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Fellatio

Fellatio (also known as fellation, and in slang as blowjob, BJ, giving head, or sucking off) is an oral sex act consisting of the stimulation of a penis by using the mouth. Oral stimulation of the scrotum may also be termed fellatio, or colloquially as teabagging.

It may be performed by a sexual partner as foreplay before other sexual activities, such as vaginal or anal intercourse, or as an erotic and physically intimate act of its own. Fellatio creates a risk of contracting sexually transmitted infections (STIs), but the risk is significantly lower than that of vaginal or anal sex, especially for HIV transmission.

Most countries do not have laws banning the practice of fellatio, though some cultures may consider it taboo. People may also refrain from engaging in fellatio due to personal preference, negative feelings, or sexual inhibitions. Commonly, people do not view oral sex as affecting the virginity of either partner, though opinions on the matter vary.

Etymology
The English noun fellatio comes from the Latin fellātus, the past participle of the verb fellāre, meaning "to suck". In fellatio, the -us is replaced by the -io while the declension stem ends in -ion-, which gives the suffix the form -ion (cf. French fellation). The -io(n) ending is used in English to create nouns from Latin adjectives and it can indicate a state or action wherein the Latin verb is being, or has been, performed.

Further English words have been created based on the same Latin root. A person who performs fellatio upon another (i.e. who fellates) may be termed a fellator. Latin's gender based declension means this word may be restricted to describing a male. The equivalent term for a female is fellatrix.

General

The essential aspect of fellatio is oral stimulation of the penis (including the shaft and glans) through sucking with the mouth, use of the tongue for licking, using the lips, or some combination. One method is the sex partner taking the penis into the mouth and moving smoothly up and down to a rhythm while being careful to avoid contact with the teeth. Fellatio also includes oral stimulation of the scrotum, whether licking, sucking or taking the entire scrotum into the mouth. During the act, orgasm may be achieved and semen may be ejaculated into the partner's mouth. When the penis is thrust into someone's mouth, it is called irrumatio, though the term is rarely used.

Performing fellatio can trigger the gag reflex.

It is physically possible for men with sufficient flexibility, penis size, or both, to perform fellatio on themselves as a form of masturbation, in an act called autofellatio. However, few men possess the flexibility and penis length to safely perform the necessary frontbend.

Deposition of semen
During fellatio, a partner may ingest semen from the penis. As late as 1976, some doctors were advising women in the eighth and ninth months of pregnancy not to swallow semen lest it induce premature labor, but it was later determined to be safe.

The receiver of fellatio typically becomes sexually aroused. Once the prerequisite level of sexual stimulation has been achieved and ejaculation becomes imminent, the semen may be discharged onto his partner. The male may position his penis prior to ejaculation so that semen will be deposited onto his partner's face (known as a "facial"), or other body part such as their neck, chest or breast.

Deep-throating
Deep-throating is a sexual act in which a person takes a partner's entire erect penis into the mouth and throat. The technique and term became popularized by the 1972 pornographic film Deep Throat. Generally, the person receiving fellatio is in control. For deep-throating, the penis must be long enough so that it can reach the back of the receiver's throat.

Deep-throating can be difficult, due to the natural gag reflex triggered when the soft palate is touched. People have different sensitivities to this reflex, and with practice, some learn to suppress it. Deep-throating leads to an entirely different kind of oral stimulation in comparison to regular fellatio: the tongue's movement is restricted during deep-throating and sucking becomes impossible; the glans can be intensely stimulated by the tightness of the pharynx.

Other aspects
The male receiving fellatio receives direct sexual stimulation, while his partner may derive satisfaction from giving him pleasure. Giving and receiving fellatio may happen simultaneously in sex positions like 69 and daisy chain.

Fellatio is sometimes practiced when vaginal or anal penetration would create a physical difficulty for a sex partner. For example, it may be practiced during pregnancy instead of vaginal intercourse by couples wishing to engage in intimate sexual activity while avoiding the difficulty of vaginal intercourse during later stages of pregnancy.

Other reasons why a woman may not wish to have vaginal intercourse include apprehension of losing her virginity or of becoming pregnant, or because she may be menstruating.

Sexually transmitted infections
Chlamydia, human papillomavirus (HPV), gonorrhea, herpes, hepatitis (multiple strains), and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) can be transmitted through oral sex. Any sexual exchange of bodily fluids with a person infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, poses a risk of infection. Risk of STI infection, however, is generally considered significantly lower for oral sex than for vaginal or anal sex, with HIV transmission considered the lowest risk with regard to oral sex.

There is an increased risk of STI transmission if the receiving partner has wounds on their genitals, or if the giving partner has wounds or open sores on or in their mouth, or bleeding gums. Brushing the teeth, flossing, or undergoing dental work soon before or after giving fellatio can also increase the risk of transmission, because all of these activities can cause small scratches in the lining of the mouth. These wounds, even when they are microscopic, increase the chances of contracting STIs that can be transmitted orally under these conditions. Such contact can also lead to more mundane infections from common bacteria and viruses found in, around and secreted from the genital regions. Because of the aforementioned factors, medical sources advise the use of condoms or other effective barrier methods when performing or receiving fellatio with a partner whose STI status is unknown.

HPV and oral cancer link
Links have been reported between oral sex and oral cancer with HPV-infected people.

A 2007 study suggested a correlation between oral sex and throat cancer. It is believed that this is due to the transmission of HPV, a virus that has been implicated in the majority of cervical cancers and which has been detected in throat cancer tissue in numerous studies. The study concludes that people who had one to five oral sex partners in their lifetime had approximately a doubled risk of throat cancer compared with those who never engaged in this activity and those with more than five oral sex partners had a 250 percent increased risk.

Pregnancy and semen exposure
Fellatio cannot result in pregnancy, as there is no way for ingested sperm to reach the uterus and fallopian tubes to fertilize an egg cell. At any rate, acids in the stomach and digestive enzymes in the gastrointestinal tract break down and kill spermatozoa.

Clinical research has tentatively linked fellatio with immune modulation, indicating it may reduce the chance of complications during pregnancy. The potentially fatal complication pre-eclampsia was observed to occur less in women who regularly engaged in fellatio, with those who also ingested their partner's semen being at the least risk. The results were consistent with the fact that semen contains TGF-β1, the exchange of which between partners has a causal reduction in risk of pre-eclampsia caused by an immunological reaction. However, fellatio is not the only viable mechanism for the transmission of TGF-β1.

Virginity
Oral sex is commonly used as a means of preserving virginity, especially among heterosexual pairings; this is sometimes termed technical virginity (which additionally includes anal sex, manual sex and other non-penetrative sex acts, but excludes penile-vaginal sex). The concept of "technical virginity" or sexual abstinence through oral sex is particularly popular among teenagers in the United States, including with regard to teenage girls who not only fellate their boyfriends to preserve their virginities, but also to create and maintain intimacy or to avoid pregnancy. Other reasons given for the practice among teenage girls are peer-group pressure and as their introduction to sexual activity. Additionally, gay males may regard fellatio as a way of maintaining their virginities, with penile-anal penetration defined as resulting in virginity loss, while other gay males may define fellatio as their main form of sexual activity.

Legality
Fellatio is legal in most countries. Laws of some jurisdictions regard fellatio as penetrative sex for the purposes of sexual offenses with regard to the act, but most countries do not have laws which ban the practice, in contrast to anal sex or extramarital sex. In Islamic literature, the only forms of sexual activity that are consistently explicitly prohibited within marriage are anal sex and sexual activity during menstruation. However, the exact attitude towards oral sex is a subject of disagreements between modern scholars of Islam. Authorities considering it "objectionable" do so because of the penis' supposedly impure fluids coming in contact with the mouth. Others emphasize that there is no decisive evidence to forbid oral sex.

In Malaysia, fellatio is illegal, but the law is seldom enforced. Under Malaysia's Section 377A of the Penal Code, the introduction of the penis into the anus or mouth of another person is considered a "carnal intercourse against the order of nature" and is punishable with imprisonment of 20 years maximum and whipping.

Tradition
Galienus called fellatio lesbiari since women of the island of Lesbos were supposed to have introduced the practice of using one's lips to give sexual pleasure.

The Ancient Indian Kama Sutra, dating from the first century AD, describes oral sex, discussing fellatio in great detail (the Kama Sutra has a chapter on auparishtaka (or oparishtaka), "mouth congress") and only briefly mentioning cunnilingus. However, according to the Kama Sutra, fellatio is above all a characteristic of eunuchs (or, according to other translations, of effeminate homosexuals or trans women similar to the modern Hijra of India), who use their mouths as a substitute for female genitalia.

Vātsyāyana, the author of the Kama Sutra, states that it is also practiced by "unchaste women", but mentions that there are widespread traditional concerns about this being a degrading or unclean practice, with known practitioners being evaded as love partners in large parts of the country. The author appears to somewhat agree with these attitudes, claiming that "a wise man" should not engage in that form of intercourse while acknowledging that it can be appropriate in some unspecified cases.

The Moche culture of ancient Peru worshipped daily life including sexual acts. They depicted fellatio in their ceramics.

In some cultures, such as Cambodia, Chinese in Southeast Asia, northern Manchu tribes along Amur River, Sambians in Papua New Guinea, Thailand, Telugus of India, Hawaii and other Pacific Islanders, briefly taking the penis of a male infant or toddler into one's mouth was considered a nonsexual form of affection or even a form of ritual, greeting, respect, parenting love, or lifesaving. According to some sources, it was an ancient Chinese custom for grandmothers, mothers, and elder sisters to calm their baby boys with fellatio. It has also been reported that some modern Chinese mothers have performed fellatio to their moribund sons as affection and means for lifesaving, because they culturally believe that when the penis is completely retracted into the abdomen, the boy or man will die.

