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Triumph of the Irrational

The Irrational on Parade

A woman's level of commitment to the irrational is there for all to appreciate in what she wears in public, with the hijab and the shayla representing the mildest—but still not to be dismissed devotion—and the niqab and the burqa the most intense and uncompromising. These observations do not apply to countries like Afghanistan where what a woman wears may have nothing to do with the depth of her religious convictions but simply a way of surviving another day.

The Assyrians, more than 4,000 years ago, were one of the first, if not the first, to require women to veil themselves. It had nothing to do with piety or modesty but to distinguish themselves from respectable women who did not practice the world’s oldest profession.

Head coverings for early female believers, like for all desert dwellers including men, provided protection from a blazing sun and swirling sand when the wind blew. God, on His spokesman’s insistence, extended the use of the veil for women when they answered the call of nature with men in the vicinity doing the same. In populated areas that meant public latrines where a low wall usually separated the sexes.

In fact, until Muhammad made it official, his wives did not even bother to cover their hair, let alone their face, when using a public latrine near their home, including Sauda, whose complaint about his mischievous friend Umar got her husband thinking.

Narrated Aisha:

The wives of the Prophet used to go to Al-Manasi, a vast open place (near Baqia at Medina) to answer the call of nature at night.

Umar used to say to the Prophet "Let your wives be veiled," but Allah's Apostle did not do so.

One night Sauda bint Zam'a the wife of the Prophet went out at Isha time and she was a tall lady.

Umar addressed her and said, "I have recognized you, O Sauda."

He said so, as he desired eagerly that the verses of Al-Hijab may be revealed. So Allah revealed the verses of "Al-Hijab."

Bukhari 5.148

Umar continued to tease Sauda. What was Muhammad to do, forbid his wives from leaving the house to relieve themselves?

Narrated Aisha:

Sauda (the wife of the Prophet) went out to answer the call of nature after it was made obligatory (for all the Muslims ladies) to observe the veil. She was a fat huge lady, and everybody who knew her before could recognize her. So Umar bin Al-Khattab saw her and said, "O Sauda! By Allah, you cannot hide yourself from us, so think of a way by which you should not be recognized on going out."

Sauda returned while Allah's Apostle was in my house taking his supper and a bone covered with meat was in his hand.

She entered and said, "O Allah's Apostle! I went out to answer the call of nature and Umar said to me so-and-so."

Then Allah inspired him (the Prophet) and when the state of inspiration was over and the bone was still in his hand as he had not put in down, he said (to Sauda), "You (women) have been allowed to go out for your needs."

Bukhari 60.318

Umar’s intrusiveness has not only made life difficult for women to this day—such as getting stoned for having sex with a man who did not have God’s stamp of approval—but for ordinary Muslims who might enjoy a glass of wine with dinner.

Umar ibn al-Khattāb was what we would call a reformed alcoholic. He used his influence with his good friend Muhammad, to whom he gave his teenaged daughter Hafsa to cement their friendship, to get Allah to ban alcoholic beverages altogether. It took two tries, but he eventually got his way with God who, initially, only wanted His worshippers not to show up for prayers drunk.

The most bizarre revelations in the Koran are those concerning wine: the different verses progressively leading to its interdiction are in response to Umar asking God to clarify what He means. Exegetes tell us that Umar ardently wished that wine be explicitly prohibited by a revealed truth: “Dear God,” he said, “show us what we must do concerning wine. It makes us lose both our mind and our money.”

It was then that God revealed: “O believers, do not approach prayer while you are drunk, until you know what you say!”(4:43)

Umar is completely unhappy with God’s response when Muhammad reads him the verse; the prohibition against wine is not explicit enough as far as he is concerned. As if to satisfy Umar, the exegetes tell us, in all seriousness, God sends down another revelation: “They ask you about wine and gambling, say: “In both there is great sin and some benefit for people. But the sin is greater than the benefit.” (2:219)

It’s still not enough for Umar; he wants wine explicitly prohibited. It is then that a third revelation is received: “The Devil only wishes to stir up enmity and hatred among you, through wine and gambling, and keep you away from remembering Allah and from prayer. Will you not desist, then?” (5:91)

This time Umar appears satisfied: “Very good! I now consider the matter settled.”

