THE HIDDEN TRUTHS ABOUT
MUTAH
Abid Bata
1.0 INTRODUCTION
While the BBC is caught in child sex abuse revelations an Iranian blog claims to expose another seamy sex scandal: That of a man who ran a mutah sex club from his upstairs flat. The blog claims that he enticed street women off the street to his flat and paid them for sex. First his friends jested at his addiction for sex, but their joking stopped when it was discovered that in his adventures for sex he had even managed to sleep with closely related women including mothers and their daughters who had been forced on the streets due to poverty.
When arrested the butcher argued that the fault was not in him but in the religious permission for mutah. He argued that given the nature of mutah it was inevitable that men who were prowling for sex ended up sleeping with women who circulated themselves in mutah circles. He said that as nobody knew who was doing mutah with whom the same women could end up sleeping with sons and fathers just as he had ended up – by mistake - sleeping with mothers and daughters.
The first effect of this sordid story on me was just shock. I just went in to denial as I did not have it in me to question the inadequacies in our Shia system. How could the divine system of mutah be so faulty that it can end people up doing incest? This would prove that mutah is a failure as a social solution for sex problems. It would prove that all the excuses for mutah were wrong, and so I rejected the story and the claim that mutah is no good.
I kept myself in denial until I heard a new story of how members of the Iranian parliament had drafted new ‘religious’ laws that permitted the opening of 'Sex Houses.’ In these houses Iranian women who sell sex on the streets would officially register themselves as ‘mutah women’ and sell ‘safe and moral sex’ under the protection of the law. The Western newspapers dubbed these houses “SHIA BROTHELS” but the burning question in my head was: “Why were these sex houses being introduced in to Iranian society by men who were not masum?” For me the whole point of being a Shia was to believe that only a masum can devise laws and systems, and, therefore, protect Islam from faulty introductions and derivations. So why were non-masum men manufacturing laws for us which we thought were divinely ordained? Why was the platform of Shia Islam being used to legalise sex houses within the Islamic culture?
The various women’s groups in Iran say that laws manufactured or derived by men are given the SHIA tag only to make us blindly accept them. Many top officials in the Iranian government too have been honest in their concern of how mutah has provided an ideal loophole for sex crimes. In particular of rape in the family – “Your Honour, I did not rape my divorced cousin when she was alone: I did mutah with her!” And as in our system it takes two women to counter the evidence of one man the rapist is never charged.
A report commissioned by one woman’s group in Iran said that runaway girls were often picked up and coerced in to mutah or raped by landlords in Tehran who wanted sex as down-payment for rent. When the girls went to the police the landlords claimed to have ‘Islamically’ done mutah with them. Some of these girls end up pregnant and commit suicide. Some become mutah prostitutes and give oral sex as this does not need the waiting period of idda. Many get on to drugs having lost their self respect and their trust in society and in the system labelled as ‘Islam.’ This is where the Christian missionaries jump in and try to convert the girls. In fact, Christian missions operate in all sorts of clandestine places in Iran and see a substantial number of female converts partly due to the fact that such girls are disenfranchised after being used and abused under the system labelled as Islamic.
If you look wider you realise that the many aftermaths of mutah system are global. Mutah is known to be a tool for men to blackmail women employees in places like Pakistan where bosses threaten to fire poor destitute women from their jobs if they did not do it with them or their business partners. Rich landlords pay off poor fathers to convince their daughters to give them sex before they are married off. The BBC World Service ran a story of corrupted ‘Shia’ mullahs who got beaten up by ‘Sunni’ women in India when they tried to convince them to do mutah and get their clothes off. In Iran a famous female newscaster was arrested making porn videos with men she was doing mutah with. Another Iranian woman did mutah with a hunky footballer and then got jealous of his wife whom she murdered. The footballer stood nearby looking gleeful when she was being hanged. In Tanzania mutah has brought VD and HIV in the Khoja community. In Britain too the story of mutah provides much evidence of it’s bad impact on our people and in particular on our families. And all this is happening in the name of system that is labelled Shia Islam.
So can something which is proves to be so destructive be Islamic? Did Imam Ali (as) not tell us that to see if something is Halal or Haram then look at the effects of it? If we follow the principle that Imam Ali taught us then surely mutah should not be accepted as it brings so much devastations in to our lives.
Just think of how many Shia men in the UK are having steamy mutah affairs with all sorts of women while their wives languish at home. This has created issues of trust and undermined the value of the marriage institution. Daughters watch their mothers burning while fathers satiate their low habits by doing mutah. How these daughters react is something to ponder over as no girl who watches her mother burn up in frustration would accept to marry in to a system where men freely have affairs while their wives languish at home in hijabs. The double standard is something that will eventually eat away our families and our faith.
Indeed, mutah may have some justifications but it is like alcohol which can also have some benefits despite the fact that it hooks people and devastates lives. Furthermore, the justification for mutah is very complicated in our religion because some of it is based on open blackmail. For example in one of our early books it is alleged that our Imams have said that the person who does not accept mutah will go to hell(1). So you can’t even differ or challenge it without the threat of hell being put on you!
And if you read the books further you would conclude that Mutah is so highly regarded in our books that it can even become extrapolated in to our Kalima E Shahada (“Mutah Halal Ullah!”). Here is an example:
It is written in our books that our Imams have said that if a woman does mutah than the najis water of her Ghusal E Janabat will become so holy that every drop will be counted in heaven as sawab (2). This level of rank is not even given to the holy water of Zamzam. Imagine: Our books are giving more rank to the najis ghusal water of those who do mutah than to the water of Zamzam!
Once when I asked someone high up in our Shia establishment that why are the names of our Imams misused to justify and glorify Mutah in our books, he answered that mutah is an exclusive ‘reward & right’ for Shias because we believe in the wilaya of Imam Ali! Once again the name of the Imam is used by justify something that brings so much devastation to people’s lives.
The man also told me that we as Shias are given this privilege as we are the people of paradise who get special allowances. He advised me to ignore all the evidence against mutah as they are all forgeries against ‘Imam E Zamana.’ He told me that the first people Imam E Zamana will kill are those who reject mutah. Once again the threat of death and hell is put on anybody who questions things and begins to think independently.
I am very uneasy with the logic that I should ignore all the evidences against mutah. I consider it a ‘human right’ and an ‘Islamic right’ to question, to explore and to think for myself. I have begun to see Islam as guidance to open the doors of the minds; not close them! It is upside down when a Muslim tells another Muslim to close his mind because the Quran appeals to human beings to think for themselves.
I can not accept being padlocked up in my head as though I lived in the web of the medieval era of superstitions and lies being framed in a religious context. Hence, I have written this short article. I am not only questioning mutah but I am also questioning our mindsets and our definitions. I know I am going against the comfort zone of most people. I know that our establishment will be very unhappy with me, but what I have to say will be an alternative way to think for many who have not had a chance to think outside the box.
I pray that this article is food for thought for you. Where you think I am wrong then please let me know. But please do not make the mistake of dismissing concrete and substantiated proof against mutah just because it does not ride well with the personalities you follow or with the way you have been taught to think. To learn means to question oneself, look at alternative evidence, accept the facts and then move on. It is such people who bring dynamism to life and move closer to Allah.
PROOF 1 - THE VALUES OF ISLAM
As a first proof against mutah consider the moral values of Islam and how mutah makes a mockery of it. One distinctive symbolic feature that represents Islamic values is hijab. Why did Hijab come to Islam? Why does a Muslim woman cover herself even when praying when God created her and gave her all her sexual charms? What have we been traditionally taught about Hijab? Is Hijab only a fikh formality that can be removed on contract or does it have deeper social, moral and personal values that cannot be traded or compromised on contract?
The Quran is explicit that the outer covering (Hijab) is less of an issue than the values it is meant to inculcate. But because we are taught to be so fixated on fikh rules we end up putting more emphasis on the outer Hijab rather than on the whole purpose of Hijab. So we get upset if a woman does not wear a headscarf but we consider it a blessing for her if she agrees to get her clothes off in a mutah contract. We need to reset our minds and accept that the prime function of Hijab, as the Quran says, is to develop moral excellence in the woman so that she ‘knows’ herself, and raises herself from her base ego and not compromise her own self respect.
So would a woman with refined and high moral excellence ever de-value important things in her life like relationships and love? Would such a woman ever make Hijab just a fikh formality as though it had no value for her except for a contract?
And what about the icons behind Hijab like Syeda Fatimah (as)? Do these icons have any real meaning in our lives?Do we follow their example? Remember, they never removed Hijab on contract nor did they ever do mutah - not even with their own fiancées!
The fault is that we have mixed things up and got confused about what Islam is. We can’t see the difference between moral guidance of Islam and what is derived for us by extrapolations and interpretations. We don’t realise that we have bypassed Islamic moral values because we are engrossed by fikh formalities. When we are confronted with the fact that neither Syeda Fatima nor any other icons of Islam did mutah then we manufacture excuses. We justify things based on our desires. We are like those who drink alcohol and always find excuses. We ignore that if Syeda Fatima did not even do mutah with her fiancé then it means that there was no room for mutah in her life.
One thing we are never told is that the reason the marriage of Syeda Fatimah was ordained in heaven was because a marriage is a divine ordainment in Islam. This is because relationships tied by marriages have the hand of God in them. The Quran says that husbands and wives are comfort and peace for each other. Those who build true and lasting love will also be united in heaven. Their relationship is valued so highly by Islam.
The Quran does not define marriages as quick-fix temporary business contracts for sex. According to the Quran even if you marry a slave girl then it cannot be temporary but you have to honour her as a life partner. Those who tell us that mutah is Islamic have brought confusion in to Islam about the moral values of Islam and about what a marriage relationship means in Islam. Such an Islam is not the Islam of the Nabi who spent the first ten years of his life in pagan Mecca to define Islam as a moral force for the world and he never did mutah even in that pagan society.
Almost always we Muslims today forget that the life of the Nabi in Mecca is the root of Islam that led to the moral state in Medina. We know so little about Islam as a moral force and yet we have those dominating people who think that just because they have read a few fikh books, and have memorised history from a political and sectarian angles they have mastered Islam inside out. It is these people who redefined Islam as a religion without a soul which led us to focus on the outer fikhie rules while totally ignoring the deeper values of Islam. And it is for this reason that we have devalued the moral institution of marriage and brought it in to the realm of contracts. We have done the same with hijab and so we have those women who will remove hijab on contract and not realise the contradiction they make with the values hijab is meant to inculcate.
PROOF 2- ‘TARK E AULA’
Here is another issue against mutah. It is to do with what is called Tark E Aula. This means that if a masum does not do a mustahabat then it is a wrong. When Nabi Adam did Tark E Aula then he had to repent for several years and remain separated from his beloved wife as punishment. (Interestingly, Allah did not provide him with any body to do mutah with while he was separated from his wife. Poor Adam!).
So ask yourself that if mutah was so good then why did the masum women like Syeda Fatimah, Bibi Mariam, Syeda Asiya, Syeda Khadija or Syeda Zainab never do it as otherwise it would be Tark E Aula.
In fact the Nabi Muhammad never did it either. And there is no forensics that any Imam did it as there are no mentions of any of them being born of it nor having any children from it. There are fourteen masumeens and none of them was born of it nor had a single child out of it. It is strange that not one Imam was born of mutah despite our fikh claiming it to be ‘sawab’ to do it. Surely if Mutah was so good then our Imams should have led by example and at least produced one child from it. This fact alone is enough to discredit mutah and untie it from Shia Islam.
Once when I presented this forensic that not one masum did mutah then a mullah told me that Ibn Zubair was born of mutah. But Ibn Zubair was not born from a masum parent. In fact he was an enemy of the Ahlul Baith. So why are we given examples of pagan practices that existed within Muslim when the issue of Tark e Aula is relevant to a masum who should never forgo a good deed? Example of Ibn Zubair is irrelevant to the discussion on Tark E Aula which means that a masum cannot forgo a good act while we know that none of the masum is recorded to have ever done mutah.
