Islamic Cleric Issues Fatwa Against Female Selfies, Twitter Users Defiant

Ole Spata/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images
Ole Spata/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images

Felix Siauw, an Indonesian Islamic cleric with over 1.1 million Twitter followers, took to the social media site in order to declare that women who take selfies are “shameless” and “unpure.”

The 30-year-old Siauw describes himself on Twitter as a person who seeks “the establishment of sharia-caliphate” and is a “servant of Allah.”

He wrote on Twitter: “These days many Muslim women take selfies without shame. There are usually nine frames in one photo with facial poses that are just – My Goodness – where’s the purity in women?”

Siauw added that the world has “fallen into the worst sin of all – arrogance… If we take a selfie and upload it on social media, desperately hoping for view, likes comments or whatever – we’ve fallen into the OSTENTATIOUS trap.”

Siauw’s call for the banning of women’s selfies has largely backfired. The hashtag #Selfie4Siauw has emerged on Twitter, with countless amounts of Indonesian-Muslim women happily posting their selfies in defiance of the cleric’s fatwa.

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