Sex And Sistani

I’ve spent the last week posting some fairly grim news from Iraq and I hope we’ll keep the debate going that has started in the previous two postings.

But time out to look on the brighter side… at least for a few minutes.

You know that Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Husaini Sistani? Our principal moderate ally? The good as opposed to the evil Mullah on whom we have seemingly banked the whole future of a Democratic Iraq? Turns out our Brother has got one helluva rocking web site that I’ve been alerted to by Carl Bromley of Nation Books.

Not that it’s in five languages, with scrolling art, photos of holy sites, drop down menus on “Ideological Questions” and “Islamic Law,” but it seems that when the Grand Ayatollah isn’t consumed by the task of building the future Iraqi nation, he’s available for interactive online counseling on hundreds of subjects from anal and oral sex to how much to tax a camel and if it’s OK or not to levy interest on “non-believers” (of course it is!).

No, I’m not smart enough to make this up. Send a question, any question into Ayatollah Sistani and you will get back a personalized answer that bears the official seal of his holy office.

Don’t get too jacked up about this as the Ayatollah frowns on any self-abuse excluding, of course, beating your chest or scalp with chains.

Here are some of the pearls I have gleaned from the Q & A page on Brother Sistani’s website:

ON MASTURBATION: Question: When I am unable to do Muta’h (temporary marriage), am I allowed to masturbate?

Answer: Masturbation is not permissible under any circumstances.

ON ANAL INTERCOURSE:
Question: My question is, what does the holy book Quran and prophet Mohammad (pbuh) say about anal sex even if the wife agrees to experience this with her husband?

Answer: As deduced from narration anal sex is permissible; but it is strongly undesirable. Permission is bound to wife’s agreement and consent to anal sex. If she is not consenting, it would be impermissible.

ON ORAL SEX:
Question: I am really sorry that I have to ask this type of Question. But Since I grew up in a western country; I rally don't much about our religion. And I can't ask this Question to my parents due to subject matter. Brother my question is, can we have an oral sex before or after the sexual intercourse or can we have oral sex at all? Is it haram?

Answer: Oral sex act is permissible with the consent of both husband and wife provided that no liquid gets into the mouth.

If you think that’s hard, just think how complicated it’s going to be to properly suckle a child after the handover of sovereignty:

The child's mother is the best person to suckle a child. It is better that she does not claim any award from her husband for suckling the child, although it is good that he should reward her for that. However, if the mother demands more payment for suckling than a wet-nurse, her husband can entrust the child to the wet-nurse.

It is recommended that the wet-nurse, whose services are obtained for a child, should be Shia Ithna-Asheri, sane, chaste, and good looking; and it is Makrooh for a wet-nurse to be a non-Shia Ithna-Asheri or ugly, ill-humoured or illegitimate. It is also Makrooh to entrust the child to a wet-nurse who has given birth to an illegitimate child.

Confused as I am? Not to worry. The Ayatollah has a direct email address, [email protected] . He readily invites all your questions -- mundane and otherworldly.

If you send him a query, as I hope you will, please be kind enough to post a copy here so we can all read it! It’s important to know what our key allies are thinking.

In the meantime, keep your hands where we can see them.

P.S. I was reluctant to click on the button the Ayatollah had placed for questions regarding "Sea Animals." Sheep, maybe, but sheepshead bass? After much trepidation, I capitulated to my curiousity and clicked anyway. How relieved I was to read this exchange:

Question: Caspian sturgeon should be counted as fish with scales or without scales?

Answer: If it does not have scales, it is and the caviar taken from it would be haram also.

Whew!

Comments

[rosedog]

Actually, compared much in the Old Testament, Sistani is not the least bit whacked.
Take, for example, the non-scaly sturgeon and caviar issue that captured your attention, Marc: Leviticus 11:10, is in a state of near apoplexy regarding all sea food sans fins and scales, which it clearly labels an abomination---period, end of story. (This is, of course, quite a bummer for those of us fond of Cioppino.) I was also saddened to note that Leviticus 19:19 frowns on wearing garments of mingled thread (meaning all those cute little cotton/rayon/spandex summer t-shirts are completely out), whereas if Sistani says anything on fabric content, I completely missed it. Yet, on the wet nurse question, he seems fairly sensible. I mean, hey, if your wife is charging you bigger bucks for breastfeeding the kid than the wet nurse charges, your beloved S.O. may be trying to tell you something that you’ve heretofore been too dense to hear in terms of her need for you to take a larger co-parenting role. Either that or we’re talking a BIG, red flag in terms of mother-child bonding. Whichever, the dude’s got it right.

