Let's see: it is forbidden to eat or drink during daylight hours in Ramadan. So is this "extreme Sharia," or ordinary run-of-the-mill chummy Sharia? Eat the Salad Do the Time Alert from the BBC, with thanks to JE:
An Algerian court has sent four men to jail for eating lunch in a restaurant during the holy month of Ramadan.
During this period, practising Muslims are meant to observe a fast between the hours of dawn and dusk.The three offenders were picked up in the town of Bejaia, some 260km east of Algiers and were found guilty of conspicuous contempt of religion.
The restaurant manager was given six months in prison. The others were sentenced to three months each.
Would Sir like 60 lashes with his starter?
Would Sir like 60 lashes with his starter?
They got their just desserts.
Its funny and terribly sad, and shows up all those petty intrusions into personal life which islam represents, and which they wish to impose on everyone. Why do the followers of the 'perfect' religion need to be railroaded into obeying their holy edicts, by 'man-made' laws?
islam means submission! you think we're playin' with you? HUH? You're lucky we're going to let you keep your hands this time!
Whoops, I think we're in the soup here Old Boy.
all those petty intrusions into personal life which islam represents
As Basil Fawlty, peace be upon him, said, 'Hors d'oeuvres, which must be obeyed at all times'.
"Would Sir like 60 lashes with his starter?"
-- from a posting above
Only if the main dish is stir -- I mean stephen -- fried.
Last week I was taking a cab home from work. My cab driver was making a call on his cellphone, and right afterward he turned to me and asked if I minded if he ate in the cab, which I of course agreed to. He said he was calling to verify the exact moment of sunset, because he was fasting for Ramadan. His wife cooked a meal and he had it and a drink, so he could break the fast when the moment came. His shift was evenings and night, so he joked that he had it easy because he slept most of the day and hence avoided the hardest part of the fasting.
I was tempted to mention that I did not fast on MY religious holiday (Yom Kippur), but I was fatigued (I had a cold, hence the cab and not the walk). NYC has many Muslims and I am curious what their attitudes to the Jews all around them are. Conspicuous Jewish imagery is all around, Stars of David, Hebrew writing, even Israeli flags.
I don't know what this has to do with this topic, really.
Quijybo
Was the restaurant manager Muslim? My guess, although I may be wrong, was that he was not and therefore subject to a harsher sentence for "corrupting" the Muslims who wanted to eat lunch.
chsw
It's the old story of catching the little fish and letting the big fish go.
I have far more contempt for islam than any of those sad sacks, and it is far more conspicuous, too.
I have too, because I got hired as:
Prophet Geoff
BBUH
From the few Muslims that I know personally, they stuff their faces before sunrise and, like Quiybo's experience, stuff their faces at the minute sunset occurs and continue to stuff their faces far into the night. They basically miss one meal. Health officials should condemn this kind of behavior. Fasting can be done in more moderate ways. This is off topic from the Alergians caught with their mouths full, but I am thoroghly disgusted at the media's term, "the HOLY month of Ramadan." I never hear, "the holy time of Yom Kippur" or "the holy festival of Daevali(sp?)" or the "holy festival of Easter." Just as the media helps make all Muslims into victims of....name the reason, they also elevate that religion to a status not afforded other world religions.
"NYC has many Muslims and I am curious what their attitudes to the Jews all around them are."
-- posted by Quijybo
Shalom, my good Quijybo, but I got some bad news for you.
PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH
Koran 2:43 [Jews] Perform prayer; pay the zakat tax; bow down and prostrate yourself with Ar-Raki’un (the obedient bowers). You read, recite, and study the Scripture. Why don’t you understand? Nay, seek [Islamic prostration] prayer: It is indeed hard, heavy, and exacting, except for those who obey in submission.
Koran 2:59 We sent a plague upon the Jews from heaven, for their evil-doing.
Koran 2:61 Humiliation and wretchedness were stamped on the Jews and they were visited with Allah’s wrath.
Koran 2:64 But you [Jews] went back on your word and were lost losers. So become apes, despised and hated. We made an example out of you.
Koran 4:55 Sufficient for the Jew is the Flaming Fire!
Koran 4:160 We have prepared for those among them who reject [Islamic] Faith a painful doom.
Koran 17:7 We shall rouse Our (Muslim) slaves to shame and ravage you (Jews), disfiguring your faces.
Koran 59:2 It was He [Allah] who drove the [Jewish] People of the Book from their [Medina] homes and into exile. They refused to believe... Had Allah not decreed the expulsion of the Jews, banishing them into the desert, He would certainly have punished them in this world, and in the next they shall taste the torment of Hell Fire.
Koran 59:14 The Jews are devoid of sense. There is a grievous punishment awaiting them. Satan tells them not to believe so they will end up in Hell.
Koran 88.1 Some faces (all disbelievers, Jews and Christians) that Day, will be humiliated, downcast, scorched by the burning fire, while they are made to drink from a boiling hot spring.
PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH
That's what your NYC Moslem neighbors are thinking of you, Quijybo. Kinda creepy, no?
My advice is that you get your ass down to the nearest mosque and convert to Islam now.
