How I Lost Faith In Allah : Christians, Sorry for bombing your infidel asses lol

There is a long draft post in my blog archive called simply 'God', whenever I had some ideas about the subject I'd go and scribble a bit there, it has been there probably since the very beginning, today I decided to go and have a look at it, it is kinda funny and makes no sense, starting with yours truly cluelessly defending the wonderful spiritual fulfillment of God, and then slowly descending into a black rage against all that is holy.

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I'm sure that by now that you all know the long and short of exodus of Iraqi Christians, so I'll skip the details, what I am going to focus upon is how religion (and not political religion) is the first enemy of Iraq, and I will draw an example straight from the Iraqi blogosphere: during the massacre, the typically nice Marshmallow26 publishes an honest, hateful, agonized post, it is worth noting several important things about this post, which help us understand the view of many a mainstream Christian:

1. Marshmallow's post is a condemnation of all Muslims. Although she calmed down afterward and started saying that she only wants the cute pokemon-y peaceful Muslims to condemn the zombie Muslims, Marshmallow26 has previously complained about mainstream Muslim harassment of the Christians in Mosul, and one time, when I teased her by impersonating an angry anti-Christian fundie, she didn't get the joke and actually thought I was being serious. All this seems to suggest that deep in her mind, the problem is not new, and can be logically connected to the attitude of the Muslim population at large. This untrusting view is something I have mostly noticed in Christians who are not from Baghdad, in my opinion, the only satisifying explanation to this is demographics: Baghdad's Muslims are not anymore tolerant, but Mosul's Christians are more visible and louder, which would incur the displeasure of Muslims more easily. The configuration of religious hostility in the world is largely determined by the size of religious communities and their visible manifestation in any given religion (in Baghdad, although Christians were threatened and pushed out of their homes, their plight took a backseat to the larger Sunni-Shia war). When some Jihadwatch regulars posted extremely anti-Muslim commentary, Marhsmallow did not engage them in any debate whatsoever, which seems to suggest to me that she is in agreement with at least some of their points.
2. A very strong sense of hostile religious identity. When you get to the bottom of it, Muslims are our enemies. But Marhsmallow has to love her enemies because Jesus tells her so. Then she says that she'd die for Jesus and would not give in to the 'corruptors'.
3. Repeated stressing of the claim to the registered trademark 'Original Iraqi' label applied to Christians, as opposed to the Muslims, who are implicitly accused of being 'occupiers' and 'corruptors'. Ho ho, join the Saffavid-Seljuki origin debate, too bad you're only 3%, no muscle, and as I said, it's all about how much you number.
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In the comments section, we get to witness the usual apology circus by Muslims,something like 'oh, you got it all wrong, Islam has nothing to do with all this, we're peaceful lol', when A&EIraqi smartly tries to show the error in Marhsmallow's emotional generalization of Muslims with his own generalization of the US Army as a Christian army, Marshmallow misses this point and suddenly adopts a rational mode of thinking.
This illogical adherence to one's specific religion is one of the reasons why I stopped believing in the beauty of God. When my three friends were killed, we had a prayer for them at the university mosques, and then we took their mock coffins and put them side by side at the entrance of the hall, each coffin had a small photo of the person who is supposed to be in it, and I took a long look at the faces, shifting my eyes from one to the other, I could detect no difference whatosever between any one of them, all were very pleasant, polite early-20s Iraqi guys who had been raised each according to his family's religion, yet according to all the three religions these people subscribed to (Sunni, Shia, Christian), only one of them will go to heaven, based of course on what religion will turn out to be the one God really favors. I did not realize it then, but that was the moment when I first started suspecting the idiocy of religion, those people had no hand in choosing their religion, they simply inherited it from their fathers, and they would have a hard time accepting any other faith than theirs, because all religions carry errors and mistakes that cannot be overruled by logic without any significant suspension of disbelief, and what sort of fair justice would be to send two of them to your hell just because they didn't get lucky to follow your chosen creed? and even if they got your moody 'makrama' and got all to heaven because you didn't leave them room to think it through and killed them before they even had the chance to even see a little bit further than their B.Sc. certificate, what about the untold millions of people who simply inherit the religion of their fathers? the Buddhists, the Hindus, the Taoists? Why would they go to hell? Because they didn't think? and what is the chance, once we start to get in logical intra-faith discussions, how many people do you sincerely expect to be convert from their father's faith? very few, people of religion are programmed to tweak every argument in favor of their own religion, they would simply stand against all common sense when criticizing their own religion, but proceed to become philosophers on the spot when it comes to bashing the shit out of the other religions, for really, why would you expect Christians to see the stupidity in beliving that in order to save man, God decided the only way is to enter a woman's vagina and have a son, or for Muslims to be actually convinced that it's somewhat ok for their prophet to have 13 mostly cute chicks (including a preschooler) when Islam only allows four or that their religion spread by conquest, or for Shia to see that the continous abandonment of their Imams by God at times of trouble is something that is in direct contradiction of the supposed relationship between God and his apostles in the Quran, whereby God directly intervenes to prevent the almost imminent death of Jesus. They will simply find workarounds in their books, they would confuse you with highly useless mumbo-jumbo الأحوط وجوبا etc in order to sound knowledgabe, and they would eventually sastify themselves with their answers, in reality, the more you begin to examine religion, and how you would easily find that no system is really perfect, the more angry and confused you become at the major scam God (if any) is pulling on us here. To quote Phillip K Dick on the way religion tries to be grand when it solves absolutely nothing:

"I've been researching solemn theological matters for five years now, much of the Wisdom of the World has passed from the printed page and into my brain, there to be processed and secreted out in the form of more words: words in, words out, and a brain in the middle wearily trying to determine the meaning of it all. The other night I started an article on Indian Philosophy in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the time was 4 AM ; I was exhausted, and there, at the heart of this solemn article, was this: "The Buddhist idealists used various arguments to show that perceptions does not yield knowledge of external objects distinct from the percipient...The external world supposedly consists of a number of different objects, but they can be known as different only because there are different sorts of experiences 'of' them. Yet if the experiences are thus distinguishble, there is no need to hold the superfluous hypothesis of external objects..."
That night I went to bed laughing, I laughed for an hour, I am still laughing, Push philosophy and religion to their ultimate and what do you wind up with? Nothing. Nothing exists. As I said earlier, there is only one way out: seeing it all as ultimately funny."

