Islamist controversy on football’s rectitude reignites with World Cup

Ultra-conservative Muslim clerics denounce football as millions turn to watch the World Cup games. The calls, however, pose a contrast with some jihadists, who love the sport and use it as a recruitment tool Ultra-conservative Muslim clerics are condemning football as a Jewish and Christian tool to undermine Islamic culture, as millions of Muslims across the globe tune in to watch the World Cup in Brazil.

The condemnations revive a long-standing debate among conservatives as well as militants about the rectitude of the world’s most popular sport. They constitute one side of a divide among jihadis and Salafis, arch-conservatives who seek to emulate to the degree possible 7th century Muslim life at the time of the Prophet Muhammad and his immediate successors. On the other side of the divide are some of the world’s most prominent jihadist and militant Islamist leaders, including the late Osama Bin Laden, Hamas’ Gaza leader Ismail Haniyeh and Hezbollah chief sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, who are avid football fans. The latter often recognize the sport’s bonding and recruitment qualities. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the jihadist group currently making advances in Iraq, earlier this year used football as a recruitment tool.

Saudi Sheikh Abdel Rahman al-Barrak warned in a fatwa that football “played according to [accepted international rules] has caused Muslims to adopt some of the customs of the enemies of Islam, who are [preoccupied with] games and frivolity.”

Sheikh al-Barrak is believed be close to the kingdom’s rulers, despite having been praised by Mr. Bin Laden in 1994 for opposing then Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdelaziz bin Baz’s endorsement of peace with...