Some Muslims put on weight during ramadan. Apparently there is more food bought during this holy month of jihad than the other eleven months put together.
Jews fast for 25 hours without food or water. Muslims fast from sun-up to sundown then eat like theres no tomorrow -- always playing up the "sacrifice." The only reason they fast the way they do is because it seems to be longer than a Jewish fast. Same reason they pray 5 times a day. Religious Jews pray 3 times a day. Mo had to do something to try to boost his lousy self esteem. Only a mental case could glean bits of Judaism and Christianity like he did and try to weave it it to something "superior." Why do you think their sabbath is Friday? Jews already had Saturday and Christians claimed Sunday. What was left...Tuesday?
Kemaste,
The nature of my work requires that I from time to time correspond through email and send documents by overnight courier to individuals unknown to me in various countries. Many times, someone in the M.E., with whom I have not communicated with before, will remind me that their work week is Saturday through Wednesday, with Thursday and Friday their "weekend" so I should not expect replies on those days.
A few become obstinate and admonish me not to send anything to them through email or by courier that could possibly be received on Thursday or Friday. Of course, my response is whenever possible to make sure everything they receive is on one of those two days.
"Mo had to do something to try to boost his lousy self esteem."
-- posted by Kemaste
Abandoned by His (pbuh) mother, rejected by all of His (pbuh) relatives, He (pbuh) was finally pawned off as a suckling to a poor Bedouin nomad woman living in the sand.
After a time, the woman and her husband returned to Mecca and asked to give Him (pbuh) back to anybody who'd take Him (pbuh).
Finally, His (pbuh) grandfather Abdul Muttalib who had rejected Him (pbuh) before reluctantly agreed to take Him (pbuh) in.
When Grandpa Abdul Muttalib passed, His (pbuh) rich uncle Abu Talib took Him (pbuh) in. It is written that Uncle Abu Talib was frequently seen sitting in his bed with the Holy Prophet (pbuh), still a very young boy, smilling at Him (pbuh) and slowly rubbing His (pbuh) back.
All of which brings me back to one of my favorite subjects, Moslem Homoeroticism.
PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH
[52.20] Reclining on thrones set in lines, and We will unite them to large-eyed beautiful ones.
[52.21] And (as for) those who believe and their offspring follow them in faith, We will unite with them their offspring and We will not diminish to them aught of their work; every man is responsible for what he shall have wrought.
[52.22] And We will aid them with fruit and flesh such as they desire.
[52.23] They shall pass therein from one to another a cup wherein there shall be nothing vain nor any sin.
[52.24] And round them shall go boys of theirs as if they were hidden pearls.
[52.25] And some of them shall advance towards others questioning each other.
PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH
Boys as hidden pearls, large-eyed beautiful ones, served of the fruit and the flesh, advancing towards each other, questioning.
Are these Koranic verses a coincidental, or did Mohammed (pbuh) make the whole thing up?
If Uncle Abu Talib was having homo-sex with the 8-year old Mohammed (pbuh), did He (pbuh) continue as a practicing bisexual during his Reign of Terror?
One wonders how many hidden pearls He (pbuh) had holed up in His (pbuh) harem.
Maybe that's what al Tabari was alluding to when he said that he had to cut some things out of his history of Mohammed's (pbuh) life so people wouldn't think lowly of Him (pbuh).
Locked up for three months, just for ordering the cup-of-soup-and-half-sandwich special? And the restaurant manager gets six months? This gives new meaning to the phrase "There is no such thing as a free lunch."
Of course what is really going on here is a crackdown by the Arab, and therefore extra-Muslim Muslims, of the Berbers, slightly less-Muslim Muslims. The restaurant is in Kabylia. It is safe to assume that both the manager, and the three customers, were all Berbers.
Selective Arab mistreatment of Berbers is not the kind of thing the BBC would draw attention to, or want its listeners even to begin to understand. It would not be good if BBC listeners began to think about the Arab bullying of non-Arab Muslims. Just wouldn't fit within the Procrustean frame around the Potemkinish picture.
Lisa sez:
"A few become obstinate and admonish me not to send anything to them through email or by courier that could possibly be received on Thursday or Friday. Of course, my response is whenever possible to make sure everything they receive is on one of those two days."
I sez: Good lawyering!!
...conspicuous contempt of religion? What the heck is that? Maybe they were just hungry. At least in the Algerian prison they will get three squares a day. I heard the food is great there.
duh_swami - well, you know of course that "islam" doesn't mean "submission" or "slavery", even if muslims all over like to describe themselves as the "slaves of Allah". "Islam", of course, means "equal human rights in prison" and "no need to call Amnesty International!" and, of course, "the tardy to prayer may have fruit cup".
So, of course, we know that the human rights Allah has lovingly given these men, who are of course damned to hell for the sin of being hungry (how obstinate they are! will they not starve?!), will be abundantly protected in a prison of the making of their peers. All is well.
For, if it is not, hath Allah not given them the right to die?
And allah knows not.
But I do, for I am
Prophet Geoff [BBUH]
Silly me. And here I thought that under Islam there was no compulsion in religion.