Saudi Arabia belongs to The flat Earth Society

In my quest to learn more about Islam and its differences from western thinking, I came across this nugget:

Title of the Book: "Evidence that the Earth is Standing Still."
Author: Sheikh Abdul Aziz Ben Baz.
Editor: Islamic University of Medina.
Year: 1395 AH
City: Medina, Saudi Arabia.
Page: 23.

"If the earth is rotating as they claim, the countries, the mountains, the trees, the rivers, and the oceans will have no bottom and the people will
see the eastern countries move to the west and the western countries move to the east."

"In The Name Of Allaah, The Most Merciful, The Bestower of Mercy."

"The earth is flat, and anyone who disputes this claim is an atheist
who deserves to be punished." [Muslim religious edict, 1993, Sheik
Abdel-Aziz Ibn Baaz, Supreme religious authority, Saudi Arabia]"

Here is the google search that provides several different references on this Fatwa.

Yup. So does my dentist. Smart man. Doctor.

He has the "Answers In Genesis" website publication CREATION MAGAZINE in his lobby.

The fold out this month was a timeline of the history of the world. 6,000 years on two pages.

I let this man perform oral surgery on me. :shk:

Originally posted by RANT
I let this man perform oral surgery on me. :shk:

At least it was just.......surgery!

Besides; dental school is there for a reason.

[edit on 6-10-2005 by Freedom_for_sum]

Originally posted by Freedom_for_sum
In my quest to learn more about Islam and its differences from western thinking, I came across this nugget:

"The earth is flat, and anyone who disputes this claim is an atheist
who deserves to be punished." [Muslim religious edict, 1993, Sheik
Abdel-Aziz Ibn Baaz, Supreme religious authority, Saudi Arabia]"

Islam is wrong. But this sort of post is also wrong, because it breaks the first principle of morality, "Do not do to others what you would not like them to do to you."

Any group larger than a tiny one will contain a lunatic fringe. That is because any group is comprised of humans, and human groups over a certain size always have a few daft bunnies somewhere. (How else, indeed, does this forum exist?)

The google search you (rightly) give does not suggest that the author of these words -- which I am uncertain whether anyone has checked against the reference -- was an authority over all Islam. It suggests that he was a crank, and that his fatwa was never official policy, even in Saudi Arabia.

While Islam is wrong, and the source of much misery in the world, misrepresenting it by quote-mining crank opinions and attributing them to 1bn people is immoral.

Moslem familiarity with Greek science, mediated through the Syriac-speaking world, means that educated moslems have long known different.

All the best,

Roger Pearse