Category Archives: Culture

Culture, Islam, Israel, Malaysia, Religion

Allah is Coming, Allah is Coming: What is in a Word?………

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2

“Malaysia’s highest court on Monday dismissed an attempt by Christians for the right to use the word Allah, ending along legal battle that has escalated religious tensions in the country. The case, in which the Catholic church challenged a government ban on its use of the Arabic word to refer to God, came amid concern from minority religious groups who feel that their rights are under threat from rising Islamisation………..”

This is uncommon in Muslim countries, especially in Arab countries. Normally people of all faiths use the term ‘Allah’. In recent years Malaysia has been trying to out-Wahhabi the original Wahhabis, out-royal the king (no pun).

Allah is really a linguistic term. Just a term that denotes a deity or ‘the deity’. Arabs and other Muslims use Allah to denote God, Dieu, Yahweh, etc. Even Arab Christians use “Allah” for “God”: they would be surprised to know that they could get thrown out of a church in some God-fearing states here if they use the term.

It is just a language thing, not a specific first name. Arab Christians often yell “Ya Allah” just as Arab Muslims do when exasperated. Even Arab Jews used to do that, before the Jews in most Arab countries left or were pushed to leave. I suspect that maybe some Israelis might do that by now. Who knows, maybe some day they will adopt and claim it as their own term, just like falafel and hummus.
Politicians here who are ignorant and/or opportunistic (surprise!) use the term as a rallying cry to get votes.
Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

Caliphate, Culture, Jihadis, Sex, Terrorism

Fires of the ISIS: New Uniforms in a Salafi Red Light District…….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2

So why did Daesh or ISIS change their uniforms? During their brave taunting of the lone Jordanian captive and his burning, they seemed to be dressed like an army. Their uniforms almost looked like American or other armies in a desert environment.
Still, they kept their faces covered. Which means they don’t want their faces to be seen:

  • It is probably not out of modesty, only their women and sex slaves are supposed to do that. Unless they have their own fatwa that men should also cover their faces.
  • It can’t be fear of being recognized, since they are supposedly eager to die and go to wherever they seem to think they will be going.
  • They can’t be saving it all for the anticipated post-mortem renewable houri virgins. They are reported to have a robust local market for sex slaves that puts to shame a certain district of Amsterdam and certain streets of Paris and certain ‘ranches’ in Nevada.

FYI: I did not watch the ‘burning’ video and have no interest in watching any of their videos. Just saw some still pictures on TV news.

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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Culture, Muslims, Names

American Education: from Czechoslovakia to Houthi……….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2

Poor American public. They had thought Ahmadinejad was a tough one to pronounce. Was just beginning to get comfortable with him, if that is possible, when our region provided new distractions. They had to learn how (not) to say Shi’a (or Shi’ite) and how to spell AlZarqawi and Abu Bakr Al Samarrai. Now with Yemen in the headlines they have been hit with how to pronounce ‘Houthi‘, which makes any American feel like they have a sore throat and maybe streptococcus (only if they say it the correct way).

But that is okay. A people that weathered Dzhugashvili (remember Joe?) and Czechoslovakia (phew, that one is over) and Shevardnadze (so is he) and Brzezinski and Gronkowski (of the losing team of upcoming Super Bowl XLIX) can learn to spell and pronounce anything, especially simpler Muslim names like mine and ours……….
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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Culture, Muslims, Saudi Arabia, Wahhabi

Chaste Saudi Cleric Excommunicates Frosty the Snowman……….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2

“A prominent Saudi Arabian cleric has whipped up controversy by issuing a religious ruling forbidding the building of snowmen, described them as anti-Islamic. Asked on a religious website if it was permissible for fathers to build snowmen for their children after a snowstorm in the country’s north, Sheikh Mohammed Saleh al-Munajjid replied: “It is not permitted to make a statue out of snow, even by way of play and fun.”……..”

Yes, Great Cleric, there are snows in many Muslim Lands! There are snows in Turkey, Iran, Lebanon, Azerbaijan, Bosnia, etc, etc. And the children in these countries also build snowmen, even Frosty, in winter without anybody going either heathen or lusty. And their women are as chaste now as they would be if there were no snows there, no more nor less…..

