Ace against Odds: Sania gets even!
September 8, 2005, will always remain etched in my memory because the events of that day virtually transformed the course of my life. That was the day when a “fatwa” was reported to have been issued against me for the clothes that I wore on the tennis court. The world’s perception of me changed overnight.
I received an excited phone call from a friend in the media, asking for my reaction. A Muslim cleric belonging to a religious organisation had reportedly issued the fatwa against me in an interview with a journalist of a national newspaper. He had, in fact, said that Islam did not allow women to wear skirts, shorts and sleeveless tops in public, in response to a query posed by the reporter. Excited analysts quickly jumped to their own conclusions. They claimed that the gentleman had threatened to physically harm me for wearing the clothes I did.
This piece of news, blown well out of proportion by an agency report, spread like wildfire and, within hours, became the talk of the country. I was naturally stunned and disturbed. The “fatwa” that was attached to my name that day and the hastily drawn conclusions by “knowledgeable ” commentators who did not bother to fully comprehend and verify the facts of the matter, confounded me for a long time.
Fatwas are big news, and one pertaining to an international female tennis player was a very big story indeed, particularly at that point of time, when I was all over the media after an extremely successful run at the US Open. I think most people assumed that a fatwa meant an order or edict to kill a person as a punishment for breaking Islamic rules. It was this false perception that was most likely responsible for the controversy snowballing the way it did.
According to the dictionary, “fatwa” is a legal pronouncement in Islam, made by a religious scholar ( called a mufti) on a specific issue based on Islamic doctrines. It’s an Arabic word and literally means “opinion”. Most fatwas take the form of advice on how to be a better Muslim, based on Islamic teachings, in response to specific queries. A fatwa could be on as simple a matter as the right way to eat: with your left hand or right hand.
It is, of course, possible to rake up a controversy by asking a cleric a leading question and then presenting his “opinion” in a manner that would provoke a public reaction. If a scholar were to be asked whether he thought my tennis clothing was un- Islamic, I do not see how a conservative, religious man could have answered the question in the negative in the light of the teachings of the religion. In a similar vein, if a scholar of religion were asked whether it was per missible for a Muslim man to watch a film on television in which a woman dances to music, I am sure he would have to give the verdict that it was un- Islamic. But, again, most importantly, this would not imply that he had issued a fatwa against the lives of all Muslim men who admired a heroine in a film and that he was going to kill them if they went against his edict!
The person who thought it important to raise a question on what he possibly knew was a contentious issue, could have chosen not to highlight the cleric’s response in his story. Instead, he went to town with it. Had he bothered to understand the true meaning of the word “fatwa” and shown the maturity to write with a little bit of sensitivity, I personally believe I would have been spared the burden of living under the stigma of a misunderstood fatwa for a major part of my career.
I have never claimed to be perfect in the way I practice religion and have not tried to justify my actions when I am in the wrong. In today’s world, if anybody professes to follow the tenets of their religion to the last word ( no matter what faith he or she may belong to), I would like to meet that person. Yet, I have complete faith in all that my religion preaches and stands for in its purest form and this includes the dress code.
‘ I have never claimed to be perfect in the way I practice religion and have not tried to justify my actions when I am in the wrong.’