Raindrops keep falling on my head

England is showing me the true meaning of bad weather this week, finally. It not that it is actually raining, but more the fact that we went from a week of sunny weather and 20+ degrees to more than a week of constant rain, and barely making it to 10 degrees today. And its not going to stop for a while yet. Essentially the forecast goes like this: "There is a big cloud covering southeast England, and its going to stay there until all that water has rained itself out onto you". No moving on over to France. No gradual dissipation into warm humidity. It just stays there and rains. And Rains. And Rains.

Oh well, I guess I can't complain much, its just a little more persisting down, as one might say.

So in the news today was an interesting article:

A religious ruling by an Islamic scholar permitting women to breastfeed
adults with whom they work has led to his suspension from Al-Azhar University in
Cairo, the world's leading Sunni university.

Dr Izzat Attiya had last month issued a fatwa offering his bold suggestion
as a way around the prohibition in Islamic religious law against a woman working
in private premises with a man who is not her close relative. Breastfeeding, he
argued, would create a familial relationship under Islamic law.

"Being together in private means being in a room with the door closed so
that nobody can see them," Attiya explained to Al-Watani Al-Yawm, after his
ruling sparked outrage.

"A man and a woman who are alone together are not [necessarily] having sex
but this possibility exists and breastfeeding provides a solution to this
problem [by] transforming the bestial relationship between two people into a
religious relationship based on [religious] duties."

In Islamic tradition, breastfeeding at infancy establishes a degree of
familial relationship between nurse and child even if there is no biological
relationship - a wetnurse, for instance, is forbidden from marrying a man she
had nursed as a child.

Attiya argued that if an adult male is nursed by a
female co-worker it would permit them to work side-by-side without raising
suspicion of illicit sex. It would even permit the woman to remove her headcover
and expose her hair in the man's presence.

Attiya headed Al-Azhar University's department dealing with hadith (oral
tradition) outside the Koran, attributed to the teachings of the Prophet
Muhammad.

Attiya said he based his ruling on one such tradition according to which,
at the Prophet's order, a man named Salem was breastfed by the wife of another
disciple. "The fact that the hadith regarding the breastfeeding of an adult is
inconceivable to the mind does not make it invalid," said Attiya.

"Rejecting it is tantamount to questioning the Prophet's
tradition."

Nevertheless, his ruling evoked almost universal rejection among Muslim
scholars and in the popular Egyptian press.

Al-Azhar University formed a committee of hadith experts who dismissed his
ruling and the university administration ordered Attiya to publish a retraction.
He complied.

"The fatwa I issued was based solely on my personal interpretation. Based
on what I have learned with my brothers, the religious scholars, I apologise and
retract my opinion, which contradicts [the norms accepted] by the
public."

His apology was deemed insufficient by the head of the Al-Azhar Supreme
Council, Sheikh Dr Muhammed Sayyid Tantawi, a widely respected figure who is the
highest spiritual authority in Sunni Islam.

Far be it from someone like me of an Christian background who knows little about Islam to criticise the Islamic tradition and religion - but what was this guy thinking?? Are Islamic clerics that backward that when they try to be progressive this is the best they can come up with?? (Kudos for trying to be progressive though). How out of touch of reality can someone be? And worse knowing just how dodgy Egyptian men can be I find this an absolutely absurd idea!! And how can adult breastfeeding not be a sexual activity!!?!?!

For a long time I have tried to be understanding of Islamic culture, take the middle ground and say that that's their culture, its just different and who are we to interfere and say what is or isn't right. (The West has interfered and messed up enough parts of the world in the past).

But the reality is I find myself thinking more and more that they do have it wrong. I don't actually like taking this stand, (I'd prefer to remain neutral and out of sight), but when will the more extreme forms of Islam actually treat women with the respect they deserve? (Not that all Christians or non Christians have it right also - as a few episodes of Wife Swap with some southern US families will tell you). What is it about women that Islam fears so much that they must control or restrict them so much? And I'm not talking about headscarves, but rights to vote, to socialise with who they want, to work with men. Do they think the draconian restrictions stop infidelity? I guess they think it does, but then people in power seem to think many strange things.

Well enough blabbing for now. I have plenty of books to read still!