The escape clause?

Fair dues warning: This is a spiritual post. Please leave if you are easily offended. 

Krishna demolishing Kansa

I heard a talk from a Hindu scholar recently. He was narrating the story of Krishna and the troubling times he was born into. Rather, the Protector of the Universe, Vishnu, manifested himself as Krishna to maintain law and order. Too many influential people were abusing their positions to create chaos, which needed to be curbed.

Krishna's immediate duty was to defeat Kansa, his uncle, a demonic King. Trouble started when Kansa married off his sister, Devaki, to Vasudeva. Deep inside, Kansa intended to usurp Vasudeva's land. At the wedding, a prophecy was heard that Devaki's eighth child would be the reason for Kansa's defeat. Kansa imprisoned the couple, and Devaki's seven children were all killed at birth. Why all the other births, too, not just the eighth? Somebody alerted Kansa that the seven siblings could rally behind the eighth to attack him.

When the eighth child was finally born on an auspicious star on a wet rainy night, the hypnotic illusion of Vishnu came into full force. With sleeping guards and extremely lax security, a child was born, taken out of prison, transported across River Ganga, swapped with another baby, a baby girl, born at the same time, and returned to Devaki's cell. The baby girl cried only when it arrived at its destination, alerting the guards. The palace was alerted, but by the time Kansa laid his hands on the baby, he knew he had been duped. Was the prophecy wrong? The eighth born turned out to be a girl! Kansa tried to smash the baby on the wall. Surprise, surprise. The baby girl turned out to be Goddess Kaali, who announced that Kansa’s assassin was safe on the other side of the river and that his days were numbered.

Kansa spent the rest of his days thinking of Krishna, turning every corner and looking for his assailant. Long story short, Kansa sent so many adversaries to finish off young Krishna, but in vain. When Kansa was finally killed, it is said he attained moksha (released from the curse of rebirth) because Krishna was always on his mind, thinking of Krishna day and night.

Ravana

The same thing is said to have happened to Ravana. After kidnapping Sita, keeping her captive, and wooing her, he was shocked when Hanuman arrived in his supposedly safe cocoon. Hanuman created a ruckus by burning Lanka. It was a warning to Ravana that the end was nay. Rama was coming sooner than he thought. Just like Kansa, Ravana went into alert mode. 

Despite being the sorcerer and the erudite person he was, the fear of Rama and the accompanying Vanara army sank in. Ravana shuddered. What carnage could the rest do if one representative could do such damage? Every minute that followed, he was compelled to think of Rama and only Rama. Again, Ravana was defeated but also attained moksha because Rama was always at the tip of his tongue and immersed deep in his thoughts. 

My feeble mind does not comprehend all these. These great tyrants, despite all their evil deeds, the pain and suffering they inflicted upon others, and the trail of destruction left behind, escaped the dreaded curse of reincarnation because they went on thinking and chanting the Lord's name. It is a rather lazy way of cutting the queue, surpassing all others who went the problematic way of collecting brownie points and spiralling through birth after birth to attain salvation. In my mind, katas (sermons) like these are the crossroads where itihasa (history), tattva (philosophy) and sciences morph into myths. The scriptures tell about Rama and Krishna's dates of birth indirectly through constellation positions, permitting accurate dating of certain events. This information can be fed through astronomical apps to verify the presence of such a constellation. Astronomical calculations had verified it to be correct. Their births probably happened. That is science. But I am not so sure about others. My blinkers are still on, and I may not be ready to receive the essence of the nectar of the Lord's divine wisdom. But I persevere...

(P.S. I had been under the impression that the law of karma works like Newton's Third Law of Motion. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. You reap what you sow. Perhaps this escape route to erase one's sins is reactionary to what the Catholic Church was preaching at that time in India. A sincere confession under the name of the Lord cleans the slate. Fearing losing their congregation to the order side where something else is offered to the Law of Karma, the stakeholders may have relented. Instead of uttering ‘Hail Mary’ thrice and absolving your sins, they offered the chanting of ‘Hari Krishna Hari Rama’ indefinitely.)

