While Yoga is meant for the entire humanity, the plight of a Muslim yoga teacher Rafia Naaz has become miserable after a “fatwa” was issued against her by the clerics for practising Yoga.
Her crime was that she has been learning and teaching Yoga since her teenage years.
By declaring Yoga as a “Sports Activity” Saudi Arabia has taken a historic & scientific decision beyond religions. This will break the myth among Muslim community and open the doors for peace & health for them.
— Swami Ramdev
She has been receiving threats to her life even as her residence was recently vandalised by the goons. There was stone pelting on her house following which the state police provided her security.
A fatwa was issued against her after she came to limelight sharing a stage with renowned Yoga teacher Baba Ramdev in Ranchi. The fatwa has been ridiculed by a section of Muslims. “Some people have made religion a joke, what is wrong if some woman teaches yoga? Protesting this is highly condemnable,” Shia cleric Maulana Saif Abbas told a news agency.
Baba Ramdev, however, condemned the incident saying that Yoga did not belong to any particular religion or community.
According to a report, Naaz informed that threats started coming in the last three years after the first International Yoga day. “The threat to my life is also because I”m a student leader. I work towards the safety of students and I actively participate in and work for the society. So there has always been a certain degree of threat to my life,” Naaz said.
She further said that practising Yoga as a Muslim had never been an issue in her family as well as the neighbourhood. “At home, I was never told that Yoga belongs to any particular religion or caste; and, the people who have threatened me, don”t have enough knowledge about Islam,” Naaz said.