This would be all fine and dandy if it was pigeonholed in some unimportant category in the life of the general population, but it's effectively killing Iraq, the idea of Iraq as a nation-state where citizens are equal, because religion, all religion, is preferential of a certain group of others, and when you strongly advocate those identities, the others would certainly feel more attached ot theirs, and this is why Iraq, as a nation-state was always ruled by a dictator, those people will never find a way to really accept each other, because the problem is directly in their religion. Religion divides us and makes us hate each other, they all pretend it's all good when they're on public, and this is something that has puzzled me all the time when I see any public gathering, if everybody is so good and caring for Iraq, then who the fuck is doing all this unprecedented killing? Who? it doesn't take a lot to figure out who, just let them go back to their privacy and see them exposed as they really are.
So these Christians, Sunnis, Shia, would fight between themselves all the time, each strongly faithful to their own religion, for why is Marhsmallow's dedication to the martyrdom of Jesus Christ any less brainwashed than any of our own typical Jihadi sympathies? In one way or another, they will keep quarreling between each other, no one will really prevail except through suppression, or separation, and so dies our country, Iraq, irredeemably. Like Phillip K Dick, Seeing it all as funny is indeed the only way out, and this is why I'm going to book a front-seat with some popcorn with extra butter and laugh out as hard as I can at the Death of Iraq, from now on, fuck hope, I'm going to adopt Benjamin, the sarcastic donkey in Animal Farm, as my role model.

Al Pacino is an angry, charming bastard in most of his films, but look at his interview with the Actors Studio and what you'll see is a humble, pathetic nice man. I'm like that. if you meet me in real life, you might find me as a nice and pleasant man, and I don't want to be like Pacino, this is why this blog is called 'Catharsis', because I still don't really know how to become an angry asshole in reality. But, hey, I'm trying, because I can no longer contain this bubbling anger any longer, I cannot wait for the moment when I can live somewhere where I can say, freely and openly, how much I hate Him for being so distant, so unclear, so unrealistic, so dismissing of our intelligence.

P.S. As an example of Baghdadi Christianity, my Christian friend from Baghdad is pretty sure the Kurds did it, to carry the 'plot of the Jews', he solemnly advised me to read "Protocols of the Elders of Zion." Another example of how stupidity is spurred by all religions (to be fair, not just religion, but religion has the way of convincing you that other creeds are wrong, evil and bent on mischief ولن ترضى عنك اليهود و لا النصارى حتى تتبع ملتهم), my Catholic Assyrian Christian friend seemed pretty upset about the growth of Evangelicals in Iraq too, who seem to heavily supported by some 'sources'.
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We laugh, but inept is our laughter,

We should weep, and weep sore,

Who are shattered like glass and thereafter

Remolded no more.

Abu al-Alaa al-Ma'ari

في اللاذقية ضجةٌ ما بين أحمد والمسيح
هذا بناقوس يدق وذا بمئـذنة يصيح
كل يعظّم ديـنه ياليت شعري ما الصحيح
دين وكفر وأنباء تقص وفرقان وتوراة وإنجيل
في كل جيل أباطيل ، يدان بها فهل تفرد يوما بالهدى جيل
ضحكنا و كان الضحك منا سفاهة و حق لسكان البرية ان يبكوا
يحطِّمنا ريب الزمان كأننا -- زجاج ولكن لا يُعاد لنا سَبْك
نَزول كما زال أجدادنا ويبقى الزمان على ما ترى (المعري)

Now playing: فريق الكندي - تقسيم قانون - لقد فتنتني إفرنجية - لا صبر لي

R.I.P. BlogIraq

In general, back-and-forth intra-blog discussions don't end up with a positive outcome, they are filled with long arguments that are hard to follow, and both sides will stubbornly stick to their side no matter what, however, for the benefit of the general population I would respond to Iraqi Bloggers Central's recent post, which was in itself a response to my earlier mockery of their supposedly all-encompassing knowledge of Muslim culture.

Mister Ghost, in a swashbuckling-ly glorious representation of American values of freedom and glory against the deep darkness of Islamic bigotry, starts with a big slice of bigotry hismelf: "I would like to defend myself against a couple of points by the deep-thinking but Iraqi-flawed Abbas." As if being "Iraqi" in itself is a disadvantage to the logical circuits of one's mental processes.

He still doesn't get my point, my post wasn't really an objection towards Quran-burning or whatever Rotten Gods is doing, even though regular Muslims might find it appalling, just as regular Christians would find Bible burning the same, I was only mocking his smug all-knowing attitude towards Arab-Muslim culture, which he clearly finds of no particular use to mankind.

Then, he condescendingly outlines White Man's superiority over mainstream sandniggers Iraqis, including:

a) That all Iraqis were cowardly cogs inside the Baathist Caliphate. Mister Ghost, who has lived all his easy, comfortable life somewhere so removed from pain and suffering, has no real understanding of those concepts at all, he has no ability to understand that human beings might act differently in other environments, I wonder what Mister Ghost would have done if he was born and raised in as a German in Hitler-era Germany, or a Russian in Stalin's Russia, or an Iraqi in Baathist Iraq, the latter was nothing like present-day Iran, or Jordan, or Egypt (where people are actually trying to act up, btw), a country where you, your father, your entire family would be executed for the simplest joke. I don't think Mister Ghost would have acted anyway different, he would still rather live and make ends meet.

