The United Arab Emirates may not have an advanced space program, but that did not stop the country's General Authority of Islamic Affairs and Endowment from issuing a fatwa, a Muslim religious prohibition, declaring attempts to live on Mars as "un-Islamic."
The ruling said that any attempt to fly to and inhabit Mars would be so dangerous that it would amount to suicide, which is not permitted in Islam.
The ruling comes on the heels of the international Mars One organization's announcement of its intention to settle the Red Planet with humans.
"Such a one-way journey poses a real risk to life, and that can never be justified in Islam," The UAE authority announced in its edict.
The edict says that risking death for an unjustifiable reason leads to a similar punishment in the afterlife as that received by someone who committed suicide.
"Protecting life against all possible dangers and keeping it safe is an issue agreed upon by all religions and is clearly stipulated in a verse in the Quran," the fatwa said.
Even though the authority has existed for just six years, it has published 2 million fatwas.
בית הדין האירופי קיבל את תביעת המתלוננת באונס באיה נאפה: "זכויותיה הופרו"
״מקווה שקניה ווסט ראה״: מחווה ייחודית למשפחת ביבס בלוס אנג'לס
פרסומת | האישה שמצילה ילדים מחרמות ומכישלונות
שר החוץ סער: "המצב השתנה לטובתנו, רוצים את הקשרים שלנו בבית הלבן"
בקונגרס הנחו להשתמש במונח "יהודה ושומרון" במקום "הגדה המערבית"