Over the past 20 years, many Muslim countries have witnessed a remarkable growth of yoga and various meditation techniques. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait, UAE and Qatar have recognized yoga and currently celebrate the International Day of Yoga. Some countries such as Saudi Arabia went even further and officially recognized yoga as a sports activity. Attitudes towards yoga in Muslim countries are represented by two types of discourses. On the one hand, Islamic legal debates regarding the permissibility of yoga. For instance, in 2004, Egypt’s Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa forbade the practice of yoga. The same decision was taken in 2008 when yoga was banned by Malaysia’s National Fatwa Council and in 2011 by Saudi based scholar Muhammad Salih al-Munajjid. The most problematic and controversial issue in yoga is its links to Hindu and Buddhist beliefs. However, contemporary Islamic scholars are divided on this issue and their fatwas vary from a total ban to permissibility. On the other hand, yoga practitioners’ conceptualizations of yoga. These include discussions on the role of yoga in the physical improvement and spiritual harmony of a particular individual as well as its attitude towards religion and transformation of modern society.  Thus there is a wide range of perspectives on yoga. In my paper, I analyzed similarities and differences between the approaches of two groups of actors, namely Islamic scholars and yoga practitioners in the Arabian Peninsula, in order to understand how yoga is conceptualized in the contemporary societies of the Gulf. For the purposes of my research, I analyzed ten fatwas on yoga issued by official and non - official muftis. In addition to that, I did a systematic review of Media including major Qatari newspapers and conducted interviews with yoga practitioners and yoga adepts. In order to study their experiences, I draw on a set of 20 qualitative interviews: 15 interviews with yoga adepts and 5 interviews with yoga instructors.  I suggest that differences between muftis, and between muftis and yoga practitioners, stem from different understandings of the weight of history, the relation of ritual to intentionality, and the performativity of yoga practices. The aim of the paper is to examine how cultural norms and traditions in contemporary Qatari society are being transformed under globalization.