EXPOSING MUTAH. The Quranic Evidence Against Mutah

Transcription

1 EXPOSING MUTAH The Quranic Evidence Against Mutah INTRODUCTION How is it that when the Quran in verse 5:5 has forbidden Muslims to take secret or private lovers we still believe that mutah is halal in Islam? This verse is never quoted by those who advocate and defend mutah even though they write voluminous books on mutah to justify this pagan practice that has been woven in to Islam. For them Mutah is referred to as temporary marriage and is mostly done in secret as you don t want society or your wife to find out. But the verse 5:5 clearly states that we are not to take secret lovers. And this is not the only verse against Mutah. Everything about mutah is against the Quran including the fact that in the Quran there is a limit to the number of wives you can have but in mutah there is no limit. And in the Quran the waiting period of Idda is 3 months while in mutah the idda is 2 months. There is no Idda of 2 months in the Quran! In the Quran there is divorce when the marriage is over because a divorce period is to settle legal issues and rectify any injustices; but in mutah there is no divorce giving the illusion that casual and secret contracts for sex will have no legal issues to settle. In the Quran a wife who is pregnant cannot be denied by the husband but in mutah he can deny the child; and his word is final. Yet all these contradictions with the Quran are never mentioned in our books or by people who defend mutah. What is astonishing is how to justify mutah we are told that verse 4:24 of the Quran permits mutah when the fact is that even the word Mutah is not mentioned in this verse, or in any other verses in the Quran. So how credible is the claim that mutah is in the Quran when it is has no mention and is in disparity with the laws of the Quran like the limitation on wives etc. What we need to be aware of is how the discussion on mutah is often turned in to Sunni versus Shia diatribe in order to avoid what the Quran is saying. In particular, it becomes a focus on a few selective words of a reaction by Caliph Umar against an old man who made a young girl pregnant and then claimed that the Prophet had allowed such things. Umar reacted that regardless of his claim he still forbids it because he is the Caliph. These rhetorical and reactionary words by Umar are the main basis on which advocates of Mutah justify mutah and tactfully manage to steer the discussion away from the Quran. And for those people who are brought up on a diet of religious conflicts with Sunnis this tactic works. Furthermore, we can track back mutah when it was first forged into early Shia literature. A brief glance at the 10 th century archives which described Mutah as Iraj Ul Furuj giving it a legal status of hire or renting a woman for sex will expose mutah. In fact the words used are explicit and mention the hiring of the vagina as one type of renting that is permitted by this type of 10 th century Shia literature. The most earliest justifications for mutah can be tracked back to Sheikh Thani from the 10 th century who says that the bed of a mutah woman is not the same as of your wife as she is a hired wife. Since then the definition of marriage for most people is of buying or hiring by paying the woman the mahar to obtain a right on her body. So the question is that is there any such context in the Quran where marriage can become a hire or buying deal or is the Quran elevating the status of marriage from the pagan definition of buying and hiring a woman s body to that of a lifelong and selfless commitment? And should we be bounded to 10 th century writings on Islam and their justification of Mutah or do we have a right to question and investigate whether men who wrote in the 10 th Century have a right to by-pass the Quran. One issue that advocate of mutah in the 21 st Century need to grapple with is that in modern Human Rights charter it would constitute sex-slavery and rape if a woman was bounded to have sex based on contracts. Yet this is allowed in the fikh of mutah where a woman cannot annual the mutah. So are not our 10 th century laws affront to Women s Rights in light to the Human Rights charter? It would be interesting to see what the reaction is from all those self styled life coaches setting themselves up in the Shia community who defend mutah and who claim that it is a modern solution to a supposed modern sex problem.

