The other extremists

It has been an eventful month mainly dominated by ultra-hardcore tree huggers on one side and skeptics on the other, who incidentally appear to be too stupid and arrogant to accept the crisis which has been constantly gripping the planet for a century. The 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Copenhagen was on every news channel, and as if that wasn't enough, numerous talk shows and documentaries were dedicated to the event. Countless street protests, cynical arguments, sugar coated comments by politicians and passionate debates later, the final outcome of the conference turned out to be rather bleak. No surprises there.

Here're some of the reactions from various leaders who attended the event.

"We've come a long way but we have much further to go." - Barack Obama
"We have made a start." - Gordon Brown
"The meeting has had a positive result, everyone should be happy." - Head of the Chinese delegation.

That's how politicians say "We've gone absolutely nowhere with this, what a bloody waste of time." Plus, I think we should all be worried when communist China uses the phrases "positive result" and "everyone should be happy" in the same sentence.

Anyway, our very own Anni had a lot of exposure during the whole event. I would like to think he managed to enlighten people about the plight of this country with his performance during the debate, and also the somewhat corny THREE-FIVE-ZERO speech. Some people appear to think we've elected a pot smoking hippie as our President.

But let’s leave that aside for now, shall we?

It was a little over a year ago when Danny Boy (let's see if this nickname sticks) began his helm as the President of this tiny Republic. We all had huge expectations, some downright unrealistic, but I don't think anyone will deny that he had a massive job on his hands. A debt-ridden economy that had been further crippled by corruption was just one of the things he had to take into consideration. Also, there was the tiny matter of a global recession. And he was not, in any shape or form, helped by a significant chunk of the population who had been brainwashed into believing that the sun shone out of Maumoon Abdul Qayyoom’s every orifice. No, I don't think even he expected things to be this hard. His fantasy of resolving this country’s problems within a month went down the drain. The whooping sound of yellow-clad street dorks were cut short. Voices of dissent took over. We Maldivians are so fickle.

Having said this, I think he has done a pretty decent job so far. He has managed to successfully initiate some very important projects that are bound to help the country prosper, like the transportation system, plans to develop metropolises in other atolls, cutting the cost of our overly large Civil Service to name just a few. Plus, he is also carrying out the unenviable task of undoing and editing all the mishaps of the previous government. The great thing about Danny Boy is that he's an extremely enthusiastic character. BUT that does not mean I’m going to take him as some sort of Messiah and nod along with everything he says. For an instance, I do not agree with some of his foreign policies. I don’t want us to become pals with Israel, whose hands are dripping with the blood of our Palestinian brothers and sisters. Before you begin to accuse me of anti-Semitism, which is utterly ludicrous, please consider these excellent articles:

Are 60 Years of Agony and 94 Years of Deception Not Enough?

Where is 'Preventing Radical Extremism' - in Al-Quds?

The stench of hypocrisy on Israel is simply too much for us. We also must not forget the Salha Mosque Massacre in 1948; the first Houla Massacre in 1949; the Qibya massacre in 1953; the second Houla Massacre in 1967; the Hanin Massacre in 1967; the Yareen Massacre in 1974; the Aitaroun Massacre in 1975; the Bint Jbeil Massacre in 1976; the Al-Ouzaii Massacre in 1978; the Rashaya Massacre in 1978; the Kawneen Massacre in 1978; the Adloun Massacre in 1978,; the Khiam Massacre in 1978; Al-Abbasiyeh Massacre in 1978; the Sabra and Shatila Massacres in 1982; the Sohmor Massacre in 1984; the Bier al-Abed Massacre in 1985; the Iqleem al-Toffah Massacre in 1985; the Aitaroun Massacre in 1989; the Al-Zahrani Massacre in 1994; the Mansouri Ambulance Massacre in 1996; the Nabatiyeh Massacre in 1996; the first Qana Massacre in 1996; the Jenin massacre in 2002, the second Qana massacre in 2006, and the Ghaza Massacre of 2009.

These are only the large scale murders; the atrocities committed by Zionist terrorist groups like Irgun, Lehi and Haganah while all the Western pro-Israeli forces sat around twiddling their thumbs must be taken into account. And we can write whole books about the Palestinian exodus, of the way they were forcibly ejected from their homes with no hope of returning. So yeah, let’s become pals with Israel! Or as Aisha Hussain points out, let’s get under the sheets with them for a one-night stand!

