[jurhoonee]

Personally, I think it was about time the opposing viewpoint (or majority viewpoint?) got some publicity. Many laypeople were under tremendous pressure to give into these new schemes, and made to seem like uber-fundamentalists because they were not even accepting fatwa from Mufti Taqi in this issue. Part of this is probably due to aggressive advertising from the banking institutions themselves.

since this ruling was given in opposition, at least more people can have himmah to demand that we have real, competely Islamic financial systems, and not just loopholes in the existing haraam system to somehow squeeze them into "shariah-compliance."

The same goes for the "Islamic television" issue, which I believe is much more clear cut than the banking stuff.

The sad fact is, there is a large majority of the population that is practically itching to follow in the footsteps of the kuffaar and only held back by family, cultural taboo, etc. in these issues. So when some gave a fatwa that you can do it in a certain manner, and be able to wave a fatwa at anyone that looks askance at you, it was like poking a hole in the societal pressure cooker.