This is really fascinating, though it strikes me as a stretch and perhaps hypocritical. I’d be interested to know how conservative Muslims view other products that contain alcohol, like disinfectants, common household cleaners, cough syrup, astringent and other acne medication, glass cleaners, and other daily goods. According to one fatwa (found here ) the use of alcohols externally (not for ingestion) is not forbidden in Islam. This seems to me to be a stretch on the part of this one scholar who is looking for attention and debate.

A second note on ethanol, there are ways of producing ethanol that are resource efficient and require very little energy. The problem isn’t with ethanol, it is with using corn as the source. And the reaction to the “political” nature of ethanol is just as political as corn ethanol itself unless we educate ourselves about the other options. Ethanol made from biowaste (which would be using essentially trash to create fuel) or cellulosic ethanol from miscanthus, a wild grass, where the entire plant (as opposed to just an ear of corn) can be used, are both potential ethanol sources that use little energy, don’t displace agricultural land or food sources, and aren’t ruled by industry lobbyists. Ethanol gets a bad reputation because of corn, but there are a lot of viable options (another potentially being algae) that we need to explore and about which we must keep an open mind. It seems to me like what we really need is some serious non-political education.

oops….here is the fatwa link http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?pagename=IslamOnline-English-Ask_Scholar/FatwaE/FatwaE&cid=1119503543222