PROOF 3 – THE ORIGINS OF MUTAH
Another thing that is not highlighted to us is the fact that mutah was a pagan (Jahil) invention. The Arab men before Islam invented Mutah to use and discard women as though they had hired a donkey to ride for a few days or a few hours or a few minutes. Such was mutah among the Arabs that respectable widows were taken in to sex mutahs by creditors to settle the debts of their dead husbands. These Arabs treated women like objects and so it was natural for them to invent mutah. The proof of pagans taking widows in mutah is this:
“It is related that Zubair used to do many mutahs before he became Muslim and after conversion he once remarked that when the Nabi passes away then he will take his widows in mutah in order to have sex with them. Thereafter, a verse was revealed forbidden the wives of the Nabi to be taken in marriages and declaring them as mothers of the believers.”
This narration needs a good analysis but it adds proof that those Muslim who still had pagan mentalities used to wait for a man to die so that they could do mutah with his widows. In this case Zubair was waiting for the Nabi to pass away! How sad that our mullahs give his example to us to follow while claiming that they want us to follow in the footsteps of the Ahlul Baith!
If Islam did allow Mutah then it will be inevitable for men LIKE Zubair in our community to wait for another man to die so that his widow becomes available goods! How bankrupt the Muslim ethics would be if mutah had been widely accepted in our Islamic culture and male psyche?
And yet today we have those ‘intellectuals’ who have taken on a religious garb and who try to justify mutah by saying that Islam borrowed some of the pagan things to make it complete. They deliberately miss the point that the reason the pagans did mutah was because they defined women as commodities. In Islam to treat women like a commodity is a sin and an insult. Women, according to the Quran, are soul-mates of men and so to insult or denigrate them is to denigrate men too. Furthermore, Islam does not become complete by borrowing anything from pagans. The idea that pagan things like hiring a woman under mutah can become part of Islam proves that past scholars created a rational to mix Islam with the pagan past. As a result Islam became tied up to the dirt of pagan values. This is why there are so many contradictions in the Islam that was written after the Nabi. Both Sunni and Shia Islam have suffered from this even though both sects refuse to admit to it.
To further prove that Islam has been mixed up with pagan ideas just consider slavery. It is an evil which the Quran tries to curb. The only reason the Nabi tolerated it was because it was systemic and unrealistic to totally ban it. And just because the Nabi could not ban it does not mean it was endorsed by him. The Nabi himself never kept slaves despite the fact that it was rampant in those days. He told his Companions to free as many slaves as they could. He defined the rights of slaves who were not freed. He even raised them to the status of Muztazafeens (oppressed). Yet the Arab slave traders who came after the Nabi managed to keep slavery booming in Muslim society for centuries. The way they managed to do this was to tie Islam to paganism which had created slavery in the first place.
And the sad reality is that while the rest of the world progressed to abolish slavery it was the Muslim merchants and rulers who refused to ban it. In fact when the British East India company took over India the Mugal kings and princes were using Islam to keep alive the culture of slaves and concubines. They came up with phrases like: ‘Nobody can make Harram what is Halal E Muhammadi.’ With ideas like this our Muslim societies did not ban slavery until 1962 when the British forced a ban on us - some two centuries after abolishment happened in Christian Europe.
How bad it is that when the Nabi Muhammad achieved so much in freeing slaves it took the commitment of Christian Europe to bring slavery to an end in the Muslim world. May be we will keep justifying mutah in a similar way until others teach us how wrong it is. We will do this despite knowing that the Nabi never did mutah just as he never kept slaves even in a society were both slavery and mutah were systemic.
PROOF 4 – PARADISE UNDER WHOSE FEET
We all know that Islam says that women have to raise their moral excellence to a level where paradise lies under their feet. But what kind of moral excellence is there in women who foolishly agree to contract their bodies for sex contracts?
The kind of women who contract mutah are the ones you can see naked one minute and then when the mutah is over they put their clothes on like any cheap stripper who gets her pants off on a minute by minute basis on contract; who are mixed up between the high values of Islam and low slut values of fallen women; who make their hijab a contract with men rather than a protective covering for control of the ego and for spiritual and psychological growth; who even think it is okay to sleep with someone else’s husbands on contract and have no self conscience or guilt for it - but who don’t like it when some other woman sleeps with their husbands; who have learnt to switch on or off their love; who are used up, lost and cheap; and who have accumulated so much dirt in their lives that even a hundred Ghusals of mutah will not clean them.
What moral fabrics can such lost females give to an Islamic society when they have allowed their own lives to be filled with dirt, confusion, skeletons and contradictions! And in a group of cheap mutah women there are always those who have had abortions as a direct aftermath of the quick-fix mutah culture. But why are our ulema ignoring all this? Why are they using the name of the Ahlul Baith to accommodate such things when Imam Ali told us that to see if something is evil just look at the aftermaths?
But there is light! One amazing thing that happens in society is that God makes his light shine in the most dark regions and period of history. And so he raised a man in the most unexpected place to open our eyes to society’s hypocritical and confused standards. He was Malcom X. He pulled himself away from a corrupted society where sex was packaged like an achievement, a game, a contract or just a quick fix. He told America to transform itself by learning from the Islam of the Nabi Muhammad. In particular, he told the deceived and morally lost Black women to turn to Islam to gain guidance for their daughters and regain their own self worth. He said that the failure of American Black society was largely due to the moral denigration of it’s women by Black men who had lost their own moral compass. He told men to value the love women give and not to devalue it as a quick fix. He understood the power of true love in the lives of men and women. He knew the strength society gets from building moral excellence. He was one man who managed to speak aloud for lasting relationships, stability of the hearts and inculcation of true and lasting love among men and women. He tried to wake up 20th Century America to a new age of moral guidance - Exactly what the Nabi Muhammad (as) achieved in Medina in the 6th Century.
Today our Islam is not like that of the Nabi. We have nothing for the modern world because our own standards are confused. We just legalise things which we want and pretend that there are no moral implications on us. Often non-Muslims like Hindus and Sikhs have more strong values than we do. Their attitude towards women and towards sex is something much healthier than ours. And part of the fault is that we are systemically taught to follow ‘derived’ Islam like parrots. If we continue to follow Islam like this then, I think, we will end up losing Islam altogether and we will die as docile and closed minded as when we have been alive.
PROOF 5 – WOMAN HAVE LOW IN INTELLIGENCE
Now here is one of the worst paradoxes in our version of Shia Islam. In all our books it is written that women are ‘Nakis E Akal’ or Faulty in Intelligence. It is written in prominent books and proven by the religious science of ‘Elm ul Rijal’ that Imam Ali said that women are snakes and scorpions. Since this is mutawatir (trusted) and Rijali (proven chain) our scholars of the past have not rejected it even though today’s scholars are embarrassed by it and so are trying to re-contextualise it in order to make it respectable. In fact, for generations the scholars of the past have used this to say that a woman can never be a judge in Islamic society as she will end up making ‘emotional’ decisions. The Sunnis have gone one step further in putting down women by saying that most of those who enter hell will be women.
So since it is etched in both our Shia and Sunni books that women are faulty in intelligence and cannot be trusted in making correct decisions then why do our fikh makers allow secret sex contracts with her when her Faulty Intelligence makes her susceptible to mistakes and wrong decision? Surely, a faulty person – like a woman - can not decide by herself to do mutah without the risk of being seduced, used and exploited. Is it, therefore, not too convenient for ‘intelligent’ male species that no witnesses are needed to agree to having sex with low intelligent species i.e. females!
Furthermore, our original fikh laws also say that if a woman gets pregnant in mutah then only the man’s word will be accepted that it is his child or not. The woman who is pregnant by mutah does not have a say once the man is rejected the child to be his.
When I wrote to an office of a scholar asking why was the man’s word final to accept or deny that a mutah child was his or not the office finally replied to me that it stopped men from being blackmailed. Here again our so called Islamic laws of the past prove to be written for the convenience of men and at the expense of vulnerable women. Needless to say that this unfair laws have been knocked out by the science of modern genetic fingerprinting!
Once again our laws like this prove to be more pagan than Islamic. In fact, even when you analyse the notion that God made women ‘Nakis’ then you realise that it goes totally against the justice of God, which means that on one hand we claim to believe that God is Just (part of Usool e Din) while on the other hand we make God unjust by saying that he made women as Nakis! We have to only see this contradiction between Usool and Fikh for us to see how much is amiss in our definition of Islam.
PROOF 7 – SUNNI BOOKS OF NARRATIONS
Instead of accepting the evidence against mutah our Shia scholars have dug deeper trenches to justify mutah. One evidence they often quote to ‘prove’ mutah is from the Sunni books called Sahih Bukhari. These volume of books were written some 150 years after the Nabi and one ‘sahee’ narration in them says that two Muslims men got desperate for sex while travelling through the desert with the Nabi. They came crying to the Nabi asking permission to castrate themselves as they had not had sex for over six days!!! The story says that the Nabi laughed at them and told them to do mutah.
The story continues and says that the two men rushed in to the desert and soon found a lone woman. They described her as a ‘beautiful slender woman.’ So having ‘checked her out’ the two men offered her a blanket each for sex. The woman accepted the younger man and had full blown sex with him. The poor old man stood by but did not get anything!
Needless to say, our Shia scholars accept this Sunni story on face-value because it works conveniently to justify mutah. They agree with the story because it is rijali and fits in with what shia books say. But let us do some of our own scientific testing on it to see how valid it is.
Firstly, we are supposed to accept that a woman happened to be sitting alone in the vast desert and was ready for mutah. How likely is this? Clearly, the story begins to fall apart at this first hurdle!
But even if out of coincidence such a woman was sitting alone somewhere in the vast desert then how was it possible to locate her as the desert does not have any sign boards pointing to a woman sitting alone ready for sex! O sorry, may be the two men had a Mutah GPS tracking system (Miss Tom Tom!) to locate her!
Then, did she give sex only because she was frightened of the two men as she was all alone? May be our scholars can derive that if a gang of Shia men saw a ‘beautiful slender woman’ sitting alone on a park bench then it is okay to try to convince her for sex (a form of sexual coercion or harassment) and promise to give her a blanket afterwards
(which makes it prostitution no matter how much the scholars deny it!).
Then did they ask her if she was married? Then did she get pregnant? Then did the men check if her mother too sold sex in case their fathers had done it with her and the woman turned out to be their sister? ….
Then what about the old man: How did he relieve his desperation when he was ready to castrate himself? Was there no easier solution for him rather than spend his time running around the desert in frustration! As Islam is a universal religion what solution was there for him? Why does the story not consider his sexual plight?
Clearly the story is too hollow for it to be taken seriously. Often only fake and fabricated stories are inadequate and faulty like this.
And there is another major flaw in this story. The flaw is crystal clear when you consider the fact that these two men brought themselves to the point of desperation. They were even ready to castrate themselves. So why would they have brought themselves to this state if mutah was never banned? The main question is: “Why did they think it was banned?”
And since they did bring themselves to desperation then it would mean that the Nabi had failed in his duty to clarify to lonely Companions in the desert that mutah was allowed. Normally, a good leader who marches his men in to the desert tells them how to avoid getting in to desperation for anything. The story becomes even more dubious when you further consider the fact that the two men were among the Nabi’s closest Companions and should have known what was banned and what was not.
Stories with so many gaps only serve the purpose of falsifying the evidence that the Nabi allowed mutah. But there is a major eye opener for us because it tells us about faulty our mindset had been. Here is the explanation:
The story of the two desperate men with blankets to pay for sex is in Sahih Bukhari which is a Sunni book. It is therefore strange that we Shias first ridicule this book because it has few ahadith from the masumeen and then we do a U-Turn and use the same book to justify a dubious thing like mutah?
It is like a sect of Protestants first ridiculing the Catholics books and then using the same books to prove that Jesus was the Son of God? I personally don’t think two wrongs make a right and so it does not matter if the narrations of mutah are in both shia and sunni books. Having consistent flaws in both Sunni and Shia books just proves that they both have the same history of forgeries. Our mindset is therefore faulty for us to say that if both sunni and shia books have the same forgeries then we have to accept them as mutawatir (Trusted) and accept them as true!
