The photo fatwa

This is the man who has issued a fatwa against photography. You can see that he has no qualms about striking a pose.

I am really tired of saying that a fatwa means zilch. Yet, every other day — often in reply to a question — there is an edict. It is not binding on anyone.

Only the media seems to take the Darul Uloom Deoband seriously, and always refers to it as "India's leading Islamic seminary".

Quite naturally, a bizarre fatwa grabs attention. Some Muslims consult the seminary for general information. An engineer wanted to know if he could pursue his passion for photography. I am assuming he did so because of Islam's stand regarding iconography. He was told that photography is a sin.

This is ridiculous. How and why did it transform into a fatwa? The media tends to follow the Deoband's advise columns, and what it posts on the website. When push comes to shove, the organisation is more than ready to show muscle. A fatwa materialises as the last word. Newspapers and TV channels get excited.

The reporter is soon on the phone talking with the vice chancellor, Mufti Abdul Qasim Nomani, who says:

"Photography is un-Islamic. Muslims are not allowed to get their photos clicked unless it is for an identity card or for making a passport."

The reporter goes all Wahabi on him, mentioning how Saudi Arabia "that aspires to return to the earliest fundamental sources of Islam" (duh) permits it and even telecasts the Haj live. To which the Maulana replies:

"Let them do it. We do not allow it. Not everything they do is correct."

I like the last bit.

At any other time, the media would have used this to scream with joy about how Indian Muslims are under no threat of being Saudi-ised, and everybody can breathe free. But now is not the time. Now we have to prevent Indian Muslims from being denied their Nikons and Canons and dual camera phones. They need to be 'brought into the mainstream', and saved from such backward fatwas.

Really, take a chill pill. Most Muslims in India don't give a rat's ass about the Deoband and don't even know where it is, who runs the show, and what stuff they smoke.

Next on the reporter's itinerary is the All India Muslim Law Personal Board. One Mufti Abul Irfan Qadri Razzaqi agrees with the fatwa:

"Islam forbids photographing of humans and animals. Whoever does that will be answerable to God."

Reporter is on a mission. He "reminds" him about Saudi Arabia. To which the gentleman says:

"Just because they are richer than us doesn't mean they are also correct. If they are allowing photography they will be answerable on the Day of Judgement in the court of God."

See. You can do all you want, fatwas be damned, till you are alive. You may even perform the pilgrimage to Mecca in the horrid land that permits photography. You will finally be judged by a 'non-human' who, alas, cannot be photographed.

End note: I've used this picture before, but is it halal?

Regurgitating Jihad: Boston Marathon

Is she dead? Injured? Her limbs blown off? I will never know. I knew her only as a pseudonym. She often spoke about training for the marathon. She was, from all accounts, rather fit “for my age”. I did not know how old or young she was. I only discovered the tremendous effort she put in for something that gave her so much joy, such a sense of achievement.

Stray exchanges revealed that she was a nurse of Pakistani origin. However, I felt her constant assertion of her American nationality a bit overarching. There was a touch of insecurity, and I know how it feels.

Take any attack and the first word on everyone’s lips – and that probably constitutes most non-Americans too – is jihadi. Miles away, my first thought was not one of sympathy, but “Hope it is not a Muslim” on hearing about the Boston Marathon bomb blasts. Paranoia is dehumanising us, instead of making us more sensitive. I was shocked that President Barack Obama was berated for not calling it a “terrorist attack”.  The same people who demand the use of the catchphrase refer to the many more trigger-happy young kids and racists as gunmen and almost always there is an attempt to understand their behaviour in terms of “mental instability”.

It is not a very healthy attitude when only due to one’s origins we wait for the insiders to voice our thoughts and heave a sigh of relief. I usually do not hold back, but even when I openly give another perspective, I am always aware that I will be judged not dispassionately for what I say, but for ‘who’ I am.

And so when I read Glenn Greenwald write in The Guardian that a day after the April 15 Boston attack, “42 people were killed and more than 250 injured by a series of car bombs, the enduring result of the US invasion and destruction of that country”, I thought more people would understand. Greenwald by virtue of not being a Muslim is quite above any suspicion or agenda. There will most certainly be people who might castigate him, but he will not be seen as someone who is paid by terrorists.

Here are some salient points from his piece and my reaction to them:

“The widespread compassion for yesterday's victims and the intense anger over the attacks was obviously authentic and thus good to witness. But it was really hard not to find oneself wishing that just a fraction of that compassion and anger be devoted to attacks that the US perpetrates rather than suffers. These are exactly the kinds of horrific, civilian-slaughtering attacks that the US has been bringing to countries in the Muslim world over and over and over again for the last decade, with very little attention paid. Somehow the deep compassion and anger felt in the US when it is attacked never translates to understanding the effects of our own aggression against others.”