Hela Ouardi, Meutre à la mosquée, Albin Michel, 2021, p. 55-56 (my translation).

Getting back to the verse of All-Hijab referenced in the first hadith; Islamic scriptures are notoriously contradictory and confusing in some places, especially hadiths as can be expected in hearsay recollections passed on from one generation to the next of what Muhammad said two hundred years earlier. For example, the verse of Al-Hijab invites women to “guard their private parts” and to “drape their bosom with their veil,” not their face or hair.

24:31 And tell the believing women to cast down their eyes and guard their private parts and not show their finery, except the outward part of it. And let them drape their bosoms with their veils and not show their finery, except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands’ fathers, their sons, the sons of their husbands, their brothers, the sons of their brothers, the sons of their sisters, their women, their maid-servants, the men-followers who have no sexual desire, or infants who have no knowledge of women’s sexual parts yet. Let them, also, not stamp their feet, so that what they have concealed of their finery might be known. Repent to Allah, all of you, O believers, that perchance you may prosper."

Muhammad was fascinated with breasts. He would play with them when his wives were experiencing their menses and everything below the waist was haram.

Narrated Aisha:

The Prophet and I used to take a bath from a single pot while we were Junub. During the menses, he used to order me to put on an izar (dress worn below the waist) and used to fondle me.

Bukhari 6.298

For God’s spokesman it was the sight of jingling breasts, not a woman’s hair, that caused men to experience spontaneous erections along with a desire to have illegal intercourse, should they not be wedded to the cause of their arousal. The veil, and Allah’s interdiction against women stamping their feet “so that what they have concealed of their finery might be known” is meant to conceal a woman’s breasts and their tendency to jiggle when the owner is in motion or doing what we might call rhythmic dancing-in-place and catch the attention of males other than her husband.

Corsets, a 14th century invention, and the modern bra which 500 years later replaced that means of support for a woman’s upper body’s jiggly parts have, more or less, alleviated this danger. If corsets and bras have eliminated the need for bosom-covering veils, could the same not be said for the hijab and the niqab with the widespread availability of women-only public restrooms?

The revelation about the veil follows Allah’s outburst against people who thought His spokesman a cuckold after Muhammad’s child bride, Aisha, got lost in the desert and was found by a young man who brought her back the next morning. Following is the opening salvo (for all the revelations I invite you to read Women and the Koran - A Child Bride’s Indiscretion, Boreal Books). .

24:11 Those who spread the slander (against Aisha, wife of the Prophet, according to the commentators) are a band of you. Do not reckon it an evil for you; rather it is a good thing for you. Everyone of them will be credited with the sin he has earned, and he who bore the brunt of it shall have a terrible punishment.

24:12 Would that the believers, men and women, when you heard it (the slander) had though well of themselves saying: “This is manifest slander!”

24:13 And would that they had brought forth four witnesses [to vouch for it]! But since they did not bring any witnesses, those are, in Allah’s sight, the real liars.

24:14 And but for Allah’s Bounty to you and His Mercy, in this world and the next, you would have been visited, due to your chatter, by a terrible punishment.

The demand that husbands make of their wives to conceal their identity when venturing outside the home, with or without them, has nothing to do with modesty or piety and everything to do with their own insecurities, or should I say Muhammad’s.

The Verse of the Veil is often confused with the Verse of the Curtain. The Verse of the Curtain was “revealed on the night of the wedding of the sixty-plus Muhammad and seventeen-year-old Zaynab b. Jahsh” when uninvited guests kept showing up at his home after the wedding feast, overstaying their welcome.

Narrated Anas bin Malik:

When Allah's Apostle married Zainab bint Jahsh she was with him in the house and he prepared a meal and invited the people (to it).

They sat down (after finishing their meal) and started chatting. So the Prophet went out and then returned several times while they were still sitting and talking.

So Allah revealed the Verse: "O you who believe! Enter not the Prophet's houses until leave is given to you for a meal, (and then) not (so early as) to wait for its preparation ...ask them from behind a screen." (33:53)

So the screen was set up and the people went away.

