National Fatwa Council Forbids Tomboyism
Bernama (www.bernama.com.my) - 23/10/08
KOTA BAHARU, Oct 23 (Bernama) -- The National Fatwa Council has ruled that tomboyism, where a girl behaves or dresses in a boyish manner, is forbidden in Islam.
Its chairman, Datuk Dr Abdul Shukor Husin said the decision was prompted by recent developments as there had been cases of young women inclined to behave like men and indulging in homosexuality.
Parents must guide their children from indulging in disruptive activities that are against Islamic teachings, he told reporters at the close of a two-day meeting of council here today.
The meeting was held to discuss among others social ills confronting Muslims, including the issue of tomboyism.
The council also ruled that grandchildren are entitled to inherit their grandfathers' properties in the event their fathers die earlier than their grandfathers but the amount to be inherited must be in accordance with Islamic laws.
In another development, Abdul Shukor said the Malaysian Islamic Development Department (Jakim) would formulate a procedure regarding the "sumpah laknat" (swearing in the face of divine retribution), including in courts, to avoid confusion among Muslims.
Thursday, 23 October 2008
"Youth, sex and doing business"
Reproduced from The Star (23/10/08)
"Youth, sex and doing business"
A writer's life - Dina Zaman
In business, it’s not just about brokering deals; it’s about drinks and entertainment, and sadly, who you supply to sweeten the deal. How does one educate business folk that young girls and boys are not to be touched?
A few months ago, yours truly and friends were invited to a little do at a posh nightclub. Once in a while, this writer needs an airing, so off she went with her friends.
Let’s just say the club was a bastion of Malay Datukness, if there is such a term. It was filled with men who smoked cigars, and we recognised a number of faces, all seen in business pages. The men oozed wealth and knew it. The place, situated in a hotel right smack in the city, had been heralded as the place to be seen.
It was a departure from my idea of a night out. Then again, my friends and I prefer quiet dinners with our boyfriends and close friends, so that night, was quite a revelation, to say the least.
The women who were there, I hesitate to say and judge, were not there to dance. They were there for the “kill” as they eyed their prey.
It was halfway through the soiree when two young women appeared at our tiny table. We initiated small talk but they looked at us blankly.
A newly-made male acquaintance whispered to me that the two young women were 16 years old, and were there to look for rich boyfriends. No, they were not working girls. They went to a school nearby.
The two butterflies then moved on to flit on a more prosperous table, filled with laughter and cigar smoke. In a matter of minutes, they were well acquainted with the men.
Women hunting for rich men as husbands or paramours are nothing new. Growing up, there were a few girls in class who aspired to be that: wives of rich men.
But still, as I sat in a corner, observing the two young women, whiling their youth away, as they flirted with the men, and were grabbed at by their newfound companions, I wondered to myself, why, why weren’t these girls at home?
Perhaps I may come off as naive, but at 16, whether one is a boy or girl, he or she should be doing what 16-year-olds do.
Studying, playing with PSII, arguing with parents over why he flunked Maths again.
For 16-year-old girls, they should be playing around with make-up and clothes, and talking about love and pop stars. And, who they want to be when they are 21.
My friends and I left at 11.30 in the evening, to our great relief. I dashed home eagerly €“ a pile of books was waiting to be read €“ having gleaned some useless information from the outing such as recognising the difference between Trophy Wife Hair and Mistress Hair.
But I was disturbed by what I had seen, and conveyed that to a few colleagues who worked with children and youth rights, and child trafficking.
Horrifying stories of VIPs and rich businessmen molesting underage girls waitressing at clubs emerged.
“Hey, I’m a VIP, I can do whatever I want. Besides, it’s consensual,” these men say.
It is one thing to educate parents and children about their rights over their bodies and themselves, but how does one educate the business community that young girls and boys are not to be touched?
In business, it’s not just about brokering deals; it’s about drinks and entertainment, and sadly, who you supply to sweeten the deal.
This is a business truth, and has existed for thousands of years.
The commoditisation of youth and sex has a huge appeal to a number of businessmen. It feeds their egos, and it shows off their power.
