From today’s International Herald Tribune…

CAIRO: First came the breast-feeding fatwa: It declared that the Islamic restriction on unmarried men and women being together could be lifted at work if the woman breast-fed her male colleagues five times. Then came the urine fatwa: It said that drinking the urine of the Prophet Muhammad was deemed a blessing.

At first, I thought this must be another one of those tasteless Western jokes. But no.

For the past few weeks, the breast-feeding and urine fatwas have proved a source of national embarrassment in Egypt, not least because they were issued by representatives of the highest religious authorities in the land.

“We were very angered when we heard about the Danish cartoons concerning our Prophet,” wrote Galal Amin in the newspaper Al Masry Al Yom, referring to the 2005 publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that caused an international uproar. “However, these two fatwas are harming our Islamic religion and our Prophet more than the cartoons.”

For many Muslims, fatwas, or religious edicts, are the bridge between the principles of their faith and modern life. They are supposed to be issued by religious scholars who look to the Koran and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad for guidance.

While the more sensational pronouncements grab attention, the bulk of the fatwas involve the routine of daily life. In Egypt alone, thousands are issued every month…

Strange things, religions.

From Stowe Boyd’s Work blog…

Working with a client recently, an executive said something along these lines:

We don’t need to do the right thing, because we can do the wrong thing really well.

This has got to be one of the most dangerous sorts of thinking in start-ups, which I believe are all psychological reactions to stress, leading to ‘entrepreneurialitis’. Here’s others that I worry about whenever I hear them:

1. We don’t need to do the right thing, because we can do the wrong thing really well. [means: we don’t have to adapt to the world, the world will have to adapt to us.]

2. Yes, that feature is important, but we’ll put it into a later release. [means: I don’t want to decide what’s important, so we will defer.]

3. We don’t need to test the business model: it’s obvious! [means: I don’t know how to test the business model.]

4. We don’t need to bring in outside experts, and we don’t have time to assimilate that many viewpoints, anyway. [We know everything, and who the hell are you, wise guy?]

5. People believe that building successful applications is hard, but it’s easy if you just [fill in pet obsession here]. [means: it better be simple, because that’s all I am prepared for.]

6. I know what to do: God told me. [This actually happened to me, I am not kidding.]

These range from the mildly out of touch to the paranoid and delusional, but they all are dangerous. Anything short of painful openness to the complexities and subtleties of building successful apps, any retreat from trying to learn from others successes and failures, can lead to complacency, insider thinking, convergent mindsets, and eventually doom for the company…