Other animals
Flying foxes (a type of bat) have been observed engaging in oral sex. Indian flying fox males will lick a female's vulva both before and after copulation, with the length of pre-copulation cunnilingus positively correlated with length of copulation. The fruit bat Cynopterus sphinx, has been observed to engage in fellatio during mating. Pairs spend more time copulating if the female licks the male than if she does not. Male Livingstone's fruit bats have been observed engaging in homosexual fellatio, although it is unknown if this is an example of sexual behavior or social grooming. Bonin flying foxes also engage in homosexual fellatio, but the behavior has been observed independently of social grooming.

title: Fellatio


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Fatwa

A fatwa (فتوى; فتاوى) is a legal ruling on a point of Islamic law (sharia) given by a qualified Islamic jurist (faqih) in response to a question posed by a private individual, judge or government. A jurist issuing fatwas is called a mufti, and the act of issuing fatwas is called ifta'. Fatwas have played an important role throughout Islamic history, taking on new forms in the modern era.

Resembling jus respondendi in Roman law and rabbinic responsa, privately issued fatwas historically served to inform Muslim populations about Islam, advise courts on difficult points of Islamic law, and elaborate substantive law. In later times, public and political fatwas were issued to take a stand on doctrinal controversies, legitimize government policies or articulate grievances of the population. During the era of mass European/Christian invasions, fatwas played a part in mobilizing resistance against foreign aggressors.

Muftis acted as independent scholars in the classical legal system. Over the centuries, Sunni muftis were gradually incorporated into state bureaucracies, while Shia jurists in Iran asserted an autonomous authority starting from the early modern era.

In the modern era, fatwas have reflected changing economic, social and political circumstances, and addressed concerns arising in varied Muslim communities. The spread of codified state laws and Western-style legal education in the modern Muslim world has displaced muftis from their traditional role of clarifying and elaborating the laws applied in courts. Instead, modern fatwas have increasingly served to advise the general public on other aspects of sharia, particularly questions regarding religious rituals and everyday life. Modern public fatwas have addressed and sometimes sparked controversies in the Muslim world, and some fatwas in recent decades have gained worldwide notoriety. The legal methodology of modern ifta often diverges from pre-modern practice, particularly so in the West. Emergence of modern media and universal education has transformed the traditional institution of ifta in various ways. While the proliferation of contemporary fatwas attests to the importance of Islamic authenticity to many Muslims, little research has been done to determine how much these fatwas affect the beliefs or behavior of the Muslim public.

Terminology
The word fatwa comes from the Arabic root f-t-w, whose meanings include 'youth, newness, clarification, explanation'. A number of terms related to fatwa derive from the same root. A jurist issuing fatwas is called a mufti. The person who asks for a fatwa is known as mustafti. The act of issuing fatwas is called iftāʾ. The term futyā refers to soliciting and issuing fatwas.

In older English language works the spelling fetva, from Turkish, is used, relating to the Ottoman Empire.

Origins
The origins of the fatwa can be traced back to the Quran. On a number of occasions, the Quranic text instructs the Islamic prophet Muhammad how to respond to questions from his followers regarding religious and social practices. Several of these verses begin with the phrase "When they ask you concerning ..., say ..." In two cases (4:127, 4:176) this is expressed with verbal forms of the root f-t-y, which signify asking for or giving an authoritative answer. In the hadith literature, this three-way relationship between God, Muhammad, and believers, is typically replaced by a two-way consultation, in which Muhammad replies directly to queries from his Companions (sahaba).

According to Islamic doctrine, with Muhammad's death in 632, God ceased to communicate with mankind through revelation and prophets. At that point, the rapidly expanding Muslim community turned to Muhammad's Companions, as the most authoritative voices among them, for religious guidance, and some of them are reported to have issued pronouncements on a wide range of subjects. The generation of Companions was in turn replaced in that role by the generation of Successors (tabi'un). The concept of fatwa thus developed in Islamic communities under a question-and-answer format for communicating religious knowledge, and took on its definitive form with development of the classical theory of Islamic law.

Process of iftāʾ

The legal theory of the fatwa was formulated in the classical texts of usul al-fiqh (principles of jurisprudence), while more practical guidelines for muftis were found in manuals called adab al-mufti or adab al-fatwa (etiquette of the mufti/fatwa).

Fatwas are issued in response to a query. They can range from a simple yes/no answer to a book-length treatise. A short fatwa may state a well-known point of law in response to a question from a lay person, while a "major" fatwa may give a judgment on an unprecedented case, detailing the legal reasoning behind the decision. Queries to muftis were supposed to address real and not hypothetical situations and be formulated in general terms, leaving out names of places and people. Since a mufti was not supposed to inquire into the situation beyond the information included in the query, queries regarding contentious matters were often carefully constructed to elicit the desired response. A mufti's understanding of the query commonly depended on their familiarity with local customs and colloquialisms. In theory, if the query was unclear or not sufficiently detailed for a ruling, the mufti was supposed to state these caveats in their response.

Fatwas were solicited by men and women from all social classes. A mufti could be an obscure scholar, who occasionally replied to queries from people in his neighborhood, or, at the other extreme, a famous jurist or a powerful state official. The level of technical detail supplied in a fatwa, such as citations of sources or specification of legal methodologies employed, depended on the technical level of the petitioner. In theory, a petitioner was supposed to verify the mufti's scholarly reputation, but mufti manuals (adab al-mufti) recognized that it would be difficult for a lay person to do so, and advised the petitioner to trust their sense of the mufti's piety and ideally follow the advice of a single scholar known for exemplary morals. The mufti was often a well-known figure in his neighborhood. Some petitioners could choose among several local muftis, while others had to or chose to travel to receive a fatwa. Judges commonly sent letters to solicit fatwas from prominent jurists in another town or even country. Sunni legal theory generally permits the petioner to obtain a fatwa from multiple jurists on the same query, provided that it addresses a real and not hypothetical situation. Some petitioners sought out a second fatwa because they were unsatisfied with the first, and the two sides in a legal dispute generally each sought to obtain a fatwa that would support their position. Muftis often consulted another mufti on difficult cases, though this practice was not foreseen by legal theory, which saw futya as a transaction between one qualified jurist and one "unqualified" petitioner.

In theory, a mufti was expected to issue fatwas free of charge. In practice, muftis commonly received support from the public treasury, public endowments or private donations. Taking of bribes was forbidden. Until the 11th or 12th century, the vast majority of jurists held other jobs to support themselves. These were generally lower- and middle-class professions such as tanning, manuscript copying or small trade.

In theory, fatwas could be delivered orally or in writing, but it is not clear how common oral fatwas were, aside from those issued by an Ottoman office established specifically for the purpose of issuing oral fatwas. Many routine, written fatwas were delivered directly to the petitioner on the piece of paper containing the query, leaving no documentary trace. However, large collections of ordinary fatwas are preserved in Ottoman and Indian archives. Mufti manuals contained a number of regulations about the standard format of a fatwa, such as avoiding blank space that could be used for a spurious addition and concluding the fatwa with an expression like allahu a'lam (God knows best). Nonetheless, fatwas took on a variety of forms depending on the local legal culture.

The 14th century jurist Taqi al-Din Ibn Taymiyya was known for his methodology of issuing fatwas through direct research of the Qur'an and Hadith, rather than being restrained by the mechanism of the madhhabs (legal schools). Explaining Ibn Taymiyya's approach to issue fatwas, his student Al-Dhahabi writes: "'He was well informed of the legal views of the [Prophet's] companions and their followers, and he rarely talked about a subject without quoting the four schools of the imams. Yet, he contradicted the four schools in well-known matters about which he wrote and for which provided arguments from the Koran and the Sunna. He has compiled a work entitled Politics According to Divine Law for Establishing Order for Sovereign and Subjects and a book [called] Removing the Reproach from the Learned Imams.... For some years now he has not issued fatwas (legal opinions) according to a specific school, rather he bases these on the proof he has ascertained himself. He supported the pure Sunna and the way of Salafiyah'."

Role of fatwas
The classical institution of fatwa is similar to jus respondendi in Roman law and the responsa in Jewish law.

Fatwas have played three important roles in the classical legal system:
 * managing information about Islam by providing legal advice to Muslim populations as well as counseling them in matters of ritual and ethics;
 * advising courts of law on finer points of Islamic law, in response to queries from judges;
 * elaborating substantive Islamic law, particularly though a genre of legal literature developed by author-jurists who collected fatwas of prominent muftis and integrated them into books.

Before the rise of modern education, the study of law was a centerpiece of advanced education in the Islamic world. A relatively small class of legal scholars controlled the interpretation of sharia on a wide range of questions essential to the society, ranging from ritual to finance. It was considered a requirement for qualified jurists to communicate their knowledge through teaching or issuing fatwas. The ideal mufti was conceived as an individual of scholarly accomplishments and exemplary morals, and muftis were generally approached with the respect and deference corresponding to these expectations.

Judges generally sought an opinion from a mufti with higher scholarly authority than themselves for difficult cases or potentially controversial verdicts. Fatwas were routinely upheld in courts, and if a fatwa was disregarded, it was usually because another fatwa supporting a different position was judged to be more convincing. If a party in a dispute was not able to obtain a fatwa supporting their position, they would be unlikely to pursue their case in court, opting for informal mediation instead, or abandoning their claim altogether. Sometimes muftis could be petitioned for a fatwa relating to a court judgment that has already been passed, acting as an informal appeals process, but the extent of this practice and its mechanism varied across history. While in most of the Islamic world judges were not required to consult muftis by any political authority, in Muslim Spain this practice was mandatory, so that a judicial decision was considered invalid without prior approval by a legal specialist.

Author-jurists collected fatwas by muftis of high scholarly reputation and abstracted them into concise formulations of legal norms that could be used by judges, giving a summary of jurisprudence for a particular madhhab (legal school). Author-jurists sought out fatwas that reflected the social conditions of their time and place, often opting for later legal opinions which were at variance with the doctrine of early authorities. Research by Wael Hallaq and Baber Johansen has shown that fatwa compilations could, and sometimes did, have a significant impact on the development of Islamic law.