They forget that they have daughters at home, while they play with schoolgirls their daughters’ age. Sometimes, it is young boys.
Impresarios of the night know, to pull in the big bucks, young, fresh blood is desirable. Teenagers whose youth and enthusiasm light up the night, and laughter which will ring in the dawn. This underage limit restriction they say they have is just a front. Who does not love a good party?
And parents. Socially ambitious mothers. You’d be very surprised. Nothing to do with poverty, though it can be a push-factor.
A few aspirant mothers train their daughters to do whatever it takes to get there. Sometimes you see these young women, and yes, boys in events and society pages and wonder whether the problem really lies with you, because of your human rights sensibilities.
“Oh, that’s nothing. Wait until you meet my eight-year-old sex workers,” a colleague sighed. Even at that age, these young children already know the power of seduction.
Who then takes care of the children? The state? Ngos? Parents will cry out against the invasion of their rights as parents. But are some parents capable of caring for their children?
In my work, I meet many people. I think I can’t be shocked anymore, but always, something will throw me for the loop.
A young up-and-coming professional bragged to me, how he only beds young girls between the ages of 17 to 19, whom he meets at clubs, because “… they’re cleaner, and haven’t been around too much”.
I read international media reports on how young American girls all want to be Britney, Paris, Lindsay, and think, it’s the same everywhere. Why do I have to make this my battle?
Is my childhood, my colleagues’ childhoods, the childhoods these young children should have? Would these kids want to trade places and play with cowpat, dash into the sea and be chased by irate goats?
All I can say is, that night, what I saw, was wrong. For sure, these street-wise 16-year-old girls would grimace at what we think is the right childhood for them. Maybe they’re happy.
But at 16, or eight, or whatever age a boy or girl is, they shouldn’t be selling their souls that way.
The writer can also be reached at dzawriterslife@gmail.com.
"Youth, sex and doing business"
A writer's life - Dina Zaman
In business, it’s not just about brokering deals; it’s about drinks and entertainment, and sadly, who you supply to sweeten the deal. How does one educate business folk that young girls and boys are not to be touched?
A few months ago, yours truly and friends were invited to a little do at a posh nightclub. Once in a while, this writer needs an airing, so off she went with her friends.
Let’s just say the club was a bastion of Malay Datukness, if there is such a term. It was filled with men who smoked cigars, and we recognised a number of faces, all seen in business pages. The men oozed wealth and knew it. The place, situated in a hotel right smack in the city, had been heralded as the place to be seen.
It was a departure from my idea of a night out. Then again, my friends and I prefer quiet dinners with our boyfriends and close friends, so that night, was quite a revelation, to say the least.
The women who were there, I hesitate to say and judge, were not there to dance. They were there for the “kill” as they eyed their prey.
It was halfway through the soiree when two young women appeared at our tiny table. We initiated small talk but they looked at us blankly.
A newly-made male acquaintance whispered to me that the two young women were 16 years old, and were there to look for rich boyfriends. No, they were not working girls. They went to a school nearby.
The two butterflies then moved on to flit on a more prosperous table, filled with laughter and cigar smoke. In a matter of minutes, they were well acquainted with the men.
Women hunting for rich men as husbands or paramours are nothing new. Growing up, there were a few girls in class who aspired to be that: wives of rich men.
But still, as I sat in a corner, observing the two young women, whiling their youth away, as they flirted with the men, and were grabbed at by their newfound companions, I wondered to myself, why, why weren’t these girls at home?
Perhaps I may come off as naive, but at 16, whether one is a boy or girl, he or she should be doing what 16-year-olds do.
Studying, playing with PSII, arguing with parents over why he flunked Maths again.
For 16-year-old girls, they should be playing around with make-up and clothes, and talking about love and pop stars. And, who they want to be when they are 21.
My friends and I left at 11.30 in the evening, to our great relief. I dashed home eagerly €“ a pile of books was waiting to be read €“ having gleaned some useless information from the outing such as recognising the difference between Trophy Wife Hair and Mistress Hair.