2 PART 1 EVIDENCE THAT MUTAH IS AN ATTACK ON THE QURAN. What are the facts about the Quranic marriage? Firstly, as stated, the Quran has limited polygamy to four wives and so is in total contradiction to the pagans who had no limit to the number of wives they had. In mutah too there are no limits indicating that it has pagan links. This means that mutah is more in line with pagan ideas about marriage and not with the Quranic ideas as otherwise the hired or temporary wives will have a limit on numbers? Secondly, it is bizarre that while the Quranic conditions for polygamy is strictly fair treatment the hired women of mutah do not get fair treatment as they are almost always kept secret, they have fewer rights and their relationship has a sell-by date making the relationship with them a deal and not a marriage of equals. Often you see people getting angry if you describe mutah as holy prostitution. People say it is a form of marriage be it a temporary one. But why not say that since it is a deal it is really a form of prostitution? In fact, because it is a deal the woman hired in mutah does not even have the right to legal proceedings of divorce which are there in the Quran to ensure that all the legal rights of a wife are fulfilled before divorce is finalised. Often people will falsely retort that even nikkah is a deal forgetting that nikkah is not a deal because the conditions are not a deal but to ensure good treatment. To secure good treatment as a wife is not the same as making a deal with a woman to rent her body! Similarly there is a bizarre idea that people have about IDDA; that it is there to determine if a woman is pregnant. If Idda is to determine pregnancy then why does it take 3 months to determine if a woman in nikkah is pregnant but only 2 months if she is in Mutah? Remember the 2 months Idda is not a Quranic Idda. The real reason for the 3 months of IDDA is nothing about pregnancy because even if a woman is barren she still has to keep IDDA. The Quranic IDDA of 3 months is to ensure that the wife who is being divorced has all her legal rights fulfilled. The Quran has given 3 months as a period within which her legal rights need to be settled as otherwise she can claim compensation if the proceedings take longer. In these 3 months she has the right to stay in her husband s home, she is entitled to ajar for the sacrifices she made to the husband while being married to him and she has a right to be counted as a wife until the 3 months are not over which means her husband cannot marry again if she is one of his four wives.. But in mutah there are no such rights of a wife. Her 2 months of Idda are only for her to prove she is pregnant. This is exactly how the pagans treated women. After the 2 months she is on a limb to prove who made her pregnant as she could have done mutah with another man, in secret. It was because of mutab being on open door to exploit Muslim women for sex did the modern day Iranian leaders like Ayatuallah Khamenaie and Rafsajani rightly tell the women to register their mutah in government offices (Chastity houses) as mutah without government rules is leading to women being violated, forced in to abortions and generally open to sexual exploitation. May be the self-styled life coaches in the Shia community need to make a comment on this point! Mutah is the type of stuff modern grooming where women are enticed or through their vulnerabilities fall in to the trap. This is the reality of the Shia sex scene which we hide and don t admit to because we like covering our misdeeds and falsities with a religious pious blanket. Another fact that our books hide about mutah is that the man has the final word to accept making her pregnant and if he denies her then even her child is tagged as illegitimate with no rights of inheritance from him. So for those who say that Mutah is a modern solution for modern sex problems this point also goed a miss. In truth it mutah is just a legalised way to get sex which men since the 10 th century we have not moved on making our Islam stagnant, tied to previous definitions and slave to those who know how to flower up nonsense with religiosity. One strange claim is that our Imams endorsed mutah despite it s incredulity because if the Imams approved it then it would mean that they did not know the fault-lines of mutah and were ignorant of verse 5:5 which forbids secret relationships. The fact that no one person from the Ahlul Baith ever did mutah is proof enough that they did not endorse it. Not one out of any of the 12 Imam is born of it nor is there any record of any child in their family born of it. The only way the Ahlul Baith s name is used is to turn it against Caliph Umar and then make wild claims of how mutah is a solution for sex problems. An interesting admission in our books is that while Imam Ali (as) never did it his staunch enemies did it. Men like Muawiya were known to love it as it gave them the licence to womanise. Is Mutah therefore not a religious scam where we are told to follow the Ahlul Baith while we are hoodwinked to do Sunnah of Muawiya? A further quirk is in our Shia fikh where a father can legally marry off his infant or minor daughters on the basis that her private parts are not harmed even though the so-called husband is allowed to contract using her thighs for his satisfaction. This, we are told, is also a type of marriage contract in Shia Islam allowed by the Alhul Biath even though such nonsense can be tracked back to 10 th century writings which even claimed that our Quran has been changed and that the original Quran is with the 12 th Imam!