So, I hereby issue a counter-fatwa: it is okay to make a snowman, and it is okay to fast pitch snowballs at a cleric. A snowman is not to be worshiped like a king or a potentate.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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Arab Politics, Culture, US Congress, Women

Shaikh Boehner: Burqa and Niqab in the U.S. Congress……….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2


Was watching C-Span: Speaker John Boehner swearing in new members of Congress. He had to hop from corner to corner, posing for photos with each representative and his/her family. Wives, husbands, kids, occasionally grandparents. A long process.
Which made me wonder: how come we don’t have this kind of festive, joyous swearing-in in the region? That is, for the few countries that have parliaments and elections.
And then what about the Salafis? Would they also pose with their wives and kids for post-swearing photos? And with the burq’a or niqab, which all Salafi/Wahhabi wives are required to wear? How can one of them tell his wife from another’s? Suppose at photo time he sidles up to the wrong chick by mistake? Would that mean war? Intriguing question, no?……….
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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Culture, Culture and Sports, Muslims, Racism, Sports, Taliban

The Taliban Invade the Rose Parade……….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2     ChristmasPeanuts

Woke up early, too early today on this very cold first morning of 2015. Watched the Rose Parade in Pasadena (on TV from the Northwest of course). Getting ready to watch the Ducks beat the WTF they’re called in Florida State (maybe the Seminoles that they killed off?). One nice float had a Sikh motif, with a bunch of Sikh people on it. Sikhs of India, and maybe elsewhere, wear turbans, sort of like some of us Muslims. Sort of like the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
I switched quickly to Fox News, expecting one of their Five, or is it Six, geniuses complain about the Taliban or other Muslim terrorists taking over the Rose Parade.
It has a ring to it if you are a regular watcher, occasionally with tragic results…………
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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Culture, Death Penalty, Human Right, Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia Goes on a Rampage, Merlin the Magician Beheaded………..

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2     ChristmasPeanuts

Have Yourself a Merry Little——-> Kenny G. Holiday 

“Saudi Arabia has executed at least 19 people since August 4, 2014. Local news reports indicate that eight of those executed were convicted of nonviolent offenses, seven for drug smuggling and one for sorcery. Family members of another man, Hajras bin Saleh al-Qurey, told Human Rights Watch on August 17 that they fear his execution is imminent. The Public Court of Najran, in southern Saudi Arabia, sentenced al-Qurey to death by beheading on January 16, 2013 for allegedly smuggling drugs and attacking a police officer during his arrest…………….”

Not quite a merry little holiday season in the realm of the absolute princes. This is not the first magician or sorcerer to be executed by beheading in the Kingdom Without Magic (KWM). There have been others. He will not be the last one.
Just think about it: Al-Qaeda Wahhabi terrorists are offered rehabilitation, provided with jobs and even dowries for brides. Harmless sorcerers have their heads chopped off. It is against Islam of course. Those who take a life are supposed to be executed, if you feel the need to spill some more blood, not sorcerers or charlatans. Come to think of it again, and speaking of charlatans: not even palace clerics nor fake pastors should be executed.
Not even corrupt absolute princes who loot whole countries’ resources and do so much harm should be executed. Probably not even with pitchforks………
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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Cinema, Culture, Morocco

Of Moroccan Cinema and Sore Throat……….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2     ChristmasPeanuts

Have Yourself a Merry Little——-> Kenny G. Holiday 

“Sail said he is proud that he has in the last 11 years increased the production of feature films from 70 films to 200 films a year, and of short films from seven films to 100 films a year. “Ours would only be a real international film festival if the state helped produce good films,” he said. He said that honoring the great actor Adel Imam is enough to make any festival successful. “No one can differ on what Adel Imam represents in Arab cinema,” . “The accent is the main obstacle to Moroccan cinema,”……………”

That is probably true, what he said about the Moroccan accent. It is fun to listen to it, but not to speak it. Every time I try to speak it, I get a sore throat. I need to drink a lot of water after that.
The same goes for other North African accents.