Oh, and I don’t know what’s the deal with making alcohol available in inhabited islands. How on earth is that going to help the Drug Problem? And finally, I am extremely dissatisfied by the way his government treated the post-secondary students. Those who got the best results in the A’ levels in my batch (which ended 18 months ago) are still awaiting good scholarships. Whenever we make some noise regarding this, Uz. Hassan Latheef would come out with a handful of scholarship offers from places like Bangladesh, China (and once, even the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus!), dump them under our noses then declare something along the lines of, “Are you happy now, little whelps?” Politely of course.

I think Danny Boy will be the first person to admit that he’s nowhere near perfect. After all, his Islamic knowledge is no better than that of the average 12-year old Maldivian. To his great credit, he acknowledged this during the start of his tenure, and decided to let the people who know their stuff to control the Islamic affairs of this country. I think he should consult these people more often, rather than wasting all his energy desperately vying for the position to be the darling of the Tories.

Anyway, the decision to bring Islamic issues under the control of the Ministry of Islamic affairs made certain people rather unhappy. You know the apostates, the contributors at Minivan News and the cronies who support everything they say. Together, all these Brown Sahibs will vilify the great religion of ours, mock our Prophet (s.a.w) and his companions and label anyone who defends our religion as a Wahhabi at every chance they get. (They also appear to think the rise of Salafi knowledge in this country is going to make us all run around the streets, waving knives and screaming, “Kill all Amreekans!” May Allah provide them the right knowledge) I sincerely hope Danny Boy’s ideas are not on the same wavelength as the Brown Sahibs. Because if they are, then sorry, I’m going to refrain from voting for him next time around.

Sometimes you’d wonder if there is any difference between the Brown Sahibs and the Islamophobic bigots we see elsewhere around the world. So quick were they to praise Danny Boy’s decisions to strengthen ties with Israel, to legalise the sale of intoxicants in inhabited islands. They freaked out at the news that Dr Bilal Phillips was going to visit our country, and constantly bemoan about the fact that more and more of our women are adopting the burqa. It’s funny how certain people become so bothered when women decide to cover up, as in accordance to how it is explicitly prescribed in our religion.

“Me, wear the burqa! Never! Do you really think I’m going to let the chance to show my stuff slip away like that? Maybe, just maybe, when I grow older and everything starts to get all saggy, then I might change my mind.” – What the anti-hijabi activists are really saying.

They want us to take heart from the so-called developed, forward-thinking nations who have made several attempts to ban the wearing of the hijab yet have no problem in allowing people to strip naked in public. This attitude is not new for Maldivians; I suppose some of our ancestor’s more eccentric genes must have sneaked through. Remember when the famous Islamic traveler, Ibn Batuta visited our country? He acted as a Qazi here for several months and was understandably dismayed to find that our women strutted around topless. His advice fell on deaf ears.

Brown Sahibs, especially the ones who consider themselves Muslims, dislike being reminded about their religion. Maybe it’s because of guilt or embarrassment. Whenever they hear a learned scholar preach, they’ll attempt to find faults to mock them. And if by chance they’re stuck in the same room with an Islamophobe and a learned, respected sheikh, you can be certain that they’ll always side with the Islamophobe. Whenever a bigot insults our religion, the Brown Sahib won’t defend it but will end up sheepishly siding with the nutter.

Anyway, I’ve managed to rant a lot but cut me some slack; I haven’t had time to write a reasonable post for a long time. The message I want to give to all the open-minded folks out there is to be careful of the enemy within. The Brown Sahibs are more dangerous to our society than those dodgy missionaries who’re constantly trying to infiltrate our ranks. We should all do our best to advice each other, to correct the faults of one another and to hold on firmly with our faith.

"By the 'Asr,
Indeed all of mankind is in a state of loss,
Except those who have eemaan,
Conduct righteous actions,
Call each other to the Truth,
And call each other to having patience."

- Surah Al-‘Asr

Also recommended: The Basis of Unity by Yasir Qadhi

Greetings, an apology & and RMs

Without further ado, I'd like to wish all my Muslim brothers and sisters a very happy and blessed Ramadan! Let's make the best use of our time while we still have it, and may Allah grant us the strength to do so.

