Rest easy, Pokémon Go fans in the United Arab Emirates. The Saudi government has quelled the horrific rumor that you may not be in a position to have fun with the game you love. All is right with all the world.

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

In a formal statement issued late last week, the federal government assured players these were safe to head into guy holes and cause enormous traffic pileups, the same as Pokémon Go aficianados the world over have been doing since the insanely popular app to enter the market just this thirty days.

‘ No fatwa that is religious through the council for senior scholars in Saudi about the Pokemon Go game,’ was your message from the government, although no specific attribution was given to this statement, so take that under advisement.

You’ll be challenged even finding the app, because theoretically, it isn’t yet on the Saudi market. However you know very well what will stop some body determined to be in in the trend that is latest: nothing nada bupkes. Evidently, some Saudis that is clever have down just how to download the app their own way.

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 lot of fatwas) hit the street, declaring the game unfit for Muslims because it embraced non-Muslim spiritual concepts, including gambling and that man is descended from apes, à la Darwin.

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

‘The concept of development is a primary element,’ explained the initial religious edict. ‘One of the very most important things that makes man condemn this game is adopting the theory of evolution developed by Darwin.

‘This theory states that most species of organisms evolve and that the origin of man was an ape. Astonishingly, the kiddies frequently use the phrase ‘evolution’ inside and away from game. They can be heard by you saying that this creature included in the card has evolved to another type.’

Devious Organizations

The fatwa reportedly proceeded to complain that the game also contained symbols ‘associated with Judaism,’ particularly a six-pointed star, in addition to Christianity, specifically a cross, since well as ‘angles and triangles’ used by many ‘devious businesses.’

‘This game encourages and circulates the symbols of disbelievers therefore the forbidden images. It normally a kind of consuming money unlawfully,’ said the fatwa. The Pokémon cartoons, meanwhile, exist to ‘possess the minds’ of children, the opined that is cleric.

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 also been reported situations of muggings when criminals had the ability to track specific areas of Pokémon Go users.

Chess Ban Also

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

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

‘This game makes people look like drunkards within the roads and regarding the roads while their eyes are glued to the mobile displays leading them to the imaginary Pokémon in the hope of catching it,’ Shuman said.

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