b) "Would anyone disagree that Iraqis have deeply-ingrained prejudices? LOL" That statement alone made me wonder about how old Mister Ghost actually is. How different are Iraqis from Germans, Americans, Russians, South Africans, Chinese, Tibetans in terms of having prejudices? He pontificates further:


c) Iraqis are expelling Christians. Funny, what does "Iraqis" here mean? it's as if not a single Muslim is being killed or deported in Iraq. What is the difference between Muslim expulsion death and Christian expulsion? Apparently, in the eyes of Mister Ghost, only Christian expulsion is worthy of attention.

d) That we are calling Christians "collaborators" and are expelling just like we did to the "Jews", here, Mister Ghost falls in several problems: first, I have never heard one Iraqi calling a Christian a "collaborator", actually, before I came to Amman, my pretty religious family's neighbor was an Iraqi Priest with his family, my mother (who wears a jubba) sent them a cake on Christmas and my brother and sister frequently played with their children, they got along with them much better than our current Iraqi Muslim neighbors, how is that for being flawed with terrible prejudices?
Also, he conveniently ignores the fact that Iraqi Jews were pretty much living quite the same as everyone else in Iraq until the state of Israel was born, i.e. the expulsion had a logical reason - not to mention that Jews were treated better in the Muslim Caliphate than they were in Medieval Europe, also, many Iraqi Jews actually wish to go back to Baghdad, which they miss as their true home, I would cite the Jewish author Samir Naqqash as an example. I also advise you to read some of British-Iraqi Jewish author Elie Kedourie's work.


I have called Layla Anwar a bigot previously, I apologize terribly, if she is a bigot, then at least she is direct and honest about it, and like I said about the whole Wafa Sultan thing : bigots balance each other out.
Personally, I don't tolerate bigots, so, and while I have previously issued a fatwa against their blog, it was slightly in jest, as of today, I ban all members (although Rhuslancia wasn't really bad, but I'm sorry) from commenting at my flawed, prejudiced, cowardly blog.

Christians in Iraq

the Chaldean Archbishop is found dead. I don't understand what would al-Qaeda gain from attacking Christians, a politically marginalized minority that is even not very united itself ; it seems their only plan is to cause strife between communities and piss everybody off ; the Wikipedia page does mention that the Archbishop was a bit vocal about announcing his objection to the growing fundamentalism of the country, which might have caused this tragic incident. Regardless, this is not the first Christian figure killed in Mosul, Theocracy is bad, bad, bad for you.
The Christian community in Iraq is divided between two ethnicities: Chaldean and Assyrians, within Iraq's new reality, the two has been lumped together as Chaldo-Assyrian by Jalal Talabani, but it doesn't seem they have much in common aside from religion, I had a Chlaldean friend who was vehemently opposed to this categorization, and he told me that they consider Assyrians "dirty." I was actually quite surprised since most of the Christians I know looked really open-minded and secular. Most of my other Christian friends are Assyrian, including my friend Ninos who was kille d in 2006 and in general, most of the Christians I've met favor Saddam Hussein, in their eyes, all that matters is that he was a secular who cracked down on all forms of theocracy, their natural oppressor. It seems to me that this sentiment was born out of long periods of tensions under Ottoman rule, I also think that the Christians of Syria [mostly Assyrians] also support al-Assad's minority pesudo-Shia Alawite secular dictatorship for the same reason.
Since we're talking about Christians in Iraq, look at this report about the Jesus-Camp missionary maniacs in Iraq, I've never heard of such a thing before in Iraq, I guess they didn't succeed much.
*To support my argument that there's a sizable Christian support for Saddam, Here's an Iraqi poetry set to music by famous Iraqi Christian composer Ra'id George, it's made by a Christian Group calling itself Suqoor Talkif (Hawks of Talkif - Talkif is a majority-Christian area in Ninewa) in which they insult Hakim, Muqtada and Sistani. (offensive), even though most of the tensions Christians in Iraq have is between them and Sunni Muslims, many Christians I know (incl. this song) doesn't seem to view the Shia theocracy as anything better, my Chaldean friend used to tell me how his father was insulted as a 'najis' [unclean] in Amara, a southern province.
*Here's an Iraqi Shia Rap Group's response to this song. [extremely crass and offensive]
*YouTube Tribute to the Archbishop.
*The usually friendly Iraqi Christian blogger Marshmallow26 reacts in a great post angrily to the murder, this post is a good example of how old religious tensions corrupts the friendship and harmony of co-existence. Amazing, she proves two of my above-mentioned points : she lets out her frustration about ugly Muslim-Christian tensions in Mosul and her respect for Saddam Hussein (both I wrote about above), this post is a great example of how people are left wondering which is real: the hostility, or the friendship? This is why religious rule is bad anywhere on this Earth ; it highlights hostilities and sooner or later this is what you get, the only way forward is to kill organized religion once and for all.
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In other news, my blog has been counted #3 on a Channel4 article: 10 Iraqi Blogs You Should Read, after Zeyad and Iraqi Blog Count, the latter I co-edit.

Re: Wafa Sultan

I attended the Friday prayer two days ago. The Palestinian preacher changed my mind about Wafa Sultan, I think the maniacs balance each other out.

"And my God annihilate the Jews, your enemies and the enemies of religion, and by God, make them righteous [slaves?] farms for the Muslims, my God widow their women, My God, make us victorious over the crusading, infidel America, and the crusading, cunning Britain! and may PEACE be upon the Prophet, arise for the prayer, may God BLESS you...."

Wafaa Sultan

This woman is the other end of radicalism. like other people cashing in on Islamophobia (and clearly directed by hands similar to those that brought you MEMRI) ; Angry Arab [my new hero] articulates my thoughts about her.

Emirati Ben Kerishan blogger (Arabic) provides a concise, humorous and insightful summary of the history of development of Salafist Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia, one of the most dangerous evils in our present world.

Kissinger thinks (or at least he pretends to think) that Iran has dreams of rekindling old Persian dreams of domination. He also says Bush will be looked upon more favorably in less than 50 years. I agree with Kissinger in that a cut and run withdrawal of US forces from Iraq would greatly empower radical Islam, not to mention an official kick-start of the civil war, but I would further elaborate that it would empower both [Sunni] and [Shia] radicalism, two very different components with highly different, and mutually hostile, objectives.