I am not too sure if empathy is the solution, as the tweet he reproduces reveals. How can it when the immediate reaction is to hark back to 9/11, without even trying to comprehend the difference in the reasons and manner in which the attacks were carried out? 

It would be expecting too much for the large majority of Americans to be concerned about Yemen or Iraq just as Iraqis and Yemenis would not empathise with America; for most of them, their contact is with US forces sent to protect them.  It is not incumbent upon the citizens to rationalise. This is the job of the government, and political expediency demands creating a fear psychosis. None of the countries the US has intervened in has benefited from its democratic ideals.

“The rush, one might say the eagerness, to conclude that the attackers were Muslim was palpable and unseemly, even without any real evidence. The New York Post quickly claimed that the prime suspect was a Saudi national (while also inaccurately reporting that 12 people had been confirmed dead)…Anti-Muslim bigots like Pam Geller predictably announced that this was ‘Jihad in America’.”

The victims of this so-called jihad are largely Muslims. I do not know what sort of religiosity would make them target their own places of worship, their own people. This is proof that their ideology is to use the name of a faith, much as others use the patriotic card to whip up xenophobic sentiments. It is, indeed, the job of investigators to question people, but getting hold of a Saudi national immediately and then making it public does convey that it wasn’t about investigations; rather, it does seem more like a gotcha moment. Osama bin Laden is dead. The Al Qaeda is not a unified group anymore. I do not need to emphasise again that George Bush was quite friendly with the House of Saud and Osama was himself a tactical weapon of the CIA during the Russian war in Afghanistan.

“Recall that on the day of the 2011 Oslo massacre by a right-wing, Muslim-hating extremist, the New York Times spent virtually the entire day strongly suggesting in its headlines that an Islamic extremist group was responsible, a claim other major news outlets (including the BBC and Washington Post) then repeated as fact. The same thing happened with the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.…in US political discourse, "terrorism" has no real meaning other than: violence perpetrated by Muslims against the west. The reason there was such confusion and uncertainty about whether this was "terrorism" is because there is no clear and consistently applied definition of the term. At this point, it's little more than a term of emotionally manipulative propaganda.”

I have often wondered why this does not qualify as a conspiracy against a community when so many conspiracy theories prevail. The Atlantic Wire mentioned the Boston Police Department's final press conference where Dan Bidondi, a radio host for InfoWars, asked:

“Why were the loud speakers telling people in the audience to be calm moments before the bombs went off? Is this another false flag staged attack to take our civil liberties and promote homeland security while sticking their hands down our pants on the streets?”

To further quote from the piece on what a "false flag" attack is:

“The term then expanded to mean any scenario under which a military attack was undertaken by a person or organization pretending to be something else. What the questioner was asking, then, was: Did the United States government orchestrate this attack, pretending to be a terrorist organization of some sort, in order to justify expanded security powers?”

I would understand if the manipulative machinery projected the view about “devices found”, “threat perception”, “intelligence reports”, or even conducted a mock exercise. I very much doubt if the US government would endanger the lives of its people to actually organise an attack. It will most likely want to create fear among the citizens, and that should be enough to grant it the privilege to use its security powers. It has used 9/11 as a propaganda ploy, and this has worked because the United States was not accustomed to being attacked on this scale.

Does a nation go on the offensive against countries where the perpetrators could be without any evidence? The runners are innocent and so are the villagers who live under threat of drones. The point is no one should be stuck on empathy. We cannot feel the pain. And, for all his genuinely balanced opinion, Greenwald too when speaking about ethnic groups feeling alienated added, “even though leading Muslim-American groups such as CAIR harshly condemned the attack (as they always do) and urged support for the victims, including blood donations”.

This is the problem. You have to state it loud and clear. Stand on the soapbox and declare that your heart is clean and you care. It would be so much better, and convey the true spirit of America, if these people were not boxed into a group, and instead seen as US citizens like any other. Here, it sounds as though they are being granted the magnanimity of being ‘like us’, and not ‘like them’.  

© Farzana Versey

New meeows - 33

Should any person holding high rank in the government take the oath of office in the name of god, any god? In secular India that boasts of being a khichdi culture and tolerant society a student, Kamal Nayan Prabhakar, filed a petition against the Jharkhand Governor Syed Ahmad for taking the oath by uttering “Allah ke naam par” (in the name of Allah). When the High Court dismissed his petition, he appealed to the Supreme Court.

