Rest easy, Pokémon Go fans in the United Arab Emirates. The Saudi government has quelled the horrific rumor you love that you might not be able to play the game. All is right with the world.

The game which includes grabbed the minds and figures of people everywhere, from the Las Vegas Strip to UK bookmakers lines that are offering how quickly the game would fall from favor, is A-OK for the UAE as well.

The government assured players they were safe to walk into man holes and cause enormous traffic pileups, just like Pokémon Go aficianados the world over have been doing since the insanely popular app hit the market just this month in an official statement issued late last week.

‘ No religious fatwa came from the council for senior scholars in Saudi concerning the Pokemon Go game,’ was the word from the government, although no specific attribution was handed to this declaration, so simply take that under advisement.

You may be challenged even finding the app, because technically, it’s not yet on the Saudi market. you know what will minimize somebody determined to be in on the latest trend: nothing nada bupkes. Evidently, some clever Saudis have figured out how to download the app their own way.

Exactly What’s the Problem?

From whence did all this hysteria arise, anyway?

Apparently, as soon as the first version of Pokémon emerged around 2001, Fatwa #21758 (that is a whole lot of fatwas) hit the street, declaring the game unfit for Muslims because it embraced non-Muslim religious concepts, including gambling and that man is descended from apes, à la Darwin.

Whenever newer version hit the globe, rumors circulated that 78-year-old Saudi cleric Sheikh Saleh Al-Fozan, an associate of the Council of Senior Scholars, said that the fatwa that is original be revived, effectively banning the mobile app version from the conservative Wahhabi kingdom.

‘The concept of development is a main element,’ explained the original edict that is religious. ‘One of the most extremely important things that makes man condemn this game is adopting the idea of evolution developed by Darwin.

‘This theory states that all species of organisms evolve and that the origin of man was an ape. Astonishingly, the young kids often use your message ‘evolution’ inside and outside of the game. You can hear them saying that this creature included in the card has evolved to another kind.’

Devious Companies

The fatwa apparently went on to complain that the game additionally contained symbols ‘associated with Judaism,’ especially a star that is six-pointed as well as Christianity, specifically a cross, as well as ‘angles and triangles’ used by numerous ‘devious businesses.’

‘This game promotes and circulates the symbols of disbelievers as well as the forbidden images. It normally a type of consuming money unlawfully,’ stated the fatwa. The Pokémon cartoons, meanwhile, exist to ‘possess the minds’ of children, the cleric opined.

Al-Jazeera reported this that the kingdom’s Communication and Information Technology Commission (CITC) has waded into the debate, warning that apps like Pokémon Go could expose the user’s location to ‘prying eyes,’ an assertion that has actually been made by plenty of non-Saudi organizations also week.

There have even been reported situations of muggings whenever crooks could actually track specific places of Pokémon Go users.

Chess Ban Also

Pokémon Go hasn’t been the game that is only receive the cold shoulder through the Saudi Ulama. Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Al-Sheikh recently declared chess to be a ‘work of Satan,’ banning it on the grounds that it was ‘a waste of time.’

Meanwhile, Pokémon Go is additionally ruffling feathers in Egypt, where deputy chief of this Al-Azhar Islamic institution Abbas Shuman has called it a ‘harmful mania.’

‘This game makes people look like drunkards in the roads and on the roads while their eyes are glued to the screens that are mobile them to the imaginary Pokémon into the hope of catching it,’ Shuman said.

Well, we can’t really argue with the guy on that one.