This is going to be huge. For some reason I can't wait for the civil war to really begin, I'm tired of the fruitless Green Zone foreplay.

A New Role Model

One day, I wish I could write just as good.

The Shia Arab Question, Prologue

PROLOGUE

Azadi, The Persian Baathist

NOTE: Read this first and pretend the links don't exist, then read it with the links.

Glorious Persia,

How I have wished to live in you 200 years ago, under the rightful rule of the Sassanids, blissful in the abode of your lovely domains, I would choose to be anything, details are of no concern to me, let me be a lowly porter in the dirty streets of Shiraz, or a loyal servant of the royal chamber in Ctesiphon. What matters is that I would breathe in every minute the air of your magnificence, the eminence of your culture, that I hold my high high, basking in the power of your empire. The land of the Aryans, destined to rule the world, home of the proud and the noble Persians.

How grave is the insult, devastating the injury, then, to see your domain desecrated by those lizard-eating Bedouins, to see those uncivilized nomads, united in an inexplicable fashion, devouring your terrains and eradicating your legacy, how can I be calm when I see those people which we used to rule in [Iraq], Yemen and the [Persian] Gulf destroy the foundations of your beauty and rule, to see foolish peasants embrace their religion, sometimes welcoming them with wide open arms, celebrating what they claim is release from our tyranny and repression!?! How shameful, it is to see our own brave men abused and sold as second-hand slaves, our women and daughters kept as concubines and spoils of war, how much I had rejoiced at the death of their cursed head, Umar, by the patriotic martyr, Abu Lu'lu', they tried to pretend they came with equality, tolerance and respect in the eyes of their religion in the beginning, but their warped intentions soon became evident, the new rulers, the Umayyads, are actively disrespecting us, shunning us from all public posts and claim that this is the payback for the "inequality" that we used to treat them with, those uncouth scum! We treated them with more than they deserve in the first place, but this is how the vermin Arabs repay kindness, scum remains scum.

Persia,

For many centuries your enemies have surrounded you from all sides, since time immemorial you have been destroyed a thousand times, many times had they tried, from Alexander the Terrible and his barbarians in the north, to this army of darkness, but you have always managed to come back again, stronger, more powerful, and with a greater sense of pride and duty than ever before, never shall we surrender to the swords of the Barefoots, and now the chance is ripe, now the bounty is at hand ; now it all comes to head, Hussein bin Ali has been killed, now his sympathizers and kin are angry and regretful, even people who were fooled by the Arabs are quickly realizing their gross mistake, everyone is intent on attaining freedom again, and we, of all nations, plan to strike back, the idea of revolution is quickly finding ground all over your lovely terrains, the Arab domain is collapsing, their dynasty is rife with turbulence, and Abu Muslim al-Khurasani is now rallying your dedicated citizens for the great cause, we shall fight them everywhere, and we shall never surrender, and soon Persia would be alive again, its language, its culture, its greatness, are all immortal and will never be gone ; it may be different, but one way or another, Persia will live on.

Your Son,
Azadi.

عمر بشكست پشته هجبران عجم را برباد فنا داد رگ وريش جم را
اين عربده وخصم خلافة زعلي نسيت با آل عمر كينه قديم أست عجم را
*
ميت و المعزيات موش امهاته
ما يبجن على المات يبجن شماته

Arabs Created The First Reality Show In History

Who is your dream girl? Not the name you casually toss after a period of thinking when someone asks you the question, but the one you never tell anyone about and you do all your secret weird fetishes with in your dreams? Do you have her in your mental image? Nicole Kidman? Okay. Focus. Close your eyes, now, imagine you just managed to have the best of impressions on her on a dream date...and you're going back to her apartment. Now, instead of Nicole taking off all her clothes and doing unprintable things, she tells you to hang on, goes to the kitchen, closes the door, then after 10 minutes, she comes back smiling with a warm glass of milk, sits near you, and tells you to 'drink it', you are doing all you can for keeping that glossy vibe going, but there's something un-sexual about her smile, more caring than loving, anyway you do not hesitate as you drink the unavoidable milk and tells her it is so delicious,

"MMMMMM! Very different! is this the milk of some special goat?"

and, Nicole says, unflinched: "Special goat all right, this is my breast milk."

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One time when we were crashing at a friend's house, late at 1 AM, calling random girl numbers, he told us that the best way to get rid of a crush that is ruining your life is to picture the targeted hatta having an unglamorous big dump with all the appropriate sound effects, I suspect the guy was a fecalphilliac, but his method worked anyway for a while until things became more grossy than any episode of South Park involving Mr. Hankey The Christmas Poo. However, I think Dr. Izzat Attiyeh of the Oral narration department in al-Azhar university may have just provided us with the best solution.

"Dr. Izzat Attiyah, head of Oral Narration department in the university of Religion Fundamentals in al-Azhar university, dropped a bomb when he allowed women in a working environment to breastfeed their male co-workers, to prevent prohibited presence of them both together alone in a locked room whose door is opened by only one of them. Attiyah confirmed to al-Arabiya.net that "Breastfeeding the Adult" consists of five breastfeeds, and it permits presence together alone but does not prevent marriage, and the woman can take off her veil in front of her breast-fed co-worker, demanding of course that the feed be documented."

This method is brilliant!!! I tried all the women I can think of and I could not think of trying to make love to any one of them after they will offer me a glass of warm milk that is nurtured motherly from their loving chests.

If that is not enough for you, try this for size:
It is a known fact that Iraqis invented the wheel, code of laws, arabs invented mathematics, algebra, the zero, without which you could not buy anything as simple as Britney's Spears fart in a container off e-Bay, the internet-shopping site which I am sure we played a hand in creating but the Jews took all the credit as always, and of course, that William Harvey chap did not discover the blood circulation system, but he ripped it off from our very-proud-diaper-head Ibn al-Nafis. If that is not enough truth that we can kick your asses any minte we can, infidels, then know this...we are the ones who have created the first format of a reality show in the history of mankind way back in the early 7th century. You think Jackass is novelty? Fear Factor? Har. You are so backward:

"The Grand Mufti of Egypt, Ali Jum'aa, defended his edict regarding the prophet's urine, in which he stated that the companions of the prophet used to take blessings with it, by saying that the prophet is pure as the whole, on the outside and the inside, and even in his refuse, adding that this is the overall census of all the prominent Islamic scholars."