During the early centuries of Islam, the roles of mufti, author-jurist and judge were not mutually exclusive. A jurist could lead a teaching circle, conduct a fatwa session, and adjudicate court cases in a single day, devoting his night hours to writing a legal treatise. Those who were able to act in all four capacities were regarded as the most accomplished jurists.

From the standpoint of morality and religious obligation, the term fatwa has been contrasted with taqwa (piety, fear of God), particularly in Sufi literature. Fatwas may allow a choice between lenient and strict interpretation of sharia on a certain matter, or they may employ legalistic stratagems (hiyal) to circumvent a stricter interpretation, while such strategies may not be acceptable from the standpoint of taqwa.

Qualifications of a mufti
The basic prerequisite for issuing fatwas under the classical legal theory was religious knowledge and piety. According to the adab al-mufti manuals, a mufti must be an adult, Muslim, trusted and reliable, of good character and sound mind, an alert and rigorous thinker, trained as a jurist, and not a sinner. On a practical level, the stature of muftis derived from their reputation for scholarly expertise and upright character.

According to legal theory, it was up to each mufti to decide when he was ready to practice. In practice, an aspiring jurist would normally study for several years with one or several recognized scholars, following a curriculum that included Arabic grammar, hadith, law and other religious sciences. The teacher would decide when the student was ready to issue fatwas by giving him a certificate (ijaza).

During the first centuries of Islam, it was assumed that a mufti was a mujtahid, i.e., a jurist who is capable of deriving legal rulings directly from the scriptural sources through independent reasoning (ijtihad), evaluating the reliability of hadith and applying or even developing the appropriate legal methodologies. Starting from around 1200 CE, legal theorists began to accept that muftis of their time may not possess the knowledge and legal skill to perform this activity. In addition, it was felt that the major question of jurisprudence had already been addressed by master jurists of earlier times, so that later muftis only had to follow the legal opinions established within their legal school (taqlid). At that point, the notions of mufti and mujtahid became distinguished, and legal theorists classified jurists into three or more levels of competence.

Among Twelver Shia, the Akhbari school of jurisprudence, which was predominant for a time during the early modern era, hold a different view on ifta from the currently predominant Usuli school. According to the Usulis, fatwas can be based on valid conjecture (zann) arrived through ijtihad, and every Muslim who is not qualified to be a mujtahid should become a follower (muqallid) of a mujtahid. In contrast, Akhbaris hold that all Shia Muslims must be muqallids of the Twelve Imams, and that fatwas should reflect only knowledge that is certain (qatʿ) and based on the traditions of the Imams.

Unlike the post of qadi, which is reserved for men in the classical sharia system, fatwas could be issued by qualified women as well as men. In practice, the vast majority of jurists who completed the lengthy curriculum in linguistic and religious sciences required to obtain the qualification to issue fatwas were men. Slaves and persons who were blind or mute were likewise theoretically barred from the post of a judge, but not that of mufti.

Fatwa vs. court judgment
The mufti and the judge play different roles in the classical sharia system, with corresponding differences between a fatwa and a qada (court decision):
 * A fatwa is nonbinding (unless issued by a government judge in an Islamic state), while a court decision is binding and enforceable.
 * A fatwa may deal with rituals, ethical questions, religious doctrines and sometimes even philosophical issues, while court cases dealt with legal matters in the narrow sense.
 * The authority of a court judgment applies only to the specific court case, while a fatwa applies to all cases that fit the premises of the query.
 * A fatwa is made on the basis of information provided in the request, while a judge actively investigates the facts of the case.
 * A judge evaluates rival claims of two parties in a dispute in order to reach a verdict, while a fatwa is made on the basis of information provided by a single petitioner.
 * Fatwas by prominent jurists were collected in books as sources of precedent, while court decisions were recorded in court registers, but not otherwise disseminated.
 * While both muftis and judges were interpreters of sharia, judicial interpretation centered on evaluating evidence such as testimony and oath, while a mufti investigated textual sources of law (scripture and legal literature).
 * In the classical legal system, judges were civil servants appointed by the ruler, while muftis were private scholars and not appointed officials.

Institutions
Before the 11th century CE, anyone who possessed scholarly recognition as an Islamic jurist could issue fatwas. Starting around that time, however, the public office of mufti began to appear alongside the private issuing of fatwas. In Khurasan, the rulers appointed a head of the local ulama, called shaykh al-Islam, who also functioned as the chief mufti. The Mamluks appointed four muftis, one for each of the four Sunni madhhabs, to appellate courts in provincial capitals. The Ottomans organized muftis into a hierarchical bureaucracy with a chief mufti of the empire called shaykh al-islam at the top. The Ottoman shaykh al-Islam (Turk. şeyhülislam), was among the most powerful state officials. Scribes reviewed queries directed to Ottoman muftis and rewrote them to facilitate issuing of fatwas. In Mughal India and Safavid Iran the chief mufti had the title of sadr.

For the first few centuries of Islam, muftis were educated in informal study circles, but beginning in the 11th and 12th centuries, the ruling elites began to establish institutions of higher religious learning known as madrasas in an effort to secure support and cooperation of the ulema (religious scholars). Madrasas, which were primarily devoted to the study of law, soon multiplied throughout the Islamic world, helping to spread Islamic learning beyond urban centers and to unite diverse Islamic communities in a shared cultural project.

In some states, such as Muslim Spain, muftis were assigned to courts in advisory roles. In Muslim Spain jurists also sat on a shura (council) advising the ruler. Muftis were additionally appointed to other public functions, such as market inspectors.

In Shia Islam
While the office of the mufti was gradually subsumed into the state bureaucracy in much of the Sunni Muslim world, Shia religious establishment followed a different path in Iran starting from the early modern era. During Safavid rule, independent Islamic jurists (mujtahids) claimed the authority to represent the hidden imam. Under the Usuli doctrine that prevailed among Twelver Shias in the 18th century and under the Qajar dynasty, the mujtahids further claimed to act collectively as deputies of the imam. According to this doctrine, every Muslim is supposed to choose and follow a high-ranking living mujtahid bearing the title of marja' al-taqlid, whose fatwas are considered binding, unlike fatwas in Sunni Islam. Thus, in contrast to Sunni muftis, Shia mujtahids gradually achieved increasing independence from the state.

Public and political fatwas
While most fatwas were delivered to an individual or a judge, some fatwas that were public or political in nature played an important role in religious legitimation, doctrinal disputes, political criticism, or political mobilization. As muftis were progressively incorporated into government bureaucracies in the course of Islamic history, they were often expected to support government policies. Ottoman sultans regularly sought fatwas from the chief mufti for administrative and military initiatives, including fatwas sanctioning jihad against Mamluk Egypt and Safavid Iran. Fatwas by the Ottoman chief mufti were also solicited by the rulers to lend religious legitimacy to new social and economic practices, such as financial and penal laws enacted outside of sharia, printing of nonreligious books (1727) and vaccination (1845).

At other times muftis wielded their influence independently of the ruler, and several sultans in Morocco and the Ottoman Empire were dethroned as a result of fatwas issued by influential jurists. This happened, for example, to the Ottoman sultan Murad V on the grounds of his insanity. Public fatwas were also used to dispute doctrinal matters, and in some case to proclaim that certain groups or individuals who professed to be Muslim were to be excluded from the Islamic community (a practice known as takfir). In both political and scholarly sphere, doctrinal controversies between different states, denominations or centers of learning were accompanied by dueling fatwas. Muftis also acted to counteract the influence of judges and secular functionaries. By articulating grievances and legal rights of the population, public fatwas often prompted an otherwise unresponsive court system to provide redress.

Anti-colonial fatwas

Early in the era of Western colonialism, several fatwas were issued drawing on the classical legal distinction between lands under Islamic rule (dar al-Islam) and lands of war (dar al-harb) or unbelief (dar al-kufr). These fatwas classified countries under European domination as lands of war or unbelief and invoked the legal theory obliging Muslims to wage war against the rulers of these lands or emigrate. A number of such fatwas were issued during the 19th century, including in 1803 by Shah Abdul Aziz in India and in 1804 by Usman dan Fodio in West Africa. The unrealistic nature of these fatwas was soon recognized and in 1870 the ulama of northern India issued fatwas stating that Indian Muslims were not obliged to rebel or emigrate. A similar doctrinal controversy occurred in French-ruled Algeria. The fatwas solicited by the Algerian anti-colonial leader Abd al-Qadir differed in their technical detail, while the French authorities obtained fatwas from local muftis, stating that Muslims living under the rule of unbelievers were not obligated to fight or emigrate as long as they were granted religious freedom by the authorities.

On many other occasions, fatwas served as an effective tool for influencing the political process. For example, in 1904 a fatwa by Moroccan ulema achieved the dismissal of European experts hired by the Moroccan government, while in 1907 another Moroccan fatwa succeeded in deposing the sultan on accusation that he failed to mount a defense against French aggression. The 1891 tobacco protest fatwa by the Iranian mujtahid Mirza Shirazi, which prohibited smoking as long as the British tobacco monopoly was in effect, also achieved its goals.

Modern institutions
Under European colonial rule, the institution of dar al-ifta was established in a number of madrasas (law colleges) as a centralized place for issuing of fatwas, and these organizations to a considerable extent replaced independent muftis as religious guides for the general population. Following independence, most Muslim states established national organizations devoted to issuing fatwas. One example is the Egyptian Dar al-Ifta, founded in 1895, which has served to articulate a national vision of Islam through fatwas issued in response to government and private queries. National governments in Muslim-majority countries also instituted councils of senior religious scholars to advise the government on religious matters and issue fatwas. These councils generally form part of the ministry for religious affairs, rather than the justice department, which may have a more assertive attitude toward the executive branch.

While chief muftis of earlier times oversaw a hierarchy of muftis and judges applying traditional jurisprudence, most modern states have adopted European-influenced legal codes and no longer employ traditional judicial procedures or traditionally trained judges. State muftis generally promote a vision of Islam that is compatible with state law of their country.

