Random Reflexions

What is it about religion that has Maldivians wide-eyed and foaming at the mouth from time to time? I'll tell you later. We're always on the lookout for people "using" and exploiting religion as a political tool these days and only one name seems to surface. You know, if there's anyone who is using religion as a political tool it is Gayoom, we say. I'm so displeased with that evil man I think I'm going to have split hair-ends. How could he use religion like that? Yes, Gayoom is a real bastard for using our "maai" Islam to win votes.

On a radio talk show tonight, MDP's Zaki said Gayoom was using religion for political gains. On almost every party rally Gasim and his Fellowship of Adaalath allies reach into the bottom of our hearts and asks us "so who's using religion for political gain?". Our answer, a unanimous "Gayooooom!" Then both Zaki, Gasim and that bearded fellow (pick anyone) from the Fellowship will promise you that they will uphold Islam and they will make their own promises powered by the full willingness of Allah.

Top on everyone's list of promises is the protection of Islam and they always talk about Allah willing, doing this, and doing that. Religion is important to the vast majority of us Maldivians because we live and have lived a life bordering on poverty, a life of bare subsistence and destitution. Poverty and religion lives happily ever after, everywhere on earth. If anything, God is and has been our only hope. We're used to not winning a lot of favours from our rulers. So, don't you dare take Allah and Islam away form us.

So everyone's got their party manifestos and harebrained ideas insured by Allah's willingness. Allah willing they will ensure no other religion in Maldives. Allah willing they will build a bridge to heaven. No, make that two, one each for the Fellowship members and the rest. Allah willing they will say Allah willing, Allah willing. Isn't this exploiting religion too? It is and it is more than that. This is also exploiting deeply held feelings of Maldivians about God and religion. We like to say Allah willing we'll have food on the table. Simple prayers for simple needs. Now, we needn't have you people mocking that prayer.

So anyway, at the very least, Gayoom ascribed all his failures to Allah's unwillingness. How can one possibly argue with that? I'm grateful he did not say that Allah was on a 30 year vacation. Now, there's an idea for Gasim. Allah willing, the Fellowship of Adaalath and Gasim will not use religion to condemn people on dubious religious grounds and accuse Gayoom of exploiting religion. That's something only a low-life, morally bankrupt, blaspheming Gayoom can do, ain't it?

Then there was that incident when Gayoom said something in Arabic and lo and behold, the average Maldivian, utterly ignorant of Arabic, thought he was quoting some verse from the Quran when in reality, according to the learned Jedi's of the Fellowship, it was just an Arabic sentence. Cunning chap, him. Allah willing this gets me cracking. The Fellowship of Adaalath pounced at this and made statements and jumped for joy and made merry in tents that night for here was absolute proof Gayoom was exploiting religion for political gain.

So I'd like to point out to the Fellowship of Adaalath that we, Ali and Anthu Average of the Maldives, we wouldn't have a damned clue even if you cussed in Arabic in your own speeches. That's right! We'll clap and cheer you on and give standing invasions because, Allah willing, you're not using religion for politics. Right!

September 22, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (21)

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There is a program on DhiFM that is broadcast around the ungodly Ramazan hour of 8:30 am everyday that might as well have been titled "The Golden Bullshit". The program is actually titled "Ran Galan", or "Golden Pen" in English.

Apparently the contents of the program - fairytales and myths about various prophets and the prophet Muhammad from Islamic (and Biblical) history - is based on a book by a local author I suspect to be the famous B.A Naseem who, it should be noted, based the book on hadith among other sources.

Let me put it this way: I've never heard such preposterous lies, rubbish and hatred aired on radio, ever! For this sort of nonsense to be digested one has to have had a lobotomy or be on every known hallucinogenic drug - or preferably both at the same time.

The episode describing some of the miracles of the prophet as a child is both nauseating and very amusing in its obvious fabrication. It would've been quite funny and totally amusing if this wasn't supposed to be taken seriously.

First, let me put this clearly and honestly: there is little or no "history" of the prophet Muhammad prior to his visions and subsequent call to be prophet at age 40. So, how it is possible that there is clear history of him as a child is beyond belief. But that's exactly what this kind of program (and the source book) is designed for: to create fairytales and mold the mind into believing rubbish.

In this particular episode the child prophet is traveling from one town to the other and some observers are quoted as saying that they saw a cloud following the caravan directly between the prophet and the sun and thereby keeping him from the scorching heat of the Arabian desert sun. And when they stopped to rest at some oasis the trees bent their branches so that the boy prophet was shaded and therefore protected form the sun.

Clouds and trees that defy nature! Boy who doesn't know to sit under a shade in the first place! All miraculous rubbish!. I suppose under the scorching sun of Arabia these types of things were everyday events because until he was 40 years old, no one seems to have given the prophet or moving clouds and trees much attention.

Then came the best part. It seems one day the prophet was playing with his adopted parent's son outside when two men in white robes (some say it was just Gibreel) appeared from nowhere and kidnapped the child prophet, slit open his chest, took out his heart, removed some black stuff from it, washed the heart in golden water, put it back in and closed him up! Breathtaking stuff, I tell you!

Apparently the black stuff they removed from the heart was the drop of the original sin that every human is born with, thanks to Adam. Notice even back then everything that's bad and offensive is described as black and not as, say, yellow or green? Anyway, devoid of this stuff the child prophet was pure for life. Or was he?

Now, I'd like this black stuff removed from me too but I'd like it to be removed from my brain, where I do all the thinking - sinful or not. No, I do not "think" with my heart and that is a fact that has been proven beyond a molecule of doubt.

So why does it say that the angel removed this stuff from the prophet's heart, you ask? Well, back in those days, the heart was thought to be the seat of all human imagination, thoughts and soul. I suppose the angels were uninformed as to the real location of our mental processes. So with the wrong black stuff removed, the child prophet goes back to daily routines.

Awe-inspiring stuff! Muslim minds are trained to think like little children. Don't ask questions, mom and dad are always right. And if you ask questions you'll end up being spanked because mom and dad don't want you to know certain things. So we are forced to believe any rubbish however illogical and stupid it maybe to us.

What bothers me most is how this kind of bullshit nonsense is readily accepted by even highly educated people. The problem of the heart surgery mentioned above goes against all known scientific facts of today. And yet this is printed in books and broadcast on public radio for general consumption. Are these just fables and tales of Arabia any truer than Jack and beanstalk or sleeping beauty?

Wait, there's more. In another episode describing prophetic signs of judgment day the narrator, quite coolly, talks at considerable length about a hadith explicitly calling for the mass murder of all Jews by Muslims. "Behind me is a Jew hiding", talking trees and rocks reminiscent of Lord of the Rings fantasy will say to the Muslims, "come and kill him". It is said that the end will not come until Muslims will find all the Jews and slaughter them. This is related by al-Bukhari and Moslem! I cringed and felt sick as I heard this call for genocide read out so coolly as if it wasn't a big deal! And mind you, this stuff is on radio and children are listening to these.

It sickens me. One thing is absolutely clear though: we Maldivians do not know our own religion. Not one single bit! The majority of us Maldivians don't even know WTF is al-Bukhari and Moslem. It is just something, not sure what it is, they hear quite often when sheiks and scholars of religious people talk. We are like zombies living in some twisted fantasy. And in a sick way that is probably the reason why we still got our sanity intact and why most of us will not go and blow ourselves up into smithereens.

Thank god our brains are still in one piece where they have always been: inside our skulls and not in our chests.

September 18, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (23)

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