Wow! Vote for your favorite candidate today, who will be dropped off today's show? who will not be able to pass the urine test? Is it young Ali Talib, gruff'n'loud Umar Khattab, or old'n'soft Bakr Quhafa? SMS 2034 Fastlink, 2035 Umnia.

(upbeat music)


The thing I've always liked about my religion is that it supposedly draws a striking line to attaching any divinity to the personality of the prophet through non-negotiable Quranic verses "Mohammed is but a messenger, and messengers before him are many...", or any other saints, as opposed to Christianity for example, or the Shiite sect of Islam, however statements like the ones made by the mufti, highlighted in such a problematic fashion at this advanced age, makes us both prone to glorifiying the prophet as a semi-divine being the ways Sufis do, or looking like complete brainwipes in front of the modern world. They are both wrong and unnecessary.

As for the breastfeeding thing, all jokes aside, since this subject has issues which might be considered outrageous, I feel it is necessary to give you a more serious commentary on the subject, a lot of the articles I read in response were mere outrage without proper background or knowledge, like Anarki-13 for example, I researched all I could find on the topic and found the following:
Prof. Izzat Attiya is not a sex fiend as some (a lot) of people have said, his proof on the matter was thus: all the Sunni scholars, prophet companions, and wives of the prophet except Aisha, prohibit breastfeeding after the child becomes over two years. The scholars cite a number of evidence from both Quran and oral prophet narration, unnecessary to include for the sake of brevity, Aisha, however says that it is okay to breastfeed a man after that in certain instances. For proof, she relates this narration: "Sahla bint Suhail came to the prophet, and told him: O Prophet of God, I see unease in the face of Abu Hudhaifa (her husband) when Salim enters while I am present, the prophet said: Breastfeed him. She said: How, and he is old of age? The Prophet smiled and said: I know that he is."
Salim was an enslaved child of Abu Hudhaifa during war, Islam prohibits adoption, so his relation to Abu Hudhaifa's household therefore became as foreign as any man to any family when he grows up. By breastfeeding him, she becomes his mother-in-breastfeeding, this type of relationship allows a woman to uncover her hair with someone and to be alone with him. It forbids her to marry him, too. The other wives of the prophets disagreed with Aisha over this particular instance, saying that it may have been a particular case that is not fit to be a general rule, in any case, the breastfeeding narration is solely narrated by Aisha, it is worth mentioning that nobody knows for sure how old Salim really was in the narration, he might have been 4 or five, also, if you look rationally at the laws of Islam, which places severe restrictions on women's dress and what things she must expose, it is almost unthinkable that what is meant by 'breastfeeding' is actual delicious nipple-sucking, scholars say that she gives him her milk in a glass or container. This particular narration was the subject of minor controversy for a long time. During my days of Sunni-Shiite crusade, I found that it is often used by Shiites to slander Aisha, the prophet's wife who is the narrator, it is also used by Christians every now and then. The problem is not in the narration itself, an obscure text that was not practiced by other companions or wives of the prophet, and rejected by almost all of the Sunni scholars. It is in the inappropriate manner the edict was handled by Prof. Attiya, who did not comprehend the enormous impact of such a carefree edict, issued in circumstances different to today's both socially incompatible and globally uncomprehending standards, I mean for God's sake, just open the door of your solitary work environment and the problem will end! This also applies to the other preposterous edict by the Mufti of Egypt, as where is the prophet's urine now so that this fuss be made over it? Overall, it's lame. It's not important, and there are a lot more important subjects to tackle than this tits-and-piss biz. It is funny, really, how much do they focus on such trivialities! Look at this brilliant caricature which I stole from my favorite site of late, and translated by moi:


Anyway, I think after all I could use all this to my advantage, by a stroke of luck, I got an unofficial job interview tomorrow, I am really excited, not for the prospect of landing a job so soon but for all the titties I am gonna jihad-suck on, so help me god.

Sam Aziz vs Khalid Jarrar: Progressive vs Hardline

The Iraqi bloggers Google group, sadly like our absent blog-critic Semiramis says, has been reduced to another typical forum plagued with knock-knock jokes of all shapes and kinds (just who is this Irakien Rana anyway :) ?), however, I must say that I have found the first meaningful conversation just yesterday, when Sam Aziz posted a link to an interview with a Bahrini Shi'ite cleric called Dh'iaa al-Mossawi (translated):

If you don't have time to watch it, the man is the sort of a more tolerant, peaceful cleric with a somewhat universal vision of religious co-existence, he listens to classical music and he has pictures for Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King and Gandhi in his house, he says of the latter that we need to plant his 'genes' in the youth of Muslims, he refuses rhetoric such as the 'Jews, grandchildren of pigs and abes' stubbornly, and greatly criticises the backward ideological 'gallows' of current Islamic stagnation thought.

For people like Khalid Jarrar, a really nice guy but also a more traditional Islamist with all the predictable America, West and everything it stands for = Great Satan ideology, this was too much to bear, he replied in the thread that this guy was basically a wolf in sheep's clothing and that he's probably been in the West and is preaching a version of Islam for which America would love and is simply 'poison in the honey.'

