Monster Media 1993 #2/Image.iso/text/islamnfo.zip/XMARITAL

Text File | 1993-04-28 | 22KB | 440 lines

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Dear Brothers and Sisters Assalam-o-Alaikum:

 A brother posted the following article on a certain newsgroup
several months ago. It deals with why Islam is against extramarital
and premarital relationships and how such things harm a society. It also
analyzes what are our responsibilities as individuals and to the rest of
the society. Although, it is long but it is worth your time. This is an
excellent article and will only serve to strengthen our faith in the
wisdom of Allah's commands.

Wasslam-o-Alaikum,
Your brother
Irfan Hasan.

------------------START OF INCLUDED ARTICLE ------------------------------


        ===========================
        ANATOMY OF A FREE LUNCH AND
             ITS CONSEQUENCES
             ================

In article [name and address deleted of writer of following
statement] writes:

    Since I didn't get any answers I'm posting again.\\
    WHAT IS WRONG WITH HAVING A RELATIONSHIP AND/OR SEX? \\
    I hope the answer isn't just "well its un-Islamic."

You asked for it! So, here it is in detail, explaining what is wrong
with having relationship and/or sex AND the answer is not just that
it is ``un-Islamic''!!!!! Don't get disparage with the discourse, it
is all necessary to lay the context in which all ``relationships''
are perceived in an Islamic society.

    {Relationships in an Islamic society}
        =====================================
 We will observe the elegance of
relationships as conceived in an Islamic society by  comparing them to
a  set of concentric circles. This
will be in contrast to the  popular Western notions which considers a
society as a set of
two disjoint circles; one representing the ``individual'' and the
other representing the ``state''. The premise for making them disjoint
is that each of the disjoint circles has no bearing or influence on
the other circle and both can be considered as independent of
each other!


{The core of all Relationships}
-----------------------------
The core of the concentric circles representing an Islamic society
is its nucleus \_\_ God or Allah.
The relationship between
Allah and HIS creation \_\_ human, has been defined by HIM in Quran.
All relationships of a human being revolves around the objectives
as set forth by Allah:

    ``Wa Maa khaluqtul Jin-na wal Insa
                    illa leYa'budoon''\\
    (HE didn't create man or jinn except to obey HIM)


{Relationships of an Individual}
-------------------------------
The innermost circle, of an Islamic society, just around the
core,  denotes the individual himself. Area in the circle stands for
his rights and his responsibilities. This circle has a great
responsibility \_\_ responsibility towards his own self. All his actions
have a direct bearing on his own salvation. What ever he does, whatever
he acts, he
is responsible for that. He will be asked on the day of judgment
about each and every action, whether done in the open or in the
confines of the darkness of the darkest cellars. He owes his
existence to ALLAH and is, therefore, responsible to HIM for what he
does with his own self.
Whatever he does has no bearing
on the core (Allah-us-Samad), but only on his own self and those
around him (the outer circles).

His responsibilities flow outwards from the circle denoting the
individual. The intensity with which his actions influence those
around
him in the outer enveloping (concentric) circles varies at a
diminishing rate. Those farthest to him are affected the least, but
nevertheless, they are affected. This is the case in general, barring
disasters, or cataclysmic events.

{Relationship with his family}
-----------------------------
The circle just around the one denoting the
responsibilities and rights of his own self, is the one denoting
the responsibilities and rights of his family (this is the second
circle from
the nucleus). This is his immediate family. Herein lies his rights,
that he enjoys, and the responsibilities, he is obligated with
towards his parents, spouse, children, brothers, and sisters \_\_
his immediate family. To illustrate our arguments about your question,
we will start by exploring the meaning and utility of mutuality among
relationships by the following mutuality
which exists between parents and children.

An individual has a right to be well reared
and nurtured by the parents (and other family members) during the
early years of his life till he reaches maturity. Later on, he is
obligated  to reciprocate the benefits that were accrued on him
during his childhood by his parents. When his parents reach the age
where they can't take care of themselves (if you have seen some old
people you would realize that ageds are  just like little babies,
needing to be fed, clothed, entertained,
washed etc.) it is then the obligation of the child to take care of
them. Such mutual  rights and responsibilities exist vis-a-vis
each member of the family. It is not just a one way traffic where you
only enjoy the benefits of rights without fulfilling
the responsibilities for which you are obligated.

