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Chapter 5
Sex After Death
Realising man's weakness for sex, Islam
has presented an unusual theory of carnal gratification, which is most
beguiling, blissful and buffeting. It holds that sexual urge does not
perish with death because the man is Muslim, he will be resurrected and given a
place in paradise where he will enjoy the choicest sex day and night. Again,
sensual pleasures are reserved for man only, and houris i.e. the most beautiful
virgins, who inhabit paradise, are totally submissive to their male master. This
view represents the Islamic sexual psychology for being consistent with the
Prophetic stand point of "Dominance-urge versus Feminine Charm"
because here woman surrenders herself completely to man along with her physical,
emotional and artful beguilements. Thus, pleasing man, becomes her only
pleasure.
If the reader can remember that Adam (the Biblical
genitor of humankind) defied God to gain the favour of his woman (Eve), it is
not difficult to understand that a virile man shall live and die for Islam,
which promises the choicest sex-after-death in the form of paradise, dwelt in by
the most beautiful damsels and the prettiest boys. Here is a short description
of paradise, which Islam presents proudly and solemnly:
"This is the similitude of Paradise,
which the Godfearing have been promised:
Therein are rivers of water unstaling,
rivers of milk unchanging in flavour,
and rivers of wine - a delight to the drinkers,
rivers too, of honey purified;
and therein for them is every fruit "
(Muhammad XLVII: 15)
Here the "similitude" does not mean a "metaphorical
description" as the Muslim scholars pretend, but a true statement of
paradise. The following quotations from the Koran will leave the reader in no
doubt to this effect:
" for them (the Muslims) is
reserved a definite
provision, fruit and a great honour in the Gardens of
Bliss reclining upon couches arranged face to face,
a cup from a fountain being passed round
to them, white, a pleasure to the drinkers .....
and with them wide-eyed maidens flexing
their glances as if they were slightly
concealed pearls."
( The Rangers 40: 45 )
Whereas Chinese have preferred flat-chested women, the Arabs are fond of rising
bosoms. So, in keeping with the Arab taste, the Koran declares:
"Surely for the God-fearing
awaits a place of security,
gardens and vineyards
and maidens with swelling bosoms."
( The Tidings 30 )
The attraction of paradise is made more impelling when wine is made a part of
paradisiac living:
"Surely the pious shall be in bliss,
upon couches gazing:
You find in their faces the shining bliss
as they are offered to drink of wine sealed,
whose seal is musk and whose mixture
is Tasnim, a fountain at which to drink
those brought nigh."
( The Stinters 20: 25 )
For better illustration of the point under discussion, I may refer to Hadith
Tirmzi, volume two (p 35-40) which gives details of houris, the ever-young
virgins of paradise:
1. A houri is a most beautiful young woman with a
transparent body. The marrow of her bones is visible like the interior lines of
pearls and rubies. She looks like a red wine in a white glass.
2. She is of white colour, and free from the routine
physical disabilities of an ordinary woman such as menstruation, menopause,
urinal and offal discharge, child-bearing, and the related pollution.
3. She is a woman characterized by modesty and
flexing glances; she never looks at any man except her husband, and feels
grateful for being the wife of her husband.
4. A houri is a young woman, free from odium and
animosity. Besides, she knows the meaning of love and has the ability to put it
into practice.
5. A houri is an immortal woman, who does not age. She
speaks softly and does not raise voice at her man; she is always reconciled with
him. Having been brought up in luxury, she is a luxury herself.
6. A houri is a girl of tender age, having large
upright breasts. Houris dwell in palaces of splendid surroundings.
Now, add to this description of houris, what Mishkat,
volume three says on pages 83-97:
7. If a houri looks down from her abode in heaven onto
the earth, the whole distance shall be filled with light and fragrance
8. A houri's face is more radiant than a mirror, and
one can see one's image in her cheek. The marrow of her shins is visible to the
eyes.
9. Every man who enters paradise shall be given
seventy-two houris; no matter at what age he had died, when he enters paradise,
he will become a thirty-year-old, and he will not age any further.
