Boreal
Remembering Uzza
If Islam Was Explained to Me in a Pub
Home School
Uzza:
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. Most children complete the
first full reading or mouthing of the Qur’an between the age of four and seven.
It is the mother's responsibility to get her children to the Khatmi-Qur’an.
Archie: No pressure there!
Uzza: Mosques around the world have the equivalent of Sunday school classes to assist the mother in getting her children "to master the proper pronunciation and to read the text clearly from the first verse to the last."
Gerry: I understand where that could be a problem.
Uzza: Reading the Koran, children as young as four years old receive a premature sex education skewed by Islam’s concept of morality as part of their religious indoctrination. Children who should be enjoying Babar the Elephant or Cinderella instead get an error-filled explanation of procreation where a woman’s role is relegated to providing “a secure place” for Allah to place a man’s sperm from which He will fashion a human being[61].
Archie: That would explain those smug men you see on the street with their covered receptacles in tow. You never know when you will need one. Sperm spilled anywhere but in Allah’s designated receptacle is a sin I presume?
Uzza: If you are referring to masturbation, yes. Reading the Koran, children learn that their mother cannot refuse their father’s demand to use them as a receptacle[62]. If she does, not only can she be beaten, but she will probably be charged with his sin if he is forced to make love to himself.
Bob: Woody Allen said that masturbation is having sex with someone you love and therefore you should not knock it.
Archie: He also said that if God did not want us to masturbate, he would have given us shorter arms.
Uzza: A much greater sin than making love to yourself is men making love to other men. Reading the Koran, children learn that homosexuals are to be despised for committing what Allah repeatedly damns as “the foul act"[63].
Gerry: Allah knows nothing about love. To Him it’s all about the sex. It is sex and love together which makes the experience the wonderful thing that it is, whether it be between a man and a woman or people of the same gender.
Uzza: That is so right, but it is not what children reading the Koran get to appreciate. They learn to crave sex without love as they get familiar with Allah’s Paradise, which is all sex and no love. A place where men will fornicate to their heart’s content with people who, only a few seconds earlier, were complete strangers or on-the-spot manufactured facsimiles: the infamous houris. Then again, why would children, when they get older, want to experience love with what the Koran describes as deceitful, weak-minded inferiors consumed with lust for the male body as exemplified in Allah’s retelling of the story of Joseph, son of Jacob[64]? Left to their own devices, women would bring chaos to the orderly world of the Koran, which is why Allah has made their fathers, brothers, uncles and, later, their husbands their masters.
Bob: Why do women put up with it?
Uzza: Perhaps for the same reason millions of women voted for a man like Trump, and those who came after who were like him, and who treated them like dirt but promised to protect them from those who would treat them even worse. For believing women, worse is Allah burning them in Hell if they disobey the men to whom He has given ownership rights.
Bob: Better to suffer in silence here than scream in agony later for an eternity.
Uzza: Children who read the Koran are warned not to take unbeliever as friends; they only wish them harm. If they do, God will be very angry[65]. Still too young to understand the horror of what they are being asked to do, children will read and repeat what will become a persistent refrain for the rest of their lives, words which encourage them to become martyrs and mass murderers in pursuit of a book’s persistent message to rid the world of unbelievers.
Gerry: The medium is the message. McLuhan would be impressed that the most effective medium ever would turn out to be a book, and not a very good one at that[66].
Uzza: It is the abject cruelty that sinks the Koran beyond redemption; that makes it an especially bad book for children. Children who read the Koran are exposed to acts of sadism that would make the Marquis de Sade cringe, like Allah boasting He will replace burnt skin with fresh skin to ensure the pain of burning never diminishes[67] or that He will roast a critic of Muhammad, a fellow by the name of Abu Lahab, with his wife, tethered like a dog, forced to fetch the firewood He will use to roast her husband in front of her[68].
Archie: What an a…! I can’t say it.
Uzza: It is in the actions of a boastful pitiless torturer, fascinated by fire and the joy it brings when he uses it to inflict pain, that we get another inkling, probably the strongest, of a child-like mind behind the pain. For example, you could imagine a child naming a toy that annihilates people with fire, the Smasher; not a mature person, let alone a god.
Bob: Is the Smasher like a really big flame thrower?
Uzza: More like a crawling flame, a flame that crawls up people stretched out on pillars as it burns its way to their hearts[69].
Bob: Creepy!
Uzza: And then there are the people who this child-like pain impresario will dress in garments of fire, which will melt their skins and whatever they had for lunch, while hot water is poured over their heads[70] and someone or something beats their heads with an iron bar[71]. And when they ask for something to drink, it will be more boiling water which will “rip up their bowels”[72].
