God proposes, Priests dispose

Post title paraphrases (with apologies to) Thomas a Kempis' 'Homo proponit, sed Deus disponit'

FMT - A ridiculous fatwa from Fathul Bari

he warned about the priesthood caste 

Journalist Abdar Rahman Koya walloped kau kau the so-called 'high priest of Islam' in UMNO, Fathul Bari for his fatwa on Mastura Mohd Yazid, wife of the late Datuk Wan Khair-il Anuar Wan Ahmad. Mastura is UMNO candidate for Kuala Kangsar following the death of her hubby who was KK's former MP.

The so-called' UMNO high priest, a young chico, passed a fatwa that Mastura as a widow is still in the period of 'iddah' and is thus forbidden from venturing out of her house during that period, even to campaign as a candidate in the by-election for the federal constituency of Kuala Kangsar.

Journalist Abdar Rahman stated: Really? One does not need to be an Islamic scholar to understand the absurdity of this statement from Fathul, whose Saudi-style Islam has been the order of the day in Umno in recent years. After all, this Malay party too has been inflicted with the disease now rampant among Muslims in this country: listening to young men in skullcaps waxing Quranic verses interspersed with sex and marital jokes.

Iddah is not about stopping a widow from going out of her house to meet friends or to shop or even to attend an event to hear Fathul and his ilk showing their ignorance about Islam.

And iddah is not even mourning. And this is particularly true for a religion that enjoins followers to move on almost immediately after the death of their loved ones. The funeral is fairly quick and simple, and a Muslim corpse is usually buried within 24 hours of death.

Iddah is just a rule to temporarily prevent a widow from remarrying, after which it is natural for her to have sexual intercourse with a new man, so that there is no way that the DNA of the child she gives birth to will be disputed to be that of her dead husband’s.

The four-month period seems to be a sensible one and scientifically sound, for there is no way a cute little sperm of her dead husband would wait four dull months inside her to spring into action the moment it sees a gush of new friends coming. Of course, even this rule can be changed with new scientific discoveries, but that would be another question under the topics of ijtihad and, yes, common sense, both enemies of the Wahhabis.

Now back to iddah and the four-month rule. It is applicable to a woman who is divorced or widowed. And that too if she is lucky (or unlucky) enough to meet a replacement for her dead husband just weeks after sobbing over his grave. But if she has given up the idea of remarrying, then iddah is irrelevant to her.

To cut Abdar Rahman's story short, I'll just reproduce his few concluding paragraphs:

..... perhaps Fathul thinks that he is still living in the medieval period, when Muslim streets were awash with wealth, swept clean by the long and thick robes of women walking gracefully, their faces hidden from pious men lowering their gaze to their pointed leather sandals.

In fact, it is partly due to this fixation with the so-called golden age of the caliphate, or in current parlance the petrol-greased lifestyle of the Middle East, that some Muslims interpret the religion in rich man’s terms. And so we see such rulings to ensure women stay unemployed, enjoying the comforts of home with a couple of maids and that they sit only in the back seat of their cars.

If this type of Islam were introduced to the fishing folk in coastal India or the farming communities in Indonesia, all of whom are now Muslims, they would not have accepted Islam at all. For how else can a lady in Java step into the paddy field without lifting her skirt to reveal her knees?

One of the biggest problems that Muslims face today is the rise of literalist Islam**. Those in this category would like to call themselves “Salafis”, the more polite name for “Wahhabis”, and they have wreaked much damage in the Muslim world, starting right from the birthplace of Islam.

** same problem in the USA where fundamentalist Christians who subscribe to every word in the Bible (especially the Old Testament) as the literal truth even believe that Noah's Ark carried on board a pair of Tyrannosaurus Rex, wakakaka

This literalist Islam is marked by an allergy to deeper understanding of Quranic verses, and a rejection of various Quranic sciences used to interpret the revelations based on context and the human capability to think.

The Quranic declaration that the Book is “for people who think”, which means it is open to interpretation as well as to scientific and historical experiences, is lost on people like Fathul Bari.

** And that had been why Kassim Ahmad was both persecuted and prosecuted

To Datin Mastura, here’s an advice. Ignore the young man in the skullcap. Go out and campaign for your party, meet the voters, and give them whatever sarongs and T-shirts your leaders have provided.

And to Fathul’s wife: if you don’t kick the bucket before the hubby, make sure he leaves you with plenty of money, at least for four months, and a good broadband connection in case you are chosen as an election candidate.

The above is a striking example of how so-called ulama (not Allah swt) determine life style of Muslims and why they (not Allah swt) love to prohibit, persecute and punish to ensure Muslims get the message that they the 'high priests rule the Earth and must NOT be challenged.