I know how long it has been since my last post, and believe me, I'm not proud of it. If this blog were my wife, she would've filed for divorce and left me by now and I'd probably be trying to piece together my life again. Luckily though, this is just a blog and I can toy with it however way I wish. In my defence, I've been extremely busy, doing lots of traveling around the country and abroad. So I managed to interact with some very interesting characters which is good news since it has given me a lot to write on this blog. But let's leave it to another day and make an in-depth study on those quirky characters we see during the blessed month of Ramadan every year; the Ramadan Muslims.

I think it's safe to assume that the term probably started out as an inside joke within a circle of Islamic scholars. Here's my definition of the term:

Ramadan Muslim - A peculiar species of Muslim which comes out of its shell of excessive materialism during the first week of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

Now, there are many ways in which you can identify RMs. The most widely used method is by observing the way people behave inside mosques. RMs just aren't used to spending time at the mosque. During the other months, while attending Friday prayers, they
1. turn up late so that they do not have to listen to the whole khutbah
2. sleep throughout the khutbah or
3. stay outside the mosque so that they cannot hear the khutbah. Or all three at once, if possible.

Of course, during the first Friday of Ramadan, RMs take special care to attend the prayers on time. They even try to stay awake through the whole sermon without thinking about food. They try. Of course, succeeding is a totally different issue.

RMs have their religious batteries charged to the brim during the first week, and this, unfortunately, lasts only 7 days. They'll attend prayers on time (some even manage to wake up for Fajr, to their enormous surprise), but their lack of mosque etiquette will be there for all to see.
It is evident from the Hadeeth of our beloved Prophet (s.a.w) that we should attempt to fill the rows while preparing for the prayers in an orderly manner. Fill the rows starting from the front, begin from the middle directly behind the Imaam and gradually fill the sides. This undoubtedly will make it easier for everyone. Unfortunately, RMs have other ideas, all of which center around, "I have to get outta here as soon as possible." They stay at the back rows, and believe me, there are a lot of RMs when you think about it! This usually gives rise to a horrendous bottleneck at the mosque entrance and several people will have to make do by praying outside amongst the slippers and shoes, some of which do not smell very nice.

Obviously, due to their apparent tight schedules, RMs don't bother performing the sunnah prayers. They leave as soon as the fard prayer ends, causing yet another bottleneck around the entrance. Personally I find it rather odd that they prefer getting jostled around in the middle of a crowd for ten minutes rather than taking that time to perform the sunnah prayers.

With Ramadan comes the Tharaaweeh prayers. Most RMs perform these prayers and are proud to do so. Until the end of the first week, that is. Afterward, they'll begin to skip this particular prayer by leaving after 'Isha, sheepish expressions plastered on their faces. The speed at which they leave the mosque is quite astonishing; they will shame any Olympic athletes who're lucky enough to witness it.

A Ramadan Muslim, leaving the mosque after 'Isha

After the first week, everything will go normal for RMs. They won't touch the Quran, set foot inside a mosque and will sleep till noon. An exception will be the eve of 27th, which for some reason they are convinced is THE night; Laylath-al-Qadr. I wonder who started this rumour, because it really isn't helping the RMs to carry out their religious duties properly.

And so the process repeats itself, once a week every year.

So, ask yourself this; are you a Ramadan Muslim? In any case, here are a few articles that I hope you will find to be useful.

http://www.khutbah.com/en/ramadan_hajj/warriors.php
http://www.khutbah.com/en/ramadan_hajj/sand.php
http://www.beautifulislam.com/fasting

Sex education in Maldives - it's a total failure!

Yes, let's talk about sex! Me, being a tad melodramatic, will start by telling you all a little story.

The first time I was made to sit down and listen to The Talk was a few weeks after I began grade 6. I was eleven years old at the time. My classmates and I were taken to the school hall where our Assistant Principal was waiting for us, a book on her lap and her face bearing a very serious expression. We were immediately wondering what we had done to displease her.

So we tentatively seated facing her while she patiently waited till we settled down. Then she opened the book and held it up. We squinted to see what it was. It was an illustrated diagram of the male genitals. Several people sniggered, but the noise was instantly quailed when she glared at us.