What I have noticed is that all these flaws in mutah narrations make little impact on those people who insists in defending mutah. They think that if we question mutah then it is sacrilegious. Hence they will defend mutah with artificially generated arguments as their our whole faith depends on defending it. They dismiss the evidences and try to argue in a similar way the Sunnis argue for their law of three ‘talaks.’ Surely, the time to open the locks in both the Sunni and Shia mind has to come. May be the first task of the 12th Imam will be to bring both Sunni and Shia to their senses and make them see how much they have diverted from the true Islam of the Nabi.
One interesting thing is that our marjahs have never told us to follow them blindly or be like mental slaves. Our Marjahs only give informed opinions which can change if a better argument comes forward. This is what makes Shia Islam dynamic and distinct. For example some Marjahs recently forbad us to eat from the hands of Ismailies but then changed their fatwas when presented with better arguments and evidences. Even to unite the Shias on Ashura led the ulema to shift from their original fatwas of following separate horizons. For years Ashuar was commemorated on separate days until changes in fatwas. There are many such examples of how scholars remain dynamic and forward moving. It is us, the people, who want to follow them blindly when they have not asked us to follow them in a zombie type of manner.
In fact history tells that Imam Ali never wanted his Shias to be like slaves. It was Muawiya who bred people to follow him like brain-dead zombies. One day he boosted that his followers were so loyal to him that if he told them that He-Camels are She-Camels then his ‘loyal’ followers will accept it. To this the Shia E Ali said that this is not loyalty: In fact, it was blind obstinacy and sheer stupidity!
PROOF 6 – THE ALTERNATIVE IN THE QURAN
The story of the two men being desperate for sex and the Nabi allowing them to do mutah is actually in contradiction to the Quran. So let’s look at what the Quran says:
In verse 4:25 men in desperation are told to either marry a slave girl by nikkah (aqad) or learn to exercise self control? The verse does not give mutah as an alternative. But one scholar told me that even if mutah is not mentioned in verse 4:25 it is mentioned in verse 4:24. However, this is not true as the word ‘mutah’ does not even exist in verse 4:24 either.
Another scholar told me that it did not matter that mutah is not mentioned as the original wording of the Quran were removed and the missing words were: “If you take on women for pleasure for a limited time then give them their payment as agreed ….”
It is a shame that some ‘scholars’ go to any lengths to justify mutah, even if they have to use narrations from Elm ul Rijal proving that the Quran was changed. I find this type of arguing repugnant and useless. When someone says that the Quran was changed then such a person stops being a scholar in my eyes!
So the question remains: If mutah was accepted in the Quran then why was it not even mentioned anywhere in it? The fact is that even eating pork is mentioned as an alternative to desperation but mutah is not even mentioned as an alternative to desperation. Is this not proof that it is totally unaccepted in the Quran?
PROOF 7 – THE ORIGINAL WORDS IN THE QURAN
What I have discovered about derivations from books – both of the Sunni and Shia brands - is that the derivations are done first from books and then the Quran is used afterwards as a tool to justify what has been derived. And verses are cut and pasted in and out of the Quran to suit the derivations. The Sunni law of pronouncing three divorces is done like this. The Wahabi justification for beating your wife is similarly derived and then matched up with words in the Quran that are quoted out of context. To legalise slavery was done like this for centuries by both the Sunnis and Shias. To make illegitimate children in to second class citizens is still like this in both sects. And mutah is like this also in Shia law. In fact to bring out mutah from the Quran has meant that the original words of the Quran have had to be changed in the Quranic Tafsirs and new words added in it’s place. Let me prove this:
To justify mutah the past scholars first self selected stories from books that justified mutah. They summarily dismissed all those narrations and stories which were against mutah. Then they turned to the Quran to see which verse mentioned mutah. They found nothing! So they changed the words in their tafsirs. This is what happened to verse 4:24. Here is the proof:
In the Quranic verse 4:24 it is written that when the woman you marry ISTIMTATUM (fulfils) her vows then the husbands has to give her AJAR (gifts). But Shia Tafsirs will change the Quranic word ISTIMTATUM in to Mutah and the word AJAR in to Mahar. So the tafsirs will say that if the woman does MUTAH (Temporary Marriage) then give her MAHAR (Payment).
In fact, some extra words like ‘for a limited time’ or ‘seek to do mutah’ or ‘with whom you do mutah’ are often added to the verse in order to deceive us even though none of these words exist in the Quran. It is even claimed in narrations that the original words were removed later by those who were opposed to mutah like the second caliph Umar.
To justify themselves the past scholars said in their tafsirs that it is okay if the word mutah is not in the Quran because they say that we can use Elm Ul Rijal to interchange Quranic words with words found in the books. Elm Ul Rijal means Knowledge of the Chain of Narrations. They say that according to this Elm the word Istimatum in verse 4:24 of the Quran can be swapped with the word Mutah because the Elm says that the Imams have ‘said’ so. Once again the name of the Imams is being misused to justify changing the Quranic words to fit in with the derivations. The past scholars even said that the original tafsir written by Imam Ali had the word Mutah and not the word Istimtatum. They say that when the 12th Imam will come than the original Quran or the original Tafsir will show that the word is Mutah and not Istimatum!
But ask yourself that can a masum Imam like Imam Ali ever change Quranic words in his tafsir!. Furthermore, if God meant Mutah then why did he not use it in the verse? Why did he use the words ISTIMTATUM?
As Shia E Ali we are told by Imam Ali to believe the Quran to be perfect in every word and so why are our scholars interchanging Quranic words in their tafsirs and then blaming it on Imam Ali? Why are they saying that some words like ‘for a limited time,’ have gone missing? And one modern shia scholar of Arabic grammar even tries to justify past mistakes by arguing that the word ‘istimatum’ used in verse 4:24 is the same as the word ‘mutah’ except that the word Mutah is better as it is the 12th root of the word Istimatum. But here are some reasons why he is totally wrong:
1. Istimatum literally means ‘pleasure, comply or fulfil’ but conventionally mutah (according to Elm Ul Rijal) just means ‘Hiring of vaginas’ or ‘temporary marriages.’ Both words mean different things. They are not synonymous. So how can they be interchanged?
2. If you interpret Mutah to also mean ‘pleasure, comply or fulfil’ then it would mean that mutah does not mean ‘temporary marriage.’ Hence what is the point of interchanging the words?
3. Istimatum is a verb but mutah is conventionally used as a noun. Hence the two words cannot be interchanged if you want to use mutah in a conventional sense.
4. If you follow the context of the verse then you see that it is against lust. But mutah is about lust. So the context of mutah is totally against the verse.
5. If Istimatum means ‘temporary marriage’ then it would make several verses of the Quran meaningless as the word Istimtamun is used in other verses also where mutah is not even alluded.
6. The word for marriage in the Quran is AQAD. For the Quran to allow temporary marriage it would have to use the derivation of the word AQAD and not the 12th root of istimatum!
7. There must be a good reason why God left out the word Mutah from the entire Quran. As God has left it out of the Quran it means that mutah, in whatever meaning you want to take, is not in the Quran
PROOF 8 – TO BE A SHIA
Recently, when I asked a renowned TV scholar regarding the evidence against mutah I found myself arguing against a double contradiction. When I said to him that Mutah is not mentioned in the Quran he reacted by saying that even NIKKAH is not mentioned in the Quran. So I told him that the synonym of Nikkah is AQAD which is used many times in the Quran. I told him the laws of the Nikkah are also in the Quran. I also told him that Imam Ali (as) said that to understand the Quran we have to collaborate one verse with other verses, but there was no collaborative verse in the Quran for mutah. Furthermore, there is no synonym of mutah in the Quran. And there is not even one law of mutah in the Quran. So immediately, the scholar made accusation against me and branded me as a non-Shia. His said that as I did not unquestioningly accept what the Marjas said I cannot be a Shia!
So I tried again. I said I cannot accept mutah as none of the Imams did it. So he was perturbed with my words and got agitated. But I still told him that the first identity of a scholar is that he is humble and is willing to accept where he is wrong in his thinking.
But this scholar told me that a marja is never wrong and has to be followed without question. He told me that Imam E Zamana will first kill those who do not blindly follow a marha because none of their namaz and roza will be accepted by Allah. I retorted that such a condition was not in the Quran. So he got more agitated and retorted with the following words:
“Yes Mutah is not in the Quran but Quran is not enough. Those who say that the Quran is enough are like Umar who changed many things in Islam. He was the one who banned mutah and brought Tarawee in to Islam. This is proven by hundreds of Rijali narrations in both Sunni book and Shia books.”
Clearly, the mutah argument was now being turned in to a sectarian issue in order to cloud up the evidence against it. First I was branded as a non shia and now the Quran was branded as ‘not enough.” And when all arguments failed then it all became the fault of Umar who was able to remove mutah in one swoop while the Nabi could never even remove or ban slavery after the whole mission of Islam.
But to deal with this man who claimed to be a scholar I had to take on one issue at a time. So first I asked him that if the Quran is not enough than does it mean it is ‘inadequate!’
That is when he got up and left! He has not spoken to me since. He ran from me which proved that it was not the Quran which was inadequate but it was him and his knowledge and ideas. If the Quran is not enough then what happens to the guidance of Imam Jaffer E Sadik (as) to his true Shias in which he clearly makes the Quran his only yardstick to decide what narrations and stories to accept and which ones to throw away. He said: “If anything contradicts the Quran then throw it away even if they purport it to come from the Ahlul Baith!” Clearly, the Quran was ‘enough’ for the Imam as a yardstick. So why was this so called scholar saying that the Quran is not enough? Not enough for what, and for whom?
What I realised is that this typical type of scholars will say two opposite things to us depending on what suits them. They will first say that we Shias don’t accept anything against the Quran. But when it suits them then they will say that the Quran is not enough.
Many so called scholars also use readymade catch phrases like ‘The Quran is not enough’ only because their derivations are not accepted by the Quran. Hence by using these words they attempt to remove the Quran from the discussion. It is like removing the ultimate forensic evidence from a court case just because it does not suit the culprits!
And this type of scholars will dismiss our Imams just as they are quick to dismiss the Quran. You need to experience this for yourself. Here is what you do:
Ask a scholar who defends mutah that why did Imam Ali Reza (as) refuse his followers to do mutah by saying: “This is for prostitutes and you have no need for it … ?” I guarantee you that a scholar who defends mutah will make a twist in order to dismiss what the Imam said.
Now here is another situation I have experienced. Once when I tried to convince a friend not to do mutah while his dear wife went to visit her mother in Dar he laughed and said: “You don’t do it if you don’t want to!” So I told him that even Jimmy Salive could hide behind silly remarks like: “You don’t do child abuse if you don’t want to.”
So he jumped up and started to argue that if mutah was wrong then he won’t be blamed because the marjas will take the blame. This was a new thing for me! I was now told that that marjas will shoulder the responsibility for another man enjoying sex with sexy ‘White’ girls. So the man gets the enjoyment while the marjas gets the blame. How convenient! And how unfair!
And to throw the blame on marjas is totally against the Quran that warns us that we will be to blame for the actions we took. And furthermore, even the brain-dead Al Qaida terrorist can argue: “We will go to paradise even if we do suicide bombings because our muftis will take the blame!” This is clearly a Zombie type attitude that we Muslims have been learning as part of our religious mentality. Is it not time to question ourselves and our faulty and self-righteous mentalities? Our challenge in the modern world is to take on these Zombies and Bombies mentalities and disenfranchised them out of Islam.
In fact, when you study Shia Islam properly you will see that none of the Marjas want you to blindly follow them. There are many examples in history when marjas have changed their rulings because they got it wrong. To be a marja you need to be refined like this. It is us who insist in making them in to semi-gods. Even Imam Khomeni did not allow blind following. In fact any body who asks for blind following is an oppressor because he stops you to think for yourself. Blind following was taught by Muawiya who was proud that his followers will believe him even if he told them that a He Camel is a She Camel.
What I have discovered is that there are groups of ‘religious’ bigots in every community who will ignore all the evidence and lucid arguments because they think religion is their monopoly. They want Islam tied to their wishes and to their faulty and over emotional ideas. They think that their relationship with God is so close than they can associate their false ideas on Him. So they force their own ideas on us even when their ideas are proven to be against the Quran and against the masumeen. They just misuse the name of the Quran and the masumeen just as the Christian misuse the name of the Bible and of Christ. This kind of people exist in every community. They like to dominate, condemn and complicate issues when they don’t have an answer. And when they fail they revert to personal attacks. They will do everything except change their mindsets and learn to accept that they got it wrong.