Bukhari 60.315

33:53 O believers, do not enter the houses of the Prophet, unless you are invited to a meal, without awaiting the hour; but if you are invited, then enter; but when you have eaten, disperse, without lingering for idle talk. That is vexing to the Prophet who might be wary of you, but Allah is not wary of the truth. If you ask them (the wives of the Prophet) for an object, ask them from behind a curtain. That is purer for your hearts and theirs. You should never hurt the Messenger of Allah, nor take his wives in marriage after him. That is truly abominable in the sight of Allah.

For many women who wear the niqab, it is analogous to what convert Warda Naili calls “my portable curtain.” Revelation 33:53 is also famous for Allah warning Muhammad’s surviving wives not to marry another man after His spokesman’s passing thereby. making His ultimate mouthpiece out to be a jealous and controlling husband who would seek to influence his young widows’ life from beyond the grave.

For Muslim women, having sex with a man other than their husband is flirting with a gruesome death and risking spending an eternity on fire in the depth of Allah’s Hell. The interdiction against taking “his wives in marriage after him” is equivalent to condemning Muhammad’s mostly young widows to never enjoying being intimate with a man again after his passing.

Wives of Muhammad - Zaynab b. Jahsh

(Abbreviated from From Merchant to Messenger, Boreal Books)

Muhammad walked in on his daughter-in-law Zaynab, who was then married to his adopted son Zayd, when she was almost naked and just had to have her. Zaynab was a cousin of Muhammad, the daughter of his paternal aunt Omayma. Barnaby Rogerson, author of The Prophet Muhammad – A Biography, writes that “Zayd soon divined that Muhammad had become entranced by Zaynab’s beauty and at once offered to divorce his wife.”

Marrying your son’s former wife was taboo. It did not matter if he was adopted; the same ethical and moral restrictions applied as to a natural-born son. Shortly after Zayd’s offer to part with his wife in favour of the man he considered his father, Revelation 33:5 was received changing the status of adopted sons, from sons to ‘brothers in religion’ thereby eliminating the taboo.

33:4 Allah did not create two hearts within the breast of any man; and He did not make your wives, whom you compare to your mothers’ backs; and He did not make your [adopted] sons your sons in fact. That is your own claim, by your words of mouth. Allah speaks the truth and He guides to the Right Path.

33:5 Assign them to their own fathers. That is more equitable in the sight of Allah; but if you do not know their real fathers, then they are your brothers in religion, your adopted fellow Muslims. You are not at fault if you err therein; but only in what your hearts intend. Allah is ever All-Forgiving, All-Merciful.

With that technicality out of the way, Allah formally gave Zayd’s former spouse to Muhammad.

33:37 Then, when Zayd had satisfied his desire for her, We gave her to you in marriage; so that the believers should not be at fault, regarding the wives of their adopted sons, once they have satisfied their desire for them. For Allah’s Command must be accomplished.

Before Revelation 33:5, Arab fathers made no distinction between adopted sons and those they had fathered. The revelation changing the relationship between adopted sons and their surrogate parent, so that Muhammad could add his cousin and former daughter-in-law to his collection of wives, concubines, and slave-girls, has been interpreted to mean that Islam is against Western style adoption, resulting in an untold number of children in the Islamic world who have no one living they can call father.

Demoting adopted sons to “brothers in religion”, or the equivalent of someone for whom you provided free room and board, not only made their wives, upon divorce, eligible to be taken in marriage by their “adoptive” father, but also disinherited them.

Narrated Aisha:

Abu Hudhaifa, one of those who fought the battle of Badr with Allah's Apostle, adopted Salim as his son and married his niece Hind bint Al-Wahd bin Utba to him and Salim was a freed slave of an Ansari woman.

Allah's Apostle also adopted Zaid as his son.