Bob: Why would parents want their children to read stuff like that?
Uzza: Allah, in a revelation, warned the believers to guard themselves and their families from becoming fuel for His Fire[73]; and the only way you can do that is learn to fear Allah and do what He tells you. It is to save their children from such a horrible fate that parents get them to read the Koran as soon as they can mouth the words and learn what Allah expects of them and what He will do to them if they fail to comply.
Bob: As the songs says, sometimes “You've gotta be cruel to be kind”[74].
Archie: Maybe, but why teach children to be cruel to other people, who, unlike God, mean them no harm? And, what is this about “becoming fuel for His Fire”?
Uzza: Allah’s fire is self-sustaining because unbelievers are both the combustible and the combusting.
Archie: What the fuck? Excuse my French.
Uzza: I think it is safe to assume that, due to the frequency of calling unbelievers fuel for His Hell[75], it is people who are Allah’s favourite combustible.
Gerry: That’s enough, Uzza. We’ve heard enough!
Uzza: You have to admire the genius of someone creating a Hell that is self-sustaining. People on fire burning other people and being burnt in return by other people being consumed by flames, and all the while, Allah, like a chef at his barbecue, replacing the skin of the people He is roasting…
Gerry: Please, Uzza. We were having a good time, everything considered, and this is ruining it.
Uzza: So you do not want to hear about what a child reading the Koran will be told about Judgment Day?
Gerry: To me, the Koran’s description of Judgment Day is, in many ways, worse than what Allah revealed will happen to people in Hell. So, no.
Bob: But I do.
Uzza: Gerry’s right. If you want more creepy stuff, Bob, and I mean real creepy stuff that kids should not have to read, pick up a copy of the one act-play, Alice Visits a Mosque to Learn about Judgment by the author of Pain, Pleasure and Prejudice. You will not be disappointed.
Archie: Maybe the Koran should be restricted to adults only with a warning for graphic sex, violence and other things.
Uzza: You will not get an argument from me. What happens to the mind, to the personality of a child who commits, must commit to memory not only the horrible verses we have talked about, but others that are even more impressive in their attention to detail when it comes to the deliberate, cold-blooded application of torture?
Bob: What Allah does to unbelievers reminds me of what Itchy does to Scratchy on the Simpsons; and from what I can tell, the kids who watch it are alright.
Uzza: Perhaps. In the Koran, Allah’s sadism is a more persistent, fantastical vision of torture, pain and never-ending suffering with which any child can relate. It is the stuff of nightmares. And let us not forget that this is a god who proclaims to be the embodiment of compassion and mercy doing horrendous things to human beings, not a mouse being cruel to a cat. What kind of warped understanding of the concept of mercy and compassion will children be left with after reading about how the Compassionate One takes obvious pleasure in the punishment He inflicts[76] on those who refuse to believe in His Book and His precious Fire[77]?
Gerry: That warped understanding of compassion: that people to whom a god would do these horrible things are not deserving of compassion in this world or the next. That is scary.
Uzza: For a non-believing adult, Allah’s brutality and what goes on in His Hell[78] may seem like the plot of some of the more violent cartoons aimed at kids, nothing to worry about. For believing children it is real, and not the product of a cartoonist’s imagination. Somewhere in time and space, Allah is actually doing to real people what some children may fantasize about but eventually dismiss, as they grow older, as immoral, sadistic behaviour, given time away from the Koran.
Gerry: But that is not what is happening.
Bob: The children you are talking about already know everything about Badr. Is there anything else we should know?
Footnotes
23:12 We have created man from an extract of clay;
23:13 Then we placed him as a sperm in a secure place;
23:14 Then we created out of the sperm a clot; then made from the clot a lump of flesh, then made the lump of flesh into bones; and then covered the bones with flesh; then fashioned him into another creation. So Blessed be Allah, the Best of Creators.
23:15 Then after that you will surely die.
23:16 Then on the Day of Resurrection you will surely be raised from the dead.
There is no such stage when bones are formed first and coated with flesh. Remember, Islam is a product of the Dark Ages when much of the scientific discoveries of the Greek and Roman civilizations were temporally lost, including medical knowledge related to conception and gestation, and replaced by superstitions and half-truths.
22:5 O people, if you are in doubt regarding the resurrection, We have indeed created you from dust, then from a sperm, then from a clot, then from a little lump of flesh, partly formed and partly unformed, in order to show you. We deposit in the wombs whatever We please, for an appointed term; then we bring you out as infants, till you attain full strength. Some of you are made to die, and some are returned to the vilest age, so that they may not know, after having acquired some knowledge, anything. And you see the earth barren, but when We send down water upon it, it stirs and swells and produces vegetation of every pleasing variety.