BLOG on, Ayatollah.

[Marc Coooer]

Rosedoggie: talking of big red flags... might I suggest you pay another visit to our Brother Sistani's website and pay special attention to his wisdom on the issue of "kinds of blood seen by women." Quoting Sistani: "If a woman with a fixed habit of time sees blood for more than ten days, and is unable to determine the nature of blood as explained in rule no. 495, then she will be free to decide upon any number of days which she feels could be her days of Hayz. It is recommended that she fixes seven days, and in so doing she must keep in mind her habit of commencement, as mentioned in the foregoing rules."

Don't u get the feeling that if Iraq goes secular and he finds himself out of the Ayatollah racket, Sistani would make a great insurance claims litigator? Or an HMO administrator?

[Jason M]

Wow! They should have called on Sistani to replace Dear Abbey! I can see it now..,
"Dear Ali.."

[Nell Lancaster]

Should we look next for your hilarious take on
the Catholic Ask Father Question Box?* Or the Orthodox Union's Ask the Vebbe Rebbe?**

*http://oldforum.catholic.org/discussion/messages/41/41.html?982272451
**http://www.ou.org/kosher/rebbe.html

[steve]

wonder what sistani thinks about today's wall street journal article on the rebellion winning support across Iraq today.

[Ricky Vandal]

I'm of the opinion this Al Sistani is an assett for the US in Iraq. I'm worried though. Just look at the site and the whole oraganisation. Shia Islam is like the Catholic Church. It has a clergical hierarchy. I wrote a post on this on my blog. I think there is a struggle going on between Al Sistani and the supreme leader of Iran ayatollah Khamenei over who is the Shia "pope". Enter Al Sadr. He is financed by Iran to destroy Al Sistani. I think this is the reason why Sistani is with us.

[Researcher]

I think you guys are viewing him through an unfair
Western viewpoint.

Odd diet questions and sex questions aren't much different from what a Rabbi might have to put up with or even a Catholic Priest....

He seems to be concerning himself with non-political stuff and matters of his faith, which is the best place for a religous body to be.

[steve]

I wonder what Bush's thoughts or Ashcroft's thoughts are on masturbation? homos? anal sex?
their ministers' thoughts on the matter?
*now*, *that* would be significant, far more significant than Sistani, since the former two are from a very very economically and technologically advanced nation...

[Marc Cooper]

Aha! a veiled suggestion that OUR fundamentalists are the same as THEIRS. These are two fundamentally different societies (no pun intended) and our religious extremists are different, thank God.

[Sean O'Hara]

In other news, Ayatollah Sistani has been signed to write sequels to Frank Herbert's Dune series. "After reading his website, we realized he has exactly the same style as Herbert," the publisher said.

[steve]

uhm, no marc, the point that you missed is far more than what you picked up. our fundies who surround our president and his buddies are actually way more backward than sistani. sistani's fundie views are at least more understandable in the context of a society in a state of economic seige. on the other hand, in a society that is technologically hyper-advanced and economically numero uno...it's really remarkable that such types can have as great an impact on political leadership that they have...

now, that's a sign of backwardness if there ever were one!

[Zume]

I've read a lot of his site and find him to be a very interesting, open person. The laws that he are interpreting are similar to Christian and Jewish laws that make a similar lack of sense in the modern world. His writings are definately opener than the pope's!

Consider: the rule he states about oral sex not including passing fluids is similar to a lot of "rules" regarding non-transmission of AIDs. And while his rule is derived from a holy book, why do you think it was there in the first place.

Consider: read a fwe of the rules about temporary marriages... I could use a temporary marriage or two.

Consider: just because something uses a work you don't know (e.g. "haram" doesn't make it funny).

[Diggs]

When I was living in Riyadh, there was a column in the local paper, the Arab News, that had an imam answering questions like this. The longest running commentary with pro and con positions by various imams concerned whether Mohhammed (PBUH) would have used a flush toilet. There was no question at all that he would Not have used toilet paper, but the flush toilet question was never quite answered with finality.

no wonder Marc is down on Sistani:

NAJAF, Iraq - The sons of Iraq's top Shiite cleric and two other grand ayatollahs met Monday with radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, telling him they oppose any U.S. assault to capture him, a man who attended the meeting told The Associated Press.