10. Tirmzi, volume 2 states on page 138:
A man in paradise shall be given virility equal to that
of one hundred men!
It should be noted that men who are so potent, shall
not be inclined to anything except love-making. This is the reason that,
according to Islam, sexual gratification is the ultimate goal of life, and thus,
the behaviour of Muslims becomes sexually oriented.
Also remember that Islam does not forget the fact that
hetrosexuality is not the complete source of carnal gratification because some
people have different tastes. So, it adds a stunning dimension to the paradisiac
pleasures. The Koran says:
" God has……. provided them radiancy
and delight
and recompensed them for their (Muslim's) patience
With a Garden, and silk;
therein they shall see neither sun nor
bitter cold;
near them shall be its shades, and its clusters
hung meekly down,
and there shall be passed around them
vessels of silver, and large drinking
cups of crystal,
crystal of silver measure
very exactly.
And therein they shall be given to
drink a cup whose ingredient is ginger;
therein a spring whose name is Salsabil
Immortal youths shall go about them;
When thou seest them, thou supposest them
dispersed pearls,
When you see them you see the divine
happiness and a great kingdom.
Upon them shall be clothing of silk
and brocade; they are embellished with
bracelets of silver, and their Lord shall
give them to drink a pure draught.
(Man 76: 10-25)
This coaxing description of the unageing lads is also found in Mount LII: 20:
"While they hand therein a cup one to another
Wherein is no idle talk, no cause of sin,
and there go around youths, their own, as
if they were concealed pearls."
It is quite clear that besides the most beautiful virgins, there are also boys
in paradise, who
1. are as pretty as pearls,
2. are ever-young because they do not age,
3. wear clothes of silk, and
4. are embellished with silver bracelets.
What is the purpose of these unusually attractive boys, who dwell in paradise,
which is constructed in such a way that every brick of gold is followed by a
brick of silver; instead of mud or cement, saffron is used to hold them
together; even its pebbles are diamonds and rubies. He who enters paradise,
shall be free from grief; he will live there for ever, remain eternally young
and will never die.
The presence of intoxicating youths in such a luxurious
environment must have some unusual purpose though the Muslim scholars
claim that they are ordinary servants, who render their services to the lucky
Muslims.
But what kind of services? An ordinary does not have to
be ever-young, pretty-like-pearls, used to drinking wine (i.e. pure draught) and
habitually wearing silken dresses and silver bracelets?
These boys cannot be ordinary servants. What are they?
If I come straight to the point, the Muslims will charge me with blasphemy and
call me an "Insultor of the Prophet" but I am nothing of the kind. I
hold the Prophet in high regard and think of him as a great national hero, who
bestowed an unusually high dignity on the Arabs. In fact, I wish he was born in
India to raise its stature compatible with the natural bounties that this land
possessses.
I may, therefore, give a short sketch of the sexual
fascination that "boys" have displayed throughout history:
Homosexuality, also known as sexual inversion, means
sexual attraction of a person to one of the same sex i.e. man to man and woman
to woman. The latter is called lesbianism for its association with the Aegean
island of Lesbos.
This deliberation is, however, concerned with male
homosexuality only. Those who practice it, think of it as a delight but its
opponents find it disgusting. The writer is neither its practitioner nor
its advocate, yet it is a real issue because it has influenced the course of
history, and therefore, requires a frank discussion whether one likes it or not.
This is why the modern legal thinking holds it as no crime if the act takes
place in private between consenting adults.
Is it a genetic condition or an acquired habit? Though
one cannot give an exclusive opinion on the subject, one can refer to certain
facts, leaving the final conclusion to the reader:
The huge systematic surveys of homosexuality that A. C.
Kinsey conducted in 1948 and 1953 showed that 37 per cent of U.S. males had
indulged in this activity. Again, the American anthropologist, C. S. Ford, and
psychologist, F. A. Bench, studied primitive societies during 1951. In 76
communities, it was found that 64 per cent accepted it as a normal practice.
