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Ladies! Have You Breast-Fed Your Male Boss And Coworkers Today?

GabriallaNursingBra.jpg

Islam is primitive-kinky! A fatwa was issued in Egypt, writes Michael Slackman in The New York Times, that...and no, this is not a joke...that Muslim men in Egypt can't be around women in the workplace -- unless those women breast-feed them:

CAIRO, June 11 — First came the breast-feeding fatwa. It declared that the Islamic restriction on unmarried men and women being together could be lifted at work if the woman breast-fed her male colleagues five times, to establish family ties. Then came the urine fatwa. It said that drinking the urine of the Prophet Muhammad was deemed a blessing.

...The breast-feeding fatwa came in mid-May. A religious scholar, who headed a department that studies the Prophet Muhammad’s teachings at the Foundation of Religion College of Al Azhar University, wrote that there had been instances in the time of the prophet when adult women breast-fed adult men in order to avoid the need for women to wear a veil in front of them.

“Breast-feeding an adult puts an end to the problem of the private meeting, and does not ban marriage,” wrote the scholar, Izat Atiyah. “A woman at work can take off the veil or reveal her hair in front of someone whom she breast-fed.”

The ruling was mocked on satellite television shows around the region, and was quickly condemned at home. Mr. Atiyah was suspended from his job, mocked in newspapers and within days issued a retraction, saying it was a “bad interpretation of a particular case.”

Posted by aalkon at June 12, 2007 2:49 PM

Comments

Posted by: Crid at June 11, 2007 11:53 PM

Charming! Simply charming.

Posted by: Amy Alkon at June 11, 2007 11:54 PM

The ending of "Grapes of wrath" comes to mind. One of the few books that has reduced me to tears.

Posted by: Norman at June 12, 2007 1:52 AM

Welcome to the wacky world of religion! Sounds more like a fatwa from Howard Stern! Hey, is anyone up for a trip to the new creationist museum that just opened?

Posted by: Bill Henry at June 12, 2007 2:48 AM

Kinky is right! Not just because of the breast-feeding but the urine fatwa. Be breast-fed as an adult and take a golden shower from the prophet Muhammed himself! Ewwww!

Posted by: Patrick at June 12, 2007 2:53 AM

I'm moving to Egypt and converting.

Posted by: Roger at June 12, 2007 4:23 AM

Yeah, I was just thinking that I know a few American men who'd be pleased to live with a titty-sucking fatwa.

A urine fatwa is too vanilla, Patrick. I want my CBT!

Posted by: Lena at June 12, 2007 7:36 AM

Given the "they'll wean when they're ready!" movement in America, I can see this coming to a Starbucks Near You.

Posted by: Kevin at June 12, 2007 11:13 AM

I would postpone the move to Egypt for a few months. The military is rounding up M.B. members and finding caches of weapons. The cells that were not uncovered are probably on go ahead with their reprisals against Mubarak's government (i.e. tourists and foreigners)

Egypt is going through a constitutional referendum and under heighten alert, because M.B. was not approved as an official political party.

Posted by: Joe at June 12, 2007 12:11 PM

Is there some huge stadium we could lock these people into....arm them...and let them "Fatwa" their brains all over the place?


Oops, or is it "racist" to let them kill each other?

Posted by: RedPretzel in LA at June 12, 2007 1:53 PM

They will begin to kill each other when the secular government is overthrown. Look at Iraq.... opportunity to kill and drive off the US forces, but their need to kill one another is the driving force. The rivers of blood will begin once US forces leave the area.

The secular Algerian government needed to combat Islamic terrorists in the 1990s. So they had their intelligence services create fake terror cells. These phony cells would 'egg' on the real ones to see who was more spiritually pure. Then the real cells began to kill each other to see who was the closest to Allah.

There were many instances where I was sitting in a hookah bar and a bunch of Fords would show up out of nowhere. Heavily armed guys in suits would snatch a young Egyptian male and throw him into the Ford Taurus. I would ask the other patrons what is going on? They would all say in unison: "The Brothers" Then went back to smoking, drinking coffee or reading the newspapers.