I completely support al-Mossawi in every possible way, his black turban is the sort I would like to see, and sadly, isn't found or sold much lately - Islam is a great, great, great, great religion but unfortunately its people have greatly misunderstood it in every possible way, when we settled for being the greatest thing ever on the piece of earth, a mistake committed by Jews a looong time ago, we became content with what we are and we simply believe that everything our culture has is the be-all-end-all for humanity, again a common mistake - so that when Western culture came smacking us from our long slumber and took Palestine away, like all ideological losers in history we started to call everything they have as having Satanic connotations, that everything they do is a conspiracy and that we are always the poor people kicked around - True, we have been kicked around, but the major problem is not in them, it's in us - we need to admit our stupidity, arrogance and defeat and change our dirty, violent, stubborn youth into creative and understanding people that Islam needs to be built upon, we need more people like Dhi'aa al-Mossawi and Amro Khalid, those are the social reformists for which I have the greatest hope for and who I am betting on - lay down your weapons, we won't beat the Jews yesterday or in a million years if we keep on our hypocrisy, we must change ourselves first.

Look at the thread here, and tell us what do you think:

Iraqis: The Biggest Hypocrites

I have been reading articles here and there saying questioning the 'Iraqi' identification, saying that Iraq is really a bastard country formed of three separate Ottoman states in the early 20th century: Basra, Mosul and Baghdad. Such articles struck me as heavily unrealistic, great nations often come out of unholy marriages, case in point, world's current greatest nation, the United States of America. I came into life with a clear cohesion about the 'Iraqi' citizenship.

But after a while I began to understand where these un-Iraqi sentiments came from, with bloodbaths performed by supposedly authentic Iraqis against their own kinsmen, the social fabric is being quickly ripped apart, people first started throwing the worn-out conspiracy theories about how all these are orchestrated by the 'occupation and the jews', but they know deep down inside that it is not so, the fabric is quickly uncovering the great hypocrisy of the Iraqi nationalism. And it is time to say it out loud to the world.

The sense of Iraq's unity is a paradoxical, dare I say nonexistent thing, I used to think of myself as someone who loves his country, but slowly I became to understand that this was an illusion, like the slogan "Raise your head, you're an Iraqi." Exactly what Iraq has done, from the day it was created to the day that I am writing this to you, that should make me proud? We are a generation who practiced hurling out terms like 'the victorous, proud, chivalrous Arab nation' while in reality we suffered major defeats, exactly like the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, which was another disastorous loss where the descendandts of Monkey & Pigs, Jews (Arabic trademark phrase) almost captured age-old Isalmic capital Damascus. We heavily borrow from our ancestors glories to gild our miserable defeats, Iraqi Ba'ath propaganda was never absent from a direct reference to the invention of the wheel, the glories of Nebuchedanezzar, or the linking of the Iran-Iraq war to the 7-th century Qadissiya, etc). We as citizens, would greet our president with cheers and kisses and sworn allegiances, only to shed them the minute we are safe inside our homes. This practice has severely damaged all pride, we are a nation of cowards, tyrants, and morons.

Some people point out to people like us, who left Iraq, saying look at these cowards, we are not cowards, we are realists. The love of the 'country' is a hypcrisy formed by years of living under oppression and refusal to admit defeats. There is nothing that my country has done so far, and I am speaking too for all Arab states, that makes me proud of the fact that I am of its citizens. You can see how this is evident by how people are killing for the sake of sect, religion, their areas, their families, but never their country. Some people, mostly Baathists and their sympathesizers, continue their own bullshit about the 'patriotic Iraqi resistance' and how we are fighting for 'Iraq', shut up, you are fighting for the lost thrones you had. There is no such thing as an Iraqi resistance, and there never, ever was. It was al-Qaeda and Baathists all the way, I don't hate Mes'ood Barazani as much as I hate Saddam Hussein, because the first guy is a motherfucker who's at least frank about it, but the latter, Saddam ibn al kahba abu el gawad Hussein, is a hypocrite who can still make people follow him out of mere cowardice to admit how pathetic we all are, continuing an idiotic routine of hypocritic national identification.

There are some things that could hint of a national identification, for example, when you go outside Iraq and u feel like a total stranger, you try hard to find other Iraqis like you, forgetting how incredibly hateful they were back home. There are bonds that are evident in places like gameshows, soccer matches, but they are also incredibly hypocritical, they don't amount to anything more than that and precisely that, as long as the more effective political hypocrisy is in effect, all other identifications are merely so that we won't be "caught with our pants down" in the face of the world.

This is why many Arabs support Osama bin Laden, because he is a guy who doesn't bullshit around and actually does something, I think Bin Laden is a big criminal and a great danger on Islam because of that precise fact, he's a person who understands Arabs need to stop hypocrisy with action.
Wherever i go in Jordan, I look at phrases like "Jordan First", I watch Egyptian movies where the ultimate cause is "the country of Egypt", but Maybe countries like UAE have something to be proud of, but these are money-bought flourishes that are brittle fronts that will be demolished with a few hammerings here and there. Iraq is particularly a good example of Arab hypocrisy, becuase all its glories are lies while its people degenrated into morons, some people want Saddam back, you monkeys - at least psychologically, do u want to return to a stable, but paradoixcal state of glorifiying Saddam's farts and belches? Some people said this is because of Saddam, well he's gone now and look what have you done to the country? IT IS YOU. YOURSELVES. this is why we must stop the hypocrisy of identifiying with "Iraq" in its current meaning and be brave enough and say how much of a losers we all are. I do not hate my country, but I don't really care for it that much, I'd love to see it flourishing and stable, but I wouldn't die for it, so it's not enough - the difference is that I'm brave enough to say it. I only love my family, my friends, and recently my area (as a post-effect of the sectarain civil war), but I don't really love my country. In fact, I think it's a big shame that people are dying becuase of such a stupid, hypocritical lie. I would cut my arm and hand it to you on a plate if you can find me a single Iraqi who'd die for his own country. There's just no such thing. Islamism is real, Shiism is real, Iranianism is real, al-Qaeda is real, but al-Ba'ath party is the true example of Iraqi patriotism: fake identifications with a myth of glory that is based upon truer past achievements that we had nothing to do with.

