Frog fatwa protects 'croaking praise to Allah'

(Plagues) of frogs (צְּפַרְדֵּעַ): Ex. 7:25–8:11

“	This is what the great LORD says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me. If you refuse to let them go, I will plague your whole country with frogs. The Nile will teem with frogs. They will come up into your palace and your bedroom and onto your bed, into the houses of your officials and on your people, and into your ovens and kneading troughs. The frogs will go up on you and your people and all your officials.	”
— Exodus 8:1–4

The second plague of Egypt was frogs. God commanded Moses to tell Aaron to stretch the staff over the water, and hordes of frogs came and overran Egypt. Pharaoh's sorcerers were also able to duplicate this plague with their magic. However, since they were unable to remove it, Pharaoh was forced to grant permission for the Israelites to leave so that Moses would agree to remove the frogs. To prove that the plague was actually a divine punishment, Moses let Pharaoh choose the time that it would end. Pharaoh chose the following day, and all the frogs died the next day. Nevertheless, Pharaoh rescinded his permission, and the Israelites stayed in Egypt.

(Times247) Frogs in Egypt are now protected by a fatwa that forbids individuals from eating them. It's the first fatwa to appear by Egypt's highest fatwa council since the Muslim Brotherhood came to power. Photo Credit:Wikimedia Commons

Following the presidential victory of the Muslim Brotherhood's Muhammad Morsi, the very first fatwa to appear by Egypt's highest fatwa council addresses — not social, political, or economic issues in Egypt — but rather frogs.
As the fatwa explains, according to Islam's prophet Muhammad as recorded in a hadith, a frog's "croaking is praise [to Allah]."
Accordingly, "a number of jurists [fuqaha] have relied on this [hadith] to forbid the eating of frogs, under the notion that 'that which is banned from being killed, is forbidden from being eaten.' "