In the Pre-Islamic period of ignorance the custom was that, if one adopted a son, the people would call him by the name of the adopted-father [from] whom he would inherit as well, till Allah revealed: "Call them (adopted sons) By (the names of) their fathers." (33:5)

Bukhari 59.335

 ---- end of excerpt ----

***

Some revelations meant to accommodate Muhammad sexual proclivities were relatively benign—unless, of course, you are the spouse a husband overlooks when it comes to sex.

 Muqawqis, hoping to mollify Muhammad after receiving his letter threatening an invasion of Egypt, sent him a tribute that included two sisters: Sirin (also spelt Shirin) and Mariya.

From Muqawqis

I read your letter and understood what you have written. I know that the coming of a Prophet is still due. But I thought, he would be born in Syria – I have treated your messenger with respect and honor. I am sending two maids (Maria al-Qibtiyya and her sister Sirin) for you as presents. These maids belong to a very respectable family amongst us. In addition I send for you clothes and a Duldul (steed) for riding. May God bestow security on you.

God’s spokesman chose Mariya and gave her sister to his scribe Hasan b. Thabit. He spent a lot time with Mariya, which made his other wives jealous.

Relations between Mariya and the wives reached a theatrical pitch as we see from the following hadith:

The Messenger of Allah was alone with his slave girl Mariya in Hafsa’s room. The Prophet came out and she (Hafsa) was sitting at the door. She said: ‘Messenger of Allah! In my room and on my day!’

She said: ‘I will not accept it without you swearing an oath to me.”

So he said, ‘By Allah I will never touch her.’

Kahn, Tamam, Untold: A History of the Wives of Prophet Muhammad, Monkfish Book Publishing, 2010.

God would send a revelation, Verse 66:2, nullifying the promise Muhammad had made to Hafsa.

66:1 O Prophet, why do you prohibit what Allah has made lawful to you, seeking thereby the good pleasure of your wives? Allah is All-Forgiving, Merciful.

66:2 Allah has prescribed to you the absolution of your oaths. Allah is your Master and He is the All-Knowing, the Wise.

God not only absolved Muhammad of his oath to Hafsa, but in another revelation, told him it was okay to change his coitus rotation, including reinstating a wife he had ‘cut off’ or taking another woman to bed other than the one scheduled for intercourse.

33:51 You may defer any of them you wish, and take in any of them that you wish or any that you may have cut off. So you are not liable to reproach, For thus it is more likely that they will be delighted and will not grieve, but be content with what you have given each one of them. Allah knows what is within your hearts; and Allah is All-Knowing, Clement.

Before Mariya, Muhammad observed a strict schedule of servicing each of his wives in turn, except for Sauda, the oldest, who gave up her up her turn permanently knowing that her husband preferred sex with someone younger making it less likely he would divorce her to get her out of the rotation.

Allah’s involvement in Muhammad coitus schedule was the last straw for Aisha, who told her husband that God seemed to be always at the ready to fulfill his ‘wishes and desires’.

Narrated Aisha:

I used to look down upon those ladies who had given themselves to Allah's Apostle and I used to say, "Can a lady give herself (to a man)?" But when Allah revealed: "You (O Muhammad) can postpone (the turn of) whom you will of them (your wives), and you may receive any of them whom you will; and there is no blame on you if you invite one whose turn you have set aside (temporarily)." (33.51) I said (to the Prophet), "I feel that your Lord hastens in fulfilling your wishes and desires."

Bukhari 60.675

***

That the hijab, and its add-on the niqab, went from a requirement for women who traded sex for money, to concealing a woman's identity when having to share a public latrine with men, to a sign of piety or modesty is quite extraordinary. Much of the obsession with what believing women wear in the West can be traced to an accused serial rapist by the name of Tariq Ramadan. A Charlie Hebdo cover ridiculed the defence of his actions with a caption “JE SUIS LE 6E PILIER THE L’ISLAM”, I am the sixth pillar of Islam.

The charismatic salafist scholar, Oxford University professor and lecturer on everything Islamic is probably most responsible for Muslim women and girls modeling the irrational wherever they happen to be in the rational world that would treat them as equal.

The man accused of raping young women who sought his counsel, in writings and lectures exhorted believing women living in the West to “invade” the public space wearing Islamic head coverings as a way of promoting everywhere a religion that hates them!

