I was going through BBC’s Have Your Say discussing whether Turkey should ease its scarf ban at higher education institutions. I must admit I do not know a great deal about Turkish politics, but I found the thread interesting nonetheless. The mass majority of comments opposing lifting the ban stated in a way or another that it-the scarf- is a political statement at best or a sign of women’s oppression.

Living in 2008 Bahrain, a country with a high percentage of females wearing some sort of head cover, it is very hard to relate to headscarves as political statements. In Bahrain, there is no one scarf. There is no one cover. There is no one style. Females in the streets, malls, educational institutions, government bodies may have a form of head cover, but even their reasons for doing so are various. The reasoning behind it may have a correlation with its style, type or fashion.

There are those who do it- voluntarily- out of religious beliefs, and those who do so out of the religious beliefs of their families, simply because they are asked to. A female in the latter category may happen to like the scarf, hence communicate that in the way she’s wearing it, or hate it, and again that can be communicated in its style. There is also those for which it is merely a cultural dress code, one that you would wear only within the constrains of this society, where women are expected to dress modestly with a certain de facto fashion and hence those are often rid themselves of it once in foreign country. There are those for whom the scarf is simply a cultural fashion, an extra piece of accessory which can be worn in funky ways. I can go on.

I know this is how current day Bahrain is. With head cover way too spread and way too diverse in the same time for anyone to draw connections with Islamism, secularism or otherwise. In Bahrain, you find secular political societies with female members with head covers. In Bahrain, daughters of supporters of Iranian revolution – covered or not- may know nothing more than the name of Ayatollah Khomeini about that political movement.

Has this always been the case? Those who lived their adulthood in the 80s tend to think otherwise. They say head cover at the time was linked to Islamism. My grandmother would not know what you are talking about if you imply linking women’s covering up with politics. That generation of women was simply raised to think women dress modestly, with no connection to politics or icons of any sort. My mother, on the other hand, would tell you about how you had to decide between being “communist” or “Muslim”- in those terms.  She would also tell you how religious icons were fought, and how people wanted to make a statement by clinging to what they believed was their right- freedom of belief. I assume she lived what is now referred to in Turkey as political Hijab/ non-Hijab. Not covering your head was as much of a political statement as was covering it. I do not envy them.

The Fatwa was in a way revoked. Al-Azhar suspended Dr. Ezzat Attiya following his controversial adult-breastfeeding Fatwa. The notorious Fatwa gained fame in no time, with widespread criticism. Stupid, idiotic, insulting, funny, hilarious, offensive, backwards, and many others were familiar words when referring to the Fatwa and the cleric who promoted it.

Suspending Attiya or expelling him, although does stand to show Al-Azhar’s disagreement of such a Fatwa, does little to solve a major problem. Yes, there is a problem that is far beyond a creative Mufti, far beyond someone who was high and came up with an inspired solution, and far beyond this very Fatwa.

Alayam reported that the majority of clerics unanimously believe that the Hadith appearing in both Sahih Moslim and Bukhari about breastfeeding adults – is Sahih (authentic), yet disagree on the implication of that on their Fatwas. “Unpracticed” was the license this Hadith gave to Muslims for the past 1400 years. Opinions range from “a specific license given to the women in the Hadith for a particular case” to “a Sahih Hadith with an opinion that conflicts the majority of Muslim clerics, hence left unpracticed”.

Dr. Attiya did not bring something new, he did not bring something that did not exist, and he did not bring something from a disputed source. He pointed to a Hadith that, according to Hadith classification, is considered as authentic. If such it was categorized, then why was he suspended and attacked, for working accordingly? And why is it that the majority of Muslim clerics have an opinion that counters an authentic Hadith?

The problem lies in the classification of Hadiths per se, our refusal to discuss or tackle the problem of such Hadiths, still insisting on their authenticity on one hand, and struggling with the consequences on the other, as people start suggesting we practice the message of an authentic Hadith. Why not, if it was authentic? Yet the common sense of most people refuses to accept the unacceptable, not even through a feeding bottle.

Such a situation is not unexpected, when Chinese Whisper is the only way of passing on religion from a generation to another. Muslims have had a tendency of not critiquing Hadith texts, and what happened –at best- was to ignore them. The amount of Hadiths found today and their content is a clear indication that a lot of these are bogus, especially with Hadiths having contrary messages, or outrageous messages like breastfeeding adults.

Sticking to the scriptures is fine, but if that would lead us to losing the original message then it is time to wake up. It is high time we had a major reform and a fundamental change.