The bare truth is that to be a Shia E Ali is not about blindly following marjas but about following marjas in all things except for things which have been proven to be wrong. The Shias of Imam Ali are not closed minded but men and women of high principles, knowledge and refined in their thinking. Let us at least admit that we are a long way off from becoming such people because our whole definition of being Shias is to totally follow a marja even when he is proven to have got things wrong.
MORE SUMMARY PROOFS
Here are some more summary facts against mutah:
1. FACT 1. One most quoted hadith and accepted under Elm Ul Rijal is that if mutah was allowed than only the most wretched will commit adultery. Imam Ali is being accused to having said this! But this hadith ignores that mutah has led to many evils like rape. Take an example: Say a boss rapes his secretary and then claims he did mutah. Is mutah, therefore, not a loophole for rapist like him?
So if a hadith says that if mutah was allowed then only the wretched would commit adultery then what about all the wretched things mutah leads to? Can a true hadith be so blinkered in favour of rapist and against his victims? And what about all the other evils of mutah like increased abortions, directing women into prostitution, lowering standards in relationships, making hija like the clothes of a stripper that is removed on contact etc? Furthermore, if a man does mutah while his wife is sitting at home than is this not encouraging the women to start committing adultery just out of spite?
Fact 2: Another really funny thing in our books to justify mutah is this: God gave us the holy institute of mutah because he forbad us the joys of alcohol! Yes, this is in the books and is clearly a desperate attempt to justify mutah. In fact the scholars who forged this in the books must have been low calibre scholars because they did not know that things are made haram in Islam for a good reason and not because other things are forbidden.
Islamic law is not like a seesaw where if one thing is forbidden then the other is allowed. So what types of mullahs wrote this in our books? And why should we follow their silly ideas about how laws are made in Islam?
FACT 3: One story in our books says that if you do one mutah you will die the death of Imam Hussain and if you did four you will be raised to the level of the Prophet.
Yes this type of things are deliberately written to promote mutah but are these types of things not an insult on the struggles and sacrifices of our Masumeen? If Sunni books had such things than our shia TV channels would bombast how it proves that the Sunnis insult our Imams. But we say nothing when our own books do this. One rule for them and another for us, eh!
Fact 4: The Quran tells us to follow the example of the Nabi, Even Imam Ali followed the example of the Nabi. Yet the Nabi never did mutah. It is also now being accepted that there is no hard evidence that any of the Imams ever did Mutah. If any of the Imams had done mutah then at least one Imam would have been born out of it or would have had a child from it. Why is there no such thing in historical forensics if mutah was acceptable to them? To say that ‘may be they did’ is not an argument but a conjecture. We can not base an argument on conjectures!
In fact, it is being realised that ahadith exist where Imam Ali, Imam Jaffer E Sadik and Imam Ali Reza refused their followers to do mutah. Such hadith are often not mentioned, so that we do not realise that there is an alternative way to think which is more logical and more in line with the Quran and practices of the masumeen.
THE ULTIMATE PROOF – THE FACTS ABOUT MUTAH AT THE TIME OF UMAR
The whole controversy of Mutah started with a man called Amr bin Harith. He made a young slave girl pregnant and then denied it. The incident happened during the time of the second caliph, Umar bin Khattab.
The story is in both Sunni and Shia books. If true it means that Amr bin Harith had kept denying that he had made her pregnant until the girl’s story reached Umar. Umar was having none of it! The story says that Umar soon caught up with the old man who was trying to abscond from Medina.
When Amr saw Umar, he decided to accept what he had done, but shifted the blame. He blamed it on the Prophet saying that the Prophet (and Abu Bakr) had allowed him to do mutah with as many girls and women as he wanted. He also said that when girls are made pregnant than the man has the last say in accepting him to be the father or not! So Umar said: “If you were so sure that the Nabi allowed it to you then why were you lying about what you had done?” There was no answer from Amr bin Harrith.
Being a Companion Amr bin Harith should have displayed high moral excellence and at least should not have lied. But Umar had more questions. He asked: “Why had no such incident happened in the time of the Nabi or Abu Bakr where pregnant girls would come to them and claim that men are denying fatherhood?” Once again Amr bin Harith had no answer.
Umar then dragged Amr to the mosque to see if anybody could verify the claim that the Nabi had allowed men like him to do mutah. Many well known Companions argued that if mutah was allowed by the Nabi and Abu Bakr then there would already been a large number of children born in Medina whose paternity would have been doubted. The Companions further argued that no fornicators would have been flogged in their time because they would all have claimed to have done mutah. Then Umar said: “I had been with the Nabi since Mecca but I have not known of any such cases.”
The story continues and says that when Amr Harith had no answer and so in Umar hard rule of hard justice he was to be flogged. But Amr was an old man and many pleaded with Umar not to flog him. Then after a long hesitation Abdullah ibn Abbas spoke in favour of Amr. In some narrations it is written that when Abduallah ibn Abbas was challenged by other Companions he quickly changed his stance and said that mutah was only allowed by the Nabi in some battles with pagans like in Hunain when they inherited women from the battles.
And in one narration in our shia book it is also clearly stated that to check if Mutah was allowed Umar also went to Imam Ali (as). It is written in our Shia books(4) that Imam Ali said that mutah was totally forbidden. But to explain this our Shia scholars have either written that Imam Ali was telling ‘lies’ to Umar as he was in TAKAYYA, or they dismiss the story and say it is not ‘mutawatir.’
In any case, Umar had enough proof that mutah was not allowed and, therefore, Amr had to be flogged. But Amr was an old man whose close friends and relatives knew he would die if he was to be flogged. So they insisted that Umar should let him go by accepting that Amr genuinely thought it was allowed. Amr himself kept saying that he was convinced that it was allowed. So finally, to give Amr the benefit of the doubt Umar used these words: “The Nabi allowed you mutah but I forbid it to you from now on!” He then threatened to stone anybody who did mutah even if they claimed that the Nabi had allowed it.
So was Umar right to use these words? Did he use these words because he was against the Nabi or did he use these words in the context of the evidence he had. Let us, therefore, look at the evidence that was in front of Umar.
- First, Umar had witnessed that Amr Harith had lied about being the father of an unborn child which means he was untrustworthy in what he said and only said things beneficial for him.
- Umar also saw how the old Amr tried to escape from Medina and not take up the responsibility of the child and the mother.
- Then Amr could not answer some pertinent questions regarding what the Nabi and Abu Bakr had allowed
- Then Abdullah ibn Abbas changed his story
- Furthermore, Umar knew that mutah was not mentioned in the Quran.
- He also knew that the role model of Islam i.e. the Nabi never did mutah.
- He also heard Imam Ali say it was forbidden (even though the Shia ulema dismiss this narration found in Shia books).
- And lastly, he witnessed the plight of the vulnerable young slave girl made pregnant. Islam is not a pagan religion where men exploit vulnerable women by taking advantage of their vulnerability!
Clearly Umar had all the evidence against mutah and his words can, therefore, only be to give Amr the benefit of the doubt so as to avoid him being flogged. Clearly, Umar only spoke these words in the context of all the above evidence he had against mutah.
Today there are scholars who deliberately re-contextualise Umars words in order to attack and claim that Umar’s words were spoken in general terms and prove that he was a hypocrite and had turned against the Nabi. They forget that it was Amr Harith who lied. It was Amr who claimed that the Nabi allowed men to make girls pregnant and then refuse the paternity of the babies.
Today, our fikh on mutah accepts everything Amr bin Harith and his friends claimed. We even accept that a man has the final say in accepting the child of mutah to be his or not. We summarily dismiss all the evidence that was in front of Umar.
Instead we take the words of Umar (“I forbid you what the Nabi allowed you!”) and make it in to a fig leaf to hide our political agenda against him. We refuse to accept that if Umar wanted to turn against the Nabi then he would not use these words blatantly as it would be political suicide for him. Instead, like Amr Harith, he too would tell lies. He would also change his story like Abdullah bin Abbas. He would also do TAKIKIYA! We seem to ignore the fact that if Umar wanted to turn against the Nabi then he would not use these type of words publicly. Instead he would insist that the evidence against mutah proved that the the Nabi never allowed it. We seem to ignore that Umar only used these words in the context of the evidence against him and only after giving Amr Harith the benefit of the doubt so that he can be saved from some hard flogging.
THE ISSUES – CALIPHATE OF IMAM ALI
A historical fact against mutah is that when Imam Ali (as) officially became the forth Caliph he did not legalise mutah. In order to explain why Imam Ali (as) did not legalise mutah during his reign as the forth Caliph our Shia ulema give an excuse that society was not ready for it. They argue that even though mutah remained illegal in the reign of Imam Ali (as) we must think of it as legal in Shia Islam which is based on the name of Imam Ali. In other words, we must go against the official Harram E Ali and still call ourselves Shia E Ali!
Various excuses are given to explain why Imam Ali did not legalise mutah. One is that the people would have turned against him and so he could not risk it. The second is that he was so engaged in wars that he had no time to legalise it. The third is that he only allowed his ‘Shias’ to do it in private but kept it illegal for others.
All these manufactured excuses do not make sense because the fact remains that mutah was illegal in the time of Imam Ali (as). So if he kept it officially illegal then mullahs who came centuries afterwards cannot make it officially legal as it would be going against his rule. To make excuses to legalised mutah is to turn against the governance of Imam Ali.
There is also a contradiction in the claim that society was not ready for mutah to be legalised by Imam Ali. This is because our Shia texts tell us that one man who was Shia E Ali used to do so many private mutahs that he would give each woman a new name and tell his sons not to do mutah with women with those names as they became his ‘temporary mothers.’ So if this type of stories are true than it would mean that in the time of Imam Ali there were many who did mutah which then contradicts the claim that society was not ready for it. We therefore cannot have it both way by first claiming that society was not ready for it and then having stories in our books saying that mutah was common practice in the day of Imam Ali.
Furthermore, the claim that society would have turned against Imam Ali if he had legalised mutah infers that while Umar changed society by disallowing it Imam Ali was unable to reverse it which means he did not have the resoluteness or the audacity of Umar. That would make Imam Ali a weak leader and this is, therefore, an insult on our Imam. Furthermore, to argue that Imam Ali was engaged in war is not relevant as Umar too was engaged in much bigger wars where large empires like Byzantine and Persia were being defeated.
And to say that Imam Ali was too busy (in things like wars) and therefore he did not legalise it means that he was more like a military leader than a political leader. This is totally wrong as he did a lot to define Islamic government. His miracle is that while he was engaged in wars he was able to set up a government second to none in history. This is why even his enemies would refer to his administrative excellence. His justice, his schools, his welfare etc were all brilliant. So to say he had no time to ban mutah is totally silly and another feeble attempt to make an excuse for mutah which was illegal under the governance of Imam Ali.
101 PROOFS AGAINST MUTAH
Please read the full range of proof against mutah on www.truthaboutmutah.angelfire.com
THE HIDDEN
TRUTHS ABOUT
MUTAH
Abid
Bata
1.0
INTRODUCTION
While
the BBC is caught in child sex abuse revelations an Iranian blog claims to
expose another seamy sex scandal: That of a man who ran a mutah sex club from
his upstairs flat. The blog claims
that he enticed street women off the street to his flat and paid them for sex.
First his friends jested at his addiction for sex, but their joking stopped when
it was discovered that in his adventures for sex he had even managed to sleep
with closely related women including mothers and their daughters who had been
forced on the streets due to poverty.
When
arrested the butcher argued that the fault was not in him but in the religious
permission for mutah. He argued that given the nature of mutah it was inevitable
that men who were prowling for sex ended up sleeping with women who circulated
themselves in mutah circles. He said that as nobody knew who was doing mutah
with whom the same women could end up sleeping with sons and fathers just as he
had ended up – by mistake - sleeping with mothers and
daughters.