It was Tariq Ramadan's mother, Wafa al-Banna, the daughter of Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, who instructed her son in the salafist theology which guides the actions of Islamic State and that her son would see propagated worldwide, assisted by the non-threatening example of females on parade to conceal the encroachment on the secular of a brutal, uncompromising religious ideology.

What started as a headpiece worn by prostitutes has morphed into an irrationality that begets its own hysteria.

New York to Pay $17.5 Million for Forcing Removal of Hijabs in Mug Shots New York Times April 5, 2024

New York City has agreed to pay $17.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed by two women who said their rights were violated when they were forced to remove their hijabs before the police took their arrest photographs.

The financial settlement filed on Friday, which still requires approval by Judge Analisa Torres of U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, is the latest development in the class-action lawsuit filed in 2018 by Jamilla Clark and Arwa Aziz, two Muslim women who said they felt shamed and exposed by the police officers’ actions.

“When they forced me to take off my hijab, I felt as if I were naked; I’m not sure if words can capture how exposed and violated I felt,” Ms. Clark said in a statement.

“I’m so proud today to have played a part in getting justice for thousands of New Yorkers.”

In Choreographing the Irrational I wrote that “By tying the irrational to the performance of a sequence of prescribed movements in unison and familiar phrases repeated as one Muhammad achieved three objectives that are central to the success of Islam or any militant organization: indoctrination, visibility and discipline.” Today, believing women’s head and face coverings brings more visibility to Islam than does prayers. That it was never meant as a sign of piety or modesty does not matter.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali has argued that the hijab is a way for Muslim women to advertise their superiority over non-Muslim men and women. She said it was not unlike the swastika of the Nazis. For them it was a symbol of their superiority as a race. As for the hijab wearer, it is a symbol of their superiority as believers. 

The next campaign, which already has achieved a measure of success in English Canada, is believing women being allowed to teach vulnerable children festooned with the head and face coverings that serve as a testament as to their superiority and their commitment to  the irrational. In Remembering Uzza - If Islam Was Explained To Me in a Pub I speculate about its impact.

Archie: When a god, if you believe it was a god, with a religion to sell chose a salesman to get it done, He obviously knew what He was doing.

Uzza: Muhammad was not a salesman; he was a merchant!

Archie: Same diff!

Uzza: It was this inspired choice of a person who knew how to take advantage of humanity’s cupidity and fears that ensured Islam would be the success that it is today. Muhammad, before he discovered that he had been chosen to speak on God’s behalf and implement His agenda, was a merchant, a very successful merchant. He and his Mentor understood advertising before advertising as we know it was understood. They understood how you create brand loyalty and how you get your brand out there; from using women as billboards to houses of worship as imposing monuments to the awesomeness of your brand, visible from almost anywhere.

Bob: By billboards, you mean by the way they dress?

Uzza: Yes.

Archie: They even allowed these billboards in schools. Teachers are role models. My daughter came home the other day from school and asked if she could wear a mask like one of her teachers because good girls cover their face and hair in public.

Bob: NO THEY DON’T!

Allah, in choosing a merchant to deliver his ultimate message on how He wanted to be worshipped and how we should behave if we wish for Him to grant us Paradise, chose well. Muhammad practically invented modern marketing from his point-based reward system to getting your brand out there, with women as billboards for a religion that hates them. They would recreate in the West the same hopeless situation for young women as in the Prophet's household and in much of the world where the rule of law is Islamic. 

Allah warned His spokesman's wives not to give any indication of their feeling of despair by using abject, i.e., disheartened, gloomy speech. As to the "sickness" in the following verse, it may just have been young men whom, upon hearing the girls discuss their hopeless situation, expressing the hope that Muhammad might set some of them free to their benefit.

33:32 O wives of the Prophet, you are not like any other women. If you are God-fearing, do not be abject in speech, so that he in whose heart is a sickness may covet you, but speak in an honourable way.

Fourteen hundred years later, women who live in countries where they are free to choose, exhibiting no self-respect, choose to dress and behave according to instructions communicated by a misogynous deity to a middle-aged man looking for ways to maintain order in his harem. A telling example involving two of his teenaged wives follows.

