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Uproar over prophet exams
25/02/2007 22:00 - (SA)
Tehran - Iran's conservative education minister has come under fire from top clerics and MPs for questions deemed insulting to the Prophet Muhammad used in an exam for teachers, press reports said on Sunday.
Several grand ayatollahs have lashed out at Mahmoud Farshidi following protests from teachers who in January had to answer the 40 questions - "many of which were not fit to print" - the reformist daily Etemad-Melli said.
"Disrespect to the honourable prophet is a big crime and an unforgivable sin," said reformist cleric Grand Ayatollah Yusef Sanei, according to the ISNA news agency.
"We hope not to witness such catastrophes any further with the punishment of statesmen who have caused such problems." 'Worse than cartoons'
Some of the questions published by newspapers in recent days relate to Muhammad's physical appearance, eating and sleeping habits, length and colour of facial hair.
The questions were based on a book by the late Islamic philosopher Ayatollah Mohammad Tabatabai about Muhammad's way of life which the teachers had to study in a 30-hour training course.
"The biggest cultural institution in this country with links to millions of young people butchers the truth of Islam by such questioning," prominent cleric Mohammad Taghi Fazel Meibodi said in an article in Etemad-Melli.
"Presenting such questions is twice as sinful as the insulting cartoons about the prophet," he said, referring to cartoons published in a Danish newspaper which drew Muslim fury around the world last year.
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