Homosexuality has been observed in certain animals such
as apes; cows in heat are known to mount other cows, and so are cats, dogs,
rabbits, lions and horses.
Amongst humans, it is more prevalent, and is especially
noticeable in societies where sex-segregation is observed. The boys are
stimulated by the boys and resort to this practice for sexual gratification.
This may not be desirable owing to its effects on mental and physical
development of boys before reaching adolescence. On the other hand, girls'
passions are unduly suppressed to make them pious, pure and perfect. They are
taught and subjected to a discipline of high morality. Thus value of virginity
is raised sky-high, and men want to marry virgins only, even though they may
have lost their own chastity during the early stage of their life. It may tame
the sexual outlook of women but it certainly distorts the emotional view of
boys, leading to the growth of a male-dominant society, which develops such
vices as dowry and legal disparities regarding inheritance and matrimonial
rights of the spouses.
A law of Physics states that dissimilar poles attract
and similar poles repel. This rule applies, not only to inanimate objects but
also humans, and its operation starts right from babyhood. Male infants are
inclined towards their mothers, and females to their fathers for this reason,
and not owing to any unresolved sexual emotions. Of course, both genders are
born with a sexual blue print but it takes many years to mature; until this
happens carnal drive does not count for anything, and requires no resolution. If
this were not true, seeing babes copulate would be a common spectacle. However,
exceptions are always there: some children may mature earlier and possess
varying degrees of sexual intensity.
Regarding homosexuality, one may say that the said law
of Physics breaks down, and as a result, the similars begin to attract.
The paradox is resolved when we realise that virility
is a part of the dominance-urge: more virile a person, the greater the desire to
have a harem or indulge in promiscuity: lek behaviour, which impels animals to
possess numerous females for proving their dominance, establishes this fact
firmly. Physically, man is no different from other primates: his urge of
dominance is even greater: men like Genghis Khan and Adolf Hitler, who would
slaughter a million men just to look superior, support this point of view.
One may add that homosexuality, an age-old experience,
is an epiphenomenon, which has always existed besides hetrosexuality. It defies
the physical law of the opposites, yet it is governed by the enormity of sexual
drive the same way as the brute might of atomic force equally applies to the
negative and positive charges irrespective of their dissimilarity.
Sexual desires is one of compelling drives of man; he
may commit any crime or sin to satisfy it: the Biblical story, which shows that
Adam rebelled against God to please Eve, seeks to illustrate this point. Man's
greatest drive is what I have termed as dominance-urge; sexual drive, being a
part of it, is likely to transgress the normal patterns of behaviour for its
gratification.
However, there is one difference between man's and
animal's behaviour; he wants to justify his action on moral or spiritual ground,
no matter how fake, fictitious or fraudulent it may be. He uses both religion
(God) and reason for this purpose to relieve his conscience from the burden of
guilt. A persistent desire to satisfy conscience shows that humanity is destined
to achieve moral perfection, and the day is approaching when all political and
economic barriers, which stand in its way, shall be broken down.
Man's story for giving homosexuality religious sanctity
is really interesting. Though Greece is not the origin of sexual inversion, it
is certainly the Greek ingenuity, which lent it the spiritual grace:
According to a Greek legend, Ganymede, the son of Tros,
King of Troy, was so beautiful that Zeus, the king of gods, became enamoured of
him. Disguised as an eagle, he swooped down on this young lad affectionately,
and carried him off to be his cup bearer i.e., to serve the God intoxicating
drinks.
The Greek legend has been frank and honest about the
interpretation of this incident. It is not like the Muslim scholars, who pretend
that G(h)ilman i.e., the ever-young, bride-like boys of paradise are there to
serve drinks to the faithful, and nothing else. On the contrary, the Greeks
believed that Zeus, the Chief God, had a homosexual passion for Ganymede. In
Rome, he (Ganymede) appears as Catamitus i.e., Catamite, which means a young lad
kept for sexual purposes. In pursuance of the Greek tradition, this practice
became so rife amongst the Romans that some historians believe it to be the
cause of their moral ruination, which eventually led to the decline of their
political grandeur.