I leave you with the words of an Iraqi writer on the Internet which has greatly moved me, I have added a few of my own here and there:

"I write these lines with big sadness and grief because I belong to this country of cowards and tyrants, this is the truth that many of you are trying to hide, how we are people who are divided into many factions, most importantly of which is the one of cowardice and the one of overlords, you are killed by the thousands in your areas, villages, streets, houses, in the middle of your families, you are slaughtered and you cannot even lift a finger in the face of your killers, what a bunch of losers, you see your brothers and sons killed and you scatter like mice trying to protect yourself and shouting slogans in the air, knowning fully well how much of a bullshit are you promoting and that your turn is next, that you will die not of honor, but of shame, when a tyrant comes to the throne you bow to him without a word, which is what you desrve. I am an "Iraqi" like you, I am not a Baathist, not an Islamist, not a Saffavid, not a Persian, not a Shiite, not a Sunni, I am a person who stands up and says it like it is, listen to the truth, you are people who have created new idols for themselves, idols not made of stones like the "Sadr Martyr" who a great deal of people worship now, let a person curse Allah in front of you and you will leave him be, but let him curse Sayyid al-Sadr and you will race for killing him and spilling his blood. Die, Suffer, Move, get kidnapped, burn in vain for you and all you who claim to be Iraqis.
As for the tyrants, who are people who understood how cowards are driven by the same fake wordplay and have adapted to leading them, he who says that Saddam is the tyrant i say to him that a great deal of Iraqis are potential tyrants.
I stand here believing these words until the final moment of my life and I will try to shed this ugly disgusting skin of Iraqism that you are proud of at public but privately shun and spit at until I become of the nothingness of this universe."

To be "hip" (lol) with the times, I will quote an 8th century speech by a famous Iraqi tyrant, al-Hajjaj bin Youssif al-Thaqafi, who is often compared with Saddam, in which he desrcibes Iraqis, the speech is famous and the line : "people of shikak and nifak" (land of division and hypocrisy) is an insult that is used until today, rightfully so - While this speech greatly insults the Great Iraqi People, I think today it applies to all Arabs in general, but particulalry Iraqis:

"O People of Iraq, I see that heads have bloomed and it is time to pick them, and I am their picker. By Allah, It is as if I am looking at the blood between the turbans and beards, By Allah, O People of Iraq, the Caliph Abdul-Malik has looked amongst his leaders, and found me the most bitter and the most severe, so he made me rule over you, O People of Iraq, O People of Shikak and Nifaq, and the worst of Akhlaaq (manners), You have long embroiled in division, and have fallen to the climate of the deception, By God I will smite u by hammers, and beat u like sheep. You are people who were safe and had a plenty of God's gifts, but you rejected the virutes of God, so he unleashed his promise that he promised for all cities upon you. Be moderate, do not lean, obey and cheer me."



"Allah does not change what has befallen people until they change what is in themselves"
- Holy Quran

Freedom's 3rd Birthday, and Happy Birthday, Prophet Mohammed!

"I was born in the cemetery
under the sign of the moon
raised from my grave
burned dead
and I was made a mercenary
in the legions of hell
now I'm king of pain
I'm insane"
- King Diamond

(Music: Sami Yusuf - Al Muallim)
Prophet Mohammed (Peace be upon him) was born in Mecca in the Sixth Century year of 570 AD, in the year known as the Year Of The Elephant, by the time when he was 40, he frequently spent time alone in a cave known as Huraa cave, when the Angel Garbiel desecended upon him with the first words of the Holy Quraan, signaling the beginning of Islam which spread onward to the rest of the world yadda yadda yadda and they married and lived happily ever after.

Now to important stuff.

Oblivious to everything as always and at 5 PM today, I was in my room pretending to study for my B.Sc but actually trying to get some highly inconveniently placed hairs in my nose, when I was subtly entranced by an array of sounds that pretty much resembled a mighty crash of so many kettles, teapots, and some other assorted faux-aluminum pans and pots all crashing together at the same time. Word? turns out it's the Birthday Surprise Party for Prophet Mohammed at the local mosque...usually at this time of day the mosque would broadcast subtle Quraan readings way until the Sunset (Maghrib) prayer but today they apparently hurled out the nearest cassette they can find of Prophet Praise, which I think was recorded in a kitchen. the guys in the scene were taking his Birthday as a subtle excuse for dancing the life out, 15 minutes onward, I just couldn't take it anymore and decided to join in the celebration my own way, by locking the room tight and shedding out my Gibson Airguitar Extravaganza and accessory
longhair wig for a lean'n'mean session of headbanging classics, a ritual I haven't done in a looong time, this is the only reason for the Mercyful Fate quote headlining this post.

Shortly afterwards though, power went down, silencing pretty much everyone.

The festival brought back some fond long-buried memories, too. Back in 1995, when I was a wee 12 years old, I was also, ahem, now this might shock you, but...I was a mosque enchanter.

* THE SECRET LIFE OF KONFUSED KID THE MOSQUE LEAD SINGER*
(Music : Led Zeppelin - What Is and What Never Should Be)

WHAM? SLAM? BAM? true, at the pristine age of 12 - my parents, both religiously committed, enlisted me at the local mosque to learn Chapter 30, the easiest one, of the Koran by heart - amongst other local kids, as the days approached the Birthday, we sensed some kind of frenzy amongst the mosque administration, turns out the mosques engaged in giving out some kinda 'activities' to cememorate the day, one of which included Islamic chants, so they took our group (some 6 students) and gave us some Islamic chants to chant, pretty soon, they discovered me - I had a good singing voice - and that I know all the Holy Names of God, a chant I figured in my childhood, and pretty soon I was made lead singer of the band.
This starts a tour amongst lots and lots of mosques in the area that pretty much lasted a month, we would chant for a bit and then I'd do my piece, only to be rewarded afterwards by a large dish of KOOZI (rice and lamb meat, amongst other niceties) which we would eat by hand like some hungry sons of bitches who's never tasted anything for the whole year, and there were some weird days, the first performance, we were gathered early for the chant so we decided to spend some time by playing soccer, luckily, there was a beautiful garden nearby where we could play much more nicely than the usual streets, to avoid tearing up our dishdasha (traditional Muslim white-cloth), unfortunately, after an hour-long of fights, curses (lots of which were
directed at God and all that is holy, as pretty much all street soccer matches are), and slide tackles, we ended up looking like....SHIT...that's all I could say, our white ironed dishdashas looked now like army camouflage with so many grass-brown stripes, and we were supposed to perform now.We did it anyway....them were days, but now the band's broken apart and everybody's gone their separate ways, no more touring for these bad, sad Afghan version of the backstreet boys...
* END *