Okay, just to be clear. I’m not making fun of Sistani who, all kidding aside, is an essential voice of reason in a situation that spins increasingly out of control. In fact, one more element added to the growing pile of disastrous miscalculations wrought of the Bushie/neo-con’s we-get-it-and-you-don’t arrogance, is their unwillingness to accord Sistani more respect and a larger role in this whole nation building catastrophe into which their rush to war has thrust us. In their fear of Sistani as a Muslim cleric (Oooohhh, scary! Never mind that he has long been open in his criticism of the Iranian model of a religious state), and their early misapprehension of the significance of his position in the hearts and minds of many Iraqis, Bush and company displayed their usual allergy to facts.

Oh, wait a minute, I forgot. There are those OTHER pesky facts---like the fact that Sistani still views the UN as relevant, thinks the Iraqi’s ought to have direct elections, and does not cotton to the so-called provisional constitution, a wonderfully divisive little document ensuring no strong central government that the CPA and the IGC have cooked up without popular support. What was I thinking? Let’s DO make fun of the guy after all.

(Hey, if I’m making fun of anybody, it’s the far right Christian wingnuts who attempt to use absurd Biblical references to highjack both Christianity and “decency” to serve their own odiously narrow purposes.)

PS: Word is that an important statement is to be issued tomorrow by Sistani on behalf of the Hawza alilmiyyah (the other three leading Shi’ite clerics in Najaf) that warns coalition forces about attacking Najaf or arresting Al-Sadr.

[rosedog]

Meant to sign the above. Sorry about that.

[Marc Cooper]

well.. hell. ** I ** was surely making fun of the Ayatollah. Im an equal oppty basher of all things religious-- and Popes and self-proclaimed fundamentalist Ayatollas are favored targets. On a poltical plane, I am also serious. This is our key ally and it ought to give us pause. He may indeed be a more reasonable and savvy element that a guy like al-Sadr but he hardly seems a central building block of a truly democratic society.

[Dr. Jon]

The ayatolla has a better "position" on anal sex than the Pope or the Chief Rabbi of Israel.

[rosedog]

Yeah, but here's the good news, despite his views on caviar, et al, he doesn't seem to think said views should be calling the shots when it comes to rules of government.....unlike, say, oh, the current POTUS and his Old Testament avenger AG….?

I've just gone to my (snail) mail box and notice that Fareed Zakaria wrote in this week's Newsweek, "Grand Ayatollah Sistani....was also a longstanding critic of the Iranian model and argued that clerics should not participate in politics."

Could do worse.

On the other hand, equal opportunity fun-making is assuredly a must---a survival technique, in fact. I'm always a devout fan of your skill at that particular activity.

And I like the idea of Sistani as an HMO administrator, if the Ayatollah thing doesn't work out.

[Pious Agnostic]

So, if Sistani has "argued that clerics should not participate in politics" does that mean that he isn't interested in participating in politics?

If he isn't interested in participating in politics, then isn't the CPA simply taking him at his word if they don't make him central to their plans?

[Bill Bradley]

I'm comfortable with our ayatollah's position on anal rape. The oral intercourse thing, though. Since he is advising the brother on sexual relations with his SO, the position seems too safe sex-oriented to me. Now if he talking about a hook-up situation, that's another thing. But I'm gathering he is not advocating a libertine lifestyle ...

[Cecile]

Compared to Khomeini, he's an 'ally', but as an Islamic fundamentalist who is anti-Israel (just google him!), he really is not. The better of two evils, yes, but we have better allies like in Britain and in Israel.

Why not just call him a sand nigger, like so many of your friends do of Arabs and Muslims generally, and get it over with, Marc?

[Barakat]

Guys, As an Iraqi, I sould tell that it is hard to find such a moderate and tolerant cleric through out the Islamic world of crazy terrorist clerics. Compare him to supereme cleric of Iran, or Al-Sadar, or Osma bin Laden. This man is peaceful and got interesting views. We should thank him for that!

[Ubeyd el Turki]

Ma'azallah !!!

Neither anal nor oral sex is not permitted in İslam of ahle sunnah vel jamaah...

Shia is ahle bidah. ( innovators ) Most of them out of the fold of İslam...

That's why they easily make agreements with USA.
Even Iran's problems with Usa is just fake.
As their semetical beliefs.