But I was disturbed by what I had seen, and conveyed that to a few colleagues who worked with children and youth rights, and child trafficking.
Horrifying stories of VIPs and rich businessmen molesting underage girls waitressing at clubs emerged.
“Hey, I’m a VIP, I can do whatever I want. Besides, it’s consensual,” these men say.
It is one thing to educate parents and children about their rights over their bodies and themselves, but how does one educate the business community that young girls and boys are not to be touched?
In business, it’s not just about brokering deals; it’s about drinks and entertainment, and sadly, who you supply to sweeten the deal.
This is a business truth, and has existed for thousands of years.
The commoditisation of youth and sex has a huge appeal to a number of businessmen. It feeds their egos, and it shows off their power.
They forget that they have daughters at home, while they play with schoolgirls their daughters’ age. Sometimes, it is young boys.
Impresarios of the night know, to pull in the big bucks, young, fresh blood is desirable. Teenagers whose youth and enthusiasm light up the night, and laughter which will ring in the dawn. This underage limit restriction they say they have is just a front. Who does not love a good party?
And parents. Socially ambitious mothers. You’d be very surprised. Nothing to do with poverty, though it can be a push-factor.
A few aspirant mothers train their daughters to do whatever it takes to get there. Sometimes you see these young women, and yes, boys in events and society pages and wonder whether the problem really lies with you, because of your human rights sensibilities.
“Oh, that’s nothing. Wait until you meet my eight-year-old sex workers,” a colleague sighed. Even at that age, these young children already know the power of seduction.
Who then takes care of the children? The state? Ngos? Parents will cry out against the invasion of their rights as parents. But are some parents capable of caring for their children?
In my work, I meet many people. I think I can’t be shocked anymore, but always, something will throw me for the loop.
A young up-and-coming professional bragged to me, how he only beds young girls between the ages of 17 to 19, whom he meets at clubs, because “… they’re cleaner, and haven’t been around too much”.
I read international media reports on how young American girls all want to be Britney, Paris, Lindsay, and think, it’s the same everywhere. Why do I have to make this my battle?
Is my childhood, my colleagues’ childhoods, the childhoods these young children should have? Would these kids want to trade places and play with cowpat, dash into the sea and be chased by irate goats?
All I can say is, that night, what I saw, was wrong. For sure, these street-wise 16-year-old girls would grimace at what we think is the right childhood for them. Maybe they’re happy.
But at 16, or eight, or whatever age a boy or girl is, they shouldn’t be selling their souls that way.
The writer can also be reached at dzawriterslife@gmail.com.
Thursday, 9 October 2008
Why do men take second wives?
Reproduced from The Star (09/10/08)
"Why do men take second wives?"
A Writer's Life - Dina Zaman
Polygamy has nothing to do with culture or religion. Men, and women too, cheat because they can.
WHEN a male friend told me he planned on taking a second wife, all I could do was try not to choke on dinner. Are you serious, I asked. He said yes, he had fallen in love with a single mother, but it was not his fate to marry her.
Thinking it was perhaps due her compassion, her earnest desire to bring up her sprogs in a Godly way and that life was indeed a struggle, I choked on my dessert when my friend told me the first thing he noticed about her was that she owned a great set of jugs.
Now, my friend takes his religious obligations very seriously. His first wife wears the hijab. So to hear him admit that it was his paramour’s cleavage that caught his heart was quite shocking.
It was due to women like me, whose so-called Western, secular and feminist ideas of polygamy that pushed it underground. I then asked him, whether his equally-pious wife agreed to him taking on another wife, and he said no. She gave him an earful.
But our friend was on a roll. Now that his journey into polygamy was thwarted, it was all our fault. We modern Malay women, be they religious or not, were forcing men like him to marry in Thailand or Iran, where they practised nikah Muta’ah.
He was emulating the steps of our good Prophet Mohamed, he argued.
“You have got your Islamic history upside down! Nabi married war widows, and his first wife was older than he. Aishah was the youngest. And I don’t think our Prophet married any woman because she had great breasts!”
“You don’t understand.”
“Okay then. Why don’t you sell your car and take a camel to work then?”