FYI: the Moroccan I have met, mostly in Europe, are humorous, though. Much better sense of humor than, say, Jordanians. I know, I set the bar too low here……….
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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Cinema, Culture, Egypt, History, Jews

Censoring the Exodus: Big Moses and Little Yahweh…………

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2     ChristmasPeanuts

Have Yourself a Merry Little——-> Kenny G. Holiday 

Yesterday I saw the new Exodus film (Exodus: Gods and Kings) at the local complex. I saw the Imax 3D version. Quite different from the two older versions of the story of Moses, including the second Cecil B. DeMille one with Charlton Heston. The basic outlines of the story are the same; that we’ve all read in the Quran and the Bible. The special effects were superior, of course, but probably not superior to the, er, real ancient exodus? The main ‘Egyptian’ characters in the film did not look very ancient-Egyptian, most of them looked more ancient Jewish or Italian. The masses of Jewish slaves in the film looked more Mexican or Yemeni.

One more interesting aspect of the film. God, or Yahweh, is depicted as a little boy. He looks a lot like The Boy in Striped Pajamas, but cleaner and healthier.

I am certain this film will not be seen in theatres in Egypt or in any other Arab country. Once there may have been a remote possibility such film might be seen in parts of Beirut and Tunis, but that is not possible now. The older DeMille version was never allowed in any theatre in the region. Partly because in most Arab countries impersonating a prophet is not allowed: Salafis severely frown upon even the impersonation of people close to the Prophet (the Sahaba who were just ordinary folks with no holiness about them). Another important reason has to do with perceived modern political implications for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Although every Muslim school kid reads the story of Moses and the Exodus in the Quran.

Besides, we can’t have a film showing a bunch of Jewish slaves beating Egyptians, although the Egyptians of those times were pagan king-worshiping sister-marrying types, and were not even Arabs. Bad enough they have been beating on Egyptians and other Arabs, and handily, for sixty-six years now (with one exception in Lebanon and we know who that exception is).

Ours is an extremely sensitive region. Sensitive in some respects but not towards repression and official violence, from Bahrain to Egypt. Other films deemed “sensitive” have been banned in the past, even some that were reportedly filmed in Arab countries. Like Lawrence of Arabia and Cleopatra. Cleopatra? WTF……………..
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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CIA, Culture, Gulag, Muslims, Torture, U.S. Foreign Policy

Comparative Torture in a Global Gulag: Islamic House of Glass, Western House of Glass……..

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2     ChristmasPeanuts

Have Yourself a Merry Little——-> Kenny G. Holiday 

“The CIA paid torture teachers James Mitchell and Bruce Jesser more than $80 million. As they now live out their wildest dreams, their barbarity has cost the U.S. far more. Call them the houses that torture built: Two sprawling luxury homes purchased by the CIA-contracted psychologists at the center of the scathing Senate report. James Elmer Mitchell and John Bruce Jessen are not the first Americans to employ waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques” against our enemies. But they are almost certainly the only ones to get rich doing it. They did so by employing what is widely dismissed as “voodoo science”…………..”

And I had almost come to think that we are among the last barbarians left. Some of us, a few actually, behead others, a few slit throats, some blow themselves up among others (mostly the victims are of us) and kill hundreds, some sentence dissidents to public flogging. All rather primitive methods of inflicting death and/or pain by both Jihadi terrorists and repressive regimes. But these are old tried and true methods dating back deep into history, to long before Rome, Persia, Egypt, Greece, and Islam. The cruel but unimaginative methods of execution and inflicting pain of the Muslim and Arab worlds.
Then we have the more imaginative, or more scientific methods of inflicting pain and causing death. That is the more civilized method. From the Nazis of Germany/Austria to the French in Algeria to Abu Ghraib and to the alleged CIA and the private contractor Gulag that spreads across the globe. From rectal (or anal) feeding to waterboarding to lengthy sleep deprivation to psychological torture to gas chambers to forced starvation, all the way back to the burning of people alive and to the fires and knives of the Inquisition. The more civilized methods of the non-Muslim West. I should not mention the odd questionable prison injections that cause convicts to die slowly and unusually painfully in some God-fearing states. But I just did.
Houses of glass are everywhere………..
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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