Baby, if this ain't turning into a nice old Islamic Republic of Iraq...spitting image of its sister eastward - I am sure u noticed I'm kinda cranky at the subject, not that I mean any disrespect for the holy prophet (much to the annoyance of some of my marauding friends) but I am so sick and tired of these fucking religious ceremonies, Death of Hussein, ha, we got the Birth Of Mohammed, and all these Shiite visitors can't wait to visit Imam Ali to 'congratulate him on the birth of the prophet', as if they're both real, breathing persons and not old long-gone 7th century dudes.

(Music : Iron Maiden - The Evil That Men Do)
In reality, I think this festival is incorrect by its own right, and I think the prophet wouldn't approve of it if he was amongst it, there are only two 100% certified festivites in Islam : Eid Al-Adha and Eid Al-Fitr, all else is bid3a (creative balooney).

Crikey, verily.

Today, the prophet just made his 1436 birthday, damn that's a lot of candles, if we were to make a cake, I think people would be pretty much eating the wax off the 1436 candles than anything else. and what can we bring as presents anyway?

and of course there's that oh-so-adorable part-time hooker TV broadcaster on such cheap call-quiz Satellite stations such as STRIKE TV, who offered important statements that shed much-
needed light on the ceremony today :و

مرسي خالص للله و لحالكن و بنقول للنبي الكريم هابي برثداي

There sister, you just made yourself a hassana, may Allah put u in Janna.
And the answer to the riddle is an Ostrich, dammit, a fuckin' Ostrich.
Should i just call?
Ow, who cares!

Happy Birthday, Prophet Mohammed!

(MUSIC : Happy Birthday To You)

**************
In other news, today marks Freedom's 3rd year, she now knows how to walk and talk and is still stumbling through her first words way beyond normal age for talking, yesterday she almost spit out 'roadside bomb' and 'armed car with big boo-boo', Freedom looked pretty darn cute on the first days, but these days she's turning into a real ugly boar, we avoid looking in her face most of the time, her teeth are falling apart and something is growing at her nostrils, we are seriously considering dumping her at the nearest trash-joint...

If Saddam died these nearby days, I think the gravestone should read:
BETTER THE DEVIL YOU KNOW.
and he'd be glad, that son-of-a-gun.
Anyway,
Happy Birthday, Freedom! ....
(MUSIC : Mawtini)

Unpublished NY Post

Hey...

Too busy to write anything of purpose to you, suffice to say that I am undergoing major personal changes in my life and is feeling too awestruck to organize my newfound feelings into ordered sentences.

So, in return for your dedication , I shall give you the first of my two unpublished NY posts, which got omitted for technical reasons.
More details about NY and my new life later, but very soon.

This post was supposed to be published by Eid, but due to tech probs it didn't get there on time.


I woke up. It was cold. The room felt small, decided to sniff out some air in the backyard.
I got out, if I smoked, I would have taken out a cigarette at this point.I looked around, I might as well have stepped in Wak Wak Islands.

'What shall I do now?' The knife in his hand was dirty, but its tip looked effective. He looked at her flexingly with an uneasy will to please.'There are four of them,' I looked around to check - four, all right not knowning what's coming to them, after all they don't speak the language -
'this one is weak - spare it for the last' She said.
'Your words are orders' and with that, he knelt down to slaughter like he's born with a dirty spitshined knife in hand, his face grim and determined, working silently - he held the first from where the hair would be, and passed the knife along the throat easily, blood responded and oozed on the green grass, he kept thrashing, here, there, left, right, center, until there was nothing left to gnash at. I watched curiously as a living thing is being transformed right in front of my eyes into so much strawberry jam, amongst other things.

It was horrible ; He looked at her at last.
'That will do' She observed, with grim satisfaction.
In general, I was unimpressed, I left the garden and went for a wash-up.
She was my grandmother, the four were sheep.

-------------------------------------

Eid Al Adha is the celebration of the fulfillment of the pilgrimige season, Much to the dismay of Bridgette Bardout, one of the Eid's favorite islamic customs is to slaughter a sheep and distriubte the meat on your relatives and the poor people around u. My grandmother slaughtered four sheep, one for her, the other three for my uncles living abroad, who felt that the meat should reach the people who really need it in disaster-stricken Iraq.
Many of my friends didn't slaughter anything, I myself wasn't a very big fan of anything slaughter-wise. But the meat tasted wonderful when i rolled it into my traditional khubuz (bread) and bit into a tasty kebab.
Other than that, it's the usual so & so day in Post-Saddam Iraq (Iran?)

I was in Palestine Street today, it was filled with people, their faces maintained the social distance of a passerby, but look closely and u shall see a hidden will to live and enjoy life at any cost, despite everyone's conspiracy to the opposite. If the carbomb hit u, u r a martyr, if not, u thank god and walk away. THat's how most Iraqis managed to survive the unbearable conditions...

'Saddam is the manhole cover, and once he has been removed, the sewers have flooded'
- My Grandmother

Saddam held the Iraqi by the throat and kept punching him with quick jabs left and right in an everlasting boxing round until the world felt numb and funny ; under the anasethesia of continous delirium ; it is no wonder that we can stand the conditions - they get blacker and blacker and no-one really complains...
all of a sudden, people started to scuttle inside their shops and cars- not from a nearby explosion like u usually see them run away from but this time away from the rainbullets of God. I felt a yellow happiness seep inside me at the sight, rain has come down to wash away the blood that has smeared the sad capital of Al Rasheed. It's tragic that very little of that blood is sheepish in origin.

Happy Eid.