Religious leaders have their merits. They're an endless source of amusement, for one, as reported here.
One's imagination may be forgiven for running riot at the prospect of having sundry mullahs - venerable old men with flowing robes and flowing beards - discussing the permissibility of taking off ALL your clothes while, er, giving your better half, er, his/her conjugal due.
I mean, just consider how much time and, er, energy, these poor men must have devoted to the serious consideration of this business of people taking off their clothes in bed. They must have spent such sleepless nights worrying about the fact that perhaps some good soul was jeopardizing his rightful place in jannat (which must be different from heaven, because Allah is supposed to be different from God), and the promised 72 virginal houris, just because he wants to take off his clothes or see his wife naked. In any case, chances are that the said wife isn't such a great sight, without her clothes - most mullahs or their wives aren't exactly playboy/girl material, and since they see no merit in playing nude in the bedroom, there is no reason why anybody else should.
On a less annoyed note, while this may be a question of great religious import - after all, most modern religions make a religion of making lovers miserable - one would think the question is no longer valid once the couple is actually married. The Quran DOES NOT specify the ways in which couples are allowed to, er, couple. It does say that you shouldn't marry your mothers and grandmothers, but it doesn't say anything about keeping your clothes on.
Aside 1 - I am given to understand that houris are not really like women. They look like women and they're beautiful, but there's a catch: a houri is incapable of love. She's not got any emotion in that marvellous body. Therefore, what all good men (not you kaafirs, of course) will get is sex, sans love. If making love is more your thing, you're better off with mortal women of clay.
Aside 2 - I have a question for the mullah-saheb.
When you go to jannat and you get the 72 houris, are you then allowed to take off all your clothes? And will they be clad houris, or unclad ones? Because Allah, you see, seems to have this disturbing, inexplicable habit of forgetting to put clothes on people when he creates them (thus, making us prone to sin as soon as we're born... but that is a different argument). So, one may safely assume that he has forgotten to make clothes for billions of houris (72 for each man means there's a lot of them!). No? But, mullah-saheb, do consider the fact that if the houris are going to be purdah-nasheen as well, most men will have second thoughts about wanting to attain jannat. Think, mullah-saheb, think...
And for Allah's sake, in future, think before you speak!
ROTFL!!! Reminds me of my Jamia days when R was reprimanded for sitting on a bike with a classmate - a boy! (How could she? Its wrong! "Aapke parents ko maloom hai?") And these are mullah-men talking about various states of undress... I've seen 'Mullah Women in Position of Authority' (she also had a Ph.D in Psychology from DU!)pulling up other girls for wearing shorts in an all women's hostel... Calling us "Loose virtued" cos we were forever sitting in Barista, which is an Espresso BAR and she knew for a fact that all bars served alcohol!
ReplyDeleteNo pun intended but plain curious -What do women get when they die & go to Jannat?
ReplyDeleteHaha :) Good take.
ReplyDeleteReg'g yr Aside 1: To some extent that's true. But they'll not be totally devoid of emotion. I am given to understand that they'll be undertaking a lot of 'playful' things (which I suppose is not possible without emotions)..but -- and there is always a but, isn't it? -- but (and this answers reena's question) despite all that beauty and charm and woo factor, one's spouse will have the ultimate superiority over all of em. Hence whether it's 72 or 7200 man is destined to keep coming back to his girl. Difference is in heaven it'll be out of choice and love :p and there'll be no cheating. And that itself will give so muchos joy to the wifey. And every once in a while they shall partake some stuff from the wine river which never runneth out of wine and such like resulting in eternal bliss wrapping them forever. So all you feminists don't have to worry about women's rights ;-) because we'll be keeping you on a pedestal and treating you like queens.
(ps: now that I started answering yr question, I am wondering: hey that's so cool..if any one pardner gets in heaven(err...jannat) the other is ensured an automatic entry..isn't that gr8 :). No seriously? what happens if one of them doesn't make it to heaven? How much time the single husband/wife has to kasotify alone before they get together?)
This bit about lovers being unclothed is nothing new.Look it in at any traditional Muslim guide and they will tell to the same.This position is said to be based on the sayings of the Prophet (SAW).As I understand it all these controls are for Dunya only not for the Akhirah.
ReplyDeleteIf you follow your own Nafs than it is upto to you .
