Dear Shaykh Medliq al-Nabit,
On November 16, 2011, Saudi Arabia’s Council for Commanding the Good and Forbidding the Evil announced a new policy regarding female attire. As a media spokesman for this regally-named organization, which here in the West runs under the unfortunate moniker of “the Saudi religious police,” you stated that “the men of the council will intervene to compel women to cover up their eyes, especially those which provoke fitna ,” with fitna meaning allurement, seduction, or sedition.
On November 16, 2011, Saudi Arabia’s Council for Commanding the Good and Forbidding the Evil announced a new policy regarding female attire. As a media spokesman for this regally-named organization, which here in the West runs under the unfortunate moniker of “the Saudi religious police,” you stated that “the men of the council will intervene to compel women to cover up their eyes, especially those which provoke fitna ,” with fitna meaning allurement, seduction, or sedition.
According to reports via the internet, this policy rose out of an altercation in a local market-place during which a husband, assisted by a male comrade, defended his wife against certain assailants who had accused the man’s wife of flirting with them with her eyes. Although these accounts neglect to tell us the fate of the assailants or of the perpetrator of fitna, they do report that a Saudi court sentenced the husband to eight months in prison and 300 lashes over six sessions, his friend to eighteen months in prison and 700 lashes over ten sessions. (I am curious about the graduation of these punishments. How is it that the friend received more than double the punishment of the husband? Did he, too, confess to being attracted by the woman’s eyes? Did he fall victim to fitna and so come to her defense?)
For some time now, Shaykh, I have struggled to understand the reasoning behind certain Muslim dress codes in light of our own Western fashions. The hijab, or head covering, worn to hide a woman’s hair, finds reinforcement from Saint Paul, who enjoined women to cover their heads while worshipping lest their hirsute glory distract men from worship. Indeed, some Catholic women, cognizant of this Pauline injunction, still wear hats, scarves, or mantillas to Mass. The burka, that bulky garb designed to conceal a woman’s form, strikes many Westerners as both strange and repellent, though I for one find it preferable to the spandex tights worn by some elephantine women at the YMCA. (Between you and me, Shaykh, I have seen a few male lard-buckets at the beach who might benefit from wearing a burka as well). Even the veil covering the lower face I can understand. If nothing else, the flimsy material acts as a barrier to stolen kisses and may even help in the prevention of airborne diseases.
But the eyes--ah, Shaykh Medliq al-Nabit, to cover the eyes of women goes beyond the pale. Shakespeare once wrote of the “heavenly rhetoric of thine eye” and how there is no “author in the world teaching such beauty as a woman’s eye,” observations with which I heartily concur. Men may talk all they like about the physical attractions of breasts, buttocks, or waist size; the finely-turned ankle; coltish legs; a cascade of shimmering hair; but for me it is the twin windows to the soul which snare my attention and my heart. If you’ll pardon the pun, Shaykh, the eyes have It. These female enchantments can expiate a multitude of defects: that extra twenty pounds, that dull hair, that voice whose grating could grind cheese, even those tiny hairs on the chin. Caught up by a pair of radiant female eyes, I find myself slipping down a long chute into the bedroom of that woman’s heart. Blue eyes, brown eyes, gray eyes or green, eyes the color of an Arctic sea, eyes the shade of a thrush’s wing, pale eyes, dark eyes, eyes flecked with gold: I love all the shades and colors of these jewels, particularly when they shine, sport, and sparkle with--well, I suppose with fitna . One glance from such a pair of eyes, Shaykh, and yours truly is, as they say, a goner.
You can imagine my profound disappointment, then, with the decision promulgated by your Council for Commanding the Good and Forbidding the Evil to cover up a woman's eyes. For years now I have fantasized about visiting the bazaars of the Near East, listening to the call to prayers by the imams from their towers, inspecting hand-woven rugs, taking a few puffs from a hookah, imbibing your delicious coffee, and all the while drowning in the limpid ocular pools of veiled women. Put me down in such a marketplace, and without saying a word, without lifting a finger, without violating any physical boundary, I could flirt all day long with scores of women. By our glances alone these veiled lovelies and I could pass notes of attraction back and forth more swiftly than instant messages on an internet dating site. We could dance, we could sing, we could take long walks on the beach, all with just a touch of the eyes.
