Pokémon Go Is Haram, Al-Azhar Scholar Claims

Just as the entire world sinks deeper into the Pokémon Go craze, an Al-Azhar scholar has said the game is “forbidden” and “anti-Islamic,” putting it on the same level as drinking alcohol.

Abbas Shouman, the deputy chief of Al-Azhar, told German news agency DPA that the game “negatively influences the mind and harms the player or others without being aware of that,” various media reported Thursday. Erm… what?!

“This game makes people look like drunkards in the streets and on the roads while their eyes are glued to the mobile screens leading them to the location of the imaginary Pokémon in the hope of catching it,” said in remarks to the press.

But wait, it gets better: he also asked, “Will people neglect their work and earning their living and devote themselves instead to hunting for Pokémon?”

It’s not the first time Egyptian clerics have flipped over the game – back in 2001, Nasr Fareed (then Grand Mufti) banned the entire Pokémon franchise, saying it “instills in the child’s mind fictions that have no basis and supernatural [creatures] that don’t exist in nature” and was anti-Islamic for – wait for it – promoting Darwin’s theory of evolution.

WE SAID THIS: Erm…if you say so…but we’re still playing!