The Ayatollah Under the Bed(sheets)

Foreignpolicy.com ^ | May/June 2012 | ARIM SADJADPOUR

[Renfield]

In his 1961 religious treatise A Clarification of Questions (Towzih al-Masael), Khomeini issued detailed pronouncements on issues ranging from sodomy ("If a man sodomizes the son, brother, or father of his wife after their marriage, the marriage remains valid") to bestiality ("If a person has intercourse with a cow, a sheep, or a camel, their urine and dung become impure and drinking their milk will be unlawful"). As a young boy growing up in the American Midwest, I remember being both horrified and bewildered after coming across these precise passages in a translated volume of Khomeini's sayings I found in our Persian émigré home....

[Renfield]

The underlying problem, says Islamic scholar Mehdi Khalaji, a former seminary student in the Shiite epicenter of Qom, is not that such issues were addressed, but the fact that "Islamic jurisprudence hasn't yet been modernized. It's totally disconnected from the issues that modern, urban people have to deal with."

Indeed, Khomeini's religious prescriptions are often the butt of jokes among Iran's post-revolutionary generations. "I've never even seen a camel in Tehran," prominent Iranian cartoonist Nikahang Kowsar told me, "let alone been tempted to have sex with one."...

[reformedliberal]

Great tagline!!!

[Boogieman]

“If a person has intercourse with a cow, a sheep, or a camel, their urine and dung become impure”

Wait, so as long as nobody has sex with them, the urine and dung are “pure”?

[Sherman Logan]

For a truly hilarious essay on this issue from the great Mark Steyn.

http://www.steynonline.com/1516/the-shagged-sheep

[Renfield]

Talk about a pen warmed up in Hell...

[Cicero]

Excellent, indeed.

[SuziQ]

LOL! Mark Steyn is awesome!