Although some early theorists argued that muftis should not respond to questions on certain subjects, such as theology, muftis have in practice handled queries relating to a wide range of subjects. This trend continued in modern times, and contemporary state-appointed muftis and institutions for ifta respond to government and private queries on varied issues, including political conflicts, Islamic finance, and medical ethics, contributing to shaping a national Islamic identity.

There exists no international Islamic authority to settle differences in interpretation of Islamic law. An International Islamic Fiqh Academy was created by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, but its legal opinions are not binding.

Legal methodology
Modern fatwas have been marked by an increased reliance on the process of ijtihad, i.e. deriving legal rulings based on an independent analysis rather than conformity with the opinions of earlier legal authorities (taqlid). While in the past muftis were associated with a particular school of law (madhhab), in the 20th century many muftis began to assert their independence from traditional schools of jurisprudence.

The most notorious result of disregarding classical jurisprudence are the fatwas of militant extremists who have interpreted the Quran and hadith as supporting suicide bombings, indiscriminate killing of bystanders, and declaration of self-professed Muslims as unbelievers (takfir).

New forms of ijtihad have also given rise to fatwas that support such notions as gender equality and banking interest, which are at variance with classical jurisprudence. This is commonly accomplished by application of various traditional legal doctrines such as the maqasid (objectives) of sharia, maslaha (public interest) and darura (necessity), in place of adhering to the letter of scriptural sources. The main argument for this approach is that Islamic law is meant to serve the interest of Muslims and make their lives easier (taysīr). This form of ijtihad is particularly prominent in fiqh al-aqallīyāt (minority jurisprudence), a recently developed branch of Islamic jurisprudence that aims to address the needs of Muslims living in countries with a non-Muslim majority. Its opponents object that sharia is supposed to determine the interests of Muslims, and not the other way around.

Political fatwas and controversies

On November 14, 1914 the Ottoman sultan proclaimed a jihad to mark the official entry of the Ottoman Empire into World War I. The proclamation was supported by a fatwa issued by the Shaykh al-Islam. Contrary to the German hopes that the proclamation would trigger Muslim revolts in British and French colonies, it was either rejected or quietly ignored by their Muslim authorities. It also quickly gave rise to a heated academic debate in Europe. The controversy was sparked by an 1915 article by the prominent Dutch orientalist C. Snouck Hurgronje, titled Heilige Oorlog [Holy War] Made in Germany. In it Hurgronje denounced his German colleagues, who he felt instigated the jihad proclamation in an irresponsible appeal to an antiquated concept that threatened the project of modernizing the Muslim world. The article was widely circulated in an English translation and its accuracy continues to be debated by historians, who acknowledge both the German influence and the internal political calculations of the Ottoman government underlying the proclamation.

Several boycott fatwas were issued in modern times, such as the one issued by Iraqi ulema in 1933, calling on Muslims to boycott Zionist products. In 2004 Yusuf al-Qaradawi issued a fatwa calling for boycott of Israeli and American products, arguing that buying these goods would strengthen the "enemy" fighting against Muslims in the struggle over Palestine.

Some muftis in the modern era, like the mufti of the Lebanese republic in the mid-20th century and the Grand Mufti of the Sultanate of Oman, were important political leaders. In Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini used proclamations and fatwas to introduce and legitimize a number of institutions, including the Council of the Islamic Revolution and the Iranian Parliament.

Khomeini's most publicized fatwa was the proclamation condemning Salman Rushdie to death for his novel The Satanic Verses. Khomeini himself did not call this proclamation a fatwa, and some scholars have argued that it did not qualify as one, since in Islamic legal theory only a court can decide whether an accused is guilty. However, after the proclamation was presented as a fatwa in Western press, this characterization was widely accepted by both its critics and its supporters, and the Rushdie Affair is credited with bringing the institution of fatwa to world attention. Together with later militant fatwas, it has contributed to the popular misconception of the fatwa as a religious death warrant.

Many militant and reform movements in modern times have disseminated fatwas issued by individuals who do not possess the qualifications traditionally required of a mufti. A famous example is the fatwa issued in 1998 by Osama bin Laden and four of his associates, proclaiming "jihad against Jews and Crusaders" and calling for killing of American civilians. In addition to denouncing its content, many Islamic jurists stressed that bin Laden was not qualified to either issue a fatwa or declare a jihad.

The Amman Message was a statement, signed in 2005 in Jordan by nearly 200 prominent Islamic jurists, which served as a "counter-fatwa" against a widespread use of takfir (excommunication) by jihadist groups to justify jihad against rulers of Muslim-majority countries. The Amman Message recognized eight legitimate schools of Islamic law and prohibited declarations of apostasy against them. The statement also asserted that fatwas can be issued only by properly trained muftis, thereby seeking to delegitimize fatwas issued by militants who lack the requisite qualifications.

Erroneous and sometimes bizarre fatwas issued by unqualified or eccentric individuals in recent times have sometimes given rise to complaints about a "chaos" in the modern practice of ifta.

Fatwas in the West
In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks, a group of Middle Eastern Islamic scholars issued a fatwa permitting Muslims serving in the U.S. army to participate in military action against Muslim countries, in response to a query from a U.S. Army Muslim chaplain. This fatwa illustrated two increasingly widespread practices. First, it drew directly on the Quran and hadith without referencing the body of jurisprudence from any of the traditional schools of Islamic law. Secondly, questions from Western Muslims directed to muftis in Muslim-majority countries have become increasingly common, as about one-third of Muslims now live in Muslim-minority countries.

Institutions devoted specifically to issuing fatwas to Western Muslims have been established in the West, including the Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA, founded in 1986) and the European Council for Fatwa and Research (ECFR, founded in 1997). These organizations aim to provide fatwas that address the concerns of Muslim minorities, helping them to comply with sharia, while stressing compatibility of Islam with diverse modern contexts. The FCNA was founded with the goal of developing legal methodologies for adopting Islamic law to life in the West. The ECRF draws on all major schools of Sunni law as well as other traditional legal principles, such as concern for the public good, local custom, and the prevention of harm, to derive fatwas suitable for life in Europe. For example, a 2001 ECRF ruling allowed a woman who had converted to Islam to remain married without requiring her husband's conversion, based in part on the existence of European laws and customs under which women are guaranteed the freedom of religion. Rulings of this kind have been welcomed by some, but also criticized by others as being overly eclectic in legal methodology and having potential to negatively impact the interpretation of sharia in Muslim-majority countries.

The needs of Western Muslims have given rise to a new branch of Islamic jurisprudence which has been termed the jurisprudence of (Muslim) minorities (fiqh al-aqallīyāt). The term is believed to have been coined in a 1994 fatwa by Taha Jabir Alalwani, then the chairman of FCNA, which encouraged Muslim citizens to participate in American politics. This branch of jurisprudence has since been developed primarily, but not exclusively for Muslim minorities in the West.

Role of modern media
Advances in communication technology and the rise of the internet have changed the reception and role of fatwas in modern society. In the pre-modern era, most fatwas issued in response to private queries were read only by the petitioner. Early in the 20th century, the reformist Islamic scholar Rashid Rida responded to thousands of queries from around the Muslim world on a variety of social and political topics in the regular fatwa section of his Cairo-based journal Al-Manar. In the late 20th century, when the Grand Mufti of Egypt Sayyid Tantawy issued a fatwa allowing interest banking, the ruling was vigorously debated in the Egyptian press by both religious scholars and lay intellectuals.

In the internet age, a large number of websites has appeared offering fatwas to readers around the world. For example, IslamOnline publishes an archive of "live fatwa" sessions, whose number approached a thousand by 2007, along with biographies of the muftis. Together with satellite television programs, radio shows and fatwa hotlines offering call-in fatwas, these sites have contributed to the rise of new forms of contemporary ifta. Unlike the concise or technical pre-modern fatwas, fatwas delivered through modern mass media often seek to be more expansive and accessible to the wide public.

Modern media have also facilitated cooperative forms to ifta. Networks of muftis are commonly engaged by fatwa websites, so that queries are distributed among the muftis in the network, who still act as individual jurisconsults. In other cases, Islamic jurists of different nationalities, schools of law, and sometimes even denominations (Sunni and Shia), coordinate to issue a joint fatwa, which is expected to command greater authority with the public than individual fatwas. The collective fatwa (sometimes called ijtihād jamāʿī, "collective legal interpretation") is a new historical development, and it is found in such settings as boards of Islamic financial institutions and international fatwa councils.

Social role of fatwas
As the role of fatwas on strictly legal issues has declined in modern times, there has been a relative increase in the proportion of fatwas dealing with rituals and further expansion in purely religious areas like Quranic exegesis, creed, and Sufism. Modern fatwas also deal with a wide variety of other topics, including insurance, sex-change operations, moon exploration, beer drinking, abortion in the case of fatal foetal abnormalities, or males and females sharing workplaces. Public "fatwa wars" have reflected political controversies in the Muslim world, from anti-colonial struggles to the Gulf War of the 1990s, when muftis in some countries issued fatwas supporting collaboration with the US-led coalition, while muftis from other countries endorsed the Iraqi call for jihad against the US and its collaborators. In the private sphere, some muftis have begun to resemble social workers, giving advice on various personal issues encountered in everyday life.

The social profile of the fatwa petitioner has also undergone considerable changes. Owing to the rise of universal education, those who solicit fatwas have become increasingly educated, which has transformed the traditional mufti–mustafti relationship based on restricted literacy. The questioner is now also increasingly likely to be female, and in the modern world Muslim women tend to address muftis directly rather than conveying their query through a male relative as in the past. Since women now represent a significant proportion of students studying Islamic law and qualifying as muftiyas, their prominence in its interpretation is likely to rise. A fatwa hotline in the United Arab Emirates provides access to either male or female muftis, allowing women to request fatwas from female Islamic legal scholars.

