Wahyoe Boediwardhana, Malang, East Java – Student Executive Bodies of Muhammadiyah universities across the country staged a rally Wednesday in Malang, East Java, protesting the haram edict, which bans smoking issued by Muhammadiyah's Tarjih Islamic Law Council.

Marching for a kilometer from Gajayana Stadium to Malang City Square while carrying banners expressing their demands, the students urged the council to review the edict, arguing it could negatively affect workers in cigarette factories.

"The Tarjih Council did not consider the fate of thousands of cigarette companies' employees whose livelihoods depend on the existence of cigarette factories," protesters' coordinator Nasrudin Khoiriza said.

He said numerous social problems could emerge if smoking was considered haram or banned according to the Islamic teaching.

"Thousands of employees of cigarette factories will lose their jobs, not mentioning others who also make a living from sectors related to cigarette production such as tobacco farmers and cigarette street vendors."

He said there were more than 40,000 people who worked as cigarette rollers at more than 500 cigarette factories across the greater Malang regions, which comprise Batu and Malang municipalities and Malang regency.

Muhammadiyah's deputy chairman overseeing Islamic law, Yunahar Ilyas said earlier the edict was internally binding.

Yunahar also said the edict was a religious opinion and was not an instruction or a law. It will become an organizational decision that has to be followed by its members only when it has been approved by a national congress.

For years Muhammadiyah had determined smoking as mubah or allowed but not considered as meritorious. The haram edict was issued because smoking was considered to be endangering both smokers and non-smokers.