The
first effect of this sordid story on me was just shock. I just went in to denial
as I did not have it in me to question the inadequacies in our Shia system. How
could the divine system of mutah be so faulty that it can end people up doing
incest? This would prove that mutah is a failure as a social solution for sex
problems. It would prove that all the excuses for mutah were wrong, and so I
rejected the story and the claim that mutah is no
good.
I
kept myself in denial until I heard a new story of how members of the Iranian
parliament had drafted new‘religious’ laws that permitted the opening of 'Sex
Houses.’ In these houses Iranian women who sell sex on the streets would
officially register themselves as‘mutah women’ and sell ‘safe and moral sex’
under the protection of the law. The Western newspapers dubbed these houses
“SHIA BROTHELS” but the burning question in my head was: “Why were these sex
houses being introduced in to Iranian society by men who were not masum?” For me
the whole point of being a Shia was to believe that only a masum can devise laws
and systems, and, therefore, protect Islam from faulty introductions and
derivations. So why were non-masum men manufacturing laws for us which we
thought were divinely ordained? Why was the platform of Shia Islam being used to
legalise sex houses within the Islamic culture?
The
various women’s groups in Iransay that
laws manufactured or derived by men are given the SHIA tag only to make us
blindly accept them. Many top officials in the Iranian government too have been
honest in their concern of how mutah has provided an ideal loophole for sex
crimes. In particular of rape in the family – “Your Honour, I did not rape my
divorced cousin when she was alone: I did mutah with her!” And as in our system
it takes two women to counter the evidence of one man the rapist is never
charged.
A
report commissioned by one woman’s group in Iransaid that runaway girls were often picked up
and coerced in to mutah or raped by landlords in Tehranwho wanted sex as down-payment for rent.
When the girls went to the police the landlords claimed to have ‘Islamically’
done mutah with them. Some of these girls end up pregnant and commit suicide.
Some become mutah prostitutes and give oral sex as this does not need the
waiting period of idda. Many get on to drugs having lost their self respect and
their trust in society and in the system labelled as ‘Islam.’ This is where the
Christian missionaries jump in and try to convert the girls. In fact, Christian
missions operate in all sorts of clandestine places in Iranand see a substantial number of
female converts partly due to the fact that such girls are disenfranchised after
being used and abused under the system labelled as Islamic.
If
you look wider you realise that the many aftermaths of mutah system are global.
Mutah is known to be a tool for men to blackmail women employees in places like
Pakistan where bosses threaten to
fire poor destitute women from their jobs if they did not do it with them or
their business partners. Rich landlords pay off poor fathers to convince their
daughters to give them sex before they are married off. The BBC World Service
ran a story of corrupted ‘Shia’ mullahs who got beaten up by ‘Sunni’ women in
India when they tried to convince
them to do mutah and get their clothes off. In Iran a
famous female newscaster was arrested making porn videos with men she was doing
mutah with. Another Iranian woman did mutah with a hunky footballer and then
got jealous of his wife whom she murdered. The footballer stood nearby looking
gleeful when she was being hanged. In Tanzania mutah has brought VD and HIV
in the Khoja community. In Britaintoo the story of mutah
provides much evidence of it’s bad impact on our people and in particular on our
families. And all this is happening in the name of system that is labelled Shia
Islam.
So
can something which is proves to be so destructive be Islamic? Did Imam Ali (as)
not tell us that to see if something is Halal or Haram then look at the effects
of it? If we follow the principle that Imam Ali taught us then surely mutah
should not be accepted as it brings so much devastations in to our lives.
Just
think of how many Shia men in the UK
are having steamy mutah affairs with all sorts of women while their wives
languish at home. This has created issues of trust and undermined the value of
the marriage institution. Daughters watch their mothers burning while fathers
satiate their low habits by doing mutah. How these daughters react is something
to ponder over as no girl who watches her mother burn up in frustration would
accept to marry in to a system where men freely have affairs while their wives
languish at home in hijabs. The double standard is something that will
eventually eat away our families and our faith.
Indeed,
mutah may have some justifications but it is like alcohol which can also have
some benefits despite the fact that it hooks people and devastates lives.
Furthermore, the justification for mutah is very complicated in our religion
because some of it is based on open blackmail. For example in one of our early
books it is alleged that our Imams have said that the person who does not accept
mutah will go to hell(1). So you can’t even differ or challenge it without the
threat of hell being put on you!
And
if you read the books further you would conclude that Mutah is so highly
regarded in our books that it can even become extrapolated in to our Kalima E
Shahada (“Mutah Halal Ullah!”).
Here is an example:
It
is written in our books that our Imams have said that if a woman does mutah than
the najis water of her Ghusal E Janabat will become so holy that every drop will
be counted in heaven as sawab (2). This level of rank is not even given to the
holy water of Zamzam. Imagine: Our books are giving more rank to the najis
ghusal water of those who do mutah than to the water of Zamzam!
Once
when I asked someone high up in our Shia establishment that why are the names of
our Imams misused to justify and glorify Mutah in our books, he answered that
mutah is an exclusive ‘reward& right’ for Shias because we believe in the
wilaya of Imam Ali! Once again the name of the Imam is used by justify something
that brings so much devastation to people’s lives.
The
man also told me that we as Shias are given this privilege as we are the people
of paradise who get special allowances. He advised me to ignore all the evidence
against mutah as they are all forgeries against ‘Imam E Zamana.’ He told me that
the first people Imam E Zamana will kill are those who reject mutah. Once again
the threat of death and hell is put on anybody who questions things and begins
to think independently.
I
am very uneasy with the logic that I should ignore all the evidences against
mutah. I consider it a ‘human right’ and an ‘Islamic right’ to question, to
explore and to think for myself. I have begun to see Islam as guidance to open
the doors of the minds; not close them! It is upside down when a Muslim tells
another Muslim to close his mind because the Quran appeals to human beings to
think for themselves.
I
can not accept being padlocked up in my head as though I lived in the web of the
medieval era of superstitions and lies being framed in a religious context. Hence, I have written this short
article. I am not only questioning mutah but I am also questioning our mindsets
and our definitions. I know I am going against the comfort zone of most people.
I know that our establishment will be very unhappy with me, but what I have to
say will be an alternative way to think for many who have not had a chance to
think outside the box.
I
pray that this article is food for thought for you. Where you think I am wrong
then please let me know. But please do not make the mistake of dismissing
concrete and substantiated proof against mutah just because it does not ride
well with the personalities you follow or with the way you have been taught to
think. To learn means to question oneself, look at alternative evidence, accept
the facts and then move on. It is such people who bring dynamism to life and
move closer to Allah.
PROOF
1 - THE VALUES OF ISLAM
As
a first proof against mutah consider the moral values of Islam and how mutah
makes a mockery of it. One distinctive symbolic feature that represents Islamic
values is hijab. Why did Hijab come to Islam? Why does a Muslim woman cover
herself even when praying when God created her and gave her all her sexual
charms? What have we been traditionally taught about Hijab? Is Hijab only a fikh
formality that can be removed on contract or does it have deeper social, moral
and personal values that cannot be traded or compromised on
contract?
The
Quran is explicit that the outer covering (Hijab) is less of an issue than the
values it is meant to inculcate. But because we are taught to be so fixated on
fikh rules we end up putting more emphasis on the outer Hijab rather than on the
whole purpose of Hijab. So we get upset if a woman does not wear a headscarf but
we consider it a blessing for her if she agrees to get her clothes off in a
mutah contract. We need to reset our minds and accept that the prime function of
Hijab, as the Quran says, is to develop moral excellence in the woman so that
she ‘knows’herself, and raises herself from her base ego and not compromise her
own self respect.
So
would a woman with refined and high moral excellence ever de-value important
things in her life like relationships and love? Would such a woman ever make
Hijab just a fikh formality as though it had no value for her except for a
contract?
And
what about the icons behind Hijab like Syeda Fatimah (as)? Do these icons have
any real meaning in our lives?Do we follow their example? Remember, they never
removed Hijab on contract nor did they ever do mutah - not even with their own
fiancées!
The
fault is that we have mixed things up and got confused about what Islam is. We
can’t see the difference between moral guidance of Islam and what is derived for
us by extrapolations and interpretations. We don’t realise that we have bypassed
Islamic moral values because we are engrossed by fikh formalities. When we are
confronted with the fact that neither Syeda Fatima nor any other icons of Islam
did mutah then we manufacture excuses. We justify things based on our desires.
We are like those who drink alcohol and always find excuses. We ignore that if
Syeda Fatima did not even do mutah with her fiancé then it means that there was
no room for mutah in her life.
One
thing we are never told is that the reason the marriage of Syeda Fatimah was
ordained in heaven was because a marriage is a divine ordainment in Islam. This
is because relationships tied by marriages have the hand of God in them. The
Quran says that husbands and wives are comfort and peace for each other. Those
who build true and lasting love will also be united in heaven. Their
relationship is valued so highly by Islam.
The
Quran does not define marriages as quick-fix temporary business contracts for
sex. According to the Quran even if you marry a slave girl then it cannot be
temporary but you have to honour her as a life partner. Those who tell us that
mutah is Islamic have brought confusion in to Islam about the moral values of
Islam and about what a marriage relationship means in Islam. Such an Islam is
not the Islam of the Nabi who spent the first ten years of his life in pagan
Mecca to define Islam as a moral force for the world and he never did mutah even
in that pagan society.
Almost
always we Muslims today forget that the life of the Nabi in Meccais the root of Islam that led to the moral state in
Medina. We know
so little about Islam as a moral force and yet we have those dominating people
who think that just because they have read a few fikh books, and have memorised
history from a political and sectarian angles they have mastered Islam inside
out. It is these people who redefined Islam as a religion without a soul which
led us to focus on the outer fikhie rules while totally ignoring the deeper
values of Islam. And it is for this reason that we have devalued the moral
institution of marriage and brought it in to the realm of contracts. We have
done the same with hijab and so we have those women who will remove hijab on
contract and not realise the contradiction they make with the values hijab is
meant to inculcate.
PROOF
2- ‘TARK E AULA’
Here
is another issue against mutah. It is to do with what is called Tark E Aula.
This means that if a masum does not do a mustahabat then it is a wrong. When
Nabi Adam did Tark E Aula then he had to repent for several years and remain
separated from his beloved wife as punishment. (Interestingly, Allah did not
provide him with any body to do mutah with while he was separated from his wife.
Poor Adam!).
So
ask yourself that if mutah was so good then why did the masum women like Syeda
Fatimah, Bibi Mariam, Syeda Asiya, Syeda Khadija or Syeda Zainab never do it as
otherwise it would be Tark E Aula.
In
fact the Nabi Muhammad never did it either. And there is no forensics that any
Imam did it as there are no mentions of any of them being born of it nor having
any children from it. There are fourteen masumeens and none of them was born of
it nor had a single child out of it. It is strange that not one Imam was born of
mutah despite our fikh claiming it to be ‘sawab’ to do it. Surely if Mutah was
so good then our Imams should have led by example and at least produced one
child from it. This fact alone is enough to discredit mutah and untie it from
Shia Islam.
Once
when I presented this forensic that not one masum did mutah then a mullah told
me that Ibn Zubair was born of mutah. But Ibn Zubair was not born from a masum
parent. In fact he was an enemy of the Ahlul Baith. So why are we given examples
of pagan practices that existed within Muslim when the issue of Tark e Aula is
relevant to a masum who should never forgo a good deed? Example of Ibn Zubair is
irrelevant to the discussion on Tark E Aula which means that a masum cannot
forgo a good act while we know that none of the masum is recorded to have ever
done mutah.
PROOF
3 – THE ORIGINS OF MUTAH
Another
thing that is not highlighted to us is the fact that mutah was a pagan (Jahil)
invention. The Arab men before Islam invented Mutah to use and discard women as
though they had hired a donkey to ride for a few days or a few hours or a few
minutes. Such was mutah among the Arabs that respectable widows were taken in to
sex mutahs by creditors to settle the debts of their dead husbands. These Arabs
treated women like objects and so it was natural for them to invent mutah. The
proof of pagans taking widows in mutah is this:
“It
is related that Zubair used to do many mutahs before he became Muslim and after
conversion he once remarked that when the Nabi passes away then he will take his
widows in mutah in order to have sex with them. Thereafter, a verse was revealed
forbidden the wives of the Nabi to be taken in marriages and declaring them as
mothers of the believers.”