I’m realistic. I know men who adore their wives and love them to bits, but they can still love their mistresses and other wives. Am I condoning affairs and polygamy? No. But this happens. It has nothing to do with Islam or being Malay, though polygamy is part of the culture.
We’re Asians. We have a long history of concubinage. There are good men who are faithful, and there are good men who have other wives. There are also bad men who are faithful and also bad men who are unfaithful.
Just like our politics, love in Malaysia is a circus. Weeee!
I’m not going to bore you with what polygamy in Islam is about, as it has been written before and talked about to death. Women’s rights activists have long fought for this “crime” to be illegal, but we face a tough fight. Sometimes it’s not the men who are itching for it, but yes, our gender, too.
In the 80s, when I was young and clueless, meeting mistresses and second or third wives would be sinful and against my principles.
These days? “Oh, you’re a mistress?” “Oh, you’re a hidden wife?” Yawn. Wear tudung or mini skirt, got. Educated or stupid, got. Some of our mothers are The Other Women, and are good mothers. So how?
Is this phenomenon particular to our culture? Oh no. Read the British newspapers. Mistressing is talked about to death in feminist columns.
But I thought after that dinner with my friend, I’d revisit the issue again. Some of the findings from my five-sen survey:
> Theoretically ... polygamy is OK. But must ikut hukum Allah lah. There are conditions.
> Ya, but… actually, kan, for career women like us, it does work. Nak jaga laki 24 jam … gue tak larat la. Biar bini nombor satu jaga. After all, in Islam, polygamous wives are taken care of legally. Better a Muslim second wife than a common law wife.
> But really. Think about it. Convenient, what. You see him once a week, makan once a week, have sex once a week...
> Sex once a week?! Baik tak yah jadi bini nombor dua macam tu! Chit. Once a week mana cukup?!
Why do men cheat? Again, just an observation dwelled upon by friends and myself. For a lot of polygamous men, they marry good women who fit their criteria of holiness, wifeliness and motherhood.
Intimacy between the men and their wives are perfunctory. It’s make-the-baby-cover-the-face sex. With their girlfriends and second wives, it’s Penthouse all the way, baby. It’s the soul thing.
At least this is what I got from talking to quite a number of married men. It’s not because of the first wives’ lack of trying; they want to have healthy intimate lives, but the bees in their husbands’s bonnets keep reminding the men of the Madonna-Whore syndrome.
Malaysia is not a place for single women desiring Hollywood-movie type of marriages and love. KL especially is a city for marriages and affairs. And it has nothing to do with money. There are rich men who cheat, and I know of a despatch boy who has two wives!
There are many single-again women like my friends and I, who still believe in marriage and love. But I can tell you, should we walk down that path again one day, we’re going down it with our eyes open and keep a part of our hearts to ourselves. Because you never know.
Perhaps my friend, an activist who makes a living entering and staying in war zones, is right.
“We have women like you, me, your mother, your aunt and friend who fight so hard for women and children and yet face a brick wall, simply because we ‘understand’ so much, and forgive all the time, which is why cheating, affairs and polygamy are rampant, to the detriment or contribution (depends how you look at it) of our well-being,” says my friend.
Another friend, Sharizal Sharaani, put it succinctly: “Men (and, yes, women too) cheat because they can. Full stop.”
The writer still believes in love and marriage and wants to move to Corfu.
"Why do men take second wives?"
A Writer's Life - Dina Zaman
Polygamy has nothing to do with culture or religion. Men, and women too, cheat because they can.
WHEN a male friend told me he planned on taking a second wife, all I could do was try not to choke on dinner. Are you serious, I asked. He said yes, he had fallen in love with a single mother, but it was not his fate to marry her.
Thinking it was perhaps due her compassion, her earnest desire to bring up her sprogs in a Godly way and that life was indeed a struggle, I choked on my dessert when my friend told me the first thing he noticed about her was that she owned a great set of jugs.
Now, my friend takes his religious obligations very seriously. His first wife wears the hijab. So to hear him admit that it was his paramour’s cleavage that caught his heart was quite shocking.
