A top clerical body in Saudi Arabia has renewed a 15-year-old order about the Pokemon game, citing that, the game franchise is un-Islamic, Saudi media reported. However, the fatwa did not mention the successful new Pokemon GO mobile game.  

The game can be played on Nintendo's augmented reality app. The players walk around real-life neighborhoods to hunt and catch virtual cartoon characters on their smartphone screens. The game has become an instant hit around the world.

According to the General Secretariat of the Council of Senior Religious Scholars, it had revived a 2001 decree against a Pokemon card game in response to queries from believers. The creature's mutations in the game, who are given specific powers, amounted to blasphemy by promoting the theory of natural evolution, the council argued.

The fatwa read that, “It is shocking that the word 'evolution' has been much on the tongues of children.” The game contained other elements prohibited by Islamic law, including “polytheism against God by multiplying the number of deities, and gambling, which God has forbidden in the Quran and likened to wine and idols," it added.
The symbols used in the game promoted Christianity, Japan's Shinto religion, Freemasonry and “global Zionism", the fatwa said.

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Nandini