Now you and your council are contemplating the incineration of my dream, scorching its wings like a desert wind, blowing its gossamer to dust. An oculorum amator such as I--and surely I am not alone--cannot possibly contemplate visiting a land where shapeless, eyeless forms wearing more fabric than a French drawing room wander about the streets, which is, I suppose, the point of your prohibition. (The Prophet--I won’t mention his name, but you know the one I mean--catches some heat here in the West for taking as one of his wives a girl who was still playing with dolls. Today in the Land of the Great Satan he’d be condemned on all fronts quicker than you can say Mecca and Medina. But now I wonder: is it possible that the girl was so buried under her apparel that the Prophet simply made an honest mistake? Perhaps he thought she was a twenty-year-old who was short for her age. Feel free to take that angle if you like, by the way, should the matter ever come up with critics of your faith.)
For several weeks your proposed interdiction left me ravaged by an awful despair. Recently, however, a solution formed in my mind which may benefit the both of us. Having deeply considered the matter, and desiring to make a difference in the world in my remaining years, I wish to apply to your council for the post of fitna inspector.
Several strengths qualify me for the post of fitna foreman. For one, I am an infidel. Since a Muslim shouldn’t aspire to such a dangerous position--surely his poor benighted soul would be corrupted by a single day’s work--such investigations might best be left to an infidel dog like me, a Christian mastiff already bound for the torments of Islamic hell. (Here I must pause for a necessary question: If a martyr receives seventy virgins on entering Paradise, what might befall an infidel fitna inspector on entering Hell? If the answer to that question is seventy nagging mothers-in-law, I reserve the right to withdraw this application.)
I might also point out that appointing me as a fitna inspector could boost Arab-American relations. Our work together could serve as a bridge over our cultural divide and would surely make for good press. Furthermore, I speak no Arabic--truth to tell, I am not even sure how to pronounce your name--and so would be immune to the fitna of speech.
Finally, I offer my credentials regarding the work itself. For forty odd years--a few of them odd indeed--I have plied my trade as an eye man. From Carolina to California, from Massachusetts to Texas, I have gazed into women’s eyes. Let me assure you, Shaykh, that I will recognize a case of fitna when I see one. (I feel compelled here to add that I have also raised four teenagers, a task which further qualifies me to serve on any Council Commanding the Good and Forbidding the Evil).
If you hire me as a fitna inspector, I promise you won’t be sorry. From my first day, I would establish rigorous standards, high enough by way of propriety to make even the grumpiest old mullah peacock-proud of my efforts. My services would cost you but little--room and board say, with a small stipend--and I would require for an office only two chairs and a card table in the marketplace. To augment my meager income, I would ask your permission to set up a spinner rack of fashionable women’s sunglasses beside my table. In this way I could rectify immediately any problems of fitna that came my way while at the same time augmenting my income by the sale of the shades.
If appointed to this post, I promise, too, that I would never pass cursory judgment on any woman, young or old. Meticulous would be my middle name. Indeed, I might require up to an hour or so gazing into some woman’s eyes before coming to a determination as to her guilt of the crime of fitna . With certain suspects I am more than willing to work through the night. After all, it’s vital in such work to take the right measure of things.
Even in a desert hope blossoms anew. Make me your fitna inspector, and both of us will experience a true Arab spring.
Allahu akbar and all that good stuff,
Jeffrey M. Minick
For some time now, Shaykh, I have struggled to understand the reasoning behind certain Muslim dress codes in light of our own Western fashions. The hijab, or head covering, worn to hide a woman’s hair, finds reinforcement from Saint Paul, who enjoined women to cover their heads while worshipping lest their hirsute glory distract men from worship. Indeed, some Catholic women, cognizant of this Pauline injunction, still wear hats, scarves, or mantillas to Mass. The burka, that bulky garb designed to conceal a woman’s form, strikes many Westerners as both strange and repellent, though I for one find it preferable to the spandex tights worn by some elephantine women at the YMCA. (Between you and me, Shaykh, I have seen a few male lard-buckets at the beach who might benefit from wearing a burka as well). Even the veil covering the lower face I can understand. If nothing else, the flimsy material acts as a barrier to stolen kisses and may even help in the prevention of airborne diseases.
But the eyes--ah, Shaykh Medliq al-Nabit, to cover the eyes of women goes beyond the pale. Shakespeare once wrote of the “heavenly rhetoric of thine eye” and how there is no “author in the world teaching such beauty as a woman’s eye,” observations with which I heartily concur. Men may talk all they like about the physical attractions of breasts, buttocks, or waist size; the finely-turned ankle; coltish legs; a cascade of shimmering hair; but for me it is the twin windows to the soul which snare my attention and my heart. If you’ll pardon the pun, Shaykh, the eyes have It. These female enchantments can expiate a multitude of defects: that extra twenty pounds, that dull hair, that voice whose grating could grind cheese, even those tiny hairs on the chin. Caught up by a pair of radiant female eyes, I find myself slipping down a long chute into the bedroom of that woman’s heart. Blue eyes, brown eyes, gray eyes or green, eyes the color of an Arctic sea, eyes the shade of a thrush’s wing, pale eyes, dark eyes, eyes flecked with gold: I love all the shades and colors of these jewels, particularly when they shine, sport, and sparkle with--well, I suppose with fitna . One glance from such a pair of eyes, Shaykh, and yours truly is, as they say, a goner.
