BaKhabar, June 2013, Page-6 [Sex and Religion + Saving The Planet, One Drop At A Time]

Sex and Religion

.... By Tanwir Phool*

RELIGION IS ONE AND THE SAME FROM ALWAYS

We humans are the most eminent of all creatures of GOD ALMIGHTY. He always wants that we should be obedient to Him. For this purpose He guided us through a series of prophets. The teachings of all the prophets is the same i.e. obedience of GOD ALMIGHTY for success and prosperity of human beings in both the worlds. We should try to follow true teachings of all the prophets for achieving the goals of universal peace, brotherhood, equality, education and charity.
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The first relationship in this world Created by the GOD ALMIGHTY was that of husband and wife. Adam, the first of mankind was blessed with Eve, his wife, the mother of all human beings. Indeed, the relationship of mother and her child is very important and sacred but it came into existence as a result of the first relationship. It is a fact that creation of pairs in the world is a valuable and merciful Gift of GOD ALMIGHTY. The genders, masculine and feminine, blessed with love and affection are beautiful creations of our Lord. The last Holy Book of GOD ALMIGHTY says in verse No. 36 of chapter 36 (Yaaseen) as under:

Glory to GOD ALMIGHTY (ALLAH), Who Created in pairs all things that the earth produces, as well as their own (human) kind and (other) things of which they have no knowledge.

Science has now declared that genders are available in plants but this fact was already disclosed about 1,500 years before, in the last Holy Book of GOD ALMIGHTY.

It is an unassailable fact that the series and succession of life in generations was not possible in the absence of pairs and sex.

We, the human beings are the most eminent of all creatures of GOD ALMIGHTY, as such He has prescribed principles for our sexual relationship also.

We may mention here the story of Prophet Lot/Lut (p.b.u.h.) who was the nephew of Prophet Abraham (p.b.u.h.). He was sent by the GOD ALMIGHTY to the city of Sodom (Sadum) situated on the Western shore of the Dead Sea. The city in question was immensely filled with evils.The most common evil among the people was that men had sex with men instead of with women.According to Instructions of GOD ALMIGHTY, Prophet Lot (p.b.u.h.) warned them to give up this filthy act but they refused to obey him and threatened to drive him out of the city. Consequently, as a result of Wrath of GOD ALMIGHTY a terrific storm of stones rained on the city and everyone was destroyed completely while Prophet Lot (p.b.u.h.) and his followers were saved as they already migrated from the city according to instruction of GOD ALMIGHTY.

There is a misunderstanding that the last book of GOD ALMIGHTY (ALLAH) orders the believers to have 4 wives at a time but it is not true. In fact, there was a practice of having so many wives at a time, which tendency was curbed and the limit of 4 marriages was imposed. Verse No. 3 of chapter No.4 (An-Nisa i:e the women) of the last book of GOD ALMIGHTY begins with these instructions:

If you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly with the orphans,marry women of your choice,two,or three,or four; but if you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly (with them), then only one, ...

Some people object on the number of wives of the last Prophet (p.b.u.h.) but he was not the first prophet to have more than one wife.According to Bible and Torah, Prophet Abraham (p.b.u.h.) had 3 wives, Prophet Jacob (p.b.u.h.) had 4 wives, Prophet Moses (p.b.u.h.) had 4 wives, Prophet David(p.b.u.h.) had 9 wives and Prophet Solomon (p.b.u.h.) had 700 wives.

Almost all the wives of the last Prophet (p.b.u.h.) except one, were widows and he married each of them for a reason mostly to support widows/orphans.His first wife was also a widow and during her life time, the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) did not marry again for a period of 25 years.His wife Umme Salamah was a widow with 4 orphans, 2 boys and 2 girls.He loved the orphan children more than their real father. His wife Zainab bint Gahsh who was the Prophet's cousin, got married with him after being divorced by her first husband Zayd.

It is observed from the above details that the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) married the widows/divorced to protect them.Only one wife of the Holy Prophet (p.b.u.h.) , named Aisha was virgin at the time of marriage.There is a common confusion about her age at the time of her marriage with the Holy Prophet (p.b.u.h.).According to almost all the historians, Asma,the elder sister of Aisha,was 10 years older than Aisha. Asma is reported to die in 73 A.H. (692 A.D.) when she was100 years old,as such at the time of Hijrah she was 27 years old and Aisha was 17 years old and not 7 years old which probably is a mistake due to omission of figure 1.She was delivered to the Holy Prophet (p.b.u.h.) about one year after Hijrah in the month of Shawal. (See this link under the heading "692 : Death" and calculate the actual age of Aisha at the time of her marriage: http://bit.ly/ZyLp1r

Husband and wife are instructed by the GOD ALMIGHTY (ALLAH) to keep secret of each other. Verse No.187 of chapter 2 of the Holy Qur'aan begins with these instructions:

Permitted to you on the night of the fasts is the approach to your wives. They are your garments and you are their garments ...