The vast amount of fatwas produced in the modern world attests to the importance of Islamic authenticity to many Muslims. However, there is little research available to indicate to what extent Muslims acknowledge the authority of various fatwas and heed their rulings in real life. Rather than reflecting the actual conduct or opinions of Muslims, these fatwas may instead represent a collection of opinions on what Muslims "ought to think".

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Fatwa


text:
Relax (song)

"Relax" is the debut single by English new wave band Frankie Goes to Hollywood, released in the United Kingdom by ZTT Records in 1983.

The hit version, produced by Trevor Horn and featuring the band along with other musicians, entered the UK top 75 singles chart in November 1983 but did not crack the top 40 until early January 1984. Three weeks later it reached number one, on the chart dated 28 January 1984, replacing Paul McCartney's "Pipes of Peace". One of the decade's most controversial and most commercially successful records, "Relax" eventually sold a reported two million copies in the UK alone, easily ranking among the ten biggest-selling singles in the UK. It remained in the UK top 40 for 37 consecutive weeks, 35 of which overlapped with a radio airplay ban by the BBC (owing to lyrics perceived as overtly sexual).

In June 1984, bolstered by the instant massive success of the band's follow-up single "Two Tribes", the single re-entered the top ten for a further nine weeks, including two spent at No. 2 (behind "Two Tribes"). At that time, Frankie Goes to Hollywood were the only act apart from the Beatles and John Lennon to concurrently occupy the top two positions on the chart. Several 12-inch single versions (and the "Frankie Say Relax" T-shirt craze) further fed the "Relax" phenomenon. The single re-entered the UK top 75 in February 1985 and, more successfully, in October 1993, when it spent three weeks in the top ten.

In the United States, "Relax" was also comparatively slow in reaching its chart peak. Released in March 1984, albeit with a different mix and nearly a minute shorter in length, the single stalled at No. 67 on Billboard's Hot 100 in May during a seven-week run, but it ranked number one for the year on the Los Angeles "alternative rock" station KROQ, as voted for by listeners. In January 1985, a release of "Relax" that was far more similar to the UK hit version entered the Hot 100 at No. 70, and in March it reached No. 10 during its 16-week run. In January 1989, the single was certified gold by the RIAA.

In February 1985, the record was awarded Best British Single of 1984 at the Brit Awards, and Frankie Goes to Hollywood won Best British Newcomer. A version of the song features on Frankie Goes to Hollywood's debut album Welcome to the Pleasuredome, released in October 1984.

Background and recording
Singer Holly Johnson said the lyrics came to him as he was walking down Princess Avenue in Liverpool: "I mean they were just, you know, words that floated into my head one day when I was walking down Princess Avenue with no bus fare, trying to get to rehearsals – I mean there was no great sort of calculated, 'Oh I'll sing these words and this record'll be banned'."

ZTT Records signed Frankie Goes to Hollywood after producer-turned-ZTT cofounder Trevor Horn saw the band play on the television show The Tube, on which the group played an early version of "Relax". Horn described the original version of "Relax" as "more a jingle than a song", but he preferred to work with songs that were not professionally finished because he could then "fix them up" in his own style. Once the band was signed, ZTT co-founder Paul Morley mapped out the marketing campaign fashioned as a "strategic assault on pop". Morley opted to tackle the biggest possible themes in the band's singles ("sex, war, religion"), of which "Relax" would be the first, and emphasized the shock impact of Frankie members Holly Johnson's and Paul Rutherford's open homosexuality in the packaging and music videos.

Horn dominated the recording of "Relax" in his effort for perfectionism. Initial sessions were held at the Manor Studio. The band were overawed and intimidated by Horn's reputation, and thus were too nervous to make suggestions. Johnson said in his autobiography, "Whatever he said we went along with". When attempts to record with the full band proved unsatisfactory, Horn hired former Ian Dury backing band the Blockheads for the sessions, with Norman Watt-Roy providing the original bass line. Those sessions were later deemed to be not modern-sounding enough. Instead, Watt-Roy's playing was replaced by a sampled E note on a bass guitar, which was layered over a Linn 2 bass drum.

Horn then constructed a more electronic-based version of the song with keyboards by session musician Andy Richards and with rhythm programming assistance from J. J. Jeczalik of Art of Noise. Horn developed this version of the recording in his west London studio while the band remained in their hometown of Liverpool. Horn had made three versions of "Relax" prior to Richards and guitarist Stephen Lipson joining his ZTT Production 'Theam' in late 1983. Horn left the studio late one night asking for Lipson to erase the multitrack (of version 3) due to lack of progress, but came back into the studio some time later to hear Richards playing a variety of modal chords based around the key of E minor with Lipson playing guitar along to the unerased multitrack.

Ultimately lead vocalist Johnson was the only band member to perform on the record. The only contribution by the other members was a sample crafted from the sound of the rest of the band jumping into a swimming pool. Johnson later said that "Trevor didn't like the band's standard of playing as he couldn't sync it to his machinery". Horn later recalled of the song's intro, "Hit singles are not just good songs. They need to be moments. Holly had been blowing his saxophone on the studio roof in Notting Hill at 2am, and a bunch of guys appeared on the street, calling up to him. He came down to do the vocal, and I suggested he play it at the start of Relax."

In a 2021 interview, Horn said that "the band we signed weren't quite the band who had appeared on the original demo, though we didn't know that at the time". The demo had featured Jed O'Toole, brother of bassist Mark O'Toole, on guitar, who subsequently left to pursue a 9-to-5 career. He was replaced by Brian Nash, who was a guitar novice at the time the single was recorded, though Horn acknowledged that he developed into a good guitarist by the time Welcome to the Pleasuredome was finished. Horn completed the recording having spent £70,000 in studio time.

Release, controversy and ban by the BBC
Morley intentionally courted scandal with the promotion of "Relax". ZTT initiated the ad campaign for "Relax" with two quarter-page ads in the British music press. The first ad featured images of Rutherford in a sailor cap and a leather vest, and Johnson with a shaved head and rubber gloves. The images were accompanied by the phrase "ALL THE NICE BOYS LOVE SEA MEN", a pun on the music hall song "Ship Ahoy! (All the Nice Girls Love a Sailor)". It declared "Frankie Goes to Hollywood are coming ... making Duran Duran lick the shit off their shoes ... Nineteen inches that must be taken always." The second ad promised "theories of bliss, a history of Liverpool from 1963 to 1983, a guide to Amsterdam bars".

When the single was first released in November 1983, the initial progress of "Relax" on the UK top 75 was sluggish. First charting at No. 67, it had progressed only to No. 35 by its seventh week on the chart, even having fallen back slightly during that time. But then on Thursday 5 January 1984, Frankie Goes to Hollywood were shown performing "Relax" on the BBC flagship television chart show, Top of the Pops. The following week it soared to No. 6. On 11 January 1984, Radio 1 disc jockey Mike Read expressed on air his distaste for both the record's suggestive sleeve (designed by Anne Yvonne Gilbert) and its lyric, which centred on the oft-repeated "Relax, don't do it/When you want to sock it to it/Relax, don't do it/ When you want to come." He announced his refusal to play the record, not knowing the BBC had just decided the song was not to be played on the BBC anyway. Holly Johnson contends that the lyric was misheard: rather than "When you want to sock it to it", the line is "When you want to suck, chew it".

In support of their disc jockey, BBC Radio banned the single from its shows a reported two days later (although certain prominent night-time BBC shows – including those of Kid Jensen and John Peel – continued to play the record, as they saw fit, during 1984). The now-banned "Relax" rose to No. 2 on the charts by 17 January, and hit the number-one spot on 24 January. By this time, the BBC Radio ban had extended to Top of the Pops as well, which simply displayed a still picture of the group during its climactic number one announcement, before airing a performance by a non-number one artist.

This went on for the five weeks that "Relax" was at number one. It then began a slow decline on the charts, falling back as far as No. 31 in May 1984 before returning to No. 2 in July whilst Frankie's follow-up single "Two Tribes" held the UK number-one spot. In the end, "Relax" remained on the top 75 for 48 consecutive weeks and returned in February 1985 for four more, giving a total of 52.

The ban became an embarrassment for the BBC, especially given that UK commercial radio and television stations were still playing the song. Later in 1984 the ban was lifted and "Relax" featured on both the Christmas Day edition of Top of the Pops and Radio 1's rundown of the best-selling singles of the year.

Throughout the "Relax" controversy, the band continued to publicly deny that the song's lyrics were sexual. Nevertheless, by 1984, it was clear that the public were aware of the sexual nature of the lyrics, but the scandal had fuelled sales anyway. In 1985, with the release of the Welcome to the Pleasuredome album (which included "Relax"), the band dropped any public pretence about the lyrics: "Everything I say is complete lies. Like, when people ask you what 'Relax' was about, when it first came out we used to pretend it was about motivation, and really it was about shagging."

The track was reissued in September 1993, the first of a string of Frankie Goes to Hollywood singles to be reissued that year. It debuted at a high No. 6 on the UK Singles Chart and peaked at No. 5 the following week. It spent seven weeks on the top 75 this time, thus extending its combined total to 59, making it at the time the third longest runner of all time; it has since been surpassed by 44 other songs and sits in joint 47th place.

Critical reception
American magazine Cash Box said that the song is "a very danceable cut", in which "heavy bass and bass drum provide the backdrop for Frankie's pleading lyric and Frank Sinatraesque soaring vocal." Alan Jones from Music Week gave the 1993 remix four out of five, writing, "ZTT recently got its catalogue back from Island, and is about to embark on a high profile re-issue/remix campaign, of which this is the first fruit. "Relax" is updated by Ollie J in a stomping house mix, while Jam & Spoon's pumped-up Hi-NRG version is hardcore tempo. With the original mixes added to the package, this is going to be big all over again. But will One FM play it?" Richard Harris from NME commented, "'Relax' sounds as divine as ever; a perfect soundtrack for pubescents to discover the delightful realities of having hormones."

