Fatwa me, fatwa you, ah haa …
Not too long ago (last week in fact) the National Fatwa Council decreed that women should not wear men’s clothes. Because it may lead them to having lesbian secks with other women (who may or may not be wearing men’s clothes, or indeed any clothes at all). For some people (myself included) this ban is about as useful as a bicycle is to a fish. After all, clothes do not make a man (or a woman, dyke or otherwise). You cannot make a person gay by making him or her wear the opposite sex’s clothes. Also, homosexuality is not a disease and some might argue may not even necessarily be against the natural order of things. Further, I’d like to suggest a crazy idea for the wise mullahs in the council: maybe, just maybe, the lesbians were made by God that way? Maybe, just maybe, sexual orientation is not necessarily “obtained”, but is rather built-in? These are not new ideas for many, but it might be a new one for the mullah dudes.
Having said that, a further while back, it seems that the mullah dudes were also deliberating on the magnetic bracelets worn by men. They wanted to “meet with producers and distributors of the magnetic band and see their tests to determine if there are medicinal elements.”
The Johor Mufti then went on to say that “when the council was satisfied with the scientific and clinical tests, it would decide whether the use of the magnetic band was against Islam or not.”
I can only infer that if there were no medicinal elements found, the magnetic bands would be, well, banned. Also, I can only assume that reason for the ban would be because the bands would make men look effiminate — which may lead to ghey secks. Inferences and assumptions, dudes.
Anyway, I’d like to save the mullahs some time and effort in trying to determine the efficacy of these bands in improving blood circulation:
They don’t do squat, o’ my wise religious overlords. They’re a scam, useless quackery, pseudo-scientific trinkets. They don’t improve anyone’s circulation and in so far as anyone can tell, they don’t make you ghey, either. If magnets do improve blood circulation, we’d be putting coils around our homes and switch them on to make a huge electromagnet. Circulate that!
Finally, today there’s news that another fatwa will be produced soon, on Yoga. This is because a UKM lecturer advised Muslims “to stop practising it for fear that it could deviate them from their belief.” He suggested prayer instead. Quite.
The notion that Islam is a “way of life” has become a fashionable one these days, and it seems that the broadest interpretation of it means that personal and public space are one and the same. Not just that, it seems like many Muslims in Malaysia are welcoming the idea of having their lives regulated and “guided” by the wise mullahs and their interpretation of the religion.
Bleh! Not this guy!
1
zie
Sunday, November 2nd, 2008 at 18:04
Dear Mentera,
I think nowadays it is really difficult to say that one outfit is really meant for one gender and not the other. There are shirts that are tailored for men and those for women but generally they are not much different in appearance. Even the jubah for both genders does not look much different. There were times when I always wear pants and shirts to work because the nature of the job was such (I was teaching technical subjects). The baju kurung or kebaya or may be even the jubah(if those are considered feminine/womanly, that is) is simply out of the question when you have to operate machines or climb ladders or demonstrate something. I believe very soon the mullah dudes will come out with fatwa on “feminine/womanly clothes” and later “feminine/womanly behaviours”.
Somehow I sensed that a great many people have this dire need to regulate the lives of women. Long ago about wearing lipstick, then about wearing high heels, then about the white blouses of school girls, then tomboys, then yoga……………
Congratulations on the new look! You know mentera, the bodies of the two facing hippos on your logo/emblem/crest/whatever look like the bodies of some other animal, tails and all, really `menyerupai’! Just kidding!!
2
gier
Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 at 17:39
Zie,
I cannot take credit for the crest. I lifted it from here.
Though I must say that I never thought about the hippos that way …
3
zie
Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 at 21:07
No offence intended, really. It is just that nowadays we heard so much about menyerupai this, menyerupai that!
4
gier
Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 at 1:27
Eh, offence? No worries, I am not easily offended. Or insulted.