Family caricature in Islam

2005/08/30

[This article is H-(Hadith) rated. Please do not read if your age is under 18.]

Sheikh Abdul Salam Mohammed Zoud bin Zayed Al Maktoum is a pious Muslim. He has a long beard, almost as long as his name. According to a Hadith, Allah has 99 names, inspired by religious conviction, Sheikh decided to produce 99 children. After marrying 60 times in his life, he was able to fulfill the goal. He also has 2 concubines, with sired children who are not included in the official "A" team of 99.

My mind's eye already sees some readers rolling their eyes, accusing me of hyperbole, but having 99 children is not a ludicrous idea for a Muslim man. King Ibn Saud, the first monarch of Saudi Arabia , had an undisclosed number of wives, some say the approx. 100. He also had 52 children of which 37 were sons. Even Osama Mean Laden, the contemporary hero of the Islamic world, has 53 brothers and sisters. So, in the age of Viagra, it’s eminently possible that the character of my story can harvest 99 children. Now back to the story...

Our Sheikh is not only macho and testosteronic, he's ecological: he recycles his wives! According to Islamic laws, a Muslim man can only have four wives at a time. However, there is a way to get around this unfair and unnatural limitation. After all, a religious Muslim cannot be satisfied with only four wives. Quranic verse 004.020 dictates, “But if ye decide to take one wife in place of another, even if ye had given the latter a whole treasure for dower, take not the least bit of it back: Would ye take it by slander and manifest wrong?”

Muslim men are obliged to pay a dowry when they marry women. The verse in question simply allows a Muslim man to throw away his wife and write off the dowry that he paid as an operating cost. Sheikh cleverly used this technique and considered the dowry money as an in-the-bed overhead, in other words, as an entertainment cost.

Hassan, a grandson of Mohammad, had over seventy wives but he never crossed the limit of four. With lump-sum dowries, he'd marry a woman, enjoy her for a few days and then blithely divorce her. Some unholy folks might consider the former wife nothing more than a glorified prostitute, but rest assured, Islam is known for teaching family values!

Mohammad casually discouraged divorce in a Hadith, saying, “Divorce is the most hated of all lawful (halal) things in the sight of Allah.” (Sunan Abu Dawud, no. 2178). I am not sure how a lawful dictation could be the most hated action! Naturally, those who wish to replace their wives are only doing the right thing according to verse 4.20, as explained earlier. What the heck was going through Mohammed's mind, or perhaps more accurately, HIS BLOODSTREAM, when Allah issued this verdict?

A Muslim husband can divorce his wife in a flash, even faster than it takes a cached webpage to load up! All he has to do, is say ‘divorce’ three times and the relationship is over. It is not so easy for a woman though, Mohammad yelled in a Hadith, “If any woman asks her husband for divorce without some strong reason, the odor of Paradise will be forbidden to her.” (Sunan Abu Dawud, Book 12, #2218)

Osama’s father, Mohammed Laden had 11 wives, but never at the same time. He had three permanent wives and he used the fourth slot for short-termers. Osama’s mother, Hamida, a beautiful Syrian lady filled in the fourth position on a temporary basis. Because of her status and short-term position, other wives and ex-wives called her ‘slave’ and Bin Laden the ‘son of the slave’. (Bin Laden: Behind the mask of the Terrorist, Adam Robinson) Here we see Islamic family values ‘in action.’ Osama and the prophet of Islam have a lot in common - parental negligence and emotional deprivation... and sure enough, both became Franksteins.

The hero of our story, Mr. Sheikh, lives in a palace with most of his children. Jurists of Islam agree that after a divorce, mama gets custody over a male child until he is 7 years old and over a female child, until she is 9. Armed with such jurisprudence, Sheikh got almost all of his children back. Some of his sons have married and they are following the same trend as their father. Some daughters are also back in their papa's house because their husbands married again. Like father, like son-in-law!

Because of today’s world policies, the Sheikh has a hard time finding slave women for quick purchase in open air markets. But when there's a will, there's a way and so special channels to satisfy his koranically sanctioned whims have been made available to him. Bad people steal or buy small children from poor Muslim countries and transport them to wealthy people like Sheikh Abdul Salam Mohammed Zoud bin Zayed Al Maktoum. The girls are sent directly to his harem. The boys are often treated like Bonsai trees, that is, starved, to keep their weight at minimum, whereupon they are used as camel jockeys. The lighter the jockey, the better his chances of winning the race.

Sheikh, the star of my story, is not doing anything wrong, in fact, he's striving to fulfill his Islamic obligations. After all, having sex with a slave woman is "Sunnah," which means following the example of Mohammad. In olden times, the ruler of Alexandria , Egypt politely refused to become a Muslim and sent two beautiful slave girls to Mohammad as a gift, a bribe to save his neck from the ever-swooping Islamic sword. Mohammad kept Mariya, the most beautiful one and gave her sister Sirin to his poet friend, Hassan ibn Thabit. Mo’s slave woman Mariya gave birth to Ibrahim who died at infancy.

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