Personnel
Credits sourced from Sound on Sound

Frankie Goes to Hollywood
 * Holly Johnson – lead vocals
 * Paul Rutherford – backing vocals

Other musicians
 * Trevor Horn – LinnDrum and Fairlight CMI programming; producer
 * J.J. Jeczalik – Fairlight CMI programming
 * Stephen Lipson – electric guitars, Roland GR-300 guitar synthesizer
 * Andy Richards – Roland Jupiter-8 synthesizer, Roland MC-4 Microcomposer sequencer

Original 1983–1984 mixes
Although the 7-inch version of the single remained unchanged throughout its initial release (a mix generally known as "Relax (Move)"), promotional 7-inch records featuring a substantially different mix of "Relax" (entitled either "The Last Seven Inches" or "Warp Mix" because it is a compilation of other versions) were the subject of a limited 1984 release.

Three principal 12-inch remixes of "Relax" were eventually created by producer Trevor Horn:

"One of the reasons we did all the remixes was that the initial 12-inch version of 'Relax' contained something called 'The Sex Mix', which was 16 minutes long and didn't even contain a song. It was really Holly Johnson just jamming, as well as a bunch of samples of the group jumping in the swimming pool and me sort of making disgusting noises by dropping stuff into buckets of water! We got so many complaints about it — particularly from gay clubs, who found it offensive — that we cut it in half and reduced it down to eight minutes, by taking out some of the slightly more offensive parts [this became 'Sex Mix (Edition 2)']. Then we got another load of complaints, because the single version wasn't on the 12-inch — I didn't see the point in this at the time, but I was eventually put straight about it."

Horn attested that visits to New York's Paradise Garage club led to the creation of the final "Relax (New York Mix)", which ultimately replaced the original "Sex Mix" releases:

"It was only when I went to this club and heard the sort of things they were playing that I really understood about 12-inch remixes. Although I myself had already had a couple of big 12-inch hits, I'd never heard them being played on a big sound system, and so I then went back and mixed 'Relax' again and that was the version which sold a couple of million over here [in the UK]."

The original 12-inch version of "Relax", labelled "Sex Mix", ran for over 16 minutes, and is broadly as described by Horn above. The subsequent "Edition 2" was an 8-minute-plus edit of the "Sex Mix", and can only be distinguished by having 12ISZTAS1 etched on the vinyl. The final 12-inch mix, containing no elements from the foregoing versions, was designated the "New York Mix", and ran for approximately 7:20. This was the most commonly available 12-inch version of "Relax" during its worldwide 1984 chart success.

The UK cassette single featured "Greatest Bits", a unique amalgam of excerpts from the "Sex Mix", "New York Mix", "Move" and an instrumental version of "Move".

Since virtually all of the UK "Relax" 12-inch singles were labelled "Sex Mix", a method of differentiating between versions by reference to the record's matrix numbers necessarily became de rigueur for collectors of Frankie Goes to Hollywood releases (and ultimately collectors of ZTT records in general).

"Relax (Come Fighting)" was the version of the song included on the Welcome to the Pleasuredome album. This is ostensibly a variant of the 7-inch single "Move" mix, but is different from that version. For example, the 7" mix fades in on a foghorn type sound while the album mix fades in on sustained synth chords. Also, the backing vocals of the 7" mix are panned to the left, whereas they are mixed in the centre on the album version. Additionally, the 7" mix features a prominent reverberated kick drum sound during the introduction that also appears in other parts of the song, which is completely absent from the album mix. The album mix also has a certain post-production sheen (greater stereo separation of parts, more strategic uses of reverb, etc.) that is absent from the original 1983 7-inch single mix. The "Classic 1993 Version" is a version of the original 7" mix that uses "Bonus, Again" as the instrumental track, although modification with elements from "Come Fighting" thrown in (e.g. both the intro and outro come directly from it) and much of it made to sound more clear.

The original airing of Relax on The Tube, before the band were signed to ZTT, featured another verse that was edited from all the released versions, "In heaven everything is fine, you've got yours and I've got mine", presumably removed as it was taken directly from the David Lynch film Eraserhead.

According to a fan enquiry by a member of the Alternate forum (a forum dedicated to ZTT) to Holly Johnson over accusation that "Edition 2" was created by a DJ, "Edition 2" was edited by Trevor Horn at the Sarm East studio with J. J. Jeczalik engineering and Johnson watching.

B-sides
The 7-inch featured "One September Monday", an interview between ZTT's Paul Morley, Holly Johnson and Paul Rutherford. During the interview, Holly revealed that the group's name derived from a page of the New Yorker magazine, headlined "Frankie Goes Hollywood" and featuring Frank Sinatra "getting mobbed by teenyboppers".

On all of the original 12-inch releases, the B-side featured a cover of "Ferry 'Cross the Mersey", followed by a brief dialogue involving Rutherford attempting to sign on, and an a cappella version of the title track's chorus, segueing into an instrumental version of "Relax", known as "Bonus, Again" (which resembles "Come Fighting" more than the 7" mix).

The UK cassette single included "Ferry 'Cross the Mersey" and interview sections not included on "One September Monday".

Videos
The first official music video for "Relax", directed by Bernard Rose and set in an S&M themed gay nightclub at Wilton's music hall in London it featuring the bandmembers accosted by buff leathermen, a glamorous drag queen, and an obese admirer dressed up as a Roman emperor, played by actor John Dair, was allegedly banned by MTV and the BBC, prompting the recording of a second video, directed by Godley and Creme in early 1984, featuring the group performing with the help of laser beams. However, after the second video was made the song was banned completely by the BBC, meaning that neither video was ever broadcast on any BBC music programmes.

A live performance video of the song was directed by David Mallet, making the rounds at MTV. The live version was released as the B-side of the US 12" version of "Welcome to the Pleasuredome" and titled "Relax International."

Another MTV video of the studio version includes footage from the Brian De Palma film Body Double. Body Double, a popular 1984 erotic thriller film, contains a film within a film sequence in which Frankie Goes to Hollywood performs "Relax" on the set of a porn film.

Zoolander versions
"Relax" is a major plot point in the film Zoolander (2001), where the titular character is conditioned to assassinate a target when they hear the song. Limp Bizkit also recorded their own version for the film, though Powerman 5000's cover was used instead, in both the film and on the soundtrack. "Relax" was also used for the trailer of Zoolander 2 (2016).

Track listings

 * All discographical information pertains to original UK releases only unless noted
 * "Relax" written by Peter Gill/Johnson/Mark O'Toole
 * "One September Monday" credited to Gill/Johnson/Morley/Brian Nash/O'Toole/Rutherford
 * "Ferry 'Cross the Mersey" written by Gerry Marsden

 * 7": ZTT / ZTAS 1 (United Kingdom)
 * 1) "Relax" – 3:53
 * 2) "One September Monday" – 4:47
 * Also released as a 7" picture disc (P ZTAS 1).

 * 12": ZTT / 12 ZTAS 1 (United Kingdom)
 * 1) "Relax" (Sex Mix) – 16:24
 * 2) "Ferry 'Cross the Mersey" – 4:03
 * 3) "Relax" (Bonus, Again) – 4:31
 * Later reissued in 1984 in a generic sleeve, with the text "Original Mix" on the label.
 * Mastered at 33⅓ RPM, despite claiming to run at 45 RPM on the label. The 1984 reissue runs at 45 RPM.

 * 12": ZTT / 12 ZTAS 1 (United Kingdom)
 * 1) "Relax" (Sex Mix, Edition 2) – 8:20
 * 2) "Ferry 'Cross the Mersey" – 4:03
 * 3) "Relax" (Bonus, Again) – 4:31
 * "Edition 2" is an edit of "Sex Mix". Commonly nicknamed the "New York Mix".

 * 12": ZTT / 12 ZTAS 1 (United Kingdom)
 * 1) "Relax" (New York Mix) – 7:23
 * 2) "Ferry 'Cross the Mersey" – 4:03
 * 3) "Relax" (Bonus, Again) – 4:31
 * "Relax" (New York Mix) is also known as "Relax" (U.S. Mix)
 * Also released as a 12" picture disc (12 PZTAS 1).

 * 12": Island / 0-96975 (United States)
 * 1) "Relax" (New York Mix) – 7:23
 * 2) "Relax" (Come Fighting) – 3:53
 * 3) "Relax" (Bonus, Again) – 4:31
 * "New York Mix" labelled as "Long version".
 * The mixes on the B-side are not stated on the label.
 * Also released on MC in Canada (Island / ISC-69750).

 * 12": ZTT / 062-2000686 (Greece)
 * 1) "Relax" (Greek Disco Mix) – 6:15
 * 2) "Ferry 'Cross the Mersey" – 4:03
 * 3) "Relax" (Bonus, Again) – 4:31
 * "Disco Mix" (a.k.a. "The Greek Disco Mix") is a combination of "Relax (7" Mix)" and "Sex Mix (Edition 2)".
 * "Disco Mix" (a.k.a. "The Greek Disco Mix") is labelled as "Relax" (Sex Mix) on the original 12", which is incorrect.

 * MC: ZTT / CTIS 102
 * "From Soft to Hard – From Dry to Moist"
 * 1) "Relax" (Greatest Bits) – 16:49
 * 2) "The Party Trick" (acting dumb) – 0:36
 * 3) "The Special Act" (adapted from the sex mix) – 7:46
 * 4) "The US Mix" (come dancing) – 4:38
 * 5) "The Single" (the act) – 3:55
 * 6) "Later On" (from One September Monday) – 1:36
 * 7) "Ferry Across the Mersey (...and Here I'll Stay)" – 4:06
 * The mixes on this cassette single reissued on vinyl for Record Store Day 2022 as side A of 'Altered Reels' – the cassette single of "Two Tribes" was reissued on side B.

Re-issues
The title track has periodically been reissued as a single in a number of remix forms.