The Bench pronouncing the verdict said:

“Your client has come with a sinister motive. He has tried to draw a comparison with the Constitution of Pakistan. World over in the mythology, god is described as formless. Why do you want to confine him to a name or image? It is very sickening.”

This is the problem. The petitioner has, technically, the rulebook on his side.

The petition says, under Article 159 of the Constitution, the Governor or other constitutional authorities can take oath only in the name of “god or Eshwar” or he/she may “solemnly affirm.”

This means that in India the formless god has got to have an English or a Hindi/Marathi/Gujarati kind of name. On what grounds is Eshwar permitted? Or even god?

It is fairly obvious that this young man was not merely invoking the law:

The petitioner submitted that if the trend goes on, it might encourage others to use their choice of personal deities like Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, Hanuman, Ganesh, and Christ at the time of taking oath. 

“A new trend will emerge and will be continued whereby the Governor or any other dignitary of high post having faith in different religions would start taking oath in the name of different gods/spirits according to their beliefs and then there would not be proper following of forms of oaths which may lead to a Constitutional crisis.”

Why will it lead to a Constitutional crisis? Our politicians fall at the feet of godmen, and often follow their advice. They consult astrologers, numerologists, aura readers, and they do use various deities to get into power, even if it means causing mayhem.

Why has this issue been raked up only when someone invoked the name of Allah? Why not Eshwar? Only because it is permitted? Then the ssue of one religion taking prominence should have been raised. It is time that any godly reference is removed and the oath is taken with a mere “solemnly affirm”. We all know they aren’t solemn or affirming anything. On the other hand, since we know that, we may as well allow them to take the name of some god or the other, who we can subsequently blame for any “Constitutional crisis” that might arise.

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Anna with communists and Hindutvawaadis

Another Constitutional crisis or constipated one? Joining the Anna Hazare bandwagon for political gains is like putting the cart before a lame horse. You aren’t going anywhere with this one.

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Amina bint Abdulhalim Nassar was beheaded in Saudi Arabia for practising witchcraft and sorcery, which are banned. One is not quite sure whether she really was a ‘witch’ or she merely did something that a patriarchal society cannot digest.

Many women are considered witches and exorcists are brought in to purge them of the demons that have taken over their bodies. Rather strangely, while the woman in Saudi was killed for it, often such people, including our tantrics, kill to practise such sorcery. Haven’t we heard about the blood of infants to cure impotency? Or children, women and those of lower status killed to solve everything, from financial problems to getting rid of the evil eye or the enemy?

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Those still on the 'Kapil Sibal is an idiot' trip, especially from the media, do tell us how many of the editors/ channel owners allow all kinds of views? Do media houses not push one particular position? Do they not promote political parties and their agendas? Are not certain industrial groups favoured in matters of coverage? Don’t glossies make it a point to ‘like’ some socialites and shun others when their chips are down? Don’t we know of stories that are planted?

So, how does this qualify as freedom of expression when you are a pawn in different games of different people? Does this not amount to pre-screening?

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Does Bombay Times not know the definition of plagiarism? Hindustan Times lifted one of its major pieces (yes, something about two people from the entertainment industry saying they are "just good friends") with the byline. They have not passed it as their own. This is a matter of attribution here, not plagiarism, unless BT has patent over anyone saying they are just good friends. Why HT would pick up something like this at all is a bit strange. Apparently, the media world was abuzz about the writer having quit to join HT. Now is this not earth-shattering? Isn't it like saying Neil Armstrong landed on Mars and not the moon? 

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Reading some of the obit pieces on cartoonist Mario de Miranda one is left with a bit of bitters. Comparisons are fine, but I found in them a sort of tangential and quite unnecessary put-down of R.K.Laxman. Here are excerpts from two pieces:

• "It is the ideal example of two great cartoonists working together in the same publishing house. Much of the credit for the fact that they could do so must go to Mario, for the wonderful human being he was. He made sure his work never clashed with Laxman’s. Laxman handled the newspaper, Mario the magazines. Laxman was primarily a political cartoonist, Mario excelled in the social cartoon."

• "That he was to the magazines of the Times of India what Laxman was to the daily paper. And, dare I say it, that Laxman was the Lata Mangeshkar who subtly ensured that the pedestal was not for sharing?"

This is such rubbish. The TOI had shifted Laxman’s column to the inside pages quite sometime ago. He is ailing and now lives in Pune. Would these same people have written such words had he been active and around in the TOI premises inside his cabin? The newspaper needed him; he did not need it. The TOI of course uses him when it wants. One rarely ever read paeans about Mario Miranda’s work earlier. We heard more about his attendance at parties. And Page 3 was always about events. Always. A small clique of people who propped up each other.