Posted by: Joe at June 12, 2007 4:06 PM

I work in a department where there's a Shiite (Iranian) and a Sunni (Egyptian). There's an undercurrent of hostility between them that sometimes flares up to the point where it seems that they could kill each other. And sometimes I think my colleagues and I would have an easier worklife if they would do just that.

Is the Shiite-Sunni cultural hatefest anything more than a nasty squabble over the details of a fairytale (ie, the great caliphs and all that dreary crap)?

Posted by: Lena at June 12, 2007 6:06 PM

This could get a little complicated in the workplace. I imagine some Dilbert like setting, a bunch of guys in cubicles, and a woman in a chador comes wandering from cubicle to cubicle, lifting up the front of her Muslim gown as she approaches. "New hire," she explains, giggling coquettishly.

What happens if there are already female employees, and there's a new hire who happens to be male? Do the ladies all get up, grab their veils. "New hire in the employee breakroom! Let's go ladies!"

And this poor unsuspecting schmuck has about a dozen breasts all thrust into his face. "Soup's on! Drink up!"

Can women call in "not lactating"?

Posted by: Patrick at June 12, 2007 6:47 PM

A woman at work can take off the veil or reveal her hair in front of someone whom she breast-fed.

You'd think she'd be allowed to take off much more than just her veil, and reveal much more than just her hair.

Posted by: kishke at June 12, 2007 7:06 PM

What if you don't happen to have a breast-feeding child at home? Is it the breast milk that matters or just letting your skanky coworker suck your tits?

I suppose the fact that I'm about to be a breast-feeding mother explains why this particular fatwa creeps me out so much.

I won't even get into the urine-drinking. I mean, he's been dead for nearly 1400 years. Who's going to be drinking his urine? Or know who drank it 1400 years ago?

Posted by: Kimberly at June 12, 2007 7:16 PM

Yes, Lena.

The Sunnis claim that Shias deify Iman Ali, because they see him as perfect or infallible. The other differences is that Shias do not recognize Abu Bakr, Umar and Uthman as rightful Caliphs during the ascension of the Prophet Mohammed. Ali was recognized as the fourth caliph (within Sunni Islam), but Shias see him as the first over Abu Bakr. The other huge difference is over pre-ordination. Shias disagree with Sunnis over accepting Allah preordained what will happen in the future. There are also claims by Sunnis that Shias have altered the Qur'an and that their sect is a nationalist movement for Persian domination of the Middle East. It goes on and on....

Posted by: Joe at June 12, 2007 9:22 PM

"...Muslim men in Egypt can't be around women in the workplace -- unless those women breast-feed them:"

And what if those women ate pork beforehand?

Posted by: Doobie at June 12, 2007 10:34 PM

What if you don't happen to have a breast-feeding child at home? Is it the breast milk that matters or just letting your skanky coworker suck your tits?

I"m guessing it's the latter. All about keeping the faith, of course.

Posted by: Amy Alkon at June 12, 2007 11:52 PM

Once an idea of this magnitude is set in mothion, momentum is irresistible, and it may not be that far off (from TIME mag):

Sadr called for peaceful demonstrations, and reconciliation within Iraq's warring factions, to mark the minarets' destruction. "We declare a three-day mourning period . . . and shout Allahu Akbar (God is greater) from Sunni and Shiite mosques," Sadr said in a written statement, declaring that no Sunni Arab could have been responsible for the attack on the Shiite shrine.
Instead, he faulted the Iraqi government for failing to protect the landmark, and blamed the relentless violence in Iraq on the ongoing U.S. military presence.

Watch out for Sadr, who keeps making very clever political moves. I had a chat yesterday afternoon with Juan Cole, who detests Sadr as an authoritarian thug, but believes that if local elections were held throughout the Shi'ite south, Sadrists would win in every area except, possibly, Basra, and would also win in Baghdad. Which is one reason why local elections--one of the mythic benchmarks--are not likely to be held anytime soon.

Posted by: The Mad Hungarian at June 13, 2007 10:02 AM

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