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Is love jihad even a thing?

The Kerala Story (Hindi, 2023)

Written & Directed by Sudipto Sen

 This movie is kicking a storm in India right now. It is outrightly banned in West Bengal by the ruling party. In Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the courts have allowed screening for the time being, but the case is due to be reviewed in the Supreme Court soon. 

Some cinema hall operators have voluntarily decided not to screen the film for fear of reprisal from angry mobs. They cite not wanting to offend Muslim sentiments and the possibility of property damage. This only shows the schizophrenic nature of society. On the one hand, people talk about freedom of expression; simultaneously, there is a need to control the narrative.

The controversy stems from the story's theme - love jihad and forced conversion. A Malayalee Hindu nursing student tells her life story. A bubbly student dabbles with Islam and is lured into marrying a Muslim man after inadvertently getting pregnant. She is brainwashed to hate her roots and family, is forcibly converted, given a new identity and packed off to ISIS-controlled areas to be a sex slave. The film suggests a concerted plan by Muslim groups to identify pretty Christian and Hindu girls and lure them into Islam. The protagonist lives to tell her ordeal after she escapes one of these ISIS hell holes. 

So what is the controversy all about?

Muslims have repeatedly asserted that jihad in Islam refers to the internal striving to improve oneself and fight inner demons, not a crusade to convert the world or assert dominance over others. They insist that ISIS' brand of Islam does not follow the teachings of the mainstream Islamic schools of thought. It represents a warped understanding of the religion. Unfortunately, practising Muslims are wary of outrightly condemning their antics to protect the sanctity of Islam. They feel it is not their position to judge and condemn for fear of being labelled a heretic. The punishment for apostasy is quite unnerving. This gives the religion a bad reputation among non-believers and widens the fissure between the ummah and kaffirs. 

Does love jihad exist? Is there a concerted effort to proselytise non-Muslims? In certain tribal societies in Central Asia, a man proves his virility by kidnapping his bride. This practice was prevalent with Turks about the time of the inception of the Ottoman Empire. The Turks found the blonde, blue-eyed Caucasian girls easy targets. Within a few generations, the Turks, once with Mongoloid features, became indistinguishable from Europeans. This practice worked perfectly well for the Empire to spread its influence and faith, as the conversion was assumed to be a one-way ticket. One can check out anytime but can never leave. 

Reports of girls leaving the comfort of their cushy lives to don purdahs and carry rifles heading for ISIS suicide missions in the name of love of religion (and beau) are not unheard of. The story of Shamima Begum and her application to reinstate her British citizenship comes to mind. 

This love jihad business is often portrayed as an RSS and BJP's political propaganda and an Islamophobic Trobe to polarise society for political gains. Interestingly, this phenomenon was first highlighted by a Bishop in Kerala way back in 2009. The presiding High Court judge in a forced conversion case that ensued later agreed that there was a well-known movement known as Love Jihad or Romeo Jihad. The official figures for this are elusive, but one finding put 1,400 from diverse ethnic backgrounds in India as victims.

In many so-called 'right-wing' YouTube channels, there is much coverage of Hindu groups supposedly rescuing Hindu and Christian girls from such ordeals. 

Even though accusations of sexual grooming of societies have been making their rounds for some time now, it is only of late that people in power have woken up to the idea that many communities in the U.K. and Sweden, particularly of Pakistani descent, have been slowly building a web of emotional and hierarchical connections with their young to intentionally manipulate, exploit and abuse them. Investigations into this gained momentum after the 2010 Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal in the U.K. The Prime Minister of the U.K. even admitted threats imposed by such groups and is under their scrutiny.

Finally, all the parties that hurl accusations and counter-accusations at each other have only one agenda. It is a numbers game. The endpoint is usurping power and control. Using victim card to garner sympathy and invoking God's name in their actions, the ultimate aim is to win elections. It is not about doing the right thing or being fair. The end justifies the means.