3 PART 2 WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE THAT IN ISLAM MARRIAGE IS AN INTENTION OF A LIFE LONG COMMITMENT? This is a vital question and to answer it consider the following verses from the Quran: [30:21] Among His proofs is that He created for you spouses from among yourselves, in order to have peace and contentment with each other, and He placed in your hearts love and care towards your spouses. In this, there are sufficient proofs for people who think. Note the four key words in this verse regarding marriage: Love, care, peace and contentment. Are these words for life-long commitment or for a flexible marriage deals? And here are more verses from the Quran on the subject: [24:32] You shall encourage those of you who are single to get married. They may marry the righteous among your male and female servants. If they are poor GOD will enrich them from His grace. GOD is Bounteous, Knower. [25:74] And they say, "Our Lord, let our spouses and children be a source of joy for us, and keep us in the forefront of the righteous." [40:8] "Our Lord, admit them into the gardens of Eden that You promised for them and for the righteous among their parents, spouses, and children. You are the Almighty, Most Wise. These verses tell us about how marriage is about having righteous spouses who are joy for our lives and who will unite with us in heaven. Is this not clearly about life-long commitments? So where is mutah in any of these verses? In addition consider the fact that the Quran is telling us to marry even if we are not rich enough which clearly infers that marriage must be life-long for it to become a Quranic concern of affordability. The challenge is on those who make the claim that Mutah is endorsed in the Quran. Where are the verses to prove their claim that marriage is Islam is flexible and does not need a life-long commitment? PART 3 HOW DO THEY ALTER VERSE 4:24 TO DECEIVE THE PEOPLE? To get a proper understanding of how a beautiful verse 4:24 is altered and isolate from the other verses that give it context consider these points that highlight the truth about Muth: Evidence 1: Mutah is an Arabic word for pleasure, enjoyment or fulfilment. It is a word that describes a noun. In other words it is an adjective. So you can have mutah of watching football or mutah of eating tasty kebabs! When we go for Hajj then the relaxation period after Hajj E Tamatu is called the Mutah of Hajj. This means that even the word mutah is a wrong word to use for marriage which further proves that those who used the word to mean a temporary marriage fully did not even understand the meaning of the word. The word mutah does not mean temporary marriage; it just means pleasure or fulfilment. Evidence 2: In order to correct the language we now have a new phrase Nikkah Mutah. By adding the word Nikkah the word mutah is now being qualified. This further proves that without the addition of the word Nikkah the word Mutah alone is not a correct use for any form of marriage. Evidence 3: But the Quran has no such words: In Arabic the word of marriage is AKAD and so AKAD MUTAH is also missing from the Quran which means that the concept of it does not exist in the Quran. Given this background let us now look at verse 4:24. One of the most acclaimed Shia tafseer Al Mizan inserts the word mutah in the tafsir to convince the reader that verse 4:24 is about mutah even though the word is not in the verse. Is this not a forgery However, as most people are ignorant that the word mutah does not mean temporary marriage the tafsir inserts the word in the verse. The way this is done is by substituting the Quranic word ISTIMTATUM in the verse by the word MUTAH. The justification given is that the two have the same root. So the obvious first question is that did God use the wrong root word by using the word ISTMTATUM as otherwise why is the word MUTAH used in the tafsir? There is now a bizarre claim by Dr Sheikh Amaar Nakshawani that mutah is not mentioned in the Quran because people in the 6 th century used a different word for it called ISTIMTATUM. He says this to explain why the Quran does not have the word Mutah. But his claim is actually a contradictory claim to that of Al Mizan which says that the word mutah was in vogue in the life and time of the Prophet. May be Sheikh Naksawani is not aware that he has contradicted one of the most renowned tafsirs in Shia world! In addition, what Sheikh Nakshawani misses is verse 46:20 of the Quran where the same root word ISTIMTATUM is used thus: The infidels seek istimtatum in this world and for them is hell. So if Sheikh Nakshawani was right that ISTIMTATUM meant temporary marriage then it would mean that it is the infidels who seek temporary marriage and for them is hell. May be Sheikh Naksawani needs time to deal with this too! For a more thorough break down of the verse and how it is altered see my book: Shia Islam & Marraige