This, for instance, offers
solutions to the numerous problems faced by the aged in USA.
Baby boomers are the larger chunk of the population and will very soon
join the ranks of those entitled to ``medi-care''. This represents
another of the serious looming budgetary problems. One must reflect at
the unavoidable spending costs which emphasize the
budgetary woes of US. The major chunk of the spendings goes
to medi-care and is, therefore, only expected to increase substantially
and there are  no signs of controlling it. Islamic way of apportioning
reponsibility where it rightly belongs, is the most judicious
way of dealing with this problem. Children, who
in fact, enjoyed the benefits of having parents, when they were little,
must be made responsible for taking care of their parents, when they are
old. Why should an average tax-payer, who is taking care of
his own parents, bear the costs of maintaining the old parents of others?
Isn't this a violation of  the concept of ``nothing like a free lunch''?
A concept so well know in the West, and so easily forgotten, when it comes
to the care of aged. A person refusing to look after the parents,
in fact, enjoyed a free lunch while he/she  was a child and not
able to take care of him/her-self.

This mutuality among the family relationships  offers
elegant solutions to so many of the US rampant problems:
of child abuse in day care centers, child abuse by step fathers,
rising costs of day care, demands
for the govt. to support day-care, demands for paid leave during
pregnancy, lousy and substandard upbringing of the children, falling
education standards, unproductivity and
other problems in USA \_\_ burdens increasingly being taken
up by the government as more and more families keep relinquishing
their responsibilities!

{Relationship with other people}
------------------------------
Then comes the enveloping circle of our neighbors and our
relatives. These are the people to whom we can not refuse
small things (like when they come to borrow a little sugar,
a cup of milk, use of a plier etc). These are referred in
Quran as Al-Ma'oon. They are the people who are especially
helpful to us in our time of need, emergencies, sickness
etc. They can be entrusted with the care of your child
while you are away on an errand or are trying to cope with
some emergency like some one having died, or is sick, or
some other every day non-serious emergency. They keep an
eye on the environment of the locality, where you live, warn
you of any suspicious characters, or suspicious characters with
which your child may be associating. You reciprocate
by offering similar small services. It is again mutual,
nothing is explicitly defined, only recommended strongly
for or discouraged against. This circle takes care of the
problems encountered in the big cities like drug neighbor
hoods, neighborhood safety, healthy neighborhood,
and rampant crime in big city areas of USA. After the brief
flirtation with the ``individual'', ``alone'', ``no-intervention''
concepts about the neighbors, the Americans are rediscovering
the benefits of the neighborhood watch (watchful eye of
the neighbor!)

After this circle, comes the circle of your city where you live in,
your country or the society in general. The outermost circle
envelops all the human beings and so
on.

    {What is wrong with a relationship and having sex?}
    --------------------------------------------------
Now that you have got the sense of where I am leading, let me
clarify two points before I take up your question:

{Fallacy of Composition and Cause and Effect}
--------------------------------------------
[Fallacy of Composition]
    There is a principle of ``fallacy of composition'' which is
 frequently used in economics. It denotes the principle that
 ``what is good for one may not be good for all!'' The common
 example is that of an individual, who in a crowded stadium,
 stands up to have a better view. Of course, he will
 get a good view when he stands up, but the same would not be
 true if all the people in the stadium were to stand up!
 Similarly, if few children in a society are raised without
 proper care and supervision, it is not going to matter much.
 However, if all
 children in the society are neglected and ignored, then you
 can well imagine what the fate of the society would be!

[Cause and Effect]
    Every action in this world DOES have some effect \_\_ great, small or
    insignificant. Such small, apparently insignificant, actions
    do accumulate and may bring about phenomenal changes
    which in fact  have given the shape and contours to our
    mother earth. Even a semblance of  wind, not capable
    of even fluttering a feather, may have serious consequences,
    in a sufficiently large time-span.


We note that your question pertains to the third circle (or
probably the fourth one) around the individual. It pertains to
relationship with people  who do not fall in our
direct family. They may even be beyond our relations and neighbors. They
comprise of people we happen to meet just because of geographical
proximity. Referring to the  ``inverse square law of intensity'',
they lie in a circle whose distance with the individual (distance
of the mutual relationship) is
(probably) too great, to exhibit directly, the cause and effects we
normally observe in other relationships.
Just like the flutter of a wind, which is so gentle that it
doesn't even disturb a feather, their
relationship may not exhibit any change (apparently) on our
mutual rights and responsibilities. Although, at a glance
it looks so, it is not so!

