t prompted by questions asked in earnest by the laity, for starters.
“Such a one-way journey poses a real risk to life, and that can never be justified in Islam… there is a possibility that an individual who travels to planet Mars may not be able to remain alive there, and is more vulnerable to death.”
i mean, the guy’s got a point.
No righteous reason?
How about furthering the effort to find a way to survive the death of the sun?
That’s pretty fucken righteous in my book.
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Well, if they can get all of the other religions to bar their members from going to Mars it really would be the kind of place to raise your kids.
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Except Islam’s spread into Asia occured chiefly through maritime trade. How else do you get your religion to modern day Malaysia? 
Islam wasn’t terrible interested in exploring the new world, but it was perfectly willing to be carried across the ocean to regions that were already known. As it made its way east, it kept entering into new areas of trade relations, “port hopping” as it were, down the coast and eventually into Southeast Asia. No blue water sailing was required, just lots and lots of coastal work.
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On the “is it suicide” question, I have tried to “do the math” for this mission multiple times. I can’t make it work. I can’t make the 4 people grow enough food to maintain a safe caloric load that would sustain their weight over the long term. I can’t make their respiration numbers mesh with the “oxygen production” that they say they’ll be getting from water trapped within the ice. I can’t make their power usage requirements work, even with all the solar panels they say they’re going to be laying out there.
None of the math WORKS.
So, at best, and I realize I’m dealing with 2013 - 2014 numbers on this, the most I can see the people living is between 3 and 5 years.
So yes, this ISN’T just a one way trip. It’s a one way trip with a drastically shortened lifespan.
That’s assuming it’s all not a massive hoax anyway.
Actually, it IS totally bonkers. Have you actually MET people? They’re almost never who they think they are, and most of them only want to want things, just so they can be in a group! It’s rarely important enough to like, act on.
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Because of a lack of timber resources? I think you might go back and read the whole question that you just didn’t answer there, at least to appreciate my confusion over your answer.
“Cedars of Lebanon” isn’t just a U2 song.
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Yeah, if the Pope gives an opinion, you wouldn’t say “Christians believe this”, but “the official leader of the Catholic Church has said this”.
Whoa :takes a puff: You just blew my mind…
A Fatwa is only an opinion, not a diktat. It’s possible that other scholars would have other opinions…
That’s one of the tough things about Sharia law - there’s no mechanism for new law to be made. It can only be interpreted, and each scholar has a right to independently interpret. It can lead to absurd contradictions!
That’s not entirely true; sailing from the Middle East to Maldives for example, would involve crossing the Arabian Sea, as would crossing over to S.E. Asia from the Indian coast.
The Arab, Chinese and Indian sailors of ~400CE to 1200CE were the masters of blue water sailing before the Europeans took it up.
FTFY
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related:
Fatwa on Terrorism:
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