KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA, November 22, 2008: Malaysia’s top Islamic body on Saturday ruled against Muslims practicing yoga, saying it had elements of other religions that could corrupt Muslims. The National Fatwa Council’s non-binding edict said yoga involves Hindu spiritual elements, chanting and worship.
“It is inappropriate. It can destroy the faith of a Muslim,” Council chairman Abdul Shukor Husin told reporters. He noted that clerics in Egypt issued a similar edict in 2004. Though the council’s decisions are not legally binding on Malaysia’s Muslim population, many abide by the edicts out of deference, and the council does have the authority to ostracize an offending Muslim from society. The Fatwa Council took up the yoga issue after an Islamic scholar last month expressed an opinion at a seminar that it was un-Islamic.
But yoga teacher Suleiha Merican, who has been practicing yoga for 40 years, called yoga “a great health science” and said there is no religion involved. “We don’t do chanting and meditation. There is no conflict because yoga is not religion based,” Merican, 56, told The Associated Press. There are no figures for how many Muslims practice yoga, but many yoga classes have a sprinkling of Muslims attending. Putri Rahim, a housewife, said she was no less a Muslim after practicing yoga for 10 years.