Nigerian Muslims were enraged by the article, written by a young woman journalist named Isioma Daniel who recently returned from a journalism course at Britain's University of Lancaster. It suggested that the Prophet Mohammad probably would have married one of the contestants in the beauty contest, which was to have been staged in Nigeria.

"What we are saying is that the Holy Koran has clearly stated that whoever insults the Prophet of Islam, Mohammad, should be killed," Zamfara State Commissioner for Information Umar Dangaladima Magaji told Reuters.

Editors of the newspaper said that Daniel, ThisDay's style editor, had fled to the United States after tendering her resignation in the wake of the crisis.

The beauty pageant was hastily moved to London after clashes between Muslims and Christians broke out in the northern city of Kaduna last week, killing more than 200 people.

Since publishing the article, ThisDay newspaper has issued numerous apologies, which it said had been accepted by the main Muslim body in Nigeria, the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs.

The Kaduna-based New Nigerian newspaper said the fatwa, or religious edict, had been issued by Zamfara's Deputy Governor Mamuda Aliyu Dallatun Shinkafi, who compared Daniel to the British author Salman Rushdie, sentenced to death by Iranian Muslim clerics.

"Like Salman Rushdie, the blood of the ThisDay writer can be shed," the paper quoted Shinkafi as saying at a rally Monday.

Asked to clarify the state government's pronouncement, Magaji said it had "passed a fatwa" on Daniel, a reporter in her early 20s.

'THE REQUEST OF THE PEOPLE'

"It's a fatwa. It is based on the request of the people," he said, adding that this did not contradict the authority of Islamic clerics who have the power to issue a death sentence. "Being a leader, you can pass a fatwa," he said.

Magaji said a number of Islamic associations in the state had asked the state government to take action. The government had decided a fatwa was appropriate and could defuse anger that might otherwise lead to further bloodshed.

Zamfara was the first Nigerian state to adopt Islamic Sharia law, soon after the end of military rule in Nigeria in 1999. Attempts to introduce the Sharia code in the neighboring state of Kaduna sparked protests and riots from non-Muslims that killed some 3,000 people in February 2000.

The Kaduna office of ThisDay was razed last week by Muslim youths at the start of the latest violence.

The editor of ThisDay's Saturday edition, in which the article appeared, was detained for questioning but has since been released, the editors said.

Muslim opinion was split over the fatwa, with criticism voiced both at home and abroad.

"ThisDay newspaper has apologized on her behalf, so the fatwa has to be withdrawn," said the Kaduna-based Islamic scholar Ali Alkali.

'NO RIGHT TO KILL'

An official at the Ministry of Islamic affairs in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, said the fatwa should not have been passed if the author had apologized.

"They have no right to kill if the person expresses regret and apologizes, as it is considered repentance," said Sheikh Saad al-Saleh. "But if the person stands by his statements then the matter should be referred to a Sharia court to decide on a punishment, including death."

But Mohammed Nasiru Usman, an imam in Kaduna, supported the fatwa.

"Fatwa can be declared on a non-Muslim who insults the Prophet. That is exactly what this reporter did," he said.

Speaking to Reuters in Britain, Miss World organizer Julia Morley pleaded for forgiveness for Daniel, saying she "has already apologized and admitted it was a very irresponsible thing to do."

Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo, speaking from Abuja Monday in an interview with CNN, said "irresponsible journalism" was to blame for Nigeria's latest communal bloodletting.

Religious leaders have warned that the violence could torpedo Nigeria's presidential election next year, the first since the end of military rule. The build-up already has been overshadowed by the worst cycle of religious and political violence since independence from Britain in 1960.

In London, Miss World organizers came up against more opposition, with media and lobby groups accusing them of having blood on their hands.

A curfew is still in force in Kaduna, six days after the riots broke out. The Red Cross said Monday the death toll was 215, while civil rights and hospital sources put it at 250.

(China Daily November 27, 2002)