        {A Case Study}
        --------------
Let's see the case where the above distance was considered so great
as not to exhibit any relationship i.e. separation of ``individual''
actions from those of the  ``state'' policy was considered so great
so as not to have any impact. In the fifties, it was thought, naively
in  USA, that what harm is there in a chance encounter
on the back seat of a car in a drive-in. A little kissing and a little
pecking was all it was supposed to signify (just like the
seemingly innocent interjection, now, about what-is-wrong-with-a-
little-sex-or-relationship). Well, in a little over thirty years,
these innocently looking little peckings, which used to culminate
in marriages during the fifties,
have grown into full-fledge extensive relationships, without bounds
and embarrassment \_\_ co-living without marriage or just one night
stands. Even little girls
of  12, 13, or 14 years undergo relationships, that result in
fruition. The number of girls  bearing children
and wanting to bear children increases at an alarming rate.
Ironically, these are the very girls, who being unable to face
 the trauma accompanying such cataclysmic
changes to their bodies, unable to face the pain of the person
walking right away, breaking the relationship,  opt
for babies instead of simply having an abortion. They have
no way of taking care of the babies and the mounting responsibilities.
Such teen agers are doomed. They don't have a supporter or a legal
provider. Their destiny and very well that of their offsprings are the
inner-city, crime infested ghettos and slums as they remain as single
parents. Such teenagers,  without any career or education,
 are doomed to subsist on  social welfare, and will have
no way of breaking out of the spiral.

{Free Lunch and Single Parent Families}
--------------------------------------
Single parent families are increasingly becoming a large proportion
of the population in USA. Why should an average taxpayer
support all millions of single parents, when all that the government
has to do, is to ask the parties to that " fleeting moment
of pleasure", to bear all the responsibility? The couple enjoying
that relationship in the confines of the privacy of what ever
nook, corner or street should be and must be made to bear all the natural
consequences of their actions. The legal way of doing this is
nothing new. It has been practiced from time im-memorable, and is
easily understood in one word \_\_  ``marriage''. Ain't the couples
enjoying the fleeting bliss having a ``free lunch'' when
they walk away, after the one-night stand, leaving an average
tax payer to pay for the litigations, support, child-care, and
other subsistence problems of a  single parent?
Why should an average tax payer pay for the
social welfare of such people, when the responsible parties can
be easily apprehended and made responsible for all the expenses,
duties, and problems that emanated from the ``pleasure'' they had.
If an average American has to pay for the pleasure of a trip
to an amusement park, why should not he pay for the ``sexual
pleasure''??????????

{Spread of Aids}
----------------
Why should the frolicking of ``magic Johnson'' result in an increase
of my taxes, when all Johnson had to do was to restrain himself to
curtail the spread of Aids? Why should I be paying for the spread
of Aids resulting from  the one-night stands of the thousands in LA?
People, I have never met or seen or heard. People who contain
some AIDS patients, who are bent upon taking revenge as they
wreak vengeance on others by trying to pay back in kind what they have
acquired from an unsuspecting ``what-is-wrong-with-a-little-sex''
type of a chance encounter!!!!!!

{Abortion Issue: A Chicken and Egg Paradox}
------------------------------------------
Why should I be made to bear the cost of millions of state dollars
and Fedral money being spent on the useless controversy surrounding
the abortion issue? In fact, abortion issue is nothing but a
consequence of your refusal to consider any implications of your
individual actions. A refusal that is based on
the ridiculousness of the hypothesis that
individual and state are two disjoint entities! It is a result
of this hoodwinking of the fundamental issue that has culminated
in  chicken and the egg
paradox. Whose rights are first? mother's or child's? Doesn't it
sound very much like who was first? chicken or egg? Such ridiculous
situations are but a natural consequence of  your refusal
 to address the fundamental
problem underlying the ``abortion issue'' \_\_ make the parties
involved in the pleasure seeking activity responsible for
whatever is the consequence of that act.