"Do you know what this is?" She asked us. Of course we do, I thought. It's the male genitals. You can close the book now. She didn't, and continued with this rather unusual session.
"These are called the private parts. I'm going to tell you a few things you need to know about your private parts..." and she told us how important it was to not let our "private parts" be seen by anyone else, unless during unavoidable circumstances like sustaining an illness (I thought getting hit by the ball while out playing football and sustaining testicular torsion would have been a better example; the mind conjures horrible images sometimes).

But anyway, during the days that followed there were plenty of private part jokes floating around. Most of us didn't really take the session too seriously. We were made to sit through plenty of similar sessions and I noticed that the attitude of my classmates were pretty much the same.

This type of attitude is not limited to just immature adolescents. You make someone talk about sex on television and you'll hear people all over the country either freaking out or cracking dirty jokes. I suppose this is understandable to an extent, since quite a lot of negative Western aspects have seeped into our once disciplined culture. But if you take one brief look into our past, you'll discover that we have a rather cringeworthy history whenever sex is involved.

Remember the story of how we converted to Islam? About the Rannamaari? Weren't you surprised (and somewhat amused) to discover that the frightful monster that for some reason always feasted on young, virgin girls was merely the king carrying out his part time duty as a rapist? How about the way our earliest type of poetry, the Raivaru, lost its credibility when it was used as a tool to hurl out X-rated lyrics towards our pious women? Or how the discipline of our nation was on the verge of a serious meltdown when Mohamed Amin Didi came to power? Yes, homosexuality was common practice back then, bet your Dhivehi teacher never told you that, eh? Our first president managed to stamp it out of course, let's give credit to him for that. But what was his reward for all the positive changes he brought to this country? Getting beaten up, tortured and banished until he passed away. He forgave all Maldivian citizens except for the two blokes who injured his genitals. And recently we discovered this guy. One would fear that this is not an isolated case. Not only do we have such perverted sickos lumbering all over the country, but cases of premarital / extramarital sex and sexual assaults are on the rise. We've undone all the good work Amin Didi did for us.

Now, the solution. Predictably, I'm going to say it is our religion, Islam (I'll just ignore the groans coming from the Kemal Ataturk Brigade). In Islam, sex is not considered to be dirty or a source of shame. Rather, it is one of the natural inclinations given to us by Allah that need to be fulfilled every now and then, similar to the same sort of unavoidable desires such as eating, drinking, sleep etc. However, like everything else sexual desire can only be fulfilled by following a certain set of rules which can be clearly learnt from the Quran and our beloved Prophet's (peace be upon him) Hadith.

Don't get me wrong now, it's not that I'm against the awareness sessions being conducted in schools and youth centres. I just think the information are not being provided in the correct manner. Having attended plenty of such sessions, I can say that I've always felt there was an important element missing from them; the religious perspective. Brilliant though our psychologists and behavourial experts are, they simply don't have sufficient knowledge when it comes to religious matters. For an example, they can tell us about all the different types of contraceptive methods and when the session ends, some of us would be under the impression that as long as we use contraception, everything will be alright. For an instance, I was questioned in a survey conducted by WHO recently and the interviewer asked me all sorts of awkward questions (my cousin, who was with me at the time, was kicked out of the room to give me privacy). He began listing all sorts of contraceptive methods, most of which sounded rather repulsive, and he finally quzzed me about the diaphragm.
"Diaphragm?" I asked incredulously. "How on earth does that work?" I was thinking about the diaphragm pumps used in chemistry labs while transferring solutions into pipettes.
The interviewer did not appear to share my amusement.
"So which methods will you use?" He asked.
"Let's see, er...which methods..that's a tough one. I don't like many of the methods you've mentioned."
"Just name one or two then."
"I'll definitely not use a diaphragm."

These people never mention things like the importance of abstinence before marriage, the dangers of homosexuality and incest etc.

As a result today, we have an underground gay community and ignorant dunderheads who're always quick to say, "Oh, I don't have a problem with a person's sexuality." Oh yeah? Look what happened to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. And before you think of pelting me with hollow insults, take a look at the statistics provided by the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, an agency that is always on the frontline when it comes to infectious and dangerous diseases in the United States:

http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/basic.htm#exposure

Compare the number of cases of AIDS transferred by male-to-male sexual contact to that of high-risk (note the word high-risk) heterosexual contact. Interesting, isn't it? Of course, such statistics are rarely spoken aloud. It's called political correctness, see, which roughly means manipulating the truth in such a way that people are made to hear things the way they want to hear them.

