The Hijab

Despite widespread flooding and some landslides elsewhere in Java, things have been quiet here. Christmas passed uneventfully with no bombings. I've been doing domestic things like clipping our toy poodle (Gromit) and cleaning the fish tank. It's been so cool today that I spent the entire day outdoors which is unusual. Normally, the heat drives me to seek air-conditioned refuge inside the house at some point in the day.

I'm more than two-thirds of the way through Karen Armstrong's biography of Muhammad and it is certainly fascinating reading. The historical origins of the hijab came as a quite a surprise. She writes:

We should pause to consider the hijab, and the Muslim institution of the veil. It is often seen in the West as a symbol of male oppression, but in the Qu'ran it was simply a piece of protocol that applied only to the Prophet's wives. Muslim women are required, like men, to dress modestly, but women are not told to veil themselves from view, nor seclude themselves from men in a separate part of the house. These were later developments and did not become widespread in the Islamic empire until three or four generations after the death of Muhammad. It appears that the custom of veiling and secluding women came into the Muslim world from Persia and Byzantium, where women had long been treated in this way.

Once again, we see the effect of recidivism as the old male-dominated, pre-Islamic cultural norms quickly reestablish themselves in the absence of the Prophet's guidance. The more I read about Mohammad, the more respect I have for him. At the same time, the subsequent distortions of his message become more and more obvious.

Behind the Scenes

The Islamic Day of Sacrifice only occurs once a year but it should remind us of what takes place in abattoirs every day in every country of the world. The animals are similarly mistreated. Islam is perhaps the only religion that lays down some guidelines for the ethical treatment of animals, even though the guidelines are almost completely ignored. Sites like www.islamicconcerns.com however, give hope that this may be slowly changing. On this site, Moslems discuss the ethical treatment of animals from an Islamic viewpoint and quote from the Qu'ran and Ahadiths (collected sayings of the prophet) to support their statements.

It is only from within Islam that change will come because criticism from non-Moslems is not well received at all. That won't stop me passing comment on Islam nor reading what other non-Moslems have to say about the religion and its founder. I'm currently reading Karen Armstrong's biography of Muhammed and the more I read, the more I realise how far certain professed Moslem groups like the Taliban have strayed from the original message of the Prophet. They have in fact regressed to the pre-Islamic period described as the Jahiliyah (the time of ignorance). Consider the following quotation from her book:

Muhammed was a man who loved and needed women. In this he differed from many of his contemporaries. Later, some of his closest companions, who clearly believed that women should be kept in their place, noted that in the pre-Islamic period most Meccans thought little of the female sex. We have seen that women had no status during the Jahiliyah and even some of the most prominent Muslims treated their wives and daughters harshly. But Muhammed seems genuinely to have enjoyed women's company and to have needed affection and intimacy. In later years, his gentleness and apparent leniency with the women in his life perplexed some of his closest companions.

It should be remembered that Muhammed was utterly faithful to his first wife, Khadija, until she died. In the early days following his terrifying revelation, she was a crucial support. The book goes on to say:

Trembling, he waited for the terror to abate, and Khadija held him in her arms, soothing him and trying to take his fear away. All the sources emphasise Muhammed's profound dependence upon Khadija in this crisis. Later he would have other visions on the mountainside and each time he would go straight to Khadija and beg her to cradle him and wrap him in his cloak. But Khadija was not just a consoling mother figure; she was also Muhammed's spiritual advisor. It was she who was able to provide the support that other seers and prophets have found in an established religion.

The Taliban have simply returned to their pre-Islamic roots and are a recidivistic insult to the changes that Muhammed tried to bring about. The fact that so many followers of Islam fail to live up to the ideals espoused in the Qu'ran is not Muhammed's fault. He did his best but the baser aspects of human nature and ingrained cultural norms have later distorted his message.

Have a Nice Day

The site http://www.animalsaustralia.org has some graphic photos of the suffering that animals undergo on their journey from Australia and on their arrival in Egypt and the Middle East. The photo above and video below were both taken from that site.

More videos from Animals Australia

Bouncing Back

My last post was on November 18th following my Bouncy Town misadventure. Since then I got sick, like two-week sick, and it was all I could do to drag my tired old body off to work. The second week I had a really bad chest infection and all the while there were exams to write and mark, followed by reports to write. I've bounced back however, and am looking forward to beginning holidays on Wednesday.

Of course Thursday is the dreaded Islamic Day of Sacrifice, so I'll stay indoors that day. The graphic that I've uploaded expresses my feelings in the matter. Here's a recent quote from a site that monitors the spread of avian flu:

The high point of the hajj, when pilgrims converge on Mount Arafat, will take place on Tuesday, and Eid al-Adha, the Muslim Feast of the Sacrifice marking the end of the pilgrimage, will be celebrated the next day. All Muslims are required to make the hajj to Mecca, in western Saudi Arabia, at least once in their lifetime if they have the means to do so. Pilgrims sacrifice an animal, usually a sheep, for Eid al-Adha as part of the rituals. "Usually we get around 2 million sheep, goats and cows for the hajj season. The work is ongoing," Mohammad Jameel, an official in the storage terminal department at the Jedda Islamic Port, told AFP. "The livestock is shipped from Somalia, Djibouti, Australia and New Zealand," he said, adding that the ships each carry around 120,000 sheep or goats.

"The work is ongoing" indeed, two million animals slaughtered in Mecca alone on just one day. The total number throughout the Muslim world would presumably be in the tens of millions. Getting murdered is one thing but the suffering of the animals on these ships is appalling and well documented. The prophet Muhammed was scathing in his condemnation of those who mistreated animals and would have been appalled at these death ships and their connection with Islam. The Islamic Day of Sacrifice is not really about killing animals at all. It is about inner sacrifice which is much more difficult to accomplish of course . Today however, most Moslems are fixated on external rituals and miss the deeper meaning behind them. No matter what I say however, the bloodbath is coming.

Here is a link to an article written in mid-2007 by an Australian, Jenny Hume, about the live animals exports. It's titled "Live animal exports: defending the indefensible". Things are particularly bad in Egypt where sacrificial animals are horribly mistreated, in defiance of what is prescribed in the Qu'ran. I'm been down this path before however, and it doesn't lead anywhere. Nobody in listening.