1993 re-issues

 * CD: ZTT / FGTH1CD
 * 1) "Relax" (Classic 1993 Version) – 3:55
 * 2) "Relax" (MCMXCIII) – 3:42
 * 3) "Relax" (Ollie J. Remix) – 6:38
 * 4) "Relax" (Jam & Spoon Trip-O-Matic Fairy Tale Remix) – 7:52
 * 5) "Relax" (Jam & Spoon HI N-R-G Remix) – 7:55
 * 6) "Relax" (New York Mix – The Original 12") – 7:22

 * 2x12": ZTT / SAM 1231
 * 1) "Relax" (Ollie J. Remix) – 6:38
 * 2) "Relax" (Trip-Ship Edit) – 6:12
 * 3) "Relax" (Ollie J's Seven Inches) – 3:30
 * 4) "Relax" (Jam & Spoon HI N-R-G Remix) – 7:55
 * 5) "Relax" (Jam & Spoon Trip-O-Matic Fairy Tale Remix) – 7:52
 * 6) "Relax" (MCMXCIII) – 3:42
 * UK 12" promo

2001 re-issues

 * CD: Repertoire Records / REP 8027 (Germany)
 * 1) "Relax" (Classic 1993 Version) – 3:56
 * 2) "One September Monday" – 4:50
 * 3) "Ferry 'Cross the Mersey" – 4:06
 * 4) "Relax MCMXCIII" – 3:43
 * 5) "Relax" (original video) – 4:07

 * CD: Star 69 / STARCD 520 (US)
 * 1) "Relax" (Peter Rauhofer's Doomsday Radio Mix) – 3:45
 * 2) "Relax" (Peter Rauhofer's Doomsday Club Mix) – 9:47
 * 3) "Relax" (Saeed & Palash Addictive Journey) – 11:16
 * 4) "Relax" (Coldcut Remix) – 4:59
 * 5) "Relax" (Peter Rauhofer's Doomsday Dub) – 6:27
 * 6) "Relax" (Original New York 12" Mix) – 7:31
 * 7) "Relax" (Original Radio Mix) – 3:54

2009 re-issues

 * CD: Universal Music TV/All Around The World (UK)
 * 1) "Relax" (Chicane Radio Edit) – 3:55
 * 2) "Relax" (Chicane Remix) – 10:05
 * 3) "Relax" (Den Broeder, Cox, Cantrelle Radio Edit) – 3:46
 * 4) "Relax" (Den Broeder, Cox, Cantrelle Club Mix) – 7:39
 * 5) "Relax" (Den Broeder, Cox, Cantrelle Dub Mix) – 6:39
 * 6) "Relax" (LMC Remix) – 6:18
 * 7) "Relax" (Lockout's Radio Edit) – 3:31
 * 8) "Relax" (Lockout's London Mix) – 6:16
 * 9) "Relax" (Spencer & Hill Radio Edit) – 3:21
 * 10) "Relax" (Spencer & Hill Remix) – 5:40
 * 11) "Relax" (Scott Storch Mix) – 3:45
 * Promotional release.
 * Tracks 3–5 are credited as “Jody Den Broeder Remix”.

 * 12": Universal Music TV/All Around The World / 12GLOBE1167 (UK)
 * 1) "Relax" (Chicane Remix) – 10:05
 * 2) "Relax" (Lockout's Radio Edit) – 3:30
 * 3) "Relax" (New York Mix) – 7:24
 * 4) "Relax" (Den Broeder, Cox, Cantrelle Radio Edit) – 3:42
 * Limited to 900 copies.
 * "New York Mix" mislabelled as "US Mix", arguably one of the few ZTT releases to do so.

 * Digital Download: Universal Music TV/All Around The World (UK)
 * 1) "Relax" (Original 7") – 3:55
 * 2) "Relax" (Chicane Radio Edit) – 3:11
 * 3) "Relax" (Den Broeder, Cox, Cantrelle Radio Edit) – 3:42
 * 4) "Relax" (Lockout's Radio Edit) – 3:30
 * 5) "Relax" (Spencer & Hill Radio Edit) – 3:21

2014 re-issues

 * 12": ZTT/Salvo / SALVOTWS01 (UK)
 * 1) "Relax" (Sex Mix Edit) [mislabeled as "Sex Mix Edition 3"] – 8:10
 * 2) "Ferry 'Cross the Mersey" – 4:03
 * 3) "Relax" (Bonus, Again) – 4:31
 * "Sex Mix Edit" was mixed by Luis Jardim with Bob Painter as engineer on 13 December 1984, having taken the multitracks with him (according to the booklet of The Art of The 12" Volume 2). It was first released on the 2009 Japanese "Return to the Pleasuredome" box set by accident, due to confusion with "Sex Mix Edition 2".
 * "Bonus, Again" mislabelled "The Instrumental", as if it was an unreleased mix.

 * Digital Download: ZTT (UK)
 * 1) "Relax" (7" Mix) – 3:56
 * 2) "Relax" (Sex Mix) – 16:25
 * 3) "Relax" (New York Mix) – 7:26
 * 4) "Relax' (Greatest Bits) – 16:50
 * 5) "Relax" (Sex Mix Edition 2) – 8:25
 * 6) "Relax" (Sex Mix Edit) [mislabeled as "Sex Mix Edition 3"] – 8:10
 * 7) "Relax" (Greek Disco Mix) – 6:16
 * 8) "Relax" (The Last Seven Inches!) – 3:32
 * 9) "One September Monday" – 4:49
 * 10) "Ferry Cross The Mersey" – 4:08
 * 11) "Relax" (Bonus, Again) – 4:35

title: Relax (song)


text:
Two Tribes

"Two Tribes" is an anti-war song by British band Frankie Goes to Hollywood, released in the UK by ZTT Records on 4 June 1984. The song was later included on the album Welcome to the Pleasuredome. Presenting a nihilistic, gleeful lyric expressing enthusiasm for nuclear war, it juxtaposes a relentless pounding bass line and guitar riff inspired by American funk and R&B pop with influences of Russian classical music, in an opulent arrangement produced by Trevor Horn.

The single was a phenomenal success in the UK, helped by a wide range of remixes and supported by an advertising campaign depicting the band as members of the Red Army. It entered the UK Singles Chart at number one on 10 June 1984, where it stayed for nine consecutive weeks, during which time the group's previous single "Relax" climbed back up the charts to number two. It was the longest-running number-one single in the UK of the 1980s. It has sold 1.58 million copies in the UK as of November 2012, being in the Top 30 best-selling singles in the UK as of 2022.

Songwriters Johnson, Gill and O'Toole received the 1984 Ivor Novello award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically. In 2015 the song was voted by the British public as the nation's 14th-favourite 1980s number one in a poll for ITV.

Music
A version of "Two Tribes" was originally recorded for a BBC John Peel session in October 1982. The session version makes clear that the basic structure of the song, including its signature bass-line, percussion arrangement and idiosyncratic introductory and middle eight sections, were already intact prior to any involvement from ZTT or eventual producer Trevor Horn.

Johnson also noted: "There's [sic] two elements in the music – an American funk line and a Russian line. It's the most obvious demonstration of two tribes that we have today." To accentuate the musical tension, Horn arranged the 'Russian' segments as a dramatic string arrangement. The driving funk/rock rhythm section was played on synthesisers.

Title and lyrics
The single was released at a time when the Cold War had intensified and fears about global nuclear warfare were at a peak. Although Johnson would attest in a 1984 radio interview that the "two tribes" of the song potentially represented any pair of warring adversaries (giving the examples of "cowboys and Indians or Captain Kirk and Klingons"), the line "On the air America/I modelled shirts by Van Heusen" is a clear reference to then US President Ronald Reagan. Reagan had advertised for Phillips Van Heusen in 1953 (briefly reviving the association in the early 1980s). The title of his first film had been Love Is on the Air.

The lyric "working for the black gas" is, according to Johnson, "About oil surpassing gold. How you might as well be paid in petrol." And the line "Are we living in a land where sex and horror are the new gods?" was inspired by the 1959 British film Cover Girl Killer. Johnson explained, "The TV was on in the background while I was doing me ironing and suddenly this character came out with that statement." (The actual dialogue, which occurs at about 48 minutes 24 seconds into the film, is "Surely sex and horror are the new gods in this polluted world of so-called entertainment?")

The track featured snippets of narration from actor Patrick Allen, recreating his narration from the British Protect and Survive public information films about how to survive a nuclear war. (The original Protect and Survive soundtracks were sampled for the 7-inch mixes.)

The 12-inch A- and B-sides featured voice parts by British actor Chris Barrie imitating Ronald Reagan. Barrie also voiced the Reagan puppet on Spitting Image. Barrie's parts as 'Reagan' included praise for the band, as well as parts of Adolf Hitler's speech to a court after the Beer Hall Putsch: "You may pronounce us guilty a thousand times over, but the Goddess of the Eternal Court of History will smile and tear to tatters the brief of the State Prosecutor and the sentence of this court, for She acquits us." Barrie also voiced the last sentence of "History Will Absolve Me" (Spanish: "La historia me absolverá") which is the concluding sentence and subsequent title of a four-hour speech made by Fidel Castro on 16 October 1953. Castro made the speech in his own defense in court against the charges brought against him after leading an attack on the Moncada Barracks on 26 July 1953. Barrie would return for the band's next single, "The Power of Love", imitating Mike Read in a parody of the DJ's ban on their previous single, "Relax".

The song's title derives from the line "two mighty warrior tribes went to war" from the film Mad Max 2 (the line is also spoken by Holly Johnson at the beginning of the session version).

Critical reception
American magazine Cash Box called it "a more scintillating anti-war track than ["The War Song"], saying it is "both an effective dance cut and a piece of modern art." Richard Harris from NME wrote, Two Tribes' is a fine example of why over-production is a musical virtue, not least when it ceases to be a pop song and tries to disco-ise Tchaikovsky."

Promotion
ZTT aggressively marketed the single in terms of its topical political angle, promoting it with images of the group wearing American military garb in combat, as well as Soviet-style army uniforms set against an American urban backdrop.