IF it is possible for the man to easily walk away from such
consequences, and there is just
an equally good possibility, for  the women to walk
away too, THEN why should one worry about the fundamental problem:
``there is nothing like a free lunch''. Abortion issue is nothing
except women's effort to enjoy that lunch of a ``one-
night-stand'' free, which men are already enjoying. The complication
is due to the injustice arising on account of letting one party
(men) being allowed to enjoy the free lunch while refusing the
other party (women) from enjoying it too. ``Pregnancy'',
 ``babies'' and
what you do with your bodies are ONLY the costs, appropriately
termed in economics as the ``external costs''. Some one HAS to
pay for the lunch. Either the poor ``little unborn child'' is
going to pay with his fragile life, or the ``society'' picks
up the tag, thereby, resulting in extra taxes for people who
then have to pay
for the pleasure which others have enjoyed.
In short, abortion issue is, but, a reflection of  the
consequence of the American people trying to manufacture a
free lunch !!!!!!!

How to solve the controversy? Just make
the parties, man and woman both who enjoyed the lunch,
pay for whatever is the
consequence; a child, child-care, health of the mother,
career of the mother or career of the father or whatever.
A simple term summarizing such  accountability is ``marriage''.

{Accumulating Costs}
--------------------
Now, come to the fallacy of composition: If a chance encounter
of the type ``what-is-wrong-about-having-a-little-relationship
or/and-sex'' results in nothing, a person may, plausibly,
think that such actions do not have any cost. Right?
Wrong! Consider, if all the
people in the country are taking the same chances then odds are
very high that such encounters WILL result in something and
DOES result in many things  \_\_ unwanted pregnancies, unwanted
children, abortion and other multitude issues or whatever. Today the
problems gripping the USA could be all traced back to such
a simple solution: ``make every one pay for the lunch they
have enjoyed''!

Look at the
number of single parents and the problem of uncared children,
children abandoned by addicted mothers, problems of adjustment
of such addicted children in school, additional costs for
such problems, rehabilitation costs, etc. etc. etc.
They all testify, nay, scream at the fallacy of composition you
are the supreme proponent of. Why should an average tax payer
bear the costs of such ``what-is-wrong...'' type encounters,
when it is possible for the society to very easily find the
culprit parties, and make them pay for it? The mode of payment
can be easily prescribed. Make them
bear the consequences by
making it either culpable under the law, or allow the society to
enforce it morally. Islam takes both these measures. It not
only makes it a serious offense to commit adultery, but provides
moral incentives to marry early to avoid such temptations, and
thereby, avoid such implications to the society.

        {Islam: The Just Way}
        =====================
Considering the moral and economical implications of the
consequences of such so called ``individual'' actions,
Islam provides a perfectly just way by making the parties
pay for the lunch they have enjoyed and whose costs may later
have to be picked up by the ordinary, tax-budened masses!!!

Last, but not least, it must be stressed that whenever Islam
prohibits some thing as bad and detrimental to the society,
it cordons off
all ways leading up to it. You can not protect your nuclear
installation by allowing a free access to all and
sundry. Hence,
Islam prohibits, although superficially it looks too stringently,
free uncontrolled relationships between
the opposite sexes. However, a little introspections will
tell us that this is the right way: kill the problem at its
source of origin rather than trying to hopelessly treat
the symptoms as USA is frantically trying to do \_\_
an impossible undertaking.

In the end, we must examine how Islam perceives the act which
has been ``trivialized'' to such an extent and bandied
so carelessly, by the proponents of this modern
civilization (aptly referred to as the ``Barbaric West'' in
the acclaimed PBS series, LEGACY, which just premiered). This
thing which is now referred to as a one-night stand or by just
a conjecture ``what-is-wrong-with-a (little)-sex''.

Quran considers this act to be one of the most clear manifestations
of Allah's might and omnipotence. The act is referred to again
and again to highlight the bounties HE has bestowed upon us. It
is this moment when we are probably the nearest, we can be, to
the ``creation'' process. It is a supreme ``Ayah'' \& sign for those
who reflect and ponder over this life and its meaning.
Repeated again and again ``have you not pondered at your self
when you were just a drop, which was sprinkled in, and then
you were just a shapeless mass of congealed blood, that was
then shaped .......''
The act is used to remind us about our own insignificance when
we started on this journey of life. How that insignificance is
transformed into wonder of wonders, the supreme shape of the
human being, endowed with the faculty to reason and ponder...

However, it is sign only for those who reflect and ponder and
do good deeds. The bounties of Allah are not for the
arrogants and the disbelievers, who see such signs and then
hide the truth (literal meaning of ``kufr'').

May Allah guide us on the straight path;
    path of those who were blessed by HIM,
    not of those who received the ghazab.

-------------------END OF INCLUDED ARTICLE------------------------------

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