Meanwhile, the film's financiers are laughing all the way to the bank as the film smashes the box office and grosses unprecedented returns on investment. So far, in such a short duration since its release, it is said to be the fifth highest-grossing Hindi film of 2023.  

(P.S. The events portrayed in the film were reportedly inspired by the accounts of four women from Kerala who converted to Islam and travelled with their husbands to Afghanistan to join ISIS between 2016 and 2018. They were interviewed by a news website in 2019. They were part of a 21-member group from Kerala to join ISIS in 2016 and have remained incarcerated in Afghanistan since surrendering in 2019. The figure of 32,000 victims of love jihad mentioned in their trailer (later withdrawn) may have been exaggerated.)

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We are not taking questions, thank you!

Mentega Terbang (Butterfly, Malay; 2021)
Writer, Director: Khairi Anwar

This release was released about two years ago and won international awards for its efforts. Unfortunately, it became famous in Malaysia only after the local artists guild decided to make a police report about it as they deemed that it offended the sensitivities of Malay Muslims in Malaysia. Many of its dialogues appeared like they were ridiculing Islam, it is alleged.

The Malaysian certification board had no control over Malaysians viewing it as it was broadcast online on a webpage. Since the recent brouhaha, even the said screening platform decided to stop having it on its accord.

We all grew up wondering about death in our formative years. With all the cultural-religious rituals associated with funerals and the stories related to the soul and the afterlife, we naturally assumed that God and religions give a kind of shield to protect us from untimely death. This internal squabble to choose the 'right' religion to fulfil our spiritual needs was important in my moulding into an adult.

Naturally, when Aisya, a 16-year-old Malay girl has an ailing mother with terminal pancreatic cancer, the thought that her mother may be gone at any moment must be daunting. The zest to save her mother from death or what would happen to her mother prompted her to venture into other holy scriptures to understand death. However, her parents, strict Muslims, were quite relaxed with their daughter reading other religious books about it. 

Aisya is excited about reincarnation and rebirth as preached in Buddhism and Hinduism. The idea of her deceased mother hanging around her as a bug or a butterfly in her next birth excites her. Her journey of discovery is eased with the presence of her neighbour, the dog-walking Auntie Esther, who helps with Christian scriptures. Then her classmate, Suresh, gives the Hindu-Buddhist perspective of life and death. To pour cold water into her burning passion is her busybody neighbour, Uncle Kassim, who is everywhere to remind her to stick to her religion and beware of the other practitioners who are out to sway her away from the one true path.

On her path to self-discovery, Aisya is seen patting and getting cosy with a dog, hanging around doing her school homework with her male classmate in her bedroom and saying that she has no qualms about eating pork. The scene that probably took Malaysians by storm must be the one where Aisya's father offers her the choice to embrace another religion if she pleases to come to terms with her mother's death. Even in the last scene at the mother's burial ground, Aisya thinks her mother is with her as a butterfly that lands on the tombstone. That is reincarnation.

History suggests the world of Islamic civilisation around Babylon and Basra was the envy of the learned. Its coffee houses with its intellectual discourses were to die for at the time when Europe was in Dark Ages. The Mutazilites' brand of Islam of the day encouraged such discussions in search of the truth. All that came to a grinding halt when the Ash'arites became the dominant force. Open Aristotelian type of arguments about religion was put to an end. A grown adult with his faculties intact has no willpower but to leave his life to a group of leaders who herd people into submission by invoking the name of God for their own nefarious intentions.

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Freedom of expression?

The Lady of Heaven (2021)

Directed by Eli King (pseudonym)

When a controversial figure like Sheikh Yasser Al-Habib writes the script of a movie, one can be pretty sure that it will kick up some dirt. Just for the record, Al-Habib, a Kuwaiti Shia cleric, was imprisoned in Kuwait for 35 years when he insulted the companions of the Prophet back in the early 2000s. After obtaining a royal pardon from the Emir of Kuwait, he resided in the UK. He lost his Kuwaiti citizenship in 2004 when he stated in his speeches that the Prophet died not because of an ailment but after being poisoned by His wives! Al-Habib apparently has made a hobby out of insulting Sunnis.

