The Pokemon Go craze has reached even the holiest religious sites in Islam, leading players to "battle" at the Holy Kaaba and the gates of the Grand Mosque in Mecca.
Opinions are rife about the game saying it is a violation of the sanctity of the Grand Mosque in particular and all other places of worship.
Sheikh Abdullah Al-Munea, a member of the Council of Senior Scholars, said the game is a national security hazard as it aims to uncover secret locations, which is considered treason.
When the website team visited Mecca, it found that one of the fighting grounds of Pokemon was actually atop the Kaaba. Around the new mataf, five players were found playing, and the number is growing. The points of gifts and the game’s characters were in front of gates of the mosque.
Appeals Court Judge and member of the Shoura Council Sheikh Issa Al-Ghaith said with regard to finding Pokemon characters on the Kaaba, hacking it and playing it without moving, “in general, I do not think there is anything ‘haram’ (forbidden) in it as it is.”
Nawaf Shaheen, a gaming expert, said: “Pokemon Go has also used a data bank from another game called Ingress. It wants the players to determine important locations in their cities. Among these places are hospitals, mosques and markets.”
Some people believe that it was targeting Muslims and Islam by placing Pokemon characters inside mosques. But Pokemon Go is a normal entertainment game, Shaheen argues. In each update, it changes its security settings and adds guidelines for players. For example, if a player is driving his car above 20 km per hour, the Pokemon characters do not appear.
Suhaib Khairallah, a technology expert and partner member in Microsoft Saudia, said Pokemon Go is not available in Saudi or other Arab countries, although it is still being widely downloaded. "How can it target Muslims?" he said. The characters are largely found in mosques, markets and restaurants because the game covers areas where lots of people are found. The users join each other through Google maps.
Mashable website says that the designer of Pokémon Go, the executive president and founder of Niantic, was one of the workers of Google and has used data from an old game called Ingress which demands players to point out major features of their cities. The players presented 15 million such locations, of which 5 million are being used by Pokemon Go.
