When I first read this article, I wasn’t sure if it was from the Onion. When I saw the KLM video of a dog tracking down owners of lost items, the first thing that came to my mind was, “This has got to be a promotional video,” and it was. See the cute video at the end of this article.

But it seems that Muslims are progressing in one direction and regressing in another.

It’s now permissible for Muslims to use toilet paper instead of just water. This isn’t at all that significant except that Muslims needed a religious leader to give permission. WND reports:

“In Turkey, the top religious authority, known as the Directorate of Religious Affairs or Divanet, proclaimed that though water is the preferred method of cleansing oneself after using the toilet, paper is now an acceptable alternative if a water source is unavailable, reports the nation’s Hurriyet Daily News.“

Using water for hygiene is not unusual. In fact, it’s quite fashionable. They’re called bidets. They are to be used after using toilet paper.

The next fatwa was bizarre, even for Islam, but the Saudi grand mufti redeems in the “peaceful religion” in the end by declaring that “all churches across the Middle East need to be destroyed“:

“Meanwhile, in Saudi Arabia the grand mufti has reportedly found a new definition of halal – determining that, in the event of extreme hunger, it is acceptable in Islam for a man to chop up his wife and eat her – or one of them as the case may be.

“The edict has been attributed to Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah, though it is yet to be officially confirmed.

“The rationale, according to multiple local reports, is that the husband and his wife’s body will ‘fuse together after the husband eats his wife.’ The husband would be permitted to eat ‘parts of her body’ in such cases.

“Nonetheless, other religious authorities denied the Saudi mufti issued any such fatwa, to quell the speculation about the subject.

“Not long ago, the same Saudi grand mufti said all churches across the Middle East need to be destroyed. In Saudi Arabia, all churches have already been destroyed. Previously, he declared Twitter was the ‘source of all evil.’”

Reminds me of the 1975 film A Boy and His Dog (not worth watching) where Don Johnson needs to make a choice either to eat his telepathic dog (Blood) or travelling companion Quilla June. He must have read the new fatwa.