Cat in the Gulf: At it again (updated)

It's late in the evening, and of course I, being my usual self, i.e. lazy to go out or do anything else, am surfing the Net. I always surf with an idea in mind. Today's idea? Complicated. I came across "muta'a", or temporary marriage concept in Islam and (naturally) I was keen to find more information. I won't talk about the muta'a itself here for it needs little introduction to those who know what it is, and those who don't can always Google it out (as did yours truly). I won't even bother writing what I think about muta'a as I am sure that it will set off another debate in my comments section, ultimately leading to an exchange in unpleasantries. Instead, I will tell you about the surfing itself, and how important it is to NOT take everything you read for granted.

Googling for "temporary marriage" brought an array of links, as I expected. Luckily for me, the first one I clicked on was a "dissertation completed in 1974 under the direction of Professor Abu 'l-Qasim Gurji of the Faculty of Theology at Tehran University". It looked and sounded credible enough for me to start my reading and getting some basics straight (which I did). But oh boy, what was to follow! A collection of the most weird sites which I didn't know whether to laugh or cry at. From forums that, predictably enough, looked like my comments sections after my religion related posts, to various Muslim and Christian organisations discussing pros and cons of each other, to personal accounts, Shia bashing sites, Christianity bashing sites, government law sites, etc. and half of these, of course, are conveniently blocked by Qtel.

In a matter of 30 something minutes I learned that muta'a practice is allowed, used to be allowed but is not allowed now, was never allowed, is prohibited, is legal, is illegal, is allowed only for Shia, is allowed only in Iran, was allowed only for the Prophet

, is relatively new in Iraq but is gaining ground, was never practiced in Iraq, has always been practiced in Iraq, is a legitimate source of income for single women, is a legalised prostitution scheme, is an honourable solution for travelling men, YOU NAME IT. And each and every author of every such statement based his/her argument on documented sources. My conclusion was the usual one: use your own head when deciding who and what to believe. It is amazing how much rubbish one can come across on the Net! For instance, on one site I clicked during my search I learned that Bible is a Gospel of Porn. I actually read some of the article, couldn't resist, and needless to say - I laughed my heart out on that one. Apparently, the Bible is a new (ok maybe not THAT new) Kama Sutra! And here we were all thinking that sex is sinful in Christianity. The Gospel of Porn begs to differ!

Anyways, from there I went on searching for personal accounts of people who experienced muta'a first hand, and in one of those stories I came across Banat Al Riyadh book by a female Saudi author. Now, I've heard about this book, and as far as I know it's not yet translated in English, and I would love to get my hands on it as soon as it is. Many sites offer critique on the book (thankfully, in English), so I was able to learn from various credible and not so credible sources that the book is brilliant, total crap, beautifully written, horribly written in an internet language, is written in classical Arabic, in colloquial Arabic, in a mix of classical and colloquial Arabic, in chatroom English, nobody can understand this book, this book is easy to understand, the author is pretty (I loved that one!), the author is ugly, the book is only a success because the author is pretty, those who say the book is only a success because the author is pretty are jealous of the author's beauty, and so on. Once again, it was impossible to find out absolutely anything about the book that two critics would actually agree on. Solution: wait till I get the book and then judge for myself. However, I do tend to think that the book is good, if only because of all this controversy! ;-)

My other interesting find in the search for muta'a was CAIR website. Lots of interesting info on life of Muslims in the USA, and well done to them. The amusing part of it is that some websites (rather credible ones, if I may say so) are of the opinion that the chairman of CAIR himself, Mr. Omar Ahmad, issued a statement (no less!) that Quran should be America's highest authority. This statement of his is widely publicised on various (mostly Western) sites. However, there is no mentioning of it in CAIR website, and many Muslim sites write that Mr. Ahmad had never said such a thing. Who do I believe? As usual, I would believe my common sense and dare to suggest that Mr. Ahmad might have said something along these lines, or rather something that had "Quran" and "America" in the same sentence, although of course nothing as far fetched as trying to substitute Constitution with the Quran, and then some over-zealous reporters inflated whatever it is he might or might not have said into what I was rather amused to read on a WorldNetDaily site.

So here is the conclusion for the day's surfing: Internet is fun. It's a LOT of fun. But it is definitely worth checking the credentials of people who write the stuff we read, even if we agree with what they say (and I might add, especially if we agree with what they say - as there is little else that takes us off guard easier and makes us more gullible). Too often people would read the first thing they can get hold of and make up their mind based on that one piece of information alone. I think nowadays we need to take a look at a bigger picture, especially if the matter we are trying to research is new to us, controversial, sensitive or culturally different. Internet is a wealth of knowledge, viewpoints and opinions. And this was mine.

UPDATE: OK so you want to talk about muta'a? Do your homework first. It came to my attention that Religious Policeman wrote a lovely post that discusses temporary marriages, among other interesting things. I thought you might want to have a look! Also, he cited the following article from Arab News (again about muta'a marriages) which I found extremely helpful in my search for information. Please have a look and tell me what you think :^)