Before the first Malaysian blasted into space (the first Muslim in space was Prince ibn 'Abd al-'Aziz Al Sa'ud of Saudi Arabia) on board a Russian rocket in October 2007, on his way to the International Space Station, serious questions as to how Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor was going to perform the mandatory five daily prayers had to be answered.

One hundred and fifty Islamic scholars, scientists, and astronauts were brought together and arrived at a consensus as to what was practical and desirable under the circumstances.

The Malaysian Ulema dared to look at the Koran in a new light, the light from a sun that rises and sets every 90 minutes. Maybe we should do the same.

Understanding the Koran’s challenge to the fragile exception and what is at stake is what Pain, Pleasure and Prejudice is all about. It is the perfect vehicle with which to begin a desperately needed dialogue on the Koran.

NOT A NEW IDEA

A proposed dialogue about the Koran is not a new idea; such a discussion actually took place when Islam was in its infancy.

Between the 8th and 10th century there emerged an Islamic school of thought largely influence by Plato and Aristotle and which became known as Mu’tazilism or Philosophy of Rationalism or simply Islamic Philosophy.

Mu'tazilites argued that verses of the Koran should not be taken literally and that human reason was more reliable than scriptures.

The caliphs of the time tolerated this philosophy (some actively supported it) allowing it to thrive until dogma reasserted itself with a vengeance. One of its last proponents had his arms and legs cut off on alternate sides and bled to death.

The gruesome sentence for spreading heresy is typical of most punishment for what Islamic Law considers serious offences and it generally includes a large dose of cruelty e.g. stoning to death of adulteresses and females of any age having sex outside the sanctity of marriage, cutting off limbs such as the hands of suspected thieves etc. The punishment is usually based on something Allah or His Prophet said or did.

Part of the prescribed punishment for spreading heresy is based on a precedent established by Pharaoh in Allah's varied accounts of the meeting between Moses and Pharaoh where Pharaoh's magicians switch allegiance after witnessing Moses' superior magic:

7:123 Pharaoh then said: “Do you believe in Him before I give you leave? This is indeed a plot you contrived in the city, in order to drive its people out. Now you shall know.

7:124 “I will surely cut off your hands and your feet on opposite sides; then I will crucify you altogether.”

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20:71 He (Pharaoh) said: “Do you believe in him before I give you leave? It must be your chief who has taught you magic. I shall then cut your hands and feet on alternate sides, and I will crucify you upon the trunks of palm trees, and you will certainly know whose punishment is sterner and more lasting.”

26:49 He (Pharaoh) said: “You [his magicians] have believed before I gave you leave. He (Moses) is indeed your chief, who taught you sorcery, and so you will learn. I shall cut off your hands and feet alternately and will crucify you all.”

It may not be a coincidence that most of Islam’s substantial contribution in the field of astronomy for example, was from this period when Mu’tazilism was accepted by the caliphate as a legitimate Islamic school of thought.

How could it have been otherwise, when a literal interpretation of the Koran places Paradise just above the clouds held up by invisible pillars anchored to a flat earth, with meteorites being stones thrown by angels to stop the jinn (from which we get our concept of the Jinni) from flying up to Paradise and eavesdropping on Allah’s conversations.

A Dialogue on the Koran does not ask Muslims, Arabs in particular, to return to the time before Islam which they consider the time of ignorance, but to the time when Islam was not only a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield, but in the sciences.

The Example of Thomas Paine

The most common excuse given for not reading the Koran is that it is just like the Bible, so why bother. While the Koran does borrow Old Testament stories about heroes of the Hebrew Bible and gives a whole new twist to the New Testament story of Jesus and Mary, they have little in common in the message they convey.

The next most repeated excuse for not reading the Koran is that, unless you can read Arabic you are bound to misinterpret Allah’s message, so better let experts, Islamic religious authorities mostly, tell you what the Koran is about. This may explain why the most widely held view among non-Muslims is that the Koran is all about peace and love and getting along, which it definitely is not.

Allah’s message is surprisingly easy to understand, Islamic scholars’ warning about leaving the Koran to the experts notwithstanding. Even Allah is of the opinion that His instructions are easily understood.