It always amuses me how the many so-called developed countries of the world actually consider pornography and incest to be perfectly acceptable. Look at this:

"In Israel, incest between adults (of the age of 18 years and above) is not a crime"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_regarding_incest

Ha! Ridiculous! Not only are such atrocities legal in some countries, but pornography is a billion dollar industry, and cases of pornography-related sexual assaults are not rare. In fact, plenty of serial killers have admitted that the motivation of their crimes were as a result of watching violent pornography.

We all know that incest, pornography, sodomy and fornication are crimes in Islam. So how can we curb all the immorality that are rapidly spreading throughout our society? Well for one thing, we shouldn't just shun them into a dark corner and pretend they don't exist, which was a habit of a certain former President of ours. You might remember him; huge ego, has an irrational fear of fireworks...yes him. No, we should tackle the problems head-on using the powerful tool we call Islam.
Oh, and I've managed to find a couple of excellent articles:

Islamic perspective on homosexuality
Homosexuality in the light of Islam

Lakum dheenukum waliya dheen

First of all, I think I owe an apology for those who've been coming here for the past month only to go away disgruntled due to the lack of activity. I've honestly been really, really busy since I managed to land a job and what with Ramazan and the extra-hard effort we put into worshiping, I just haven't been able to squeeze in any quality blogging time of late. There's also the small matter of grabbing a few hours of sleep everyday. But worry not, because I'm back!

You might be wondering why I chose a rather unusual topic for this post. Those who followed my blog since the beginning of this year may remember me having an argument with a gay guy. He uttered this phrase and seemed to be under the impression that he'd destroyed any retorts I had in store. The truth was, however, that arguing with a faggot was never amongst the list of things I looked forward to and anyway, it wasn't like he was going to quit enjoying being attracted similar poles merely by an unknown blogger's advice.
Back to the point. This phrase is in the holy Quran as follows:

لَكُمْ دِينُكُمْ وَلِيَ دِينِ

"To you your religion and to me mine."

This is the last verse of Surah Al-Kaafiroon and is incidentally the only verse of the Quran that many non-Muslims know about. What's more, they've managed to blow the meaning of this verse out of context too! Some of them appear to think that it means, "Sod off, Muslim! This is none of your business."
I'll make the meaning of this verse and surah clear just in case there're people who aren't aware of it. This surah is a message for all Muslims to purify ourselves from shirk, particularly polytheism, so was mainly a message for the Meccan polytheists who lived during the time of the last Prophet.

But, as I told you before, some people have managed to misunderstand even this, one of the most simple verses. It doesn't take a fool to understand it, but then, if they aren't fools I shudder to think what they exactly are.
For an example, let's look at the gay guy:

Now that's just ridiculous. Does he really think that homosexuality is a religion? Or perhaps he is under the impression that it is a way of living that is accepted by the world's major religions i.e Islam, Christianity, Judaism. Well then, he's wrong isn't he? I know, I know, there're gay priests and bishops etc around today and I find that just hilarious. But even funnier was an article I read on Newsweek one day. It mentioned that gay Palestinians are taking refuge in Israel for to save their own lives. Well, I suppose we can expect Israel, the "home of Jews" to be ruled by sodomites soon...at least we can defeat them easily then, eh? :D

Then there're those binge drinking idiots. I spent almost 2 years at UK where binge drinking is common practice. In fact, the place we stayed at was on a street with an incredible four pubs! It's incredible because the street was rather small. So we got used to seeing people staggering about at around 6.00 pm, having squandered the money they managed to make during the day and yelling filth at the top of their voices. But try advising them and they'll go
Nothin' like a coupla beers eh, lad?

The next bunch who really drive me up the wall are drug addicts. They litter the streets all across Male', trudging along like vultures looking for a dead carcass. The only difference between them and vultures is that the latter have slightly higher IQ. Try telling them to quit using weed and they'll give a similar response.
Or maybe not...

Secularism shouldn't affect us!

