Cats may not quite have taken over the internet and our smartphones, but they’re definitely starring characters. Apparently that’s increasingly true even in ultraconservative Saudi Arabia, which was news to Saleh bin Fawzan al-Fawzan, a prominent cleric who is a member of the Saudi Council of Senior Scholars.
In a television appearance that was posted online in mid-April and translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute, the sheik was told by someone off-camera that “taking pictures with cats has been spreading among people, who want to be like the Westerners.”
Fawzan did not approve. But even though he seemed appalled by the idea of selfies with cats and pronounced them “prohibited,” it’s worth noting that he didn’t seem to have anything personal against felines.
“The cats don’t matter here,” he said. “Taking pictures is prohibited if not for a necessity, not with cats, not with dogs, not with wolves, not with anything.”