Allah praising His Book and His skill as a poet in the Koran:

11:1 [This is] a Book with Verses which are elaborately formulated and clearly expounded from the Wise, the All-Aware.

And He is absolutely correct. What is hard to understand about a verse such as the following?

5:38 As for the thieves, whether male or female, cut off their hands in punishment for what they did, as an exemplary punishment from Allah. Allah is Mighty and Wise.

Translations of the Koran are usually called interpretations because of the claim that only the Arabic version of the Koran can convey the true meaning of God’s words. If you can’t read the Koran in the original, Islamic scholars and religious leaders say, you are bound to misinterpret Allah’s words.

Do they have a point, or is it just a pre-emptive rationalization? A pre-emptive excuse for some of the frightening and sadistic revelations contained within the Muslim Holy Book; revelations that may leave some unbelievers wondering if it is God’s words they are reading or those of his nemesis; revelations such as the following about Allah roasting a man, over an open fire, with his wife, tethered like an animal, supplying the firewood that fuels the flame that is burning her husband.

THE FIBRE

111 Al-Masad

In the Name of Allah,

the Compassionate, the Merciful

1. Perish the hands of Abu Lahab and may he perish too;

2. Neither his wealth nor what he has earned will avail him anything.

3. He will roast in a flaming fire,

4. And his wife will be a carrier of fire-wood,

5. She shall have a rope of fibre around her neck.

Allah will also ensure that the roast of Abu Lahab is never ending as He will for all unbelievers and others with whom He has issues.

4:56 Those who have disbelieved Our Signs, We shall surely cast them into the Fire; every time their skins are burnt, We will replace them by other skins, so that they might taste the punishment. Allah indeed is Mighty and Wise!

The Koran is written in verses or ayats, therefore it is true that you will not be able to appreciate the rhythm and rhyme that only the original can convey, but any good translation will be able to communicate the meaning of the poet’s words and the meaning of the words is what we should all be concerned with.

The verse about cutting off the hands of thieves and roasting the unfortunate Abu Lahab, an uncle of the Prophet, over an open fire, like the more than 2,200 verses you will find in Pain, Pleasure and Prejudice are from a translation by Majid Fakhry, a native Arab speaker, which has the seal of approval of Al-Azhar University of Egypt, a world-renowned center for Islamic study for more than 900 years.

Publisher’s weekly wrote of Fakhry’s notable accomplishment: “Succeeds in expressing the meanings of the original Arabic in simple readable English.”

Fakhry’s interpretation may express “the meanings of the original Arabic in simple readable English” but the Koran remains what British Historian Thomas Carlyle [1795 – 1881] described as “a confused, jumble, crude, incondite, endless iteration…” – the reason for Pain, Pleasure and Prejudice.

The Complete Layman’s Guide to the Koran brings order to Carlyle’s chaos which is why it is the perfect vehicle to use to begin a dialogue on the Koran; a dialogue which must involve everyone: both believers and non-believers, both experts and laypersons – especially laypersons.

It was Thomas Paine’s plain language Common Sense that touched the hearts and minds of the ordinary people of America; the people who would decide the outcome of the American Revolution. The Complete Layman’s Guide to the Koran is part of that tradition of explaining the seemingly complicated in terms we can all understand to those who will ultimately decide what the future will be like.

Read Pain, Pleasure and Prejudice and make up your own mind about the Koran. And when you have done so, talk to others about it; you don’t need the approval of experts to get a dialogue on the Koran going.

The Seductive Sounds of Hatred and Cruelty

I once knew a girl who was just mad about Julio Iglesias and probably still is. He was not yet well known in Canada when she returned from a vacation in South America with one or more of his albums. The first time she played his songs for me, for us, I became a fan.

I did not understand a word he sang, but his melodies were captivating and he had such a beautiful voice. She said his songs were all about love and I believed her, and years later when he started recording in English the same songs I had heard in Spanish, I believed her even more.

Geert Wilders is leader of the Party for Freedom (PVV), the third-leading political party in the Netherlands. In the spirit of Theodoor van Gogh, he also made a film about Islam.

