A Malaysian state’s religious ban on illegal hunting mirrors one Indonesia issued last year.
By Jani Actman, National Geographic
By Jani Actman, National Geographic
If a country wants to crack down on wildlife crime, it usually focuses on strong laws, effective enforcement, and widespread public support. But if those don’t work, there’s another tool in the box: religion.
Enter the fatwa, or Islamic edict. In November, the fatwa council in Terengganu, a state in northeastern Malaysia, issued one that prohibits the state’s approximate 970,000 Muslim residents from poaching.
Islamic clerics and scientists put the fatwa together out of concern over the fate of the vulnerable sambar deer and its predator, the critically endangered Malayan tiger, hunted for its supposed medicinal properties and in retaliation for killing villagers’ livestock.
“People can escape government regulation. But they cannot escape the word of God,” Hayu Prabowo, chair of the Council of Ulama, Indonesia’s top Muslim clerical body, told National Geographic last March. That was after the council issued a fatwa prohibiting illegal wildlife trafficking in Indonesia, marking what’s believed to be the first one invoked to protect wildlife.
Terengganu’s fatwa, first reported by Malaysian newspaper New Strait Times, declares the illegal hunting of a species to extinction to be haram, or forbidden. It highlights the tenets of Islam that call on Muslims to protect Allah’s creations and forbid followers from hunting any species to extinction. Read more.