22:6 That is because Allah is the Truth, and He brings the dead to life and He has power over everything.
Allah's "clot" appears to be a mutation of a man's sperm, which He has implanted in a woman's uterus (the "secure place" in verse 23:13), and from which He will fashion a fetus; bones first, sex later.
75:36 Does man think that he shall be left unattended?
75:37 Was he not a drop of sperm released?
75:38 Then, he was a leech; then He created and fashioned (him);
75:39 Making of him a couple, male and female.
75:40 Is not that One Able to quicken the dead?
It’s all about the sperm, i.e., semen.
16:3 He created the heavens and the earth in truth; may He be exalted above what they associate [with Him].
16:4 He created man from a sperm-drop and, behold, he is a professed disputant.
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35:11 Allah created you from dust, then from a sperm, then made you into couples. No female bears or gives birth, save with His knowledge, and no man advances in years or his life-span is diminished, except as ordained in the Book. That indeed is an easy matter for Allah.
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56:57 We have created you, if only you would believe!
56:58 Have you seen the semen you emit?
56:59 Do you create it, or are We the Creators?
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80:17 May man perish! How thankless he is!
80:18 Of what did He create him?
80:19 Of a sperm, He created him and determined him.
80:20 Then He smoothed his path;
80:21 Then He caused him to die and entombed him;
80:22 Then, if He wishes He will raise him from the dead.
80:23 No indeed; he did not fulfil what He commanded him.
If Allah had given women a greater role in procreation, perhaps He would not have been disappointed with the result of His effort.
36:77 Does not man see that We created him from a sperm; and behold he is a manifest trouble-maker?
2:223 Your women are a tillage for you. So get to your tillage whenever you like. Do good for yourselves, fear Allah and know that you shall meet Him. And give good news to the believers.
29:45 Recite what has been revealed to you of the Book and perform the prayer. Prayer surely forbids the foul act and abomination. Allah’s remembrance is greater and Allah knows what you do.
27:54 And Lot, when he said to his people: “Do you commit the foul act, while you perceive?
29:28 And (remember) Lot, when he said to his people: “You are committing the foul act (sodomy) which no one in the whole world ever committed before you.”
[64] Joseph’s story will provide an opportunity for Allah to offer an opinion on rape and why women who complain of being raped are usually lying, and how you can tell using the example of the wife of the Egyptian who bought Joseph. She will attempt to seduce the reluctant Joseph after being told by her husband to make his stay an honourable one.
12:21 And the Egyptian who bought him said to his wife: “Make his stay honourable; perhaps he will profit us or we may take him for a son.” Thus We established Joseph in the land and taught him the interpretation of dreams. Allah has control over His Affairs though most people do not know.
12:22 When he was fully grown, We gave him judgement and knowledge, and thus We reward the beneficent.
12:23 And the woman, in whose house he was, sought to seduce him. She closed the doors firmly and said: “Come.” He said: “Allah forbid. It is my Lord who gave me a good abode. Surely, the wrongdoers do not prosper.”
12:24 Certainly she made for him and he would have made for her if it were not for a sign from his Lord. And that was to divert him from evil and indecency. He was indeed one of Our sincere servants.
A woman can also be expected to lie about a sexual assault, for example, falsely accusing a man of attempted rape when in reality she was the aggressor.
12:25 They raced to the door, and she ripped his shirt from behind. When they met her husband at the door, she said: "What is the penalty of one who intended evil for your wife except imprisonment or severe punishment?”
Exceptionally, Allah, when recounting this encounter, acknowledges that men can, sometimes, be the aggressors and how you can tell.
12:26 He (Joseph) said: “She sought to seduce me.” And a member of her household bore witness: “If his shirt was torn from the front, then she is telling the truth and he is a liar.
12:27 “But if his shirt is torn from behind, then she lies and he is one of the truthful.”
While admitting that men can, on occasion, be forceful in the pursuit of intimacy, Allah makes another generalization about women: that they are skilled in the art of deception.
12:28 When he (the husband) saw that his shirt was torn from behind, he said: “This is part of your guile, you women. Your guile is indeed very great.”
The husband asked Joseph to overlook his wife's attempt at getting him to share an intimate moment and told his spouse to ask forgiveness for her sins.
12:29 “Joseph, overlook this matter; and you, woman, ask forgiveness for your sin. You are indeed one of the sinners.”
[65] 3:28 Let not the believers take the unbelievers for friends, rather than the believers. Whoever does that has nothing to do with Allah, unless you guard against them fully! Allah warns you to beware of Him (warns you of His anger); and unto Him is the ultimate return!