"Homosexuality seems to have been popularised by
Socrates, the great Greek philosopher." Plato speaks of Socrates and
Alcibiades as lovers, and describes the philosopher "in chase of the fair
youth."
Writing further about Socrates, Will Durant adds,
"he was not above giving advice to homosexuals and hetairai on how to
attract lovers."
Repeating opinion about the greatness of Socrates, Will
Durant says: "Or as Plato put it, with moving simplicity, 'he was truly the
wisest, and justest, and best of all the men whom I have ever known."'
From the above, it is clear that homosexuality was not
looked down upon in Greece, otherwise, Plato would not have showered such praise
on Socrates, who had a homosexual relationship with Alcibiades.
Will Durant is a highly respected historian of the 20th
century. His statement is confirmed by an account in the "International
Library of Famous Literature, Volume 2 (P. 693): He (Alcibiades) was brought up
in the house of Pericles, and lived on terms of intimacy with Socrates."
Socrates was not only a great philosopher but also a
soldier of high stature. "At Potidaea he saved both the life and the arms
of the young Alcibiades, and gave up in the youth's favour his claim to the
prize of velour."
Pederasty, which denotes sexual relationship between an
older man and a young lad, seems to have been initiated by Socrates, who also
happened to be a mystic. Though mystical principles practiced throughout the
world are of Vedic origin, mysticism entered Persia through Greece, and then
returned to India as Sufism.
As the mystical model, Socrates, had only one shabby
garment, which he wore throughout the year; he was fully reconciled with his
poverty, and felt rich without possessing anything at all. Bearing extreme
hardships was one of his great virtues. He could drink to his heart's content
without ever getting drunk. He had made himself immune to the effects of cold
and heat: when his fellow-soldiers "wrapped themselves up carefully, and
put fleeces under their feet (in intolerably severe weather), Socrates went out
only with the same cloak on that he usually wore, and walked barefoot upon the
ice. He was also known for meditation from dawn to dusk, and whenever he did it,
he was fully absorbed in himself. "
When we look into these Socratic qualities, it
transpires that the Islamic mysticism (tasawwaf) has been built around the
Socratic model. I have no doubt that the metaphoric eulogy of wine that the
Muslim Sufi saints habitually sing in their poetry, is a legacy of the Socratic
drinking habit, and so is their love of boys, poverty, Stoic contentment and
meditation.
Socrates was an open book but Plato, who adopted his
several views, has not demonstrated his frankness in stating some of them. One
of the issues has come to be known as Platonic love, which emanates from the
Socratic discourses:
According to Plato, man is composed of two part
-eternal and mortal: the former is termed as soul, which is divine, whereas the
mortal side being passionate and vegetative, is profane, because it has been
assigned to man by the inferior gods, though at the behest of the supreme deity.
When these appetitive passions are pursued, release of soul from the body
becomes difficult, and man suffers from a very long cycle of reincarnations.
Plato states that the release of soul is possible
through knowledge only; this happens when mind is led by Eros, the Greek
love-god (the Indian Kama), also known as sexual desire, which is the source of
affection, leading to knowledge. However, all love is not productive because it
can lead in either direction - reason or passion, vice or virtue. These
divisions, he is said to have inherited from the prevailing dualistic views.
Platonic love, which is essentially homosexual, was
encouraged by the excessive Greek fear of over-population. It is for this reason
that there was only one household in a hundred that brought up more than one
girl; most daughters at birth were exposed to die. This caused a shortage of
women, accelerating the need for homosexuality.
Apart from the social influence, Plato was guided by
his philosophical vision, and did not support heterosexual love, whose purpose
is procreation, which leads to the imprisonment of soul in the body. He held
that people indulged in this kind of love because they wanted to live through
the memories of their children. But those who have creative desire for soul,
shun woman. Secretof spiritual begetting is,
therefore, love of man by man. In other words, love of the leads to trouble but
love of the similar gender guarantees immortality. This is the way of releasing
the mind (soul) from the grip of the matter (body). Yet, he did not think that
love between man and man implied carnal intercourse. This is a deliberate
ambiguity because it evidently contradicts the function of Eros, which concerns
gratification of sexual desire.