This
narration needs a good analysis but it adds proof that those Muslim who still
had pagan mentalities used to wait for a man to die so that they could do mutah
with his widows. In this case Zubair was waiting for the Nabi to pass away! How
sad that our mullahs give his example to us to follow while claiming that they
want us to follow in the footsteps of the Ahlul
Baith!
If
Islam did allow Mutah then it will be inevitable for men LIKE Zubair in our
community to wait for another man to die so that his widow becomes available
goods! How bankrupt the Muslim ethics would be if mutah had been widely accepted
in our Islamic culture and male psyche?
And
yet today we have those‘intellectuals’ who have taken on a religious garb and
who try to justify mutah by saying that Islam borrowed some of the pagan things
to make it complete. They deliberately miss the point that the reason the pagans
did mutah was because they defined women as commodities. In Islam to treat women
like a commodity is a sin and an insult. Women, according to the Quran, are
soul-mates of men and so to insult or denigrate them is to denigrate men too.
Furthermore, Islam does not become complete by borrowing anything from pagans.
The idea that pagan things like hiring a woman under mutah can become part of
Islam proves that past scholars created a rational to mix Islam with the pagan
past. As a result Islam became tied up to the dirt of pagan values. This is why
there are so many contradictions in the Islam that was written after the Nabi.
Both Sunni and Shia Islam have suffered from this even though both sects refuse
to admit to it.
To
further prove that Islam has been mixed up with pagan ideas just consider
slavery. It is an evil which the Quran tries to curb. The only reason the Nabi
tolerated it was because it was systemic and unrealistic to totally ban it. And
just because the Nabi could not ban it does not mean it was endorsed by him. The
Nabi himself never kept slaves despite the fact that it was rampant in those
days. He told his Companions to free as many slaves as they could. He defined
the rights of slaves who were not freed. He even raised them to the status of
Muztazafeens (oppressed). Yet the Arab slave traders who came after the Nabi
managed to keep slavery booming in Muslim society for centuries. The way they
managed to do this was to tie Islam to paganism which had created slavery in the
first place.
And
the sad reality is that while the rest of the world progressed to abolish
slavery it was the Muslim merchants and rulers who refused to ban it. In fact when the British East
India company took over
India the Mugal kings and princes
were using Islam to keep alive the culture of slaves and concubines. They came
up with phrases like: ‘Nobody can make Harram what is Halal E Muhammadi.’ With
ideas like this our Muslim societies did not ban slavery until 1962 when the
British forced a ban on us - some two centuries after abolishment happened in
Christian Europe.
How
bad it is that when the Nabi Muhammad achieved so much in freeing slaves it took
the commitment of Christian Europe to bring slavery to an end in the Muslim
world. May be we will keep justifying mutah in a similar way until others teach
us how wrong it is. We will do this despite knowing that the Nabi never did
mutah just as he never kept slaves even in a society were both slavery and mutah
were systemic.
PROOF
4 – PARADISE UNDER WHOSE FEET
We
all know that Islam says that women have to raise their moral excellence to a
level where paradise lies under their feet. But what kind of moral excellence is
there in women who foolishly agree to contract their bodies for sex
contracts?
The
kind of women who contract mutah are the ones you can see naked one minute and
then when the mutah is over they put their clothes on like any cheap stripper
who gets her pants off on a minute by minute basis on contract; who are mixed up
between the high values of Islam and low slut values of fallen women; who make
their hijab a contract with men rather than a protective covering for control of
the ego and for spiritual and psychological growth; who even think it is okay to
sleep with someone else’s husbands on contract and have no self conscience or
guilt for it - but who don’t like it when some other woman sleeps with their
husbands; who have learnt to switch on or off their love; who are used up, lost
and cheap; and who have accumulated so much dirt in their lives that even a
hundred Ghusals of mutah will not clean them.
What
moral fabrics can such lost females give to an Islamic society when they have
allowed their own lives to be filled with dirt, confusion, skeletons and
contradictions! And in a group of cheap mutah women there are always those who
have had abortions as a direct aftermath of the quick-fix mutah culture. But why
are our ulema ignoring all this? Why are they using the name of the Ahlul Baith
to accommodate such things when Imam Ali told us that to see if something is
evil just look at the aftermaths?
But
there is light! One amazing thing that happens in society is that God makes his
light shine in the most dark regions and period of history. And so he raised a
man in the most unexpected place to open our eyes to society’s hypocritical and
confused standards. He was Malcom X. He pulled himself away from a corrupted
society where sex was packaged like an achievement, a game, a contract or just a
quick fix. He told Americato transform itself by
learning from the Islam of the Nabi Muhammad. In particular, he told the
deceived and morally lost Black women to turn to Islam to gain guidance for
their daughters and regain their own self worth. He said that the failure of
American Black society was largely due to the moral denigration of it’s women by
Black men who had lost their own moral compass. He told men to value the love
women give and not to devalue it as a quick fix. He understood the power of true
love in the lives of men and women. He knew the strength society gets from
building moral excellence. He was one man who managed to speak aloud for lasting
relationships, stability of the hearts and inculcation of true and lasting love
among men and women. He tried to wake up 20th Century America to a
new age of moral guidance - Exactly what the Nabi Muhammad (as) achieved in
Medina in the
6th Century.
Today
our Islam is not like that of the Nabi. We have nothing for the modern world
because our own standards are confused. We just legalise things which we want
and pretend that there are no moral implications on us. Often non-Muslims like
Hindus and Sikhs have more strong values than we do. Their attitude towards
women and towards sex is something much healthier than ours. And part of the
fault is that we are systemically taught to follow ‘derived’ Islam like parrots.
If we continue to follow Islam like this then, I think, we will end up losing
Islam altogether and we will die as docile and closed minded as when we have
been alive.
PROOF
5 – WOMAN HAVE LOW IN INTELLIGENCE
Now
here is one of the worst paradoxes in our version of Shia Islam. In all our
books it is written that women are ‘Nakis E Akal’ or Faulty in Intelligence. It
is written in prominent books and proven by the religious science of ‘Elm ul
Rijal’ that Imam Ali said that women are snakes and scorpions. Since this is
mutawatir (trusted) and Rijali (proven chain) our scholars of the past have not
rejected it even though today’s scholars are embarrassed by it and so are trying
to re-contextualise it in order to make it respectable. In fact, for generations
the scholars of the past have used this to say that a woman can never be a
judge in Islamic society as she will end up making ‘emotional’ decisions. The
Sunnis have gone one step further in putting down women by saying that most of
those who enter hell will be women.
So
since it is etched in both our Shia and Sunni books that women are faulty
in intelligence and cannot be trusted in making correct decisions then why do
our fikh makers allow secret sex contracts with her when her Faulty
Intelligence makes her susceptible to mistakes and wrong decision? Surely, a
faulty person – like a woman - can not decide by herself to do mutah without
the risk of being seduced, used and exploited. Is it, therefore, not too
convenient for ‘intelligent’ male species that no witnesses are needed to agree
to having sex with low intelligent species i.e.
females!
Furthermore,
our original fikh laws also say that if a woman gets pregnant in mutah then only
the man’s word will be accepted that it is his child or not. The woman who is
pregnant by mutah does not have a say once the man is rejected the child to be
his.
When
I wrote to an office of a scholar asking why was the man’s word final to accept
or deny that a mutah child was his or not the office finally replied to me that
it stopped men from being blackmailed. Here again our so called Islamic laws of
the past prove to be written for the convenience of men and at the expense of
vulnerable women. Needless to say that this unfair laws have been knocked out by
the science of modern genetic fingerprinting!
Once
again our laws like this prove to be more pagan than Islamic. In fact, even when
you analyse the notion that God made women ‘Nakis’ then you realise that it goes
totally against the justice of God, which means that on one hand we claim to
believe that God is Just (part of Usool e Din) while on the other hand we make
God unjust by saying that he made women as Nakis! We have to only see this
contradiction between Usool and Fikh for us to see how much is amiss in our
definition of Islam.
PROOF
7 – SUNNI BOOKS OF NARRATIONS
Instead
of accepting the evidence against mutah our Shia scholars have dug deeper
trenches to justify mutah. One evidence they often quote to ‘prove’ mutah is
from the Sunni books called Sahih Bukhari. These volume of books were written
some 150 years after the Nabi and
one ‘sahee’ narration in them says that two Muslims men got desperate for
sex while travelling through the desert with the Nabi. They came crying to the
Nabi asking permission to castrate themselves as they had not had sex for over
six days!!! The story says that the Nabi laughed at them and told them to do
mutah.
The
story continues and says that the two men rushed in to the desert and soon found
a lone woman. They described her as a ‘beautiful slender woman.’ So having
‘checked her out’ the two men offered her a blanket each for sex. The woman
accepted the younger man and had full blown sex with him. The poor old man stood
by but did not get anything!
Needless
to say, our Shia scholars accept this Sunni story on face-value because it works
conveniently to justify mutah. They agree with the story because it is rijali
and fits in with what shia books say. But let us do some of our own scientific
testing on it to see how valid it is.
Firstly,
we are supposed to accept that a woman happened to be sitting alone in the vast
desert and was ready for mutah. How likely is this? Clearly, the story begins to
fall apart at this first hurdle!
But
even if out of coincidence such a woman was sitting alone somewhere in the vast
desert then how was it possible to locate her as the desert does not have any
sign boards pointing to a woman sitting alone ready for sex! O
sorry, may be the two men had a Mutah GPS tracking system (Miss Tom Tom!) to locate her!
Then,
did she give sex only because she was frightened of the two men as she was all
alone? May be our scholars can derive that if a gang of Shia men saw a
‘beautiful slender woman’ sitting alone on a park bench then it is okay to try
to convince her for sex (a form of sexual coercion or harassment) and promise to
give her a blanket afterwards
(which
makes it prostitution no matter how much the scholars deny
it!).
Then
did they ask her if she was married? Then did she get pregnant? Then did the men
check if her mother too sold sex in case their fathers had done it with her and
the woman turned out to be their sister? ….
Then
what about the old man: How did he relieve his desperation when he was ready to
castrate himself? Was there no easier solution for him rather than spend his
time running around the desert in frustration! As Islam is a universal religion
what solution was there for him? Why does the story not consider his sexual
plight?
Clearly
the story is too hollow for it to be taken seriously. Often only fake and
fabricated stories are inadequate and faulty like this.
And
there is another major flaw in this story. The flaw is crystal clear when you
consider the fact that these two men brought themselves to the point of
desperation. They were even ready to castrate themselves. So why would they have
brought themselves to this state if mutah was never banned? The main question
is: “Why did they think it was banned?”
And
since they did bring themselves to desperation then it would mean that the Nabi
had failed in his duty to clarify to lonely Companions in the desert that mutah
was allowed. Normally, a good leader who marches his men in to the desert tells
them how to avoid getting in to desperation for anything. The story becomes even
more dubious when you further consider the fact that the two men were among the
Nabi’s closest Companions and should have known what was banned and what was
not.
Stories
with so many gaps only serve the purpose of falsifying the evidence that the
Nabi allowed mutah. But there is a major eye opener for us because it tells us
about faulty our mindset had been. Here is the
explanation:
The
story of the two desperate men with blankets to pay for sex is in Sahih Bukhari
which is a Sunni book. It is therefore strange that we Shias
first ridicule this book because it has few ahadith from the masumeen and then
we do a U-Turn and use the same book to justify a dubious thing like
mutah?
It
is like a sect of Protestants first ridiculing the Catholics books and then
using the same books to prove that Jesus was the Son of God? I personally don’t
think two wrongs make a right and so it does not matter if the narrations of
mutah are in both shia and sunni books. Having consistent flaws in both Sunni
and Shia books just proves that they both have the same history of forgeries.
Our mindset is therefore faulty for us to say that if both sunni and shia books
have the same forgeries then we have to accept them as mutawatir (Trusted) and
accept them as true!
