As with fashion, so too must fatwas move with the times.

Earlier this year, Barbie was the great Sataness, but now the plastic princess must relinquish her fluffy throne, and prepare to succumb Mattel Towers to a red, black, yellow, and white invasion, for Mickey Mouse is now King.

King of impurity and all things evil, that is.

According to Sheikh Muhammad Munajid, Mickey has fallen on hard times and now touts his wares as “one of Satan’s soldiers”:

For children he’s become something great and beloved, who is seen as a great figure. The mouse is one of Satan’s soldiers and is steered by him. Mickey Mouse has become an awesome character, even though according to Islamic law, Mickey Mouse should be killed.

If Sheikh Munajid sounds familiar, you might remember him from earlier this year during the Beijing Olympics, or, as Munajid recalls the event, The Bikini Olympics, 2008.

Mickey’s problem stems from the fact that he belongs to the Mus-musculus family, who, along with their cousins, the Muroidea superfamily, render him repulsive and impure.

Truly, it is a sad tale for our times, with no pun intended, of course.

Nevertheless, as the edicts roll by like Bratz Dolls on the Christmas conveyor belts, it is perhaps all too easy to chuckle away at our monitors.

The endless decrees are wearing thin, particularly after the comments issued earlier this month by the Saudi cleric, Sheik Saleh al-Lihedan, who avowed that it was permissible to kill the owners of satellite TV stations that disseminate “immoral” content.

Al-Lihedan’s comments even drew criticism from fellow clerics who agree that Arab satellite networks show too many “indecent” programs.

This time, al-Lihedan had gone too far, as Sheikh Hazim Awad, an Iraqi cleric countered, ”Muslims can just cancel (subscriptions to) these channels if they want”.

Yet the act of curtailing personal choice is not merely afflicting the lives of Muslims in the Middle East; according to a report by Middle East Online, Jewish and Christian liberals are also feeling the pinch of edicts:

Israeli women had expressed anger at discrimination by rabbis in issues relating to divorce, their seating in certain bus lines, and even their careers.

Women in Israel had reported being abused and even attacked for not wearing a skirt and for not sitting in the women’s section in certain buses.

The Orthodox Jewish Media Resources group said separate seating in buses helped men resist the temptation to ogle women but acknowledged that mehadrin lines should only run on routes where the vast majority of passengers are religious.

For those women who seek careers outside the home, fresh condemnation – rather than encouragement – is poured forth.

According to Israel’s Chief Ashkenazi rabbi, Yona Metzger, the “phenomenon of women who make their careers on the backs on their children” is worthy of denouncement, since “the principle role of the Jewish mother throughout the generations has been to take care of the home and the children”.

You can practically hear the wheel being invented in the background as the view vigorously emanates.

Even the glorious Harry Potter is not safe, as many religious Jews in Israel have tried to prevent their children from reading the books, due to its “pagan” content.

Harry Potter – has ever a book been so maligned? To date, the boy-wizard has suffered at the hands of all three faiths, which I’m figuring makes him the most battle-hardened of Satan’s soldiers, in Munajid’s eyes.

As Mickey, Barbie, and Potter all fall foul of the morality board, it becomes clear that moves to condemn and ban such figures are not merely enacted by Islamic clerics.

It has become common for the media to lampoon figures such as Munajid and al-Lihedan, but while their fatwas remain intolerable, it must be noted that for every unreasonable ban, there are a million awesome and fair paths in all three religions.

Nevertheless, since bad news makes good news, the global community will unfortunately hear first of the fatwas, before ever learning about the beauty of such faiths.

[Images via: Express Monorail and Elijah85.]