I received a fair amount of stick for my response to a post by Raniya last month. The post appealed for a very noble cause, and I sincerely wish her all the best for the work she's doing.

My comment stated that the majority of social issues our country is facing today are down to the weakening of our faith in Islam. Some people failed to comprehend, or rather, preferred to misunderstand this statement and asked me to "give religion a break because it is the cause of half the problems of the world." Some even went as far as to accuse me of turning a blind eye to all the problems and their victims. No, I never mentioned anything of that sort, and doing so will be an act of utter stupidity.

Anyway, this "fiasco" got me thinking. Why do some people think religion is the root of all the atrocities that are taking place, not just here in Maldives, but all around the world? So I thought hard and did some research. And what did I find out? Religion really is partly to blame, but not in the way many so-called liberals think. With the increase in secularist societies, new laws are being established with the aim of providing the population with as much independence as possible. Many of these laws, in layman's terms, usually comes back to bite the population on the backside. Why? Because they contradict religion, and therefore contradict the natural laws of the human race.

If you look around, you may notice that this is particularly noticeable in Islamic countries. After many countries with majority Muslim populations "abandoned" our religion, we started to go backwards. After Europe (the so-called Christian continent) abandoned Christianity, they flourished. My point here is that the belief that religion is a ridiculous figment of human imagination most probably sprouted from societies with majority Christian populations. It is, after all, a religion created by fabrication, and has been undergoing fabrication for more than 2000 years. The iron-fisted ruling by churches, their detachment from the world we know, their ridiculously easy ways of "erasing sins", their methods of spreading the religion and their denial of key scientific theories resulted in many getting disillusioned. People began to treat religion as an obstacle that prevented them from modernizing and living their lives fully. They started to believe that religion and the laws within their societies were separate things. Thus secularism was born.

Naturally, with the widespread of mass media, many Muslims fell head over heels in trying to implement such beliefs within their societies. Look at us Maldivians, for instance. For many of us, religion is merely praying, fasting, ablution etc. I find it highly amusing to see people suddenly switching to "Religious Mode" when they're about to pray. From what I've learned, Islam is a way of life. It is a religion which states that the purpose of your life is to worship God. Of course, people from Western backgrounds (i.e, where concentration of Muslims are low) usually misunderstand this statement. For them, total devotion means spending the whole day at church, praying on their knees with their heads bent. This is largely due to the fact that there actually are people who act this way. In Islam, total devotion to God means doing everything in life the way we were instructed to. A few simple everyday examples include avoiding haram foods, avoiding the usage of foul language while communicating, keeping yourself in good shape, spending quality time with your family and friends etc. Islam does not separate the worldly affairs and religion. It is a religion that covers everything that is connected to our lives, encourages free thought and promotes education and modernization as long as we hold on to the Islamic values. People usually don't realize that these laws Allah asked us to follow are really for our own good.

Smokers, are ye listening?

We've all heard smokers and their lame excuses for continuing their bad habit. Among them include:

• "I've been smoking since I was 15 but I have never been diagnosed with cancer.
• "You're only a child, what do you know?"
  
• "Everyone will eventually die, whether we smoke or not."
• "There's no mention of smoking being forbidden in the Quran or by the Prophet."

It's universally accepted that smoking has many serious health hazards. I'm not going to bother listing them down, but in case you might want to have a look, they're right here.
Alright then, I'm going to concentrate on the last point. For those who're not aware of this, there's a concept called ijthihaad in Islam in which a group of well-respected, prominent Muslim scholars make an agreement over certain issues that weren't explicitly highlighted during the days of the Prophet. Among these issues is smoking. Based upon the following verses from the Quran, and the sayings of the Prophet (pbuh), the scholars have come to a conclusion.

"...make not your own hands contribute to your destruction..." (Surah al-Baqarah 2:195)
"Whomsoever drinks poison, thereby killing himself, will sip this poison forever and ever in the fire of Jahannum (Hell)." (Prophet Muhammad)

"Those who annoy believing men and women undeservedly bear on themselves a glaring sin" (Surat al-Ahzaab 33:58)
"there should be neither harming, nor reciprocating harm.” In another hadith, the Prophet (peace be upon him) said: "Anyone who believes in Allah and the Last Day should not hurt his neighbor."