What
I have noticed is that all these flaws in mutah narrations
make little impact on those people who insists in defending mutah. They
think that if we question mutah then it is sacrilegious. Hence they will defend
mutah with artificially generated arguments as their our whole faith depends on
defending it. They dismiss the evidences and try to argue in a similar way the
Sunnis argue for their law of three ‘talaks.’ Surely, the time to open the locks
in both the Sunni and Shia mind has to come. May be the first task of the
12thImam will be to bring both Sunni and Shia to their senses and
make them see how much they have diverted from the true Islam of the
Nabi.
One
interesting thing is that our marjahs have never told us to follow them blindly
or be like mental slaves. Our Marjahs only give informed opinions which can
change if a better argument comes forward. This is what makes Shia Islam dynamic
and distinct. For example some Marjahs recently forbad us to eat from the hands
of Ismailies but then changed their fatwas when presented with better arguments
and evidences. Even to unite the Shias on Ashura led the ulema to shift from
their original fatwas of following separate horizons. For years Ashuar was
commemorated on separate days until changes in fatwas. There are many such
examples of how scholars remain dynamic and forward moving. It is us, the
people, who want to follow them blindly when they have not asked us to follow
them in a zombie type of manner.
In
fact history tells that Imam Ali never wanted his Shias to be like slaves. It
was Muawiya who bred people to follow him like brain-dead zombies. One day he
boosted that his followers were so loyal to him that if he told them that
He-Camels are She-Camels then his ‘loyal’ followers will accept it. To this the
Shia E Ali said that this is not loyalty: In fact, it was blind obstinacy and
sheer stupidity!
PROOF
6 – THE ALTERNATIVE IN THE QURAN
The
story of the two men being desperate for sex and the Nabi allowing them to do
mutah is actually in contradiction to the Quran. So let’s look at what the Quran
says:
In
verse 4:25 men in
desperation are told to either marry a slave girl by nikkah (aqad) or learn to
exercise self control? The verse does not give mutah as an alternative. But one
scholar told me that even if mutah is not mentioned in verse 4:25it is mentioned in verse 4:24. However, this is not true as the word
‘mutah’ does not even exist in verse 4:24 either.
Another
scholar told me that it did not matter that mutah is not mentioned as the
original wording of the Quran were removed and the missing words were: “If you
take on women for pleasure for a limited time then give them their payment as
agreed ….”
It
is a shame that some ‘scholars’go to any lengths to justify mutah, even if they
have to use narrations from Elm ul Rijal proving that the Quran was changed. I
find this type of arguing repugnant and useless. When someone says that the
Quran was changed then such a person stops being a scholar in my
eyes!
So
the question remains: If mutah was accepted in the Quran then why was it not
even mentioned anywhere in it? The fact is that even eating pork is mentioned as
an alternative to desperation but mutah is not even mentioned as an alternative
to desperation. Is this not proof that it is totally unaccepted in the
Quran?
PROOF
7 – THE ORIGINAL WORDS IN THE QURAN
What
I have discovered about derivations from books – both of the Sunni and Shia
brands - is that the derivations
are done first from books and then the Quran is used afterwards as a tool to
justify what has been derived. And verses are cut and pasted in and out of the
Quran to suit the derivations. The Sunni law of pronouncing three divorces is
done like this. The Wahabi justification for beating your wife is similarly
derived and then matched up with words in the Quran that are quoted out of
context. To legalise slavery was done like this for centuries by both the
Sunnis and Shias. To make illegitimate children in to second class citizens is
still like this in both sects. And mutah is like this also in Shia law. In fact
to bring out mutah from the Quran has meant that the original words of the Quran
have had to be changed in the Quranic Tafsirs and new words added in it’s
place. Let me prove this:
To
justify mutah the past scholars first self selected stories from books that
justified mutah. They summarily dismissed all those narrations and stories which
were against mutah. Then they turned to the Quran to see which verse mentioned
mutah. They found nothing! So they changed the words in their tafsirs. This is
what happened to verse 4:24.
Here is the proof:
In
the Quranic verse 4:24 it is written that when the woman you marry ISTIMTATUM
(fulfils) her vows then the husbands has to give her AJAR (gifts). But Shia
Tafsirs will change the Quranic word ISTIMTATUM in to Mutah and the word AJAR in
to Mahar. So the tafsirs will say that if the woman does MUTAH (Temporary
Marriage) then give her MAHAR (Payment).
In
fact, some extra words like ‘for a limited time’ or ‘seek to do mutah’ or ‘with
whom you do mutah’ are often added to the verse in order to deceive us even
though none of these words exist in the Quran. It is even claimed in narrations
that the original words were removed later by those who were opposed to mutah
like the second caliph Umar.
To
justify themselves the past scholars said in their tafsirs that it is okay if
the word mutah is not in the Quran because they say that we can use Elm Ul
Rijal to interchange Quranic words with words found in the books. Elm Ul
Rijal means Knowledge of the Chain of Narrations. They say that according to
this Elm the word Istimatum in verse 4:24 of the Quran can be swapped with the
word Mutah because the Elm says that the Imams have ‘said’ so. Once again the
name of the Imams is being misused to justify changing the Quranic words to fit
in with the derivations. The past scholars even said that the original tafsir
written by Imam Ali had the word Mutah and not the word Istimtatum. They say
that when the 12th Imam will come than the original Quran or the
original Tafsir will show that the word is Mutah and not
Istimatum!
But
ask yourself that can a masum Imam like Imam Ali ever change Quranic words in
his tafsir!. Furthermore, if God meant Mutah then why did he not use it in the
verse? Why did he use the words ISTIMTATUM?
As
Shia E Ali we are told by Imam Ali to believe the Quran to be perfect in every
word and so why are our scholars interchanging Quranic words in their tafsirs
and then blaming it on Imam Ali? Why are they saying that some words like ‘for a
limited time,’ have gone missing? And one modern shia scholar of Arabic grammar
even tries to justify past mistakes by arguing that the word‘istimatum’ used in verse
4:24 is the same as the word ‘mutah’ except that the word Mutah is better as it
is the 12th root of the word Istimatum. But here are some reasons why
he is totally wrong:
1.
Istimatum literally means‘pleasure, comply or fulfil’ but conventionally mutah
(according to Elm Ul Rijal) just means ‘Hiring of vaginas’ or‘temporary
marriages.’ Both words mean
different things. They are not synonymous. So how can they be
interchanged?
2.
If you interpret Mutah to also mean ‘pleasure, comply or fulfil’ then it would
mean that mutah does not mean ‘temporary marriage.’ Hence what is the point of
interchanging the words?
3.
Istimatum is a verb but mutah is conventionally used as a noun. Hence the two
words cannot be interchanged if you want to use mutah in a conventional
sense.
4.
If you follow the context of the verse then you see that it is against lust. But
mutah is about lust. So the context of mutah is totally against the
verse.
5.
If Istimatum means ‘temporary marriage’ then it would make several verses of the
Quran meaningless as the word Istimtamun is used in other verses also where
mutah is not even alluded.
6.
The word for marriage in the Quran is AQAD. For the Quran to allow temporary
marriage it would have to use the derivation of the word AQAD and not the
12th root of istimatum!
7. There must be a
good reason why God left out the word Mutah from the entire Quran. As God has
left it out of the Quran it means that mutah, in whatever meaning you want to
take, is not in the Quran
PROOF
8 – TO BE A SHIA
Recently,
when I asked a renowned TV scholar regarding the evidence against mutah I found
myself arguing against a double contradiction. When I said to him that Mutah is
not mentioned in the Quran he reacted by saying that even NIKKAH is not
mentioned in the Quran. So I told him that the synonym of Nikkah is AQAD which
is used many times in the Quran. I told him the laws of the Nikkah are also in
the Quran. I also told him that Imam Ali (as) said that to understand the Quran
we have to collaborate one verse with other verses, but there was no
collaborative verse in the Quran for mutah. Furthermore, there is no synonym of
mutah in the Quran. And there is not even one law of mutah in the Quran. So
immediately, the scholar made accusation against me and branded me as a
non-Shia. His said that as I did not unquestioningly accept what the Marjas said
I cannot be a Shia!
So
I tried again. I said I cannot accept mutah as none of the Imams did it. So he
was perturbed with my words and got agitated. But I still told him that the
first identity of a scholar is that he is humble and is willing to accept where
he is wrong in his thinking.
But
this scholar told me that a marja is never wrong and has to be followed without
question. He told me that Imam E Zamana will first kill those who do not blindly
follow a marha because none of their namaz and roza will be accepted by Allah. I
retorted that such a condition was not in the Quran. So he got more agitated and
retorted with the following words:
“Yes Mutah is not in the Quran but Quran
is not enough. Those who say that the Quran is enough are like Umar who changed
many things in Islam. He was the one who banned mutah and brought Tarawee in to
Islam. This is proven by hundreds of Rijali narrations in both Sunni book and
Shia books.”
Clearly,
the mutah argument was now being turned in to a sectarian issue in order to
cloud up the evidence against it. First I was branded as a non shia and now the
Quran was branded as ‘not enough.” And when all arguments failed then it all
became the fault of Umar who was able to remove mutah in one swoop while the
Nabi could never even remove or ban slavery after the whole mission of
Islam.
But
to deal with this man who claimed to be a scholar I had to take on one issue at
a time. So first I asked him that
if the Quran is not enough than does it mean it is ‘inadequate!’
That
is when he got up and left! He has not spoken to me since. He ran from me which
proved that it was not the Quran which was inadequate but it was him and his
knowledge and ideas. If the Quran is not enough then what happens to the
guidance of Imam Jaffer E Sadik (as) to his true Shias in which he clearly makes
the Quran his onlyyardstick to decide what narrations and stories to
accept and which ones to throw away. He said: “If anything contradicts the
Quran then throw it away even if they purport it to come from the Ahlul Baith!”
Clearly, the Quran was ‘enough’ for the Imam as a yardstick. So why was this so
called scholar saying that the Quran is not enough? Not enough for what, and for
whom?
What
I realised is that this typical type of scholars will say two opposite things to
us depending on what suits them. They will first say that we Shias don’t accept
anything against the Quran. But when it suits them then they will say that the
Quran is not enough.
Many
so called scholars also use readymade catch phrases like ‘The Quran is not
enough’ only because their derivations are not accepted by the Quran. Hence by
using these words they attempt
to remove the Quran from the
discussion. It is like removing the ultimate forensic evidence from a court case
just because it does not suit the culprits!
And
this type of scholars will dismiss our Imams just as they are quick to dismiss
the Quran. You need to experience this for yourself. Here is what you
do:
Ask
a scholar who defends mutah that why did Imam Ali Reza (as) refuse his followers
to do mutah by saying:“This is for prostitutes and you have no need for it … ?”
I guarantee you that a scholar who defends mutah will make a twist in order to
dismiss what the Imam said.
Now
here is another situation I have experienced. Once when I tried to convince a
friend not to do mutah while his dear wife went to visit her mother in Dar he
laughed and said: “You don’t do it if you don’t want to!” So I told him that
even Jimmy Salive could hide behind silly remarks like: “You don’t do child abuse if you don’t want to.”
So
he jumped up and started to argue that if mutah was wrong then he won’t be
blamed because the marjas will take the blame. This was a new thing for me! I
was now told that that marjas will shoulder the responsibility for another man
enjoying sex with sexy ‘White’girls. So the man gets the enjoyment while the
marjas gets the blame. How convenient! And how unfair!
And
to throw the blame on marjas is totally against the Quran that warns us that we
will be to blame for the actions we took. And furthermore, even the brain-dead
Al Qaida terrorist can argue: “We will go to paradise even if we do suicide
bombings because our muftis will take the blame!” This is clearly a Zombie type
attitude that we Muslims have been learning as part of our religious mentality.
Is it not time to question ourselves and our faulty and self-righteous
mentalities? Our challenge in the modern world is to take on these
Zombies and Bombies mentalities and disenfranchised them out of Islam.
In
fact, when you study Shia Islam properly you will see that none of the Marjas
want you to blindly follow them. There are many examples in history when marjas
have changed their rulings because they got it wrong. To be a marja you need to
be refined like this. It is us who insist in making them in to semi-gods. Even
Imam Khomeni did not allow blind following. In fact any body who asks for blind
following is an oppressor because he stops you to think for yourself. Blind
following was taught by Muawiya who was proud that his followers will believe
him even if he told them that a He Camel is a She Camel.