“I just bought a 70-kilogram cooler of prawns yesterday. The prawns were so small, such a pity” he said. I casually asked when the fishing season for prawns started, since I did not know it did. “It did not” was the answer I got.

Photo Courtesy of Marco Verigna, Flickr

That should have probably been the end of the conversation, but I could not let it be. Why did he buy 70 kilograms of illegally fished prawns when he certainly did not have to? Not for business, I know that much for sure.

“But it is prawns reproduction season. You are practically not letting the prawns reproduce”. “We cook prawns Machboos every year on the commemoration of Imam Ali’s death. Whenever I have that quantity of prawns available I have to snatch it and stock it”.

Now his reasoning not only made me feel worse, but rather appalled. That occasion is supposed to be a spiritual one, a religious philosophy celebrating sacrifice, fighting for the cause and devotion. How that can mandate fishing prawns when it is endangering our ecological system is beyond me. Now I did not only feel bad for the poor prawns, but also for the poor occasion.

Could not your Machboos be lamb or chicken? Could you not wait at least, with the occasion being four months away (21st Ramadan)? How about dried prawns – popular for Machboos in Bahraini cuisine?

I said I felt it is haram to fish for prawns now. Yes, haram with a small H, since I meant haram with its Arabic linguistic meaning – unfair. It was communicated as Haram – not allowable in Islam – and I went with the flow. I was accused of devising Fatwas that are not part of Sharia books. Indeed, no Sharia book talked about fishing at the wrong season, and no Hadiths were found to support my Fatwa.

Only I felt my Fatwa, although not at first intended as one, was right and well-justified. I wondered what Prophet Mohammed or Imam Ali would have said about destroying our marine life. I also wondered if those occasions are losing their original aim, or have they, already?

With such a mentality about marine life, are we really expecting the government to respect and preserve our environment, and not destroy our Fashts or reclaim our sea?

It has been a week of environmental shock and pain.

Video Text:

“I have conducted a search on several websites, about sexual relations amongst animals, and I have discovered that among many animals, if the male wants to mate with the female they go somewhere else. I mean, they don’t do it in front of all animals. In most cases this is done in front of the entire group, but in many cases there is a certain distancing. This is a matter of utmost importance. There is a nice story told by the Prophet Mohammed: In a group of monkeys, a female monkey mated with a female monkey, which was not the monkey that regularly mates her. He is not the monkey that she is used to. All the monkeys gathered and stoned the female monkey, when they saw her mating a monkey that is not her monkey. I am saying even though they are animals, and even though Allah does not judge them for their actions, there is a type of modesty in them. “

I am not a zoologist, but nowhere have I found such behaviour documented in biology books. More importantly, this methodology of devising Fatwa proofs is indeed interesting. I stopped for really long to look for the morale behind the story, “Act like monkeys?” Is it? How did the person narrating the story know the reason why the female monkey was being stoned? Was he living with the monkeys or did the monkeys tell him what has happened?  What if poor female monkey was being raped? What if she divorced her previous hubby? Of course, monkeys did not stone the male monkey for mating someone else's wife, but only stoned the unfaithful wife.

A research published in Current Biology shows that monkeys like porn and are willing to pay for it too. A male monkey would give up his juice to look at pictures of female monkey behinds. Why haven’t we seen any Shaikh claiming empirical proof on why watching porn is Halal and Islamically commendable? What about homosexual animals and those who masturbate?

It is saddening how proofs for some Sharia laws are being formulated; I would rather have them referred to as unexplained divine rules than hear someone use claimed monkey sex behaviour to back it up.

A week after the official Prophet Mohammed’s Birthday holiday, a close friend of mine invited me to attend a family celebration for the prophet’s birthday at her grandparents’ house. The official public holiday is on the 12th of Rabi Al-Awal, the third month of the Islamic Hijri lunar calendar, and therefore the holiday- like most other Islamic holidays – moves throughout the Gregorian calendar used for everyday life in Bahrain.

On Thursday night (5th April 2006  – 16th Rabia Al-Awal), Bahrain’s Shia Muslims celebrated the Prophet’s Birthday, which according to their belief is on the 17th Rabia Al-Awal, thus the celebration took place the eve of the holiday – as is the custom with most other holidays.

The celebration did not scale up to the size of Girgaoun (Mid Ramadan Celebration) and Nasfa (Mid Sha’aban Celebration), but there was definitely more than I expected to see. Just outside their house they offered Bahraini Halwa, candy, cinnamon rolls, Baklava and juice for the passers-by.