You can imagine my profound disappointment, then, with the decision promulgated by your Council for Commanding the Good and Forbidding the Evil to cover up a woman's eyes. For years now I have fantasized about visiting the bazaars of the Near East, listening to the call to prayers by the imams from their towers, inspecting hand-woven rugs, taking a few puffs from a hookah, imbibing your delicious coffee, and all the while drowning in the limpid ocular pools of veiled women. Put me down in such a marketplace, and without saying a word, without lifting a finger, without violating any physical boundary, I could flirt all day long with scores of women. By our glances alone these veiled lovelies and I could pass notes of attraction back and forth more swiftly than instant messages on an internet dating site. We could dance, we could sing, we could take long walks on the beach, all with just a touch of the eyes.
Now you and your council are contemplating the incineration of my dream, scorching its wings like a desert wind, blowing its gossamer to dust. An oculorum amator such as I--and surely I am not alone--cannot possibly contemplate visiting a land where shapeless, eyeless forms wearing more fabric than a French drawing room wander about the streets, which is, I suppose, the point of your prohibition. (The Prophet--I won’t mention his name, but you know the one I mean--catches some heat here in the West for taking as one of his wives a girl who was still playing with dolls. Today in the Land of the Great Satan he’d be condemned on all fronts quicker than you can say Mecca and Medina. But now I wonder: is it possible that the girl was so buried under her apparel that the Prophet simply made an honest mistake? Perhaps he thought she was a twenty-year-old who was short for her age. Feel free to take that angle if you like, by the way, should the matter ever come up with critics of your faith.)
For several weeks your proposed interdiction left me ravaged by an awful despair. Recently, however, a solution formed in my mind which may benefit the both of us. Having deeply considered the matter, and desiring to make a difference in the world in my remaining years, I wish to apply to your council for the post of fitna inspector.
Several strengths qualify me for the post of fitna foreman. For one, I am an infidel. Since a Muslim shouldn’t aspire to such a dangerous position--surely his poor benighted soul would be corrupted by a single day’s work--such investigations might best be left to an infidel dog like me, a Christian mastiff already bound for the torments of Islamic hell. (Here I must pause for a necessary question: If a martyr receives seventy virgins on entering Paradise, what might befall an infidel fitna inspector on entering Hell? If the answer to that question is seventy nagging mothers-in-law, I reserve the right to withdraw this application.)
I might also point out that appointing me as a fitna inspector could boost Arab-American relations. Our work together could serve as a bridge over our cultural divide and would surely make for good press. Furthermore, I speak no Arabic--truth to tell, I am not even sure how to pronounce your name--and so would be immune to the fitna of speech.
Finally, I offer my credentials regarding the work itself. For forty odd years--a few of them odd indeed--I have plied my trade as an eye man. From Carolina to California, from Massachusetts to Texas, I have gazed into women’s eyes. Let me assure you, Shaykh, that I will recognize a case of fitna when I see one. (I feel compelled here to add that I have also raised four teenagers, a task which further qualifies me to serve on any Council Commanding the Good and Forbidding the Evil).
If you hire me as a fitna inspector, I promise you won’t be sorry. From my first day, I would establish rigorous standards, high enough by way of propriety to make even the grumpiest old mullah peacock-proud of my efforts. My services would cost you but little--room and board say, with a small stipend--and I would require for an office only two chairs and a card table in the marketplace. To augment my meager income, I would ask your permission to set up a spinner rack of fashionable women’s sunglasses beside my table. In this way I could rectify immediately any problems of fitna that came my way while at the same time augmenting my income by the sale of the shades.
If appointed to this post, I promise, too, that I would never pass cursory judgment on any woman, young or old. Meticulous would be my middle name. Indeed, I might require up to an hour or so gazing into some woman’s eyes before coming to a determination as to her guilt of the crime of fitna . With certain suspects I am more than willing to work through the night. After all, it’s vital in such work to take the right measure of things.
Even in a desert hope blossoms anew. Make me your fitna inspector, and both of us will experience a true Arab spring.
Allahu akbar and all that good stuff,
Jeffrey M. Minick
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