The original cover art featured a Soviet mural of Vladimir Lenin in St Petersburg, and images of Reagan and then-UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The sleeve notes, attributed to ZTT's Paul Morley, dispassionately reported details of the relative nuclear arsenals of each superpower.

Personnel
Credits sourced from Sound On Sound

Frankie Goes To Hollywood
 * Holly Johnson – lead vocals
 * Paul Rutherford – backing vocals

Other Musicians
 * Trevor Horn – LinnDrum and Fairlight CMI programming; producer
 * J.J. Jeczalik – Fairlight CMI programming
 * Stephen Lipson – electric guitars, Synclavier programming
 * Andy Richards – Roland Jupiter-8 synthesizer, Roland MC-4 Microcomposer sequencer, Hammond organ

Original 1984 mixes
The song appeared in the form of six mixes, including "Annihilation", "Carnage", "Hibakusha", "Cowboys and Indians", "We Don't Want to Die" and "For the Victims of Ravishment".

The first 12-inch mix ("Annihilation") started with an air-raid siren, and included advice from Allen about how to tag and dispose of family members should they die in the fallout shelter (taken from the public information film Casualties). This version appeared on CD editions of the album. "Annihilation" was the basis for the "Hibakusha" mix, which was originally released in a limited edition, Japanese-only version of the 1985 album Bang!. Hibakusha is the Japanese word for survivors of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

"For the Victims of Ravishment" appeared on the LP and cassette editions of the album Welcome to the Pleasuredome. It is the shortest version, at 3:27 minutes. This mix derived from the "Carnage" mix, which prominently featured strings as well as vocal samples from Allen and the group's B-side interview.

Since 1984, "Two Tribes" has been re-issued several times, generally involving third-party remixes bearing little relation to the original releases in terms of either structure or character.

B-sides
The 7-inch featured "One February Friday", an interview between Morley and the group's three musicians, Mark O'Toole, Brian Nash and Peter Gill, over an otherwise untitled instrumental track. A similar track had been included on the B-side of "Relax", with the title "One September Monday".

The principal B-side to the original 12-inch single was a cover version of "War", which became the subject of an extended remix (subtitled "Hidden") on the single's third UK 12-inch release, where it was promoted as a double A-side with "Carnage".

The UK cassette single featured a cut-together combination of "Surrender", "Carnage" and "Annihilation", plus Reagan snippets and interview sections not included on any other release.

Videos
The Godley & Creme-directed video depicted a wrestling match between then-US President Ronald Reagan and Konstantin Chernenko, then Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, in front of group members and an assembly of representatives from the world's nations. The match eventually degenerates into global destruction. Certain violent moments ("Reagan" is seen, for example, biting "Chernenko's" ear) were edited from the version shown on MTV.

A longer version of the video (based on the "Hibakusha" mix) included an introductory, heavily edited monologue by Richard Nixon taken from an ad from his 1960 US Presidential campaign ("No ... firm diplomacy ... No ... peace for America and the world"), plus similar contributions from other world leaders, including Lord Beaverbrook, Yasser Arafat and John F. Kennedy. The complete soundtrack to the extended video was eventually released as "Two Tribes (Video Destructo)" on the German version of the Twelve Inches compilation. A third version of the video, included on the band's From An Wasteland to an Artificial Paradise VHS, retains the introduction, but omits most of the inserted clips in the main wrestling sequence.

Track listing
All discographical information pertains to the original UK single release only.

 * "Two Tribes" written by Gill/Johnson/O'Toole
 * "War" written by Strong/Whitfield
 * "One February Friday" credited to Gill/Johnson/Morley/Nash/O'Toole/Paul Rutherford

7": ZTT / ZTAS 3 United Kingdom:

The A-side mix is commonly referred as "Cowboys and Indians" to avoid confusion with other mixes, as ZTT commonly gives the sides on singles separate names. Thus, "One February Friday" is sometimes subtitled as either "Doctors and Nurses" (as per the regular 7") or "Only Bullets Can Stop Them Now" (as per the picture disc B-side label).

7" (picture disc): ZTT / P ZTAS 3 United Kingdom:

The A-side is an alternative mix to the regular 7" (subtitled "We Don't Want To Die" on the B-side label). A common theory within many fans is that "We Don't Want To Die" is essentially "Surrender" with vocals.

Also issued as a regular 7" in Canada.

12": ZTT / 12 ZTAS 3 United Kingdom:

 * title1        =
 * length1       =

 * 1) "Two Tribes" (Annihilation) – 9:08
 * 2) "War" (Hide Yourself) – 4:12
 * 3) "One February Friday" (12" edit) – – 1:46
 * 4) "Two Tribes" (Surrender) – 3:46
 * 5) ["The Last Voice"] (unlisted) – 1:14

12": Island Records / X-14065 Australia:
 * 1) "Two Tribes" (Extended Version) – 9:10
 * 2) "War" (Hide Yourself) – 4:12
 * 3) "Two Tribes" – 4:11
 * 4) "One February Friday"  4:57

"Extended Version" is the same as "Annihilation".

"Two Tribes" on the B-side is the 7" picture disc mix.

12": ZTT / 12 XZTAS 3 United Kingdom:
 * 1) "Two Tribes" (Carnage) – 7:54
 * 2) "War" (Hide Yourself) – 4:12
 * 3) "One February Friday" (12" edit) – 1:46
 * 4) "Two Tribes" (Surrender) – 3:46
 * 5) ["The Last Voice"] (unlisted) – 1:14

12": ZTT / WARTZ 3 United Kingdom:
 * 1) "War" (Hidden) – 8:33
 * 2) "Two Tribes" (Carnage) 7:54
 * 3) "One February Friday" (12" edit) – 1:46

12": ZTT / X ZIP 1 United Kingdom:
 * 1) "Two Tribes" (Hibakusha) – 6:38
 * 2) "War" (Hide Yourself) – 4:12
 * 3) "One February Friday" (12" edit) – 1:46
 * 4) "Two Tribes" (Surrender) – 3:46
 * 5) ["The Last Voice"] [Edited] (unlisted) – 0:35

12": ZTT / XZTAS 3DJ United Kingdom:
 * 1) Two Tribes (Carnage) – 7:56
 * 2) Relax (New York Mix) – 7:23

"New York Mix" was mislabeled as "U.S mix".

MC: ZTT / CTIS 103 United Kingdom:
 * 1) "[On The Subject of Frankie Goes to Hollywood]" – 0:23
 * 2) "One February Friday (part 1)" – 0:38
 * 3) "Two Tribes" (Keep The Peace) – 15:17
 * 4) "One February Friday (part 2)" – 1:08
 * 5) "War" (Somewhere Between Hiding And Hidden) [identical to "War" (Hide Yourself)] – 4:12
 * 6) "One February Friday (part 3) – 0:21
 * 7) "[War Is Peace]" – 0:05

"Keep The Peace" is a combination of Surrender, Carnage and Annihilation.

The mixes on this cassette single reissued on vinyl for Record Store Day 2022 as Side B of 'Altered Reels' – The cassette single of "Relax" was reissued on Side A.

2014 digital download #1: Two Tribes:
 * 1) "Two Tribes" (Annihilation 7") – 3:56
 * 2) "Two Tribes" (Carnage 7") – 4:12
 * 3) "Two Tribes" (Annihilation) – 9:09
 * 4) "Two Tribes" (Carnage) – 7:54
 * 5) "Two Tribes" (Hibakusha) – 6:37
 * 6) "Two Tribes" (Hibakush-ah!) – 6:59
 * 7) "One February Friday" – 4:57
 * 8) "The Last Voice" – 1:14

"Hibakush-ah!" is an early version of "Hibakusha".

2014 digital download #2: War (Hidden):
 * 1) "War!" (Hidden) – 8:33
 * 2) "War!" (Hide yourself!) – 4:14
 * 3) "One February Friday" (12" Edit) – 1:45
 * 4) "Two Tribes" (Surrender) – 3:44
 * 5) "War!" (..And Hide) [identical to the album version] – 6:13
 * 6) "War!" (Coming out of Hiding) – 3:17

title: Two Tribes


text:
The Power of Love

The Power of Love or Power of Love may refer to:

Film and television

 * The Power of Love (film), an early 3D film demonstrated in 1922
 * "The Power of Love", an episode of The O.C. (2005)
 * "The Power of Love", an episode of Degrassi: The Next Generation (2004)

Albums

 * The Power of Love (Fish Leong album), 2003
 * The Power of Love (Sam Bailey album), 2014
 * Power of Love (Hour Glass album), 1967
 * Power of Love (Luther Vandross album), 1991
 * Harry and the Potters and the Power of Love, 2006
 * Power of Love, by Arlo Guthrie, 1981
 * The Power of Love (Captain Sensible album), 1983

Songs

 * "(You Got) The Power of Love", by The Everly Brothers (1966)
 * "The Power of Love" (Charley Pride song) (1984)
 * "The Power of Love" (Jennifer Rush song) (1984), and notably covered by Air Supply (1985), Laura Branigan (1987), and Celine Dion (1993)
 * "The Power of Love" (Frankie Goes to Hollywood song) (1984)
 * "The Power of Love" (Huey Lewis and the News song) (1985)
 * "Power of Love" (Deee-Lite song) (1990)
 * "Power of Love", by Judy and Mary (1993)
 * "The Power of Love", a composition by Percy Grainger
 * "Power of Love/Love Power", by Luther Vandross
 * "The Power of Love", by 10cc from Ten Out of 10
 * "The Power of Love", by Corona
 * "The Power of Love", by Ray Conniff
 * "Power of Love" (Joe Simon song) (1972)
 * "Power of Love", by Mahavishnu Orchestra, the opening track from their album Apocalypse
 * "Power of Love", by Gary Wright, from the album The Dream Weaver
 * "The Power of Love", from Sailor Moon & The Scouts - Lunarock soundtrack

title: The Power of Love