In the UK, he continues his controversial stance and has been accused of being a divisive figure and one-minded in creating a rift between the Shia and Sunni denominations of Islam. As a head of the Shia community, he regularly appears in the media for all the wrong reasons accentuating the Shia-Sunni divide.

This movie is pregnant with so many points that beg to be picked up by detractors as offensive. No one gets away depicting Islamic holy figures in flesh and bones and gets away scot-free; what more if it is the Prophet and his daughter Fatima. The filmmakers got around it by using CGI and light deception for this purpose.

We know that the Shia-Sunni divisions started as early as when the Prophet was on his deathbed. The selection of His successor was the bone of contention. Ali, Fatima's husband, was apparently favoured by the Prophet but His tribe members felt someone from the tribe should continue the Caliphate duties.

That is where things get murky. Both denominations have their own version of what actually transpired at that time. To tell stories of a dark-skinned mob, who eventually became Sunnis, waiting to burn down the house occupied by Ali and Lady Fatima is just too much for the Ummah to stomach.

To further fuel, the anger is the comparison of the ISIS mob in Mosul during the Iraqi invasion of 2014 to the time surrounding the Prophet's succession. The film compares the pioneers of the Sunni sect as one-minded, aggressive and as resolved as the ISIS men in creating mayhem. The narration tends to imply that the first Islamic terrorism started way back in the 7th century! Lady Fatima was its first victim.

The story is told from the perspective of the Shias on the turn of events around the Prophet's death, but it ended up hurting the sentiments on both sides. It equated the Abu Bakr and Umar (Sunnis) to the dark-skinned Arabs, while the Ali and the Shias were fair-skinned, stirring up racial sentiments.

Muslims worldwide have condemned this movie for spreading false information about the religion. Widespread demonstrations in the UK prompted cinema halls to cancel this film's screening, fearing their staff's safety. Morocco, Egypt, Pakistan, Iran and Iraq denounced the flick as blasphemous and banned it in their countries.

It narrates the tale of Lalith, a young Iraqi boy whose mother was killed by ISIS soldiers. He is picked up by an Iraqi soldier. The soldier's mother nurtures him to escape his PTSD by telling him the story of Prophet Mohamad's daughter, Lady Fatima, who sailed through her difficult times with patience and calmness. A mob was outside her house, threatening to burn her house and demanding for her husband, Ali, who was earmarked to continue the Prophet's journey.

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No warranty, No guarantee!

Mookuthi Amman (மூக்குத்தி அம்மன், Nose-ringed Goddess, Tamil; 2020)

This movie is obviously a bashing against BJP's imminent entry into Tamil Nadu politics. Since the 1930s, Tamil Nadu politics had been secular (read anti-Hindu). From the time of EV Ramasamy and subsequent leaders of the state, they have always claimed to be atheists. They all fell prey to the British's devious 'divide and rule' strategy. They also subscribe to the now-defunct 'Aryan invasion theory'. They believe that the story of Ramayana is the story of Northerners (Aryans and Brahmins), of King Rama, colonising the Dravidians led by Ravana. What they fail to realise is that Ravana actually hails from the region around modern-day Uttar Pradesh, hence from the North too. He usurped the Lanka kingdom from his half brother, Kuberan.

EV Ramasamy had always been sceptical of the Hindu hierarchical order. His idea was the Brahmins were out to aggrandise themselves and vilify the lower castes. Being a social activist, he started the Self Respect Movement and worked hard towards women empowerment, caste equality, anti-Hindi rhetorics and opposition against Brahminical dominance in Tamil Nadu. Subsequent leaders in breakaway parties also followed the trend.

Hence, the idea of a Hindu friendly party working hand-in-glove with a splinter party in Tamil Nadu gets most of the politicians here hot under their collars. Even though they claim to be irreligious in their outlook, they are often seen to be wooing and appeasing their Muslim and Christian vote banks.