A Taste of Honey

(Abbreviated from Women and the Koran, Boreal Books)

Muhammad conveys to one of his wives, in secrecy, that he has eaten some honey. She later reveals the secret to another of his wives, who also happens to be her best friend. Allah, who sees and hears all, tells on them. It is an infantile tale that could easily have been dismissed if Allah had not chosen this opportunity to reveal what He considers the perfect wife.

For some reason, He devulges only a portion of what He has overheard, which Muhammad then repeats to an incredulous spouse. 

66:3 And when the Prophet confided to one of his wives a certain matter (his eating of honey); and she divulged it, and Allah disclosed it to him too, He made known part of it, but withheld the other part. Then, when he told her about it, she said: “Who told you this?” He said: “The All-Knowing, All-Informed told me.”

God suspects a conspiracy. To put an end to the gossip, He informs the two wives, again via His spokesman, of the formidable force allied against them: His Eminence, the mighty Gabriel, the righteous of believers and all the angels support Muhammad. This has to be about more than one wife telling another that their husband-in-common has eaten some honey, for Allah to put His own considerable prestige on the line to silence the two girls.

66:4 If you two (the two wives of the Prophet) repent onto Allah, then your hearts will have certainly inclined; but if you band together against him, then Allah is his Master. Gabriel, the righteous among the believers and the angels thereupon are his supporters, too.

Then the really big threat—divorce—which Muhammad implies the god for whom he speaks is in favour, and may replace them with better wives.

66:5 Perhaps, his Lord will, if he divorces you, give him in exchange wives better than you, submissive, believing, obedient, penitent, devout, fasting, either previously married or virgins.

Do you measure up?

Allah follows up his instructions about how wives should behave with the usual threat about burning to a crisp those who don’t scrupulously follow His instructions.

66:6 O believers, guard yourselves and your families against a Fire whose fuel is people and stones; its overseers are harsh, terrible angels who do not disobey what Allah commands, but will do what they are commanded.

It was later revealed by Umar, the second successor of Muhammad as leader of the believers, that the two spouses God tried to intimidate were teenaged wives who were not averse to pranking the old man.

Narrated Abdullah bin Abbas:

I had been eager to ask Umar about the two ladies from among the wives of the Prophet regarding whom Allah said (in the Qur'an saying): If you two (wives of the Prophet namely Aisha and Hafsa) turn in repentance to Allah your hearts are indeed so inclined (to oppose what the Prophet likes) (66:4), till [I] performed the Hajj along with Umar (and on our way back from Hajj) he went aside (to answer the call of nature) and I also went aside along with him carrying a tumbler of water. When he had answered the call of nature and returned, I poured water on his hands from the tumbler and he performed ablution.

I said, "O Chief of the believers! Who were the two ladies from among the wives of the Prophet to whom Allah said: 'If you two return in repentance (66:4)?’"

He said, "I am astonished at your question, O Ibn Abbas. They were Aisha and Hafsa."

Bukhari 43.648

---- end of excerpt ----

Unfortunately, in another pranking of their husband-in-common, the two teenagers ruined the life of a gullible twenty-year-old (est.) that the then sixty-one-year-old Muhammad acquired after concluding a treaty with her tribe. The young woman may not have been familiar with Islam’s formula that allowed a husband to divorce a spouse, whose company he no longer cared for, by simply repeating, in her presence: “I divorce you.”

[Aisha and Hafsa] dared to persuade her that repeating those words for the divorce formula [on the night of her nuptials] would make the Prophet love her more. He, of course, heard the formula as powerful repudiation and sent her away although she protested that she had been tricked. She was from that time considered married and so bound not to marry another man (33:53 …You should never hurt the Messenger of Allah, nor take his wives in marriage after him. That is truly abominable in the sight of Allah)… no one sought to marry her, and she was not seen by anyone except relatives until her death…she died disconsolate.”

Kahn, Tamam, Untold: A History of the Wives of Prophet Muhammad, Monkfish Book Publishing, 2010.