A radical preacher in Kuwait recently issued a religious edict proclaiming that whenever a female portrays a character getting married on television, the totally fake TV marriage is actually real and legitimate.
The preacher, Mubarak al-Bathali, based his ruling on a Muslim hadith, reports Ynet, an Israeli news outlet.
A hadith is a report of a deed or saying of the Prophet Muhammad.
The hadith at issue stipulates that statements concerning marriage, divorce and the act of freeing a slave are serious even if the statements are made in a joking or sarcastic manner.
“If an actress is married and she married on a show, she committed a great sin,” the preacher explained. “She and her real husband must clear this severe matter.”
Thespians in the Arab country don’t agree with al-Bathali’s ruling.
Kuwaiti actor Abdul Imam Abdullah drew a distinction between a real marriage between real people and a pretend television marriage. He noted that there is no marriage contract when actors have make-believe nuptials.
“Writing a contract makes marriage official while a wedding scene (on television) is no more than a depiction of reality,” he said, according to Ynet.
Fatma al-Abdullah, an actress from the Middle Eastern nation, agreed.
“We act and make art. I play a character whose name does not represent me, who belongs to a family that isn’t mine,” al-Abdullah explained, using small words.
Kuwaiti screenwriter Abd Al-Aziz Al-Hashash delved even deeper into the profound distinctions between illusion and reality presented by television and various other media.
“If an actor has to act in a scene in which he wishes death on his colleague, is his wish real?” Al-Hashash asked. “And does he have to answer for it in court?”
The Prophet Muhammad is believed to have died in the year 632 C.E. Television first became commercially available in the late 1920s, almost 1300 year later.