This film may remind viewers of Hindi movies, PK and OMG - where the gullibility of devotees and the shenanigans of godmen are laid open. It tells the depressing story of Engel Ramasamy, a freelance reporter. His family comprises his single mother and three younger sisters. His father had run away soon before the last sister was born. Ramasamy crosses path with a powerful sage, and pretty soon he realises that he needs to fight the sage to save a big plot of land that belongs to his family temple. And the Goddess of the temple manifests in front of Ramasamy to be of aid.

Many viewers are unhappy that the filmmakers decided to paint all Godmen with the same brush - of being power-crazy, devious and cheats. We get an eerie feeling that references are made to Nithyanda (of the 'me-in-you' and 'you and me' fame) as well as to Sadhguru where his Cauvery Calling collection is queried, and alleged tribal land is misappropriated. Ram Baba Dev is not spared either, for his business ventures are also mentioned. There is a scene of a possible conversion of a minor which suddenly gets forgotten in the hullabaloo of the story. A clip of a pastor engaging in spiritual healing got snipped as the director felt it would offend the Christians. What about the sentiments of Hindus, they say? Even though the Goddess proclaims Jesus to be her friend, she becomes 'jealous' when Ramasamy's mother seems keener to visit Thirupathi than her! Is it a coincidence that the protagonist's name combines Ramasamy (EV@Periyar) and Engel (of Frederich Engels who co-wrote 'The Communist Manifesto' with Karl Marx)?

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Something about blue gold...

Credit: topdocumentaryfilms.com

We all know the drill - that up to 70% of our body is filled with water; that 70% of the Third Rock from the Sun is covered by water and that it is the elixir of life. We also accept oxygen and hydrogen molecules could be alien visitors who landed on Earth via meteorites that reached here.

Scientists agree that water is indeed a strange chemical. With its composition, it should be in a gaseous state, not liquid as it is. Unlike other solids, water in a solid state is less dense, encouraging lifeforms to live and prosper under an iceberg. Capillary action ensures that water reaches the highest leaf of the giant redwood and the minuscule of the body organs.

I will not do justice to the WhatsApp that my childhood friends and I share if I do not divulge some of the new things that were brought to my attention through them. Water has memory. Having been around for so long on this planet, it only makes sense. The same water molecule that was drunk by a dinosaur must be traversing in our bodies right now. It is said that information of contact with materials is kept trapped within spaces within molecular bonds in electromagnetic energies.


French immunologist, Jacque Benveniste, in the 1980s tried to show to the world, that anti-IgE antibody, even when diluted to very minute undetectable levels, still evoked a response in the body when exposed. His findings were allegedly suppressed as it tends to support homoeopathic medicine where medications are given in very low doses to prevent ailment. No proper explanation could be given to this unique discovery. It is subsequently shot down and labelled as a hoax.

In came Nobel laureate, Luc Montagnier, who had a hand in the discovery of the HIV virus. He replicated Benveniste's findings and went one step further. Montagnier posited the idea that water has memory and its information is stored within the ring of water molecules. Diluting HIV viruses incrementally to an undetectable level, in a peer-reviewed study, he proved that water has the memory of having had HIV in the more concentrated mixture through electromagnetic measurements.

It gets more technical after that. Using a telephone line, the electromagnetic information of the water is transmitted to another location and through transduction process (PCR), he managed to recreate the HIV virus on the other side!

All these may sound Greek to most of us, but to the scientists, this is a great challenge what the practitioners of the classical sciences have come to believe. It opens the floodgates of quantum physics and other realms of the unknown. It is a paradigm shift in how we have come to understand science. Interesting.

To complicate things further, now a Japanese scientist, Masaru Emoto, has shown that the appearances of water crystals when exposed to different chantings, music or human emotions are different. Are they telling that our body, which is predominantly made of water, will react differently when exposed to different environments? Are they hinting that holy water has healing powers? Does chanting and recital of mantra serve a higher function that we, ignoramus fools are too simpleton to comprehend?

