Boreal

Little Mosque On The Prairie

Best Intentions

Sunday School

I wonder how many people the CBC has pre-disposed to the teachings of Islam by its idyllic portrayal of this religion.

In Best Intentions the writers of Little Mosque would have us believe that Muslim children learn about Allah and their religion the same way that many Christians do, in a Sunday school like setting where teens and pre-teens are encouraged to ask questions, and it's all good.

Nothing could be further from the truth! You don't question the Koran, you memorize the Koran, and you do it by rote.

The memorizing starts as soon as a child can read, and is expected to continue into adulthood, until he or she can repeat the Koran word for word without thinking.

There is a very common ceremony practiced throughout most of the Muslim world called Khatmi-Qur’an. It is the ceremony to recognize and celebrate a child’s first full reading of the Koranic text in Arabic. Muslim children in traditional Islamic societies or families are expected to have read the Koran, in Arabic, from cover to cover, no questions asked, before they reach the age of seven.

When the young girl in this episode asks the imam why her parents expect her to do chores around the house but not her brother, she would already have been familiar with verses where Allah states that women are inferior, that boys are in charge, and girls who don't do what boys tell them to do can be beaten.

2:228 ... women have rights equal to what is incumbent upon them according to what is just, although men are one degree above. Allah is Mighty, Wise.

4:34 Men are in charge of women, because Allah has made some of them excel the others, and because they spend some of their wealth. Hence righteous women are obedient, guarding the unseen which Allah has guarded. And those of them that you fear might rebel, admonish them and abandon them in their beds and beat them. Should they obey you, do not seek a way of harming them; for Allah is Sublime and Great!

Baber’s first explanation – before the imam insist on a more politically correct response – that it is because she is girl and he is a boy, is the correct one.  The words put in the imam's mouth by the CBC writers are misleading in the extreme.

God's Messenger expected, just like his Mentor in the Great Beyond, for females to wait on males hand and foot because he too believed they were inferior, something to do with the female mind.

The Prophet said, "Isn’t the witness of a woman equal half that of a man?" The women said, "Yes." He said, "This is because of the deficiency of the woman’s mind." Bukhari

The Prophet is alleged to have darned his own clothing for he was very particular about his appearance (read Rival Imam). This does not mean that he meant for men to do housework. Nothing could be further from the truth! Every Muslim knows this, as do the CBC writers I am sure.

Bernard Payeur