Geert Wilders may not suffer his countryman’s fate (stabbed and shot to death on an Amsterdam street for his, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s film, Submission) as his government has chosen to do his antagonists’ dirty work and attempt to silence this vocal critic of what he considers the Islamization of the Netherlands in particular, and Europe in general.

If found guilty, it will be another blow to freedom of speech and freedom of expression – the fundamental guarantees that are the foundation of Western Democracies.

I have seen his film Fitna, and yes, it is provocative, but definitely not as provocative as the 9/11, and other terrorist attacks which it recalls using verses from the Koran; verses which may have been the inspiration for the attacks (the PVV would ban the Koran because of the preponderance of violent and hate-filled verses).

What is most striking about his film is not the images of the dead and mutilated, but the lyrical and mesmerizing rendition of the verses which may have motivated those responsible for the carnage in America and Europe.

If you don’t understand Arabic, you can almost imagine yourself making love to the Prophet’s words, except, that unlike those of Julio Iglesias, they have nothing much to do with love.

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If the violence and hate that are contained in verses sung accapella (singing without instrumental accompaniment), broadcast to the Islamic community in Arabic, were broadcast in English on MTV for example, there would be an uproar?

Non-Muslims would be appalled that impressionable young minds are subjected to so much violence and hate forcefully expressed in lyrical, encouraging words in a language that only insiders can understand.

They would demand that something be done. The more reason why we need A Dialogue on the Koran now, more than ever!

Canada and Islam

Apples, Oranges and the Sharia

In 2005, it was thought that a mobilized citizenry for equality before the law, and one law for all, had defeated a government attempt to legalize Islamic Tribunals within the province of Ontario. The celebration may have been premature.

On October 13, 2010 the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that Courts within the province of Ontario could not compel Muslim females, except under unspecified extraordinary circumstances, to remove face coverings when testifying if males are present (and that includes the judge, court staff, lawyers for both the defense and the prosecution, and male jurors).

Justice David H. Doherty in his support of the decision and that of his two equally illustrious colleagues argues, on record, that allowing women to wear a niqab when testifying in open court is no different than allowing boys in baggy pants to testify.

Unless the baggy pants the Honourable David Doherty is familiar with cover the face then he is completely out to lunch with his apples and oranges comparison.

This decision will probably be appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada and if that Court, which has a history of bending over backwards to accommodate religious excesses at the expense of secular rights (read Teach Your Children Well, Court Okays Children Bringing Concealed Weapons to School...), upholds this decision it will enshrine within the Canadian legal tradition the Islamic religious imperative and legal principle of inequality before the law based on gender.

Stopping short-sighted politicians from making Sharia Law part of our legal system may prove to have been the easier nut to crack (no pun intended Mr. Doherty).

How do you convince muddled-minded judges like the Honourable David H. Doherty that answer to no one, that they are making a terrible mistake by allowing a system of law that is a product of the Dark Ages and which cannot change because it is God’s ordained immutable Law, to enter our legal system by stealth and thereby undermine from within the foundation of a egalitarian legal system which evolved from the guiding principles of the Magna Carta.

There was never a more crying need for A Dialogue on the Koran, for the Koran is at the heart of Sharia Law and to know the Koran is to know where this will lead (those of you who have read Pain, Pleasure and Prejudice know what I am talking about), and it’s not a place where I believe most Canadians want to go and that includes the vast majority of Muslim Canadians.

Reading the Koran when you should be reading Babar

Terror suspects respected members of community, Ottawa Citizen.

Expect more respected members of the Islamic community, many more, to reveal themselves to be literal time bombs with the fuse having been lit a long time ago with the force-feeding of the Koran when they were kids.

Children who should be reading Babar the Elephant (or Cinderella) who are instead compelled to read the most sadistic, cruel, pitiless tales ever imagined, when they grow up, will be capable of doing the most sadistic, cruel, pitiless acts imaginable and many will want to do so.

I again invite you to read Lessons In Cruelty - Children and The Koran one of the more pertinent and timely chapters from Pain, Pleasure and Prejudice.