BBC clip on Water

2014 Documentary on Water Memory

Masaru Emoto's Water Crystal Experiment!

https://asok22.wixsite.com/real-lesson 

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Just to burst your bubble!

The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise
Muslims, Christians and Jews under Islamic Rule in Medieval Spain
Darío Fernández-Morera (2016)

My understanding is that Islam experienced its zenith of growth in Andalusia (Al-Andalus, Islamic Spain). It was the time of the golden age of Islam where everyone lived happily, believers and non-believers alike. I thought Jews and Christians lived in harmony in mutual respect as the 'people of the book'.

But, wait! This book by a contemporary historian will burst that bubble. Darío, armed with archaeological evidence from scripts written in Spanish and other European languages, has set a 200-pages bibliography to showcase the extent of his research. He claims to have access to scripts of Christians who fled the tyranny of the marauding Berber horsemen.

He describes our present knowledge of Andalusia akin to learning about America from the life and times of Hollywood actors or about the Arabs from the Saudi royal family. The real situation on the ground comes from the narration of the day to day living of the ordinary subjects living under the Empire, not from scripts written by salaried scribes.

Islamists claim that their religion is one of peace. Their influence beyond their land was via natural expansion, migratory wave, not military expansion. Paradoxically, the author asserts that was not the order of the day. Berbers and mercenaries from Northern Africa were brutal soldiers who went for blood. They had their own code of battle ethics. Following the Maliki school of thoughts, they ensured that men of the conquered land were killed, decapitated and impaled to set as a warning to others. Women and children were enslaved. They had comprehensive rules on keeping sex slaves and the outcome of such union.

Before Southern Spain was conquered, it was under the Visigoth-Catholic-Roman rule. Contrary to popular belief, Europe was not in dark ages but had a semblance of culture. The Roman culture, architecture and way of living had seeped into this area. The Arabs and the Berbers who invaded these areas by of low culture, as described by historian Al Khaldun. These barbarians were happy pulverising buildings to the ground and erecting their places of worship atop pre-existing churches. Their own architectural skills were appalling and their erections were of low quality and would crumble easily.

Just like the present time when the US wants to attack a country, it forms an alliance with a discontented group within a country. To attack Iraq, it cooperates with Saddam's enemies within the country. The Islamic invaders did the same. The Jews, who were unhappy under the Visigoth Christian rule, were treated with disdain for punishing their son of God, Jesus Christ. The Jews were temporarily given special privileges when the Muslims won. Unfortunately, it did not last long. The Muslims remembered a verse in the Quran (5:51) that Jews could never be their allies and would always be their servant! Under the Islamic rule with Maliki form of jurisprudence, they were also ostracised. Many Jews cooperated with the rulers of the day, held high positions in the government and contributed to the day to day running of the province. Some converted to Islam to avoid being humiliated, paying jizya (tax for non-Muslims, dhimmis) while others stayed as closet Jews. Despite all these restrictions, the region experienced the Hebrew Golden Age. Leaders like Maimonides, who played both sides, pleased their political masters whilst holding a tight rein on worship. The erection of synagogues was not allowed and Jews had to wear identification tags.

The Christians to were also treated as second class citizens. Andalus was governed by a system of hierocracy, not democracy, and laws were dictated by a government of clerics. Canon Law and Civil Law which were initiated by the Roman Catholic churches went out of the window. Separation of religion and law was something foreign. They were not allowed to openly display their symbol of worship or to celebrate festivities. During the time of the invasion, many grand churches were converted to mosques.

The drinking well used by them was considered impure for consumption of the Muslims. In the day to day living, the Christians were made to feel unwelcome. Some migrated up to Northern Spain with their scrolls and treasures. Some converted and re-converted to their old religion after the Spanish Inquisition by Queen Isabella.

The author asserts that there was no 'Golden Age' during this era. This area in Spain was cultured by the Visigoth kingdom who looked at the Romans for inspiration. The development happened not because of the Muslim invaders but despite their marauding. If not for their intrusion, he emphasises that they would have reached even greater heights.