What
I have discovered is that there are groups of ‘religious’ bigots in every
community who will ignore all the evidence and lucid arguments because they
think religion is their monopoly. They want Islam tied to their wishes and to
their faulty and over emotional ideas. They think that their relationship with
God is so close than they can associate their false ideas on Him. So they force
their own ideas on us even when their ideas are proven to be against the Quran
and against the masumeen. They just misuse the name of the Quran and the
masumeen just as the Christian misuse the name of the Bible and of Christ. This
kind of people exist in every community. They like to dominate, condemn and
complicate issues when they don’t have an answer. And when they fail they revert
to personal attacks. They will do everything except change their mindsets and
learn to accept that they got it wrong.
The
bare truth is that to be a Shia E Ali is not about blindly following marjas but
about following marjas in all things except for things which have been proven to
be wrong. The Shias of Imam Ali are not closed minded but men and women of high
principles, knowledge and refined in their thinking. Let us at least admit that
we are a long way off from becoming such people because our whole definition of
being Shias is to totally follow a marja even when he is proven to have got
things wrong.
MORE
SUMMARY PROOFS
Here
are some more summary facts against mutah:
1.
FACT 1.
One most quoted hadith and
accepted under Elm Ul Rijal is that if mutah was allowed than only the most
wretched will commit adultery. Imam Ali is being accused to having said this!
But this hadith ignores that mutah has led to many evils like rape. Take an
example: Say a boss rapes his
secretary and then claims he did mutah. Is mutah, therefore, not a loophole for
rapist like him?
So
if a hadith says that if mutah was allowed then only the wretched would commit
adultery then what about all the wretched things mutah leads to? Can a true
hadith be so blinkered in favour of rapist and against his victims? And what
about all the other evils of mutah like increased abortions, directing women
into prostitution, lowering standards in relationships, making hija like the
clothes of a stripper that is removed on contact etc? Furthermore, if a man does
mutah while his wife is sitting at home than is this not encouraging the women
to start committing adultery just out of spite?
Fact
2: Another really funny thing in our books
to justify mutah is this: God gave us the holy institute of mutah because he
forbad us the joys of alcohol! Yes, this is in the books and is clearly a
desperate attempt to justify mutah. In fact the scholars who forged this in the
books must have been low calibre scholars because they did not know that things
are made haram in Islam for a good reason and not because other things are
forbidden.
Islamic
law is not like a seesaw where if one thing is forbidden then the other is
allowed. So what types of mullahs wrote this in our books? And why should we
follow their silly ideas about how laws are made in
Islam?
FACT
3: One
story in our books says that if you do one mutah you will die the death of Imam
Hussain and if you did four you will be raised to the level of the Prophet.
Yes
this type of things are deliberately written to promote mutah but are these
types of things not an insult on the struggles and sacrifices of our Masumeen?
If Sunni books had such things
than our shia TV channels would bombast how it proves that the Sunnis insult our
Imams. But we say nothing when our own books do this. One rule for them and
another for us, eh!
Fact
4: The Quran tells us to follow the example
of the Nabi, Even Imam Ali followed the example of the Nabi. Yet the Nabi never
did mutah. It is also now being accepted that there is no hard evidence that any
of the Imams ever did Mutah. If any of the Imams had done mutah then at least
one Imam would have been born out of it or would have had a child from it. Why
is there no such thing in historical forensics if mutah was acceptable to them?
To say that ‘may be they did’ is
not an argument but a conjecture. We can not base an argument on
conjectures!
In fact, it is being realised that
ahadith exist where Imam Ali, Imam Jaffer E Sadik and Imam Ali Reza refused
their followers to do mutah. Such hadith are often not mentioned, so that we do
not realise that there is an alternative way to think which is more logical and
more in line with the Quran and practices of the
masumeen.
THE
ULTIMATE PROOF – THE FACTS ABOUT MUTAH AT THE TIME OF
UMAR
The
whole controversy of Mutah started with a man called Amr bin Harith. He made a
young slave girl pregnant and then denied it. The incident happened during the
time of the second caliph, Umar bin Khattab.
The
story is in both Sunni and Shia books. If true it means that Amr bin Harith had
kept denying that he had made her pregnant until the girl’s story reached Umar.
Umar was having none of it! The story says that Umar soon caught up with the old
man who was trying to abscond from Medina.
When
Amr saw Umar, he decided to accept what he had done, but shifted the blame. He
blamed it on the Prophet saying that the Prophet (and Abu Bakr) had allowed him
to do mutah with as many girls and women as he wanted. He also said that when
girls are made pregnant than the man has the last say in accepting him to be the
father or not! So Umar said: “If you were so sure that the Nabi allowed it to
you then why were you lying about what you had done?” There was no answer from
Amr bin Harrith.
Being
a Companion Amr bin Harith should have displayed high moral excellence and at
least should not have lied. But Umar had more questions. He asked: “Why had no
such incident happened in the time of the Nabi or Abu Bakr where pregnant girls
would come to them and claim that men are denying fatherhood?” Once again Amr
bin Harith had no answer.
Umar
then dragged Amr to the mosque to see if anybody could verify the claim that the
Nabi had allowed men like him to do mutah. Many well known Companions argued
that if mutah was allowed by the Nabi and Abu Bakr then there would already been
a large number of children born in Medinawhose paternity would have been doubted.
The Companions further argued that no fornicators would have been flogged in
their time because they would all have claimed to have done mutah. Then Umar
said: “I had been with the Nabi since Mecca but I have not known of any such
cases.”
The
story continues and says that when Amr Harith had no answer and so in Umar hard
rule of hard justice he was to be flogged. But Amr was an old man and many
pleaded with Umar not to flog him. Then after a long hesitation Abdullah ibn
Abbas spoke in favour of Amr. In some narrations it is written that when
Abduallah ibn Abbas was challenged by other Companions he quickly changed
his stance and said that mutah was only allowed by the Nabi in some battles with
pagans like in Hunain when they inherited women from the
battles.
And
in one narration in our shia book it is also clearly stated that to check if
Mutah was allowed Umar also went to Imam Ali (as). It is written in our Shia
books(4) that Imam Ali said that mutah was totally forbidden. But to explain
this our Shia scholars have either written that Imam Ali was telling ‘lies’ to
Umar as he was in TAKAYYA, or they dismiss the story and say it is not
‘mutawatir.’
In
any case, Umar had enough proof that mutah was not allowed and, therefore, Amr
had to be flogged. But Amr was an old man whose close friends and relatives knew
he would die if he was to be flogged. So they insisted that Umar should let him
go by accepting that Amr genuinely thought it was allowed. Amr himself kept
saying that he was convinced that it was allowed. So finally, to give Amr the
benefit of the doubt Umar used these words: “The Nabi allowed you mutah but I
forbid it to you from now on!” He then threatened to stone anybody who did mutah
even if they claimed that the Nabi had allowed it.
So
was Umar right to use these words? Did he use these words because he was against
the Nabi or did he use these words in the context of the evidence he had. Let
us, therefore, look at the evidence that was in front of
Umar.
- First,
Umar had witnessed that Amr Harith
had lied about being the father of an unborn child which means he was
untrustworthy in what he said and only said things beneficial for him.
- Umar
also saw how the old Amr tried to escape from Medina and not take up the responsibility
of the child and the mother. - Then
Amr could not answer some pertinent questions regarding what the Nabi and
Abu Bakr had allowed - Then
Abdullah ibn Abbas changed his story - Furthermore,
Umar knew that mutah was not mentioned in the Quran.
- He
also knew that the role model of Islam i.e. the Nabi never did mutah.
- He
also heard Imam Ali say it was forbidden (even though the Shia ulema dismiss
this narration found in Shia books). - And
lastly, he witnessed the plight of the vulnerable young slave girl made
pregnant. Islam is not a pagan
religion where men exploit vulnerable women by taking advantage of their
vulnerability!
Clearly
Umar had all the evidence against mutah and his words can, therefore, only be to
give Amr the benefit of the doubt so as to avoid him being flogged. Clearly,
Umar only spoke these words in the context of all the above evidence he had
against mutah.
Today
there are scholars who deliberately re-contextualise Umars words in order to
attack and claim that Umar’s words were spoken in general terms and prove that
he was a hypocrite and had turned against the Nabi. They forget that it was Amr
Harith who lied. It was Amr who claimed that the Nabi allowed men to make girls
pregnant and then refuse the paternity of the babies.
Today,
our fikh on mutah accepts everything Amr bin Harith and his friends claimed. We
even accept that a man has the final say in accepting the child of mutah to be
his or not. We summarily dismiss all the evidence that was in front of
Umar.
Instead
we take the words of Umar (“I forbid you what the Nabi allowed you!”) and make
it in to a fig leaf to hide our political agenda against him. We refuse to
accept that if Umar wanted to turn against the Nabi then he would not use these
words blatantly as it would be political suicide for him. Instead, like Amr
Harith, he too would tell lies. He would also change his story like Abdullah bin
Abbas. He would also do TAKIKIYA! We seem to ignore the fact that if Umar wanted
to turn against the Nabi then he would not use these type of words publicly.
Instead he would insist that the evidence against mutah proved that the the Nabi
never allowed it. We seem to ignore that Umar only used these words in the
context of the evidence against him and only after giving Amr Harith the benefit
of the doubt so that he can be saved from some hard
flogging.
THE
ISSUES – CALIPHATE OF IMAM ALI
A historical
fact against mutah is that when Imam Ali (as) officially became the forth Caliph
he did not legalise mutah. In order to explain why Imam Ali (as) did not
legalise mutah during his reign as the forth Caliph our Shia ulema give an
excuse that society was not ready for it. They argue that even though mutah
remained illegal in the reign of Imam Ali (as) we must think of it as legal in
Shia Islam which is based on the name of Imam Ali. In other words, we must go
against the official Harram E Ali and still call ourselves Shia E
Ali!
Various
excuses are given to explain why Imam Ali did not legalise mutah. One is that the
people would have turned against him and so he could not risk it. The second is
that he was so engaged in wars that he had no time to legalise it. The third is
that he only allowed his ‘Shias’ to do it in private but kept it illegal for
others.
All these
manufactured excuses do not make sense because the fact remains that mutah was
illegal in the time of Imam Ali (as). So if he kept it officially illegal then
mullahs who came centuries afterwards cannot make it officially legal as it
would be going against his rule. To make excuses to legalised mutah is to turn
against the governance of Imam Ali.
There is
also a contradiction in the claim that society was not ready for mutah to be
legalised by Imam Ali. This is because our Shia texts tell us that one man who
was Shia E Ali used to do so many private mutahs that he would give each woman a
new name and tell his sons not to do mutah with women with those names as they
became his ‘temporary mothers.’ So if this type of stories are true than it
would mean that in the time of Imam Ali there were many who did mutah which then
contradicts the claim that society was not ready for it. We therefore cannot
have it both way by first claiming that society was not ready for it and then
having stories in our books saying that mutah was common practice in the day of
Imam Ali.
Furthermore,
the claim that society would have turned against Imam Ali if he had legalised
mutah infers that while Umar changed society by disallowing it Imam Ali was
unable to reverse it which means he did not have the resoluteness or the
audacity of Umar. That would make Imam Ali a weak leader and this is, therefore,
an insult on our Imam. Furthermore, to argue that Imam Ali was engaged in war is
not relevant as Umar too was engaged in much bigger wars where large empires
like Byzantine and Persiawere being
defeated.
And to say
that Imam Ali was too busy (in things like wars) and therefore he did not
legalise it means that he was more like a military leader than a political
leader. This is totally wrong as he did a lot to define Islamic government. His
miracle is that while he was engaged in wars he was able to set up a government
second to none in history. This is why even his enemies would refer to his
administrative excellence. His justice, his schools, his welfare etc were all
brilliant. So to say he had no time to ban mutah is totally silly and another
feeble attempt to make an excuse for mutah which was illegal under the
governance of Imam Ali.
101
PROOFS AGAINST MUTAH
Please
read the full range of proof against mutah on
www.truthaboutmutah.angelfire.com