There is, of course, much that is wise and consoling and beautiful in our religious books. But words of wisdom and consolation and beauty abound in the pages of Shakespeare, Virgil and Homer as well and no one ever murdered strangers by the thousands because of the inspiration he found there. The belief that certain books were written by God (who, for reasons difficult to fathom, made Shakespeare a far better writer than himself) leaves us powerless to address the source of human conflict, past and present.
Sam Harris, author of the New York Times bestseller, End of Faith, W. W. Norton, 2004
[67] 4:56 Those who have disbelieved Our Signs, We shall surely cast them into the Fire; every time their skins are burnt, We will replace them by other skins, so that they might taste the punishment. Allah indeed is Mighty and Wise!
The Fibre
111 Al-Masad
In the Name of Allah,
the Compassionate, the Merciful
1. Perish the hands of Abu Lahab, and may he perish too;
2. Neither his wealth nor what he has earned will avail him anything.
3. He will roast in a flaming fire,
4. And his wife will be a carrier of fire-wood,
5. She shall have a rope of fibre around her neck.
In the Name of Allah,
the Compassionate, the Merciful
104:1 Woe unto every backbiter and slanderer,
104:2 Who amasses wealth and counts it diligently.
104:3 He thinks that his wealth will make him immortal.
104:4 Not at all; he shall be cast into the Smasher.
104:5 And if only you knew what is the Smasher.
104:6 It is Allah’s kindled Fire,
104:7 Which attains even the hearts.
104:8 Upon them it is closing in;
104:9 On pillars stretch out.
18:29 And say: “The Truth is from your Lord. Whoever wishes, let him believe; and whoever wishes, let him disbelieve.” We have prepared for the wrongdoers a Fire whose canopy encompasses them all. If they call for relief, they will be relieved with water like molten brass which scalds the faces. Wretched is that drink and wretched is the resting-place!
22:19 Here are two adversaries who dispute about their Lord. To the unbelievers, garments of fire shall be cut up and over their heads boiling water shall be poured;
22:20 Whereby whatever is in their bellies and in their skin shall be melted.
22:21 And for them are iron rods (to beat their heads with).
22:22 Every time they want, in their gloom, to get out of it (the Fire), they are brought back into it. [And it is said to them]: “Taste the agony of burning.”
47:15 The likeness of the Garden which the God-fearing have been promised is this: rivers of water not stagnant, rivers of milk whose taste has not changed, rivers of wine delighting its drinkers and rivers of distilled honey. Therein they have every variety of fruit and forgiveness from their Lord too. Are they to be compared with those who dwell in the Fire forever and are given to drink boiling water which will rip up their bowels?
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.
[74] "Cruel to Be Kind" by Nick Lowe and Ian Gomm, first released as a single in 1979.
2:24 If you do not do that, and surely you will not, then guard yourself against the Fire whose fuel is men and stones, prepared for the unbelievers.
3:10 As to the unbelievers, neither their riches nor their children will avail them anything against Allah; in fact, they shall be the fuel of the Fire.
Other gods whose existence Allah vociferously denies will be joining the unbelievers in Hell to burn and be burnt in return.
21:98 “You and what you worship, besides Allah, are the fuel of Hell, and into it you shall all descend.”
11:105 The day (Judgement Day) it comes, no soul shall speak without His Leave. Some of them shall be wretched, some happy.
11:106 As for the wretched, they shall be in the Fire; they shall have therein groaning and moaning;
52:13 On the Day they will be driven into the Fire of Hell by force.
52:14 “This is the Fire which you used to deny.
52:15 “Is this magic or do you not see?
52:16 “Burn in it. Bear up or do not bear up; it is the same for you. You are only rewarded for what you used to do.”
[78] Hell may be Allah’s pet monster. A monster which will have to be dragged to its assigned position on Judgment Day.
89:21 No; when the earth is demolished completely.
89:22 And your Lord comes, together with the angels, in rows upon rows;
89:23 And Hell is brought forth on that Day. Then man will remember on that Day; but where from will remembrance come to him?
How that will be done according to Muhammad:
Abu Huraira reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: The Hell would he brought on that day (the Day of judgment) with seventy thousand bridles and every bridle would be controlled by seventy thousand angels.
Sahih Muslim 40.6810
How the monster will literally be brought to heel when it’s all over.
Narrated Anas:
The Prophet said, "(The people will be thrown into Hell (Fire) and it will keep on saying, 'Is there any more?' till the Lord of the Worlds puts His Foot over it, whereupon its different sides will come close to each other, and it will say, 'Qad! Qad! (enough! enough!)
By Your 'Izzat (Honor and Power) and YOUR KARAM (Generosity)!' Paradise will remain spacious enough to accommodate more people."
Bukhari 93.481.