I’ve lifted this from yesterday’s ephemera because – well, because it’s so shameless and really too good to miss. Behold the wisdom of the Saudi cleric, Muhammad al-Munajid, aired on Al-Majd TV, March 30, 2008.
If you missed the money quote, here it is.
The problem is that they want to open a debate on whether Islam is true or not, and on whether Judaism and Christianity are false or not. In other words, they want to open up everything for debate. Now they want to open up all issues for debate. That’s it. It begins with freedom of thought, it continues with freedom of speech, and it ends up with freedom of belief. So where’s the conspiracy? They say: Let’s have freedom of thought in Islam… They say: I think, therefore I want to express my thoughts. I want to express myself, I want to talk and say, for example, that there are loopholes in Islam, or that Christianity is the truth. Then they will talk about freedom of belief, and say that anyone is entitled to believe in whatever he wants… If you want to become an apostate – go ahead. Fancy Buddhism? Leave Islam, and join Buddhism. No problem. That’s what freedom of belief is all about. They want freedom of everything. What they want is very dangerous.
I’m almost tempted to admire the frankness. The chutzpah, if you will. But if such things are a dangerous “conspiracy,” an obvious question springs to mind. Dangerous for whom? What’s most interesting about the extract above, and the worldview it illustrates, is that al-Munajid doesn’t seem terribly concerned with the numinous per se, or even with an erratic and spiteful deity named Allah; instead the object of worship is Islam itself – the institution, the power, the license to control.
There’s more, of course. Al-Munajid also shares his insight regarding the use of coloured underwear and how to urinate piously.
Related: Unclean.
“We have counted almost 70 rules about how to urinate and defecate.”
Sounds like a bad case of OCD.
It is very much like OCD, and not, I think, by accident. I suppose the idea is to keep the devout anxious about their bodily functions and preoccupied with absurd and pointless rituals. And the more absurd, the better. If an ideology occupies all possible areas of a person’s life, however ludicrously, it’s on the mind continually in some form or another. It’s then very difficult to remove. Or escape.
“What they want is very dangerous.”
Goddamn right it’s dangerous. Dangerous to exactly the people to whom it ought to be dangerous.
It’s practically an invitation.
Regarding the bathroom issue; I think that similar rules exist in the Talmud too, so possibly urination is viewed differently in the Middle-East. If it seems ludicrous to Dodge (and presumably David too) then could that just be because Brits tend to find urination inherently funny (and we’re also generally more anxious about them)?
Treating pissing seriously is foreign to us but it’s hardly an inherent evil, unlike the other things he said.
P.S.
Cricket has hundreds of rules to follow, does that make all cricketers Obsessive-Compulsives?
Noon,
Well, cricket is a game and is generally understood as such, even by enthusiasts. So far as I know, the rules of cricket aren’t widely regarded as a measure of piety or as having tremendous cosmic relevance. What’s of interest is the regulation and control by religious edict of a person’s intimate activities and the colouring of pretty much everything that person does with politico-religious implications. Setting aside cultural bathroom quirks, it sounds to me like a way to propagate fixation and neurosis, or something very much like it.
Perhaps the good Shaikh knows how to use the three shells in Demolition Man, and could explain them to the rest of us. There is much on hygiene from the “Ask an Imam” site, which will keep some amused for quite a long time.
http://www.islam.tc/cgi-bin/askimam/cat.pl?c=Purity%20(Tahaarah)
You know the Nazis said “To think is already to doubt.” (At least I thought they had, but I just googled it and the only hit I got was – er – me, so perhaps they didn’t. I’m sure I read that somewhere, but I can’t remember where now.) Authoritarians aren’t always that transparent about it, but of course they don’t want other people doing any thinking. If they did they wouldn’t be authoritarians.
Ophelia,
It’s the frankness of the clip that caught my attention; its matter-of-factness. I sometimes wonder what it’s like to have al-Munajid’s sentiments and others like them expressed so openly and often as part of the culture. It seems to me a recipe for dissonance and distortion, a casual wickedness.
Oh, and on the subject of bizarre ritualistic hang-ups, here’s some religious apartheid in London swimming pools – funded with council tax, no less:
https://thompsonblog.co.uk/2008/04/unclean.html
I think the difference from OCD is that an OCD sufferer is nearly absolutely 99.9% certain that their rituals are complete rubbish – it’s just the .1% uncertainty that compels them to repeat them (and I should know, I am one). Not sure whether the Shiekh really believes Allah wants him to do all these strange things or not – as you state the point is rather moot?
Freedom of thought (and colored underwear)
This is amazing. They have almost 70 rules about how to urinate and defecate, including which foot you should enter the bathroom with, and which foot you should exit with. And of course you should not have colored underwear.
Saudi Cleric Reveals What we Already Know: They Hate us Because WereFree
But dont the leftwingnutters keep saying its because we asked for it?
From a video on memritv.org: a speech by Saudi cleric Muhammad al-Munajid, aired on Al-Majd TV, 30 March, 2008.
The problem is that they want to open a de…
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Behold the wisdom (despotic logic) of the Saudi cleric, Muhammad al-Munajid
Behold the wisdom of Saudi cleric, Muhammad al-Munajid, who also has some thoughts on colored underwear and, er, how to urinate piously:”The problem is that they want to open a debate on whether Islam is true or not, and on whether Judaism and Christia…
Behold the wisdom (despotic logic) of the Saudi cleric, Muhammad al-Munajid
Behold the wisdom of Saudi cleric, Muhammad al-Munajid, who also has some thoughts on colored underwear and, er, how to urinate piously:”The problem is that they want to open a debate on whether Islam is true or not, and on whether Judaism and Christia…