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First published in September 2003.
Updated on 3 October 2005
Scientific use of Ramadan spit
The Maldive "Justice"
Party appears to be just another bunch of Bronze Age mullahs
preoccupied with bodily orifices.
It is customary for fasting Muslims to spit all over
the place. Recently a "scientific" application
of Ramadan spit was revealed by the newly formed "Justice"
Party (Adhaalathu Paatee), an Islamic political
party in the Maldives.
According to a pronouncement in the "Justice"
Party's web site, the conclusive evidence
that a woman has been cleansed of menstrual blood is
a whitish vaginal discharge with an Arabic term that
translates as "white gush". This gush has
the consistency of the spit of a person observing Ramadan,
or so the mullahs tell us. Indeed a most unhygienic
and unscientific method of determining a bodily function!
The Maldives has just allowed the establishment of political
parties as part of its alleged democratic reform agenda.
It has taken a Bronze Age excuse for a political party
to reduce democracy to spit and vaginal discharges!
The "Justice" Party appears
to be just another bunch of Bronze Age mullahs preoccupied
with bodily orifices.
Based
on a clumsy calendar
Maldive ruling
mullahs assembled in Western clothing to confirm
the new moon of Ramadan 2005.
Note that there are no women in such an auspicious
assembly, just in case they pollute these proceedings
with menstruation or their deficient intelligence.
Sahih Bukhari Volume 1, Book 6, Hadith number 301:
Once Allah's Apostle went out to the musalla
(to offer the prayer) of 'Id-al-Adha or
Al-Fitr. Then he passed by the women and said....."I
have not seen anyone more deficient in intelligence
and religion than you..." |
In order to usher in Ramadan, the Maldive ruling mullahs
stage an elaborate ceremony every year. Their objective
is to create the impression that they determine the new
moon based on scientific criteria. However their determination
is ad hoc and is sometimes based on actual moon
sightings and sometimes on what their friends in other
Bronze Age centres do.
The Islamic lunar month is ushered in at sunset on the
day of the first waxing moon. The moon has to be physically
sighted, by the naked eye, after sunset on that night
if that night is the thirtieth since the sighting of the
previous new moon. The procedure is antiquarian in modern
times. However the Sharia laws seem to remain fossilised
in the 7th century AD, in the Arabian desert.
The requirement for the physical sighting of the moon
added incredible vagaries into civil life. It was not
possible, for example, to plan anything ahead. Careful
plans of events had to be suddenly altered based on
some ignorant fishermen's claim that they had sighted
the new moon the day before it was expected.
Islamic law accepts the testimony of two men with a
total of four eyes between them. The testimony of four
women with a total of eight eyes may be accepted if
they were not menstruating. The witnesses, of course,
cannot be either infidels or slaves.
The out-moded calendar system used by Islam is so clumsy
that most present day Islamic countries such as the
Maldives have long been forced to endure the ultimate
indignity of accepting the Christian calendar in civil
life. The difficulties with the clumsy Islamic calendar
system is outlined in our article Maldive
Calendar.
It appears that even in Saudi Arabia, the arch-conservative
hub of Arab culture, the vagaries of the Islamic calendar
were addressed as early as 1998-9. The following is a
telegram sent from the Supreme Council for Islamic Pronouncements
in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the Jordanian Astronomical
Society in 1998.
Literal translation: "(
To Jordan/ Al-Yadodeh/ M.Kh./ Al-Sook/ Mr. Hayel Mamdooh
Abu-Zeid, dated January 21, 1998/Ramadan 23, 1418
AH.
We wish to thank you for sending us your greetings
of Ramadan, and for reminding us of the date of the
New Moon of Shawwal for the year 1418 AH.
We would like to remind you that determining the first
day of the Islamic month is like determining the prayer
times, and the aim of the Almighty for these times
is to inform us not to take it as worship. It is adopted
in Umm-ul-Qura calendar that if the moon's
age at sunset is 12 hours or more after the new moon
then the PREVIOUS day is the first day of the Islamic
month, since the Islamic day starts at sunset, and
the night is before the daylight, as well as the time
of fasting is in the civil daylight. May Allah
accept your worship. May Allah bless this
Ramadan. Thank you for your good cooperation.
From: the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia/ Al-Riyadh/ the
Supreme Council for Religious Pronouncements "Majlis
al-Ifta' al-A'ala"/ Mohammad bin Ehmead.)"
The following is a pronouncement of the Saudi Religious
Consultative Council issued in 1999.
Literal translation: "To
determine the commencement of lunar months, the collaborators
in the preparation of Umm Al-Qurrah calendar
should adopt the sunset before the moonset according
to Mecca, and the coordinates of Al-Haram
Mosque are adopted."
Maldive Folk Customs
|
| Nawaythu
so moh kuradhi.
Odee jahaa lhis kuradhi.
Haarah kaan dhe kuradhi.
I
intend to blunt iron wood
Boat-building bolt iron wood
To eat for supper two iron wood. |
|
Invocations and chants
related to the Ramadan fast and other Islamic rituals
have to be said in Arabic. As a result of Arab imperialism
and colonisation, Maldivians have long been under the
impression that Arabic is the only language acceptable
in the heavens.
