he biggest problem is that these conspiracies come in different shapes and sizes and colors. Each of them is disguised is a way that makes it very hard for average people like us to discover them. That is why we are very lucky to have this army of muftis that are our shield against conspiracies and conspirators. Only our honorable sheikhs have this incredible ability to detect the cursed conspiracies and those behind them and to abort their vicious plans. Who of us could have guessed that some conspiracy has been lingering in our lives in the shape of a mouse or a lizard or a woman's refusal to breastfeed her co-worker.
What will become of us if, God forbid, the mouths of those respectable sheikhs were sealed and they were detained in mental asylums? Imagine the terrible intellectual vacuum and the way our castles will be threatened from inside! Without them, we cannot sleep in peace, knowing that our fortresses are well-guarded. Without them, we would still be drenched in our ignorance, leaving our kids in the hands of the vicious Mickey Mouse and thinking that it is just a mouse. Now we know it is one of Satan's agents that aims at corrupting our kids, and we discover that mice are nasty creatures that need to be killed and that constitute a cosmic threat to us. Without them, we wouldn't have known how to protect our women for they realized that a face veil that reveals both eyes can seduce our youth and that is why it has to reveal only one eye. Technically speaking, what do women need 2 eyes for if they want to check merchandise while shopping? This is besides what the kohl in both eyes can do to people—millions of youth will collapse like cookies when they see that. In fact, the one-eyed veil will have its own kind of post-modern beauty. Imagine one eye open on the right and another covered in a black veil on the left. Isn't this a masterpiece that never came to the mind of the master of surrealism Salvador Dali? Plus, we have to bear in mind that our great sheikhs respect women's freedom and give them a great deal of flexibility when they gave her the liberty of choosing which eye to cover and which to reveal. In this way, she could switch eyes. What more does the Arab and Muslim woman want?
Now we realize that one of the benefits of technology is the way those trivial fatwas, which compete in their foolishness and meanness, are propagated and that our intellectual rottenness comes to light. But this is only one side to the story that arouses bitterness rather than sarcasm. Those sheikhs are the proof of the dark ages the Arab and Muslim world is going through these days thanks to them. Have we ever reached that ethical, religious, cultural, and social deterioration throughout the past centuries? We are drowning in decline while the rest of world is getting more and more civilized. While nations go to outer space and engage in scientific discoveries, we climb mountains to see the Bairam crescent with the naked eye. Nations compete to give women equality while our sheikhs see them as a mere seduction that is useless at the workplace. And to curb the Freudian teenager in their heads, they came up with a professional invention that beats all nations: a woman is to breastfeed her male co-workers.
Our earth and sky swarm with screens and satellites and media freedom, so they find nothing except issuing a fatwa that allows killing owners of satellite channels. You think that the youth is attracted to satellite channels, so you decide to attract the attention and resort to the language of violence. Humanity is moving to a higher level in the relationship between man and animals where the latter is treated with mercy and gentility and where it becomes a source of joy for children and adults alike. But our sheikhs see a mouse as one of Satan's soldiers, dedicated to corrupting religion and ethics. Why haven't you come up with something that brings joy to kids and which competes with Mickey Mouse instead of sanctioning its bloodshed? But in the eyes of our great muftis, the woman remains the biggest disaster, the origin of all cosmic evil. Her only occupation is to seduce innocent men and drag them towards hell. That is why she should be married off very young—at the age of 9 as one of those genius fatwas suggested. The reason for this is, according to the fatwa progenitor, is that some girls look like adults at that age and are thus fit for marriage. You, Mr. Sheikh, get the highest-ranking medal of our backwardness and deterioration. If we were civilized one bit, you would be dragged to jail with other imposters like you and you would be left there for the rest of your lives.
* Published by Cambridge on Sept. 28. |
