A group of Muslim clerics issued a fatwa calling for...

A group of Muslim clerics issued a fatwa calling for a death sentence on Indonesian Muslim scholar Ulil Abshar-Abdalla because of a published newspaper article they deemed blasphemous. The clerics said Mr Ulil, who co-founded the Liberal Islam Network, deserved to die, because his article in Kompas offended Islam and Prophet Muhammad. In the article, Refreshing The Interpretation Of Islam, he argued that Muslim scholars must distinguish Islam as a religion that teaches universal values of justice and dignity from its Arabic cultural context. "The practices of headscarves for women, chopping off hands, sporting beards for Muslim men, and stoning, for example, are Arabic culture and values, not necessarily Islamic as many scholars would argue," he wrote in November. Mr Athian Ali, who heads the Forum of Ulamas and Umah, was quoted by Detik.com news portal as saying: "We saw a strong indication that there is a network of conspiracy to undermine Islam through this article. And under the Islamic law, anyone who commits blasphemy must be executed." Mr Ulil dismissed the fatwa. He told The Straits Times: "It is hard to take this fatwa seriously because it was not issued by an institution that has the authority to issue one."