There was never a time of co-existence amongst the people of Andalusia. It was always a master and slave relationship. The masters went around with a chip on their shoulders with the conviction that they were chosen to spread Allah's message of peace and brotherhood. It was all Machiavellian politics, not Panglossian. With their twisted Maliki philosophy, they felt justified to wage a holy war once a year, at least.

The grandiosity of Andalus is not of the invaders' doings. They just imported knowledge wholesale and labelled it as theirs. From Persia and the Sassanids came administrative skills. The sciences were translated from Greek to Syriac to Arabic by people already in the kingdom. Mathematics and algorithm originated from India. The so-called Islamic 'universities' were nothing more than madrasahs to learn religion. Researching into science and mathematics was considered unholy. Music and art were discouraged as any representations of living things were deemed as mocking the Almighty. Music and wine were intoxicants that were frowned upon. Poetry, however, was considered harmless. Even women recited poems behind the shield of a curtain and veil.

The quite disturbing form of business which was thriving in Al-Andalus was slave trade. As the spoils of their war increased, so did their herd of slaves as the soldiers had a practice of killing all men and sparing children and women. The slaves were sanctioned by the rulers to be used as sex slaves, abused and traded as sex slaves. Offspring from this union became de-facto Muslims and enjoy all rights of a Muslim. The worst of in this society seem to the mohsanas (Muslim wives). They were expected to carry their duties (as for procreation, home duties and caring for the young ones), hence could not be seen in public or be engaged in recreational activities. In that aspect, female slaves had more rights. They could improve themselves by singing and dancing to make themselves more marketable!

With such impressive references, it is now the duty of academics to peruse the author's research and challenge his assertions. He posits that the wrongful representation of history was done because of apparent hostility against the Christians. They are accused of being the reason for fall of the Roman Empire. So, to denigrate their prowess, the Muslim conquerors instead were put on a pedestal!

At the present state of world affairs, nothing is going to come out of this single publication. Even if there is any truth in any of these, it is unlikely that those who reminisce the good old glory of Islam where Al-Andalus was a beacon of enlightenment and a place where 'peoples of the Book' allegedly lived in harmony as equals! Cognitive dissonance would come in the way!

They want us to believe!

X Files Season 10 (E1-E5)

More than 10 years after their tour of duty, the last the two renegade FBI agents are still at their conspiracy theories. They are still keen to expose to the world of their employers’ devious plans to hide major secrets from mankind and their attempts at hastening the annihilation of mankind as we know it.

Many things have happened since their last outing. The paranormal department had been closed. Fox Mulder is on medication for depression. Dana Scully is working in a hospital, minding her own business. There is a mention of Scully having been abducted by aliens before. They (Mulder and Scully) have an 11-year-old child whom they have given away for adoption for security reasons. They have reason to believe that the child must have been infused with alien DNA, hence the secrecy.

The smoking man is still around! The last time I saw him, he had laryngeal cancer. In the first episode, he is seen with a tracheostomy but still smoking via his tracheal aperture! And still up to his tricks! Telepathy and killing through mind control make its presence again. The episode on were-monster is set on a light note and is more comical and thought-provoking than scary! A trashman is a thought form (a monster which arose from an artist’s mind!) who is a killing machine who seeks justice for the homeless. The homeless are treated like trash - everyone knows it is there but nobody wants to know what becomes of it!

In keeping with the sentiments of the times, the 5th episode is on suicide bombing. In their attempt to extricate information from a comatose bomber, Scully and Mulder with a set of sort reverse image of their roles, two other FBI agents, try to do the job. One pair decided to partake this task through out-of-body experience with magic mushroom (hallucinogens) and the other through analysis of EEG wave.

It is amazing how imaginative the writers can be to keep the interest of fans after all these years. Another round of galore for conspiracy theorists and for those who want to believe that the truth is still out there. Whether we would be happy to know the truth, would be satisfied to learn of the truth, believe that it the truth when the truth is laid bare or be able to handle the truth, that is another story. They say the joy is in the journey in finding the truth. The truth is just the icing, we can live without it!