What was, then, Platonic love all about? It was a
relationship between two males - one called Erastes, the lover, and another
Eromenos, the beloved. Again, this relationship was between the socially equals,
and thus defied the universal law of love, which acknowledges no barrier of
caste, colour or creed. It is a philosophical attempt to invent a new type of
pederasty, which inflates erotic desire but forbids sexual gratification in a
vain hope to transform the carnal excitement into imaginative and intellectual
energy.
This view is simply absurd for being opposed to
practical realities of life. However, this theory holds that as a beloved looks
a model of beauty to the lover, he inspires love and reverence in the soul of
latter. Initially, it is Eros, the sexual desire, which stirs the soul through
the beauty of the youth (beloved); the beauty of the boy as perceived by his
lover, is reflected back, arousing him (the youth), too. Thus, lover Eros
(passion) evokes a counter-Eros, which is a reflection of the inspired love.
Therefore, Eros both inspires and is inspired in turn. As a result, beauty of
the lover and the beloved becomes a mutual reflection in each other's soul,
leading them to march in tandem towards eternity. What a manipulation of erotic
love it is!
This mutual relationship between the two males assumes
that the lover is a teacher (as Socrates was) to the beloved, but as far as
knowledge is concerned, the latter is a student. The lover as a teacher looks
upward in his own right whereas the beloved looks up by reflection, thus both
climb the "ladder of love," but the lover is always ahead of the
beloved in search of eternity.
Socrates, the originator of the above theory (modified
by Plato) was the lover of Alcibiades, who became a celebrated Athenian
politician and general. As a youth, he lived on terms of intimacy with Socrates
for a long time. Socrates, the great Greek philosopher was a man of many
virtues, and rose to become a mentor of some immortal mystical traditions, still
followed in the east. But the truth is that he was tired on a charge of
corrupting young boys, and sentenced to death. His greatness is marked by
his fearleshasness: he did not escape from the prison when he was provided with
such an opportunity, he preferred to drink hemlock (poison) and left this world
as a brave man of integrity.
Alexander, the Great, though a Macedonian, proved to be
the ambassador of the Greek culture, which had been imbued with homosexuality,
having an intoxicating Divine flavour. He was not only a rare military genius
but also possessed some great political and administrative qualities. He fell in
love with eastern manners; he wore eastern dress and had two eastern queens, but
his heterosexuality was just a cover-up for the eastern politics. He was a
homosexual like the Greeks, whose culture he loved and practised. Hephaestion
and Bago are two of his well-known catamites. Through him, and afterwards his
generals, the Greek culture known as hellenism, flourished in the Middle
Eastern countries. It was given an extra ictus by the fact that Alexander
claimed to be a god and was acknowledged and worshipped as such throughout his
eastern dominious. The habits of god are bound to have a quick and lasting
influence on the character of ordinary mortals. It penetrated the guts of the
Persian poetry so deeply that it has become living eroticism in the mystical
form of versification and has spread to all the Muslim countries where the
Persian language has flourished. .
The Arabian peninsula was no exception. Not only the
South worshipped female deities connected with the Greek tradition but hellenism
also reached the North, the land of the Prophet Muhammad. We find the name of
Alexander, the Great, mentioned in the Koran as Dhool Karnain:
"They will question thee (Muhammad) concerning
Dhool Karnain. Say: I will recite to you a mention of him ....."
One ought to note that the name of Alexander the Great
was not unheard of in the Hijaz (the Prophet's country) because people were
curious to know more about him. Again, the Koran depicts Alexander, the Great,
as a righteous man to whom Allah spoke and also left the making of vital
decisions:
We (Allah) said, "O Dhool Karnain,
either thou shalt chastise them,
Or thou shalt take towards them
a way of kindness " (The Cave XVIII: 85)
It is quite clear that the Koran has not condemned Alexander, the Great.