It was due to women like me, whose so-called Western, secular and feminist ideas of polygamy that pushed it underground. I then asked him, whether his equally-pious wife agreed to him taking on another wife, and he said no. She gave him an earful.
But our friend was on a roll. Now that his journey into polygamy was thwarted, it was all our fault. We modern Malay women, be they religious or not, were forcing men like him to marry in Thailand or Iran, where they practised nikah Muta’ah.
He was emulating the steps of our good Prophet Mohamed, he argued.
“You have got your Islamic history upside down! Nabi married war widows, and his first wife was older than he. Aishah was the youngest. And I don’t think our Prophet married any woman because she had great breasts!”
“You don’t understand.”
“Okay then. Why don’t you sell your car and take a camel to work then?”
I’m realistic. I know men who adore their wives and love them to bits, but they can still love their mistresses and other wives. Am I condoning affairs and polygamy? No. But this happens. It has nothing to do with Islam or being Malay, though polygamy is part of the culture.
We’re Asians. We have a long history of concubinage. There are good men who are faithful, and there are good men who have other wives. There are also bad men who are faithful and also bad men who are unfaithful.
Just like our politics, love in Malaysia is a circus. Weeee!
I’m not going to bore you with what polygamy in Islam is about, as it has been written before and talked about to death. Women’s rights activists have long fought for this “crime” to be illegal, but we face a tough fight. Sometimes it’s not the men who are itching for it, but yes, our gender, too.
In the 80s, when I was young and clueless, meeting mistresses and second or third wives would be sinful and against my principles.
These days? “Oh, you’re a mistress?” “Oh, you’re a hidden wife?” Yawn. Wear tudung or mini skirt, got. Educated or stupid, got. Some of our mothers are The Other Women, and are good mothers. So how?
Is this phenomenon particular to our culture? Oh no. Read the British newspapers. Mistressing is talked about to death in feminist columns.
But I thought after that dinner with my friend, I’d revisit the issue again. Some of the findings from my five-sen survey:
> Theoretically ... polygamy is OK. But must ikut hukum Allah lah. There are conditions.
> Ya, but… actually, kan, for career women like us, it does work. Nak jaga laki 24 jam … gue tak larat la. Biar bini nombor satu jaga. After all, in Islam, polygamous wives are taken care of legally. Better a Muslim second wife than a common law wife.
> But really. Think about it. Convenient, what. You see him once a week, makan once a week, have sex once a week...
> Sex once a week?! Baik tak yah jadi bini nombor dua macam tu! Chit. Once a week mana cukup?!
Why do men cheat? Again, just an observation dwelled upon by friends and myself. For a lot of polygamous men, they marry good women who fit their criteria of holiness, wifeliness and motherhood.
Intimacy between the men and their wives are perfunctory. It’s make-the-baby-cover-the-face sex. With their girlfriends and second wives, it’s Penthouse all the way, baby. It’s the soul thing.
At least this is what I got from talking to quite a number of married men. It’s not because of the first wives’ lack of trying; they want to have healthy intimate lives, but the bees in their husbands’s bonnets keep reminding the men of the Madonna-Whore syndrome.
Malaysia is not a place for single women desiring Hollywood-movie type of marriages and love. KL especially is a city for marriages and affairs. And it has nothing to do with money. There are rich men who cheat, and I know of a despatch boy who has two wives!
There are many single-again women like my friends and I, who still believe in marriage and love. But I can tell you, should we walk down that path again one day, we’re going down it with our eyes open and keep a part of our hearts to ourselves. Because you never know.
Perhaps my friend, an activist who makes a living entering and staying in war zones, is right.
“We have women like you, me, your mother, your aunt and friend who fight so hard for women and children and yet face a brick wall, simply because we ‘understand’ so much, and forgive all the time, which is why cheating, affairs and polygamy are rampant, to the detriment or contribution (depends how you look at it) of our well-being,” says my friend.
Another friend, Sharizal Sharaani, put it succinctly: “Men (and, yes, women too) cheat because they can. Full stop.”
The writer still believes in love and marriage and wants to move to Corfu.
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