It is a pity that in death Mario is being used as an example of the approachable person he was as opposed to Laxman. Pity because he had his own style, which many later tried to emulate. It was something you could emulate – he used stereotypes, and there was no cheep about sexism where the secretary always wore cleavage-popping frocks, which was often understood that she had to be a Catholic or a Parsi.

He often illustrated a story or told a story, and his travel series were the best. Even his wayfarers and vagabonds seemed to be having a good time. They really were not common men. I am sure Miss Nimbu Paani will feel left out with his exit, but her kind always move on and find someone else to hang around with. That Mario lived in some heritage mansion and not in a rundown little apartment block in Goa just added to the society pages armour of a cultural ambassador.

He probably knew that this is a tail-wagger’s world, which is why the dog was omnipresent in his work. 

The quiet yelp will be the only true test of fidelity to his being.

Libya, Bahrain and shifting sands

Muammar Gaddafi talking about a holy war is like someone selling halal pork. The Libyan leader is desperate. In a single interview he shifts from “our war is against al-Qaida” to “if they (the West) behave with us as they did in Iraq, then Libya will leave the international alliance against terrorism. We will then ally ourselves with al-Qaida and declare a holy war”.

It isn’t a threat. The al-Qaeda will probably pamper him for a while, but will kick his butt soon. Also, there is no uniform international alliance against terrorism, not unless you snort something that makes you hallucinate. However, his comments should make it clear that there was too much of a rush to declare the Arab revolt a revolution. The initial silence of the West was a flashing neon light. It was like watching dogs fight inside the kennel. The guns are out with greater force. I had written last month:

This would give and has given the military more powers than it ever had, and it is pertinent to note that some of these ousted leaders have had army training and experience themselves. Therefore, the people’s protest has given way to a sneaky military coup or waiting-in-the-wings mullahs. Who will benefit the most from these ‘stopgap’ regimes? Any die-hard conspiracy theorist will tell you that it is the West, mainly the US.

Gaddafi knows what he is doing even if he may turn out to be the pawn in the game.

Now Bahrain, where the poverty paradigm of rebellion does not quite work, has the majority Shias fighting the Sunni establishment. The reason is entirely different. Yet, it is being clubbed together with the rest. The country’s defence forces have taken over with the tacit help of friendly allies like Saudi Arabia (so much for one Arab world) and the US.

Will Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, Syria, Yemen come to the rescue? No. They won’t and they can’t. They are still fighting their battles after the war. Commentators who went to town about “overthrowing despots in the Great Revolt” are now writing about “the fissures”.

It is even beyond fissures. Again, from my piece:

What will any of these movements achieve besides dethroning the atrophied who even denied people any coherent contemporary history, except as an ode to themselves?

I do not wallow in any cynicism I expressed but as outsiders we need to understand that even when Humpty Dumpty has a great fall, it will remain a smelly eggshell.

The 'spy' who loved Saudis

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a plan!

I think the Saudis have a point. That vulture that strayed into their territory could well have been a “Zionist plot” set up by Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad.

It is possible that the Saudis thought it was a plane. The bird has a wing span of 8ftx8in, and if people can see UFOs, why can they not imagine spying? Besides, our pigeons can carry information, so vultures are known to be far more ambitious.

It carried a tag of Tel Aviv University. This was an educated bird, see? It was either a sophomore sent on training or one with a seasoned doctorate, perhaps even a professor. These Mossadis are known to be quite academic. But it ventured into the ‘No Fly Zone’, so its intentions may well have been deliberated.

It carried a GPS transmitter. The Israelis say they were monitoring migration patterns of the rare bird. Aha, now Wiki (pedia, not Leaks) says that the Griffin Vulture belongs to the old school and its population is mostly resident. So, what migration is possible?

It was found in the rural area when it was arrested. Since it is a scavenger, are Saudi Arabia’s villages located on mountains (the bird likes to feed and breed at a height) and have many dead animals that they wish to hide from the world?

I know the Israelis and most people are having a good laugh, but let us just say that their little big birdie is not up to much. It cannot study migratory patterns, loses its way, cannot lay its hands on a proper meal, does not even find a decent mate along the way, lacks any urban graces and goes to some stupid rural area and gets caught by the Saudis who usually prefer looking down at their oil wells.

I think this is a Saudi plot and the bird is really a falcon, its national bird.

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Image: Mirror, UK

Is Saudi Arabia responsible for all acts of its citizens?

