Muslim clerics in Saudi Arabia have now officially ordered a fatwa that bans the playing of Pokémon Go.
Saudi religious officials first banned Pokémon way back in 2001, when the game was played with cards. But now, as Pokémon Go has taken things digital and mobile — and generated $35 million with 30 million downloads in just two weeks since its release — clerics felt compelled to update their edict and renew their anti-Pokémon stance.
That stance is informed by Islamic prohibition of gambling (even though the game doesn’t officially involve any money changing hands) and the fact that Pokémon uses “forbidden images,” including Masonic-like symbols.
Furthermore, according to the original report by Arab News, “other prohibitions concern polytheism and the belief in and worship of many gods, in addition to the promotion and advertising of disbelief, logos, forbidden images and other caveats.”
Many of these justifications for banning Pokémon Go appear to be based on how the original card game was played over a decade ago. Nevertheless, Sheikh Saleh Al-Fozan, a member of the ultraconservative Council of Senior Scholars (the same one that banned chess in January, calling it “the work of Satan”), has declared that the new game is the same as the old one — and that the ban will stand.
Despite this strong reaction, Pokémon Go has not yet even been officially released in the Middle East, although it has quickly become popular there, the Associated Press reports.
The game has certainly become extraordinarily popular across much of the rest of the world. And with today’s official release in Japan (Pokémon’s country of origin and the third largest gaming market in the world), that popularity will undoubtedly continue to surge.
As more and more Pokémon Go-related accidents continue to pile up, several organizations in various countries around the world (including Indonesia’s police force and England’s Dartmoor Zoo) have enacted their own bans against this innocuous yet dangerous game.