4 PART 4 THE SUNNI FACTOR & CALIPH UMAR Let us now turn to Sunni books and give them also a goodly scrutiny! The Sunni books have several suspicious stories about mutah and the first one is that the Prophet allowed mutah up to and until the Battle of Khybar. The story says he also forbad donkey meat and garlic during that battle without giving any reasons for it. The second story is of two Companions who became desperate for sex after mutah was forbidden. They were in the middle of the desert and they pleaded to the Prophet to allow them to castrate themselves due to them having an uncontrollable urge for sex now that mutah was forbidden. The third story is that during his time Umar went to whip a man who did mutah. Umar feistily said: I forbid you what Muhammad allowed you. So let us examine all these as these are the three main stories repeated in our books to justify mutah from Sunni sources. Firstly, we are asked to believe that at Khybar the Prophet suddenly forbad mutah but later when the two men got desperate he changed his mind and allowed it to them. So the first question is that why did the two men think that mutah was forbidden if it was only forbidden temporarily in Khybar? In fact since they were so desperate it shows the Prophet had not told them that the ban was lifted, which questions the way the Prophet broadcasted his rulings as these were two of his most ardent companions. It also means that the Prophet was making impromptu decisions to ban things and then allowed then when his banning did not work. Are we, therefore, to believe in these stories that cast slurs on the Prophet? And since he is doing this then where does it leave the Quran which he is supposed to be modelling? Here are some more proofs against these stories: Proof 1: The Quran forbids Muslims to mutilate themselves. In fact it says don t even mutilate animals! Yet the Companions who came to ask the Prophet to allow castration were ignorant of this verse. They wanted to castrate themselves which is the worst form of mutilation for a man. Hence what the stories are saying is a slur on the Companions as it depicts them as ignorant, sexually out of control and ready to blackmail the Prophet for not getting sex for a few days in the desert. Proof 2: The stories continue to say that the two men were allowed mutah and so they found a lone woman sitting in the desert in a desolate place where the young man did mutah with her. This makes the two men punters.! It also does not answer what the old man did as he did not get sex. It also does not say how the young man checked out who the woman was. It also tells us to believe that lone women sit alone in the desert. The story is therefore incredulous and a major slur on the Prophet and his Companions as it says that they acted as sex punters looking for sex in the desert. In addition as we are supposed to follow the Sunnah it would mean that it is okay to approach women for sex if they are sitting alone somewhere. In modern terms it is called Sexual Harassment! This is therefore a Sunnah advocated by Sunni books and justified by Shia lobbies for Mutah? Proof 3: The story of Umar starts with an old man called Amr Harith who coerced a young girl in to sex. When Umar found out he went to whip him. But Amr claimed that the Prophet had allowed such things to which Umar angrily reacted and said: But I disallow it to you! To this Amr said: Do you disallow what Muhammad allowed! Umar then responded angrily; Indeed, I disallow what he allowed! Umar having angrily reacted to Amr s wit to justify what he had done with the young girl knew he was out witted. So he turned to Imam Ali who (even according to Shia narrations) said that Mutah was forbidden. So why don t our Shia advocates of mutah hide this fact? And when Imam Ali also forbad it during his Caliphate then does it mean that he too followed in the footsteps of Umar despite pledging to run the country on the basis of only the Quran & the Sunnah of the Prophet? One popular excuse for Mutah is the report that Imam Ali said that if Umar had not forbidden Mutah then only the wretched would commit adultery. But one group of people who are not allowed mutah are our wives. So according to this saying they will not be wretched if they commit adultery. In fact it would make sense as husbands are allowed mutah and so women must be allowed adultery! Secondly the Prophet forbad it at Khybar, which means the Prophet caused wretchedness at Khybar! Thirdly, it is like the false argument that if prostitution was not allowed then rape will increase even though prostitutes get raped all the time. And lastly, in Iran in 2003 a man was caught doing mutah with a mother and her daughter while neither of the women knew of it. Is this not an example of how mutah has brought true wretchedness in to society which has gone against the Quranic injunction that secret lovers are not allowed? THE ULTIMATE Hence what bit of the Quran have the advocates of Mutah followed when they have even managed to change the definition of marriage in Islam to a hiring or buying deal? And will we stay bounded to 10 th Century versions of Islam or can be refresh ourselves with the truth of the Quran and some courageous outside the box analysis? Abid Bata

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