It appears like just another case of legalised paedophilia, but it is important to note that sometimes what individuals do is not always accepted by the government.

A 12-year-old Saudi girl unexpectedly gave up her petition for divorce from an 80-year-old man her father forced her to marry in exchange for a dowry. Despite support from human rights lawyers and child welfare advocates, the girl and her mother, who originally sought the divorce, withdrew the case on Monday in a court in Buraidah, in Al-Qasim province.

Who is to blame here? The mother had earlier approached the government’s Human Rights Commission charging that the girl had been raped; the local media reported it. Now she and her daughter have backtracked. This is a social evil and has to be handled at several levels for I believe it is crucial to look at things holistically.

The father is a piece of scum who sold his daughter for 85,000 riyals ($22,667). The groom is a shameless man who not only paid for this nubile bride but also consummated the marriage. Why was the mother quiet initially, then made a noise and has now withdrawn the case? I can only sympathise with the girl. She has been brainwashed about obedience to parents.

If the Saudi government body was willing to intervene, if the case did reach the courts and the media reported it, then do we reproach Saudi Arabia or the social mores or the individuals concerned? How many such examples are there? Do all of them appear in the public eye? What are the compulsions that drive people to do this? We imagine the kingdom to be rich, therefore what sort of greed was at play here?

We have had cases of men way in their dotage lusting after young women even in the West. The matter of choice is usually mentioned, but what choice can we talk about when there is power at play and the young women are hankering after riches and fame, not to speak about coveting even minor luxuries to keep up with the Joneses?

I think not all is lost in this case. The Saudi government should in fact assert itself and drag the father to court as well as the mother. There must certainly be provisions for forcing a minor through pressure tactics. The media has evidence since the mother had approached a journalist. That 80-year-old man needs to be tried too.

There is always talk about how women are not allowed to drive or go unescorted in Saudi Arabia. These are important enough issues at one level. It is more crucial to address how individuals make decisions that reflect badly on a particular society that anyway has a record for being considered regressive, and in some instances rightly so.

It is, however, time we realise that there are watchdogs even in such societies and they should be encouraged rather than buffering what they are fighting against by giving the negative more mileage.

Also, in the fluffy omelettes we may not notice our own bad eggs.

The Saudi Genie and Goddess Lakshmi

I am not sure if djinns have a nationality but this is hilarious. No rubbing of lamp or anything here. No friendly little smoky figure leaping out and granting three wishes. This one is quite a demon.

A family in Saudi Arabia has taken a genie to court, alleging theft and harassment. The lawsuit filed in a Shariah court accuses the genie of leaving them threatening voicemails, stealing their cell phones and hurling rocks at them when they leave their house at night.

What can the Shariah court do? Theft brings upon the robber a punishment of limbs being chopped off. How will they catch the culprit and see that justice is done? Has the genie been named? What can genies do with cell phones? Sell them in the grey market? But won’t Saudi Arabia have some laws against that as well? And the whole family goes out that late? Whoa. Did not know they had such a rocking night life.

Now if only those rocks were solitaires.

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Goddess Lakshmi prefers gold, but she sure as hell would not like to be shown sitting atop a stacked bun, even if it is by Burger King. Such royal nomenclatures do not carry much weight, only calories.

A report tells us that the food chain ran a print advertisement in Spain depicting “Lakshmi seated atop a meat sandwich and other foodstuffs with a catch phrase, ‘A snack that’s sacred’, written in Spanish.”

It is such poor copywriting skills besides, of course, not even possessing basic knowledge about eating habits. This is fast food. People go there for a quick bite; this is not some offering at a place of worship. I know, I know, it is said that the stomach should be treated like a temple, but then one would go for some seven-course little French itsy-bitsies that make you feel chaste and starved and think you are close to nirvana because you automatically transform into a ‘seeker’.

Here we are talking about humongous portions with mayo dripping down and lettuce and onion and tomatoes fighting for space with the patty. It is one big act of jugglery to stuff the thing into the mouth as it opens up in indelicate and primal ecstasy.

These guys have lost it. However, the sagely opposition is off-the-mark when it states, “An advertisement knowingly and intentionally using sacred symbols, especially those of another religious tradition, for purely commercial purposes can be offensive.”

An advertisement is used only for commercial purposes. Goddess Lakshmi represents wealth and people do worship her for precisely that. So, if we cut out the hypocrisy and talk practical stuff, this ad is offensive because it makes no sense.

Honestly, the genies and the burgers keep me occupied. What would I do without some religious and superstition-induced stimulus?