The celebration started by the reading of prayer (Du’aa) that was asking god for forgiveness through the Prophet, during which my mind drifted away to so many thoughts. The prayer was rather sad, which was odd for the occasion, I thought.Too negative and depressing for a supposedly happy occasion. There majority of the audience were kids, most of which failed to comprehend the meaning of the prayer, and were also bemused at the tears on the cheeks of some of the adults.

Next there was narrating the birth story. The amount of the details in the story really reminded me of that in biblical stories. The story is rather extensive, from the marriage of Amna, the prophet’s mother, and Abdulla, his father. Too long for the short celebration, only the giving birth part of the story was read- but three times. A lady carrying a Mabkhara passed through suffusing the audience with a musky aroma of Bukhoor and a thick cloud of smoke. I managed to make a copy of it for myself, and below the script in Arabic together with my English translation.

أنه لما كانت ليلة السابع عشر من شهر ربيع الأول وقيل عام الفيل سنة 950 أن السماء كانت مشرقة ومنورة وكان القمر بدرا كاملا وكان عبد المطلب جد رسول الله صل الله عليه وآله يقول : إن في الكون اختلاف وإنه لفي الأرض هنا لحدث كبير وقيل بأن الله قد أمر الملائكة أن تكون في تهليل وتكبير وتسبيح وتقديس وأن تخمد في هذا اليوم وفتحت أبواب وجبريل ومكائيل بين السماء والأرض إيذانا بمولود سيد الكونين وشفيع الأمة المختار من عند الله نبيا ووصينا وأمينا وتقيا أفضل الانبياء والرسل وأفضل الخلق وقيل أن آمنة بنت وهب كانت حاملا ولم في نساء مكة ولا المدينة في ذلك اليوم غير آمنة بنت وهب أم رسول الله صلى الله عليه وآله وسلم كانت تسمع الجنين في بطنها وهو يحدثها وتحدثه ويسبح ويقدس ويكبر بينما هي كذلك وإذا بالنور قد خرج وأضاء مكة فخرج الناس في ذهول وتكسرت الأصنام وأسوار الفرس وقياصرة الروم وإذا بالناس في ذهول وسؤال ما الذي حدث وإذا بالجواب قد أتى ولد أحمد محمد صل الله عليه وآله وسلم ..

When it was the night of the 17th of Rabia Al-Awal, it was said in the Year of Elephant (year 950 ), that the sky was bright and enlightened and the moon was a full moon, Abdu’l-Muttalib the grandfather of the Messenger of Allah (pbuh)  was saying: There is something different about the universe, and there is on earth here a big occasion. It was said that Allah commanded the angels to be in state of applauding, Takbir , praising and blessing, and to subside today. The doors were opened and Gabriel and Michael were between the sky and the earth, alarming the birth of the lord of the two universes, and the savior of the nation, the chosen by God as a prophet, a guardian, a keeper, and god-fearing, the best of all prophets and messengers and the best of all creatures. It said that Amna Bint Wahab was pregnant, and there was no other woman in Makka or Madina except for Amna Bint Wahab the mother of the messenger (pbuh) and she used to hear the fetus in her womb talking to her and she talked to him and he was praising God, declaring God holy and great. Meanwhile, the radiance was out and it illuminated Makka, thus people got out in astonishment and the idols, and the fences of the Persians and the Roman Caesars were broken. Then people were in a state of amazement and questioning, what had happened, and then the answer came- Ahmed Mohammed (pbuh) was born.
 

Next came the most interesting part- the chanting. If you think people cannot party without music, you might want to reconsider- for I have, after Thursday night. The absence of music from the religious celebration did not stop people from singing- or as they call it- chanting. Adults and kids, they repeated the chorus and clapped their hands in a one rhythm and pace; it was difficult to notice the absence of the music. The lyrics were mostly praising Mohammed, his family and his descendents (Ahl al-Bayt). Some verses were solemn, while the others were humorous and the little ones did not hide their laughs.

When the singing was over, the usual concluding phrase of sermons was said: “May god bless him he who recites Al-Fatiha (The Opening), before which praises Muhammed (pbuh)”, after which the audience would parise Muhammed and then recite Al-Fatiha (The Opening), a short 7-verse Surah.

The sound of a teenager from the back was loud “May god bless him he who recites Al-Baqara (The Cow), before which praises Muhammed (pbuh)”, Al-Baqara (The Cow) being the longest Surah in Qura’an and therefore making it impossible for anyone to actually recite it then and there. Everyone had their laughs, and then food was served.