"...But spend not wastefully (your wealth) in the manner of a spendthrift. Verily spendthrifts are brothers of the devils...” {Surah al-Israa’ 17:26-27}
And in an authentic hadith the Prophet (peace be upon him) said that: "Allah hates for you three things: gossiping, begging, and wasting money."

(Taken from islam.about.com)

We know that tobacco, nicotine, carbon monoxide etc are harmful substances. Thus, smoking is a way of pumping poison into our bodies. It's basically slow suicide. Also, smoking makes passive smokers, i.e those around a smoking person, will feel the effects to some extent. Lastly, but not least, it wastes money. In the USA alone, it is estimated that a staggering 150 billion dollars are wasted on cigarettes, cigars etc.

I listened to a lecture by Abdul Raheem Green, and he said that pumping toxins into our bodies will mean that our prayers (i.e the 5 daily prayers) won't be accepted for 40 days, and that this applies to smoking as well. Scary, eh? Especially when we look at the alarming number of Maldivians who smoke daily.
So, adding this all up, most scholars have agreed upon the fact that smoking is haram (forbidden). There still are some ignorant people who hold on to the claim that it is merely makrooh (discouraged), but what do they know? So, my fellow Muslims, if you smoke, just quit! If you're non Muslim then I don't care, just stay away from us while you're smoking.
Here's a Q&A session with Dr Zakir Naik that you can watch. Smoking is mentioned in this.

Let's squash a few myths...

Hello there again! I'm not quite back, but taking a well-deserved break after spending the morning at a hot & stuffy chemistry lab where the temperature was 33°C...so much for the "room temperature". The exams have been a lot of fun, by the way.
Anyway, I was inspired to write this after a comment I saw on a Youtube video. It was a video about racism in Europe, particularly in Italy & Spain. The comment, undoubtedly written by an ignorant thug is as follows;

I totally agree that we should stamp down hard on racism, but I don't agree that we should consider discriminations against Muslims, because Islam is evil to the core.

This annoyed and saddened me at the same time. Here was yet another non-muslim believing all the negative stereotypes created by Western politicians and news agencies. So I've decided to give you all the facts, something that people want to seem to avoid looking at.

-We don't like Jews
No, we respect them the same way respect anyone from any other religion. This myth stems from the fact that we Muslims are anti-zionists; we're against the existence of the state of Israel. If the majority of Israelis were catholics, then it would've been presumed that we don't like catholics. Let me tell you why we don't like Israel. It's because they've hijacked the land Palestinians have been living for over a thousand years and shunned them into refugee camps. Where's the justice in that? Where's the human rights there? It annoys the stuffing out of me when people like George W. Bush, that Islamophobic warmonger, talks about the existence of the "State of Palestine". Palestine has always existed, and the area will once again be ruled by Muslims one day. Of course, the more radical Jews had a habit of declaring anyone who cared to listen that they're The Chosen Ones, which was the main reason why they were cleared out from Europe. The European countries decided that the best place to keep them was right in the heart of Arabia...Yeah I see the logic in that *rolls eyes*

-Our law system, the Sharia, does not consider human rights
Nope. The so-called human rights campaigners have never really got this. One small example is the punishment we hand out (or should hand out, as we Maldivians have fallen into this trap of Human Rights) to drug dealers. The punishment; assasination. Note that the punishments for drug users is a lot more lenient than for dealers. Dealers disrupt the harmony of a society, endanger the lives of many and breaks countless families apart. What better way is there to stop them by ending their evil ways? No, the "human rights" campaigners think they should be thrown into 5 Star jails that provide them with free food, clothing etc and generally rights that they don't deserve in the first place. Listen all you softies; by assasinating a dealer you're ending the life of just one, which is better than the potential hundreds who could be affected just because of this one idiot.
Other heavily criticised punishments are the ones we hand out to those who commit adultery and thievery. Contrary to popular belief, we don't batter and bruise them and leave them in a bloody heap on the floor. No, it's about deflating the egos of these criminals. Have you ever noticed that children from Muslim countries generally know who their parents are, and also the fact that AIDS is not nearly as big a problem in these countries? Check this out for proof.