Instead, he has been displayed as a righteous man, whose judgement Allah trusted
and respected! Obviously, his homosexuality had no bearing on piety. This fact
is supported in the already quoted Mount LII: 20, which states:
"While they (boys) hand therein (paradise) a cup
One to another wherein is no idle talk, no cause of sin, and there go around
youths, own, as if they were concealed pearls."
These verses describe two facts clearly:
1. All Muslim men shall have "their own" boys
who are pretty like pearls, and
2. there will be "no cause of sin;" it means
that so liberal shall be the laws of paradise that lasciviousness shall not
count as a sin.
That this interpretation of the above Koranic verse is
correct and honest, is corroborated by the facts of history. About the high
society of Arabia during its heyday, Professor Philip K. Hitti wrties in his
famous "History of the Arabs" (10th edition, p. 341):
"The servants were almost all slaves recruited
from non-Muslim peoples and captured by force, taken prisoners in time of war or
purchased in time of peace The white slaves ( Mamluk ) were mainly Greeks and
Slavs, Armenaisn and Berbers. Certain slaves were eunuchs (Khisvan) attached to
the service of the harem. Others termed Ghilman, who might also be eunuchs, were
the recipients of special favour from their masters, wore rich and attractive
uniforms and often beautified and perfumed their bodies in effeminate fashion.
We read that Ghilman in the reign of al-Rashid, but it was evidently al-Amin
who, following the Persian precedent, established in the Arabic world the
Ghilman institution for the practice of unnatural sexual relations. A judge
under al-Mamun used four hundred such youths. Poets like abu-Nuiwas did not
disdain to give public expression to their perverted passions and to address
amorous pieces of their composition to beardless young boys."
These historical facts conform to the highly erotic
Koranic description of the paradisiac boys, who are ever-young, pretty like
pearls, dressed in silk and brocades, and wear bracelets. Above all, like
Ganymede they serve wine in cups of crystal. These boys are not servants as the
Muslim scholars pretend because a servant can be old, ugly and poorly dressed.
The Persians (Iranians) had acquired love of
homosexuality from their conquering master, Alexander the Great and his Greek
soldiers. This practice was made lawful among the Arabs by the Koranic
description of the beautiful boys: al-Rashid and al-Amin were prominent rulers
and leaders of the Muslim world, which treated them as the Model of Behaviour.
This is the reason that the Qazis (Muslim judges) who were expected to live, and
dispense justice according to the principles of Islam, kept harems of boys
unashamedly.
Not only history testifies to what I have stated, the
Koran and hadith (the sayings and life precedents of the Prophet) allude to even
greater sexual freedom, and this is done through a maze of ambiguity and
self-contradictions:
Islam apparently forbids anal intercourse with women.
There are several hadiths to this effect on page 89 of Mishkat' volume 2. One
hadith says that the man who sodomises his woman is accursed but another says:
"Your women are your tillage. Come to your tillage
from back or front but avoid the ones who suffer miqad or menstruation."
"Miqad" means anus. The mullahs have
deliberately tried to misinterpret it by saying that Islam forbids anal
intercourse with women. In this hadith, it implies that a man must not use the
back of his woman during her monthly period, otherwise it is permitted.
Look at the following hadith on page 87 of Mishkat,
volume 2.
Jabir, quoting the Prophet said: "The Jews used to
say when one sodomises one's wife, the children are born with squinted eyes, but
Allah sent this verse which says: "Your wives are your tillage, come to
your tillage from any side you like."
For the satisfaction of readers, I may add that the
verse referred to in the above quoted hadith is to be found in the Koran (The
Cow, 2: 220).
This discussion explains how Islam exploits the
psychological weakness of man for sex, and prescribes Jehad as the sure way of
getting into paradise, the abode of the most luxurious sex. Yet it claims to be
the Divine code of enforcing virtue and forbidding vice!
Sex-after-death, which is a speciality of Islam,
requires an investigation into the concept of Jehad, which is fundamentally
connected with carnal delights.
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