Granted this is an isolated case but it goes to show the power individual clerics have in issuance of Edicts/Fatwas. Obl was such an example - he was a qualified scholar, a shaykh who can ISSUE his own edicts/fatwas.
Immunisation is UnIslamic - Cleric
This Day (Lagos)
May 28, 2002
Posted to the web May 28, 2002
Ahmed Oyerinde
Sokoto
The on-going immunisation exercise against polio and other killer diseases in the northern zone, sponsored by the Federal Government and some international organisations, has come under-serious attack by an islamic scholar.
Speaking during the official commissioning of Madrasatul Daru/Daawa in Sokoto over the weekend, the Chief Imam of Kundila Housing Estate Kano, Mallam Ibn Usman stated that the exercise was totally unislamic.
**Usman pointed out that Islam as a religion was against the prevention of any disease that require immunisation exercise citing many verses from the Holy Quran to back-up his claims.
He called on any islamic scholar to come out and show those verses in the Holy Quran and the Hadith of the Prophet that justify the exercise.**
According to him, the ongoing immunisation exercise against polio was an attempt to spread what is alien to the culture of the northern people, adding that there were some verses in the Holy Quran that could be used by muslims to cure their illness.
Usman who later addressed muslim umah at a gathering within the Sokoto metropolis reasoned that it was when some international organisation started such immunisation that other deadly diseases such as AIDS began to spread in the country.
The islamic scholar told the gathering that they should be watchful because a child that has no polio and vaccinated against the disease, would eventually be attacked by another deadly disease.
He, therefore, advised the people of Sokoto and its environs to shun any form of immunisation as it is dangerous to their general health condition.