LOL... there are the mullahs saying those things, and the rest of us mostly saying god made man in his image (or thereabouts), which makes you wonder what *god* must be wearing, whether he lives in a nudist colony, and what divine fashion is like! :D
ReplyDeleteyup... nothing like religion for entertainment value! :))
Vej: here's to being loose and shorn of virtue
ReplyDeletereena: women get their husbands in jannat. which is no incentive, i guess. which would explain why they're forever reaching for apples and other means of getting thrown out of the place.
suhail: robots can act playful, if programmed to. i suspect houris are robots. and if a couple is destined to stay stuck together in jannat too... each woman i know is making a beeline for jahannum, this very instant. btw, what makes you think feminists like being up on a pedestal?
history lover: you got it right. i follow my own nafs. i also suspect a lot of things get attributed to our poor prophet, and we have no way of knowing whether he said them or not.
smriti: sweetie, they only stay virgins until you get your hands on them. or so i assume. it would be unbearably cruel to have be surrounded by 72 houris and not get to touch them. even god must know when to stop messing with us.
ReplyDeleteand m, true true. just what i was wondering
, what makes you think feminists like being up on a pedestal?
ReplyDeleteeewwww...madam that was just a tongue-firmly-in-cheek comment. A strawwomen created explicitly in an attempt to be satirical.
(note to self: stop making smartypantsy, attempting-to-be-funny-but-miserably-failing comments on Internet)
well i can't help but be reminded of this great open minded state of tamil nadu where i live in. Here talking about sex is bad, pretty much anything associated with sex apart from procreation is bad, (even then it's not really sex which makes babies you see, babies are God's gift), dressing the way you want is bad, going out anytime with anyone you feel like is bad, girl talking to a guy in college is bad, girl talking, holding hands is bad (two guys holding hands is OK, and it's not considered gay, go figure) jeans is bad, shorts are bad, skirts are bad (mini skirts..ooo la la, very bad, very bad), trousers are bad, drinking is bad, smoking is very bad.
ReplyDeleteApart from these few things we now consider ourselves as an open and madarn (typo intended) society, i say!
:) questions, questions. And the pressure to maintain that our religions were pure to beign with. Was anything ever pure?
ReplyDeletesuhail: taking it further, what will happen in case i have multiple spouses and they too multiple. it'll then become too complicated for god to decide whom to send where :D
ReplyDeleteAnnie wrote "hey only stay virgins until you get your hands on them. or so i assume."
ReplyDeleteAccording to one learned mullah I read, since Allah promised 72 virgins as an eternal reward, after having sex the hymen returns. Although, the existence of the hymen is controversial - some large percentage of women report never having one, and there is no scientific consensus on what a hymen is - so Allah must run a mighty busy cosmetic surgery operation to replace the "hymens" in the all of the houris for all of the male faithful in paradise.
Reena asked what do women get? Well, I read somewhere that the female faithful will be rewarded in the same way as males. So either they get 72 female virgins and a brain re-wiring to enjoy sex with women - but does Allah condone homosexuality? More likely, women get 72 virgin men. And since men have no hymen to serve as a sign of virginity, I guess here virginity would refer only to their mental state.
In conclusion, as best as I can tell, faithful women are rewarded - if you can call it that - with 72 virgin men who forget the experience of sex immediately afterwards. I see paradise as being filled with millions of unsatisfied women hopping from man to man hoping beyond hope the next one will be able to last longer than 10 or 12 seconds, and millions of men who realize that the whole virginity thing was a giant ploy by the almighty to get them to pray five times a day and whatnot, wishing that they could sleep with a very experienced woman for a change.
Of course you can know a man's virginity! The jews knew this that's why they invented circumcision! Uncircumcised men sometimes have phimosis, generally due to improper sexual hygiene (lack of handling) which prevents their foreskin from backing away during erection, making sex very painful. It Bolivia, if such a male bleeds upon intercourse, he is proven a virgin.
ReplyDeleteThe parallel may seem new and unusual to many readers, but it is no more ridiculous than the hymen lie to assess female virginity. Unopened vaginas are an anatomical anomaly to the same extent as phimosis is an anatomical anomaly.
Sexual hygiene and education is everything. BAN ABSTINENCE ONLY TEACHING IN SCHOOLS.
To prevent pain and bleeding during sex, follow these guideles:
1-foreplay
2-check (look and feel) for sufficient lubrication
3-gently insert finger (either partner) to ensure vaginal relaxation and preparedness, if necessary do a little stretching
These will not only ensure a pain-free first time, but also reduce the incidence of STDs as lubrication reduces the risk of skin lesions.
hey reena - point well made. i guess, considering the track record of most, if men get the houris then women get the ..... the ..... haramees? (no offense to you guys out there!)
ReplyDelete