Nevertheless, Maldivians
found it hard to pronounce the language of their colonialist
masters and always deviced Divehi versions, partially
in jest and partially blamed on children. The above
was the Divehified formula that had to be uttered to
make the Ramadan fast valid. So as not to offend the
mullahs this version was blamed on children.
| Divehified
version of an invocation to slay Satan
Aoozu
biy dhan'di. Magoodhu fulhafi dhan'di
Edhurubey ge dhefai dhan'di
Empowered
by the fence stick. Magoodhu (island) palm frond
stick
School master's two legged stick
Divehified
practice verse of the Koran used to teach Arabic
pronunciation by edhuru (teachers) such
as the author's koran rote edhuru the late
Naibu Tuttu ge Kalhu Tuttu
Ukunu
boa faidhigu madhiri bis
Nit
head long legged mosquito egg |
Injunctions
against not fasting
Fasting during  Ramadan
involved abstinence from eating, drinking, smoking and
having sex during the prescribed hours. The prescribed
hours are from the time early in the morning when one
is able to tell a black thread from a white thread until
the sun goes below the horizon at dusk. (One would not
wish to be in New Zealand's Ross Dependency in years
when Ramadan falls on summer, as the sun will not set
there for the entire month.)
There are social and legal injunctions against
not fasting. Older children are encouraged to mock at,
humiliate and bully little children who are too young
to fast. As a result it is quite common to find dehydrated
little children who attempt to perform the fast out
of embarrassment.
| A
chant to humiliate little children who are too
young to fast
Roadha
nu kuni. Mas kuni kuni. Jalaanu kunyoa.
Roadha kudheen fai dharhugaa en'burenikon sen'burehikon,
Bandaaraa bodu rukakah mathaa negiyyoa.
Not
fasting rot. Fish rot rot. Jalaanu rot yo
While going round and round around the feet of
children who are fasting.
Hauled up a government's big coconut tree yo. |
Adults who do not fast
are arrested by the police and flogged by the Sharia
courts. Every Ramadan several people are arrested and
taken before the Sharia courts. 
The introduction of instant noodles offered pleasant
relief to this predicament. Those who wish not to fast
seem to be able to get away with having the odd discrete
packet of this oriental delicacy.
Just before the introduction of instant noodles in the
early 1980s, there used to be a roaring trade in fish
buns (mas banas) in the local bakeries in Malé,
particularly at what would normally be lunch time. Where
there was a will there was always a way.
There is also a significant group of Maldivians who,
just before Ramadan, develop all sorts of ailments that
necessitate travel to neighbouring Sri Lanka and India
where Sharia law is not enforceable. For some strange
reason their treatment abroad always lasts until the
end of Ramadan.
Juice
fall in!
Ramadan is always an excuse for a culinary extravaganza.
From the time the sun goes down people are openly preoccupied
in eating and drinking, apart from the odd dash into the
bedroom. During the hours of darkness, the average person
would consume significantly more food and drink than they
would during an entire day outside Ramadan.
The NSS (Maldive National
Security Service) officers' mess is no exception to
this paroxysm of gluttony. At the sunset meal, each
officer is served with about seven to eight different
types of drink and these would be lined up in glasses
at their tables. Lower ranks, who are less fortunate,
unkindly call this "juice fall in!".
Drain
on finances
Ramadan creates a heavy financial toll on the average
Maldive household. While the Maldives is, per capita,
the wealthiest country in southern Asia, income distribution
is among the most inequitable in the world.
The gluttony that is Ramadan represents an annual drain
on the household budget of the average Maldive islander.
Wealthy islanders travel outside the republic either
to dodge the fast or to spend the month in Mecca, kissing
the Black Stone, a pre-historic meteorite that was worshipped
as one of the gods of the Kaaba temple by Mohamed's
tribe. In both cases it represents an unnecessary drain
on valuable foreign exchange.
In an economy where the exchange rate is still artificially
fixed by the central bank, this adds to the government's
fiscal deficit, which is partly financed via increased
indirect taxes and government charges. Inflationary
deficit financing by the government creates another
fiscal burden on the poor.
Making-out Point
It appears that the Maldive Police and security forces
are becoming rather lax in their enforcement of holy commandments.
This could be because of their committments to cracking
down on political dissent.
Reports coming in from Malé indicate that
the number of households getting away with cooking and
consuming meals during the taboo hours of Ramadan is on
the rise.
Miscreants are also busy testing the limits of law enforcement
during Ramadan evenings more than at other times of the
year. Evidently there is an esplanade with park benches
in the newly reclaimed area of the island where young
couples relax in the evenings publicly engaging in fornication.
This area of Malé is aptly named "Making-out
Point" by locals.
There used to be a time, not so long ago, when couples
found holding hands in public were asked to produce their
green-coloured marriage certificates. It was as if Maldive
Police expected people to carry around that green forms
all their lives. Failure to produce the marraige certificate
sometimes (depending on the couple, of course) resulted
in respectably married couples being arrested on the spot,
bundled into the back of dog control-type vans and taken
in to be beaten and raped like common pro-democracy demosntrators.
Things have changed for the locals!
Foreign holidaymakers, however, are still told to respect
the Islamic sensitivities of that "one hundred percent
Islamic" country. They pay through their noses to
be able to wind down and relax on the beaches only to
be told to cover up while sunbathing. And yet local couples
are now able to relax on park benches of their capital
city and bonk to their hearts' content in full view of
everyone. |
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