where do these people get this jibberish in their head? why don’t we all time travel to the stone age and live like the amish. damn fatwa’s. i’d love to know where all this profound knowledge comes from.

As if the debate around using ethanol to fuel cars weren’t already complicated enough, now an Islamic scholar has suggested that driving or even riding in a vehicle fueled by ethanol could be considered a sin for observant Muslims.

The opinion comes from Sheikh Mohamed al-Najimi, of the Islamic Jurisprudence Academy in Saudi Arabia. It is based on the part of Islamic law derived from a statement by the prophet in which dealing with alcohol in any form–including purchase, sale, transport, consumption, and manufacture–is strictly prohibited.

The sheikh urged that the issue of ethanol-powered vehicles should be studied by Islamic religious scholars, and stressed that the statement was not a fatwa but simply his own opinion.