Earlier this week, prominent Saudi cleric, Sheikh Mohamed Saleh alMunajjid responded to a question on a religious website regarding whether it’s permissible for fathers to build snowmen with their children as the northern cities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia were hit with a snow storm.
In response, Sheikh alMunajjid issued a Fatwa, or a religious ruling, that it is forbidden and against the ruling of Sunni Islam, stating that “It is not permitted to make a statue out of snow, even by way of play and fun.”
Many people then began uploading pictures of snowman to social media, as a way to poke fun at the recent ruling.
According to many Muslim scholars, building a snowman depicts a human being, which is considered sinful according to the Kingdom's strict interpretation of Sunni Islam.
“God has given people space to make whatever they want which does not have a soul, including trees, ships, fruits, buildings and so on,” he wrote in his ruling.
Twitter responses varied between sheer sarcasm to mourning the kind of mentality that is supposed to be leading the Islamic state.
The following is a translation of some of the sarcastic tweets which were originally shared in Arabic:
“What about Gingerbread Man? It looks sinful to me!”
“Of course it won’t be worshiped. Within a couple of days it would have melted and evaporated!”
“Do you wanna build a snowman?” “No, Anna, that’s haram.”
Other tweets carried on to comment that Olaf from Disney’s Frozen is a sin.
You might think the only reasonable response to such Fatwa is a good facepalm, but it seems that some people do find a lot of wisdom to that ruling.
“It (building snowmen) is imitating the infidels, it promotes lustiness and eroticism,” one of the Sheikh’s followers wrote .
“May God preserve the scholars, for they enjoy sharp vision and recognize matters that even Satan does not think about.”
In response to the upheaval caused by the Fatwa, Sheikh alMunajjid posted on Monday to his Facebook page saying that building a snowman is permissible in case that it is for children’s fun. Yet people should be aware to keep it bare of any clear human features.
It is still unclear how forbidding building a snowman makes anyone a better or more spiritual human being.