Also published at http://bit.ly/13qG75p

Saving The Planet, One Drop At A Time

... By Aalif

An inspiring true story that shows just how simple it can be for one person with an idea to make a difference.

Aabid Surti is an odd character. A few years ago, the angular, bearded author was invited to meet the President of India to receive a national award for literature at a ceremony in the capital, New Delhi. He politely declined. Absorbed in writing the first draft of his new novel, he cited the reason that he did not have time. But what he has made time for every Sunday for seven years now, is going door-to-door in Mira Road, a non-descript suburb of Mumbai, with a plumber in tow, asking residents if they need their tap fixed for free!
As a distinguished Indian painter and author, Aabid has written around 80 books but no story so moved him as the truth about water scarcity on the planet. “I read an interview of the former UN chief Boutros Boutros Ghali,” he recalls, “who said that by 2025 more than 40 countries are expected to experience water crisis. I remembered my childhood in a ghetto fighting for each bucket of water. I knew that shortage of water is the end of civilized life.”
Around the same time, in 2007, he was sitting in a friend’s house and noticed a leaky tap. It bothered him. When he pointed it out, his friend, like others, dismissed it casually: it was too expensive and inconvenient to call a plumber for such a minor job – even plumbers resisted coming to only replace old gaskets.
A few days later, he came across a statistic in the newspaper: a tap that drips once every second wastes a thousand litres of water in a month. That triggered an idea. He would take a plumber from door to door and fix taps for free – one apartment complex every weekend.
As a creative artist, he had earned more goodwill than money and the first challenge was funding. “But,” he says, “if you have a noble thought, nature takes care of it.” Within a few days, he got a message that he was unexpectedly being awarded Rs.1,00,000 ($2,000) by the Hindi Sahitya Sansthan (UP) for his contribution to Hindi literature. And one Sunday morning in 2007, the International Year of Water, he set out with a plumber to fix the problem for his neighbors.
He began by simply replacing old O-ring rubber gaskets with new ones, buying new fixtures from the wholesale market. He named his one-man NGO ‘Drop Dead’ and created a tagline: save every drop… or drop dead.
Every Sunday, the Drop Dead team – which consisted of Aabid himself, Riyaaz the plumber and a female volunteer Tejal – picked the apartment blocks, got permission from the housing societies, and got to work. A day before, Tejal would hand out pamphlets explaining their mission and paste posters in elevators and apartment lobbies spreading awareness on the looming water crisis. And by Sunday afternoon, they would ensure the buildings were drip-dry.
By the end of the first year, they had visited 1533 homes and fixed around 400 taps. Slowly, the news began to spread.
In March 2008, director Shekhar Kapur, who was working on his own water conservation film, heard about Aabid’s efforts and wrote on his website: ‘Aabid Surti, thank you so much for who you are. I wish there were more people like you in this world. Keep in touch with us and keep inspiring us. Shekhar.’
Local newspapers began to write about Drop Dead, which prompted a further flood of grateful emails and spontaneous messages. One of the most heartfelt messages was from superstar actor-producer Shah Rukh Khan, a longtime fan of Aabid’s work as a comic book creator. After reading the newspaper report titled ‘City of Angels’, he wrote to Aabid: “…It sounds like one of the little big things my dad would have done.Strange that I have enjoyed [your comic] Bahadur in my childhood and enjoyed reading your tap story so many years down the line… when I am father myself. God bless you and yes, I believe in angels after reading the newspaper.”
In 2010, Aabid Surti was nominated for the CNN-IBN CJ ‘Be The Change’ Award. In the same year, a television crew from Berlin flew down to follow him on his Sunday rounds which continued come monsoon or shine.
It’s hard to say how much water he has saved with his mission, given that the faucets he fixed could have continued leaking for months, and maybe years, had he not rung the doorbell one Sunday morning. But conservatively, it could be estimated that he has single-handedly saved at least 5.5m litres of water till date.
In the summer of 2013, the state where Aabid lives is expecting its worst drought in 40 years. Months in advance, the Chief Minister Prithviraj Chauhan has warned citizens to begin conserving water. While ministers lobby for drought-relief packages worth millions of dollars, Aabid sees his own approach as simple and inexpensive.
As he rings another door-bell on yet another Sunday in Mira Road, seven years into his one-man mission, he says: “Anyone can launch a water conservation project in his or her area. That’s the beauty of this concept. It doesn’t require much funding or even an office. And most importantly, it puts the power back in our own hands.”
I would call him a modern-day angel; I am lucky I get to call him dad.
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UPDATE (MAY 2013): Much has changed for dad since this post. He was given the Sparrow Award for conservation and funding to continue his work. He also received funding from the Rotary Association and a few other organizations, and offers to spread the news further. This blog post itself went viral and got dad featured on DailyGood as one of the Everyday Heroes. Global Voices Online further translated this post into Italian, French, Spanish, Malagasy & Greek!
In April 2013, he was once again invited to meet the President of India, for his Drop Dead project.
This time he went.
Source: http://bit.ly/10Q1t9D