-We're a religion of war
Leave it to CNN to expand this issue. No, we're peaceful people, really. You're just looking at the al-Qaeda. A few years ago, before the days I stopped watching CNN, I watched Christiane Amanpour (spelling?) interviewing an Arab, who was babbling away in Arabic and Amanpour was just nodding away as though she understood every word. The last word of the sentence happened to be Jihadh, and this really perked her up. Her eyes bulged, and she yelped "Jeehad?" (she can't even say it properly). No doubt what was going through her mind. Jihadh means to strive, put on effort until you succeed. The most important type of Jihadh is, of course, defending your religion in the name of Allah. Again, contrary to popular belief, Jihadh does not mean setting off bombs in the middle of packed traffic during the rush hour. That's what those extremist thugs do, dishonouring our religion during the process. War is merely a symbol in Islam. Before every war, the Prophet Mohamed (pbuh) will deliver a lecture to all the fighters. Basically, the lectures always contain the same advice; to attack only those who carry and use weapons. We're not allowed to attack those who don't come out to fight, the elderly, women, children, places of worship, homes, workplaces, livestock etc. But what does the US do during their wars? Attack the main industrial places, killing thousands and bringing whole countries into disruption. I felt disgusted when Bush claimed during the Iraq invasion at 2003 that the loss of life was "minimal". Does he not understand the sorrow that'll be caused when even one life has been lost? Entire families were wiped out, for heavens sake! I can't understand why some people just don't take a minute to differentiate between Muslims and extremists. I can easily assume that all Christians are like the Ku Klux Klan, but I'd never do that.

-Women are not treated as equal
No, no, no! You're looking at the exremist side again. The Prophet (pbuh) once said,"The most blessed house is one where the women are treated with respect". We're not like the Taleban, who beat the stuffings out of their women for the smallest misdemeanor. Muslim men aren't allowed to harm their wives in any way or form. But what happens when a man kills his wife at the US? 25 years in prison? Pathetic..

-We don't tolerate homosexuals
Yes! You're right at last! Call us homophobic, because we don't care. Why do you think there's so much controversy at the US about the subject of allowing same-sex marriages? There can't be any smoke without fire can there?

I'll tell you a little story. There was a classmate of mine during my primary school days who was famous within our grade for being ran'du (that means he was a guy who acted like a girl). One day the class was divided into six groups and assigned to complete some sort of a project. We decided to meet up at his place and so we did. We went there and his mother let us in, where we could hear him singing a very high-pitched and un-masculine song in the shower. His mother didn't mind. He even spoke to his mother as though she were someone his own age and she responded in a similar way. So the two of them gossiped all afternoon like the way many teenage girls do. I really thought, when we started Dharumavantha School, that the atmosphere there would harden him and make him drop his girlish ways. I was wrong. He actually seemed to flirt with the boys, getting all thui and complaining all the time. I hardly ever spoke to him during those three years, resorting to just a nod and "Hello" if we crossed paths. I really didn't want to be tagged as being gay! So what I'm saying is that gays are fake. There's nothing scientifically proven that it's real, but somehow some people invent garbage and call it a "genetic condition". It's funny how people tend to believe in things that've never been (and never will be) proven. But then, what about the guy I just told you about? I blame his girlish ways on his mother. I believe that she has failed her responsibilities quite miserably. The last time I heard of him was last year, when my best friend pushed him onto the road. He apparently sat up and started ranting about, "Magumatheega ulhey meehunna thankolheh balaigen..." but my best friend just left him at it.
Also, after JK Rowling announced that Albus Dumbledore was gay, a classmate of mine, who is foreign and likes the Harry Potter series, asked me a question that has left me mystified. "How can someone so great be gay?" he asked. I wondered, and still have no answer. I suppose it's because Dumbledore is fictional, because how can someone who prefer to poke their stuff into the *back door* be so successful? Impossible. No wonder this country is, quite literally, going to the dogs.

The conclusion: I know that, however much evidence we provide them with, some of the more stubborn people will never accept the facts. They prefer not to understand them, because, at the back of their minds they know that we speak sense. These people are simply too obsessed with materialistic stuff and can't control their insane desires. I'd also advice all of you to be careful with people like Simon, who're woefully ignorant on religious issues yet speak so matter-of-factly about them, making him appear as more of an idiot than he already is.
Thanks for reading. I really needed to get that off my chest.