Aids

Islamic way to prevent AIDS EXTREME social actions trigger extreme opposite reactions. Following that logic, it is not hard to trace the root of the AIDS pandemic, says Professor Malik Badri, author of The AIDS Crisis: An Islamic Socio-Cultural Perspective (ISTAC). Fornication and other sinful excesses, from Greek to Roman times, gave rise to extreme repression in the Middle Ages. Subsequently, in the 18th Century secular reprisal against social and religious dogmas spawned the sexual revolution, which in turn perpetuated the AIDS dilemma. The pendulum of sex has swung from unrestrained abandon to repression and back to permissiveness, the current sexual revolution is "a progeny of Western modernity", writes Sudan-born Malik, who teaches psychology at the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilisation (ISTAC), Kuala Lumpur. "What we see now is the explosion of a long dormant volcano. AIDS is a natural consequence of rampant promiscuity and unrestrained homosexual abandon. "He notes that westerners preach the 'gospel' of condoms single partners, and clean syringes and needles to counter infection. But these are non-moral devices which do not alter a person's sexual preference as long as it's 'safe'. Going by the escalating numbers of HIV cases in the West, letting people do what they want does not work. Methods which have failed in the West should not be transported and applied here. "To expect people who are constantly enticed by sexually seductive media to comply with 'safe' sex instructions, and avoid risk groups in an alcohol saturated society which tolerates drug addiction is a river and telling him not to get wet. "Western solutions are based on the principle that a man is free to be what he want, so they concentrate on externals. We need to change minds and hearts, and tell people that if something is morally wrong, 'Don't do it'. " This attitude change must be rooted in the culture and values of the society in question, Malik believes. "Thus, Muslim societies should adopt an Islamically-oriented prevention campaign." Catholic dogma has it that sex can only be for procreation or pleasure, he adds. But to Muslims, both are not mutually exclusive. "There is no schism between religion and science. The joy of sex and the grift of children are two sides of the same coin." The AIDS Crisis outlines how an Islamic-based strategy can work. It also examines potential ethical, social and political problems and how to cope with them. In Chapter One, the author explains what happens when the healthy immune system breaks down, how the HIV virus infects the body, and why infection is fatal. He blames the Western media for championing the gay revolution with "scholarly enticements" to anal sex. New fads and fashions have, in turn, perpetuated perverse practices that help transmit the HIV virus, which has mutated from "pussycat to tiger". Drugs and alcohol top the non-sexual from of transmission. Both impair judgement and many a victim has picked up the disease during an impromptu encounter induced by drinks, pills or jabs. Malik debunks the "white supremacy" theory that AIDS originated with the green monkey in Africa and was then exported to America by Haitians. "It is more likely that AIDS was made in the US and shipped out ." What then is the best shield against this 20th century plague' In one word- prevention. Using Islam as the anchor, he advocates faith in an almighty god, prayer, fasting (boosts the will to change), and performing the haj (it shapes an ummah personality). Fear of divine punishment can rein a person's sexual appetite. Similarly immediate and painful action against those caught taking alcohol and drugs can curb such offences. Prevention should start at the micro level. "An Islamic lifestyle moulds a balanced attitude towards sex, and decreases the chances of infection, especially among Muslim youths." He then makes some salient points about homosexuality, the crux of which is that it is a treat able disorder. "If motivated enough, a homosexual can unlearn his sexual experience using aversion therapy." Thirty years of clinical experience as a psychologist backs his claim. Homosexuality has never been biologically determined. If it's in the genes, how do you explain that it's totally absent or rare in some communities'" Malik wraps up the AIDS Crisis by looking at how the government media and Islamic movements can help correct misconceptions, promote educational programmes, and provided counselling to combat the explosion. He sees a more involved role for medical and other anti-AIDS specialists. They should not be ethically non-judgmental; neither should they condone. Ideally, they should dispense medicine with spiritual advice. Ultimately, Islamic versus Western prevention methods are not so much a medical issue as a cultural conflict, he feels. Muslim governments have to take a stand and come out with a model that suits them. What model would he suggest for a multi-cultural country like Malaysia' "Seek the advice of those who are influential in each racial group and concentrate on the essential issues. Then go forward and fight. AIDS together." He cautions that there is no room for extremism in Islam. "People should be aware and cautious so as not to give Islam a picture which non-Muslims can't or won't accept. Muslims should show what works for them and set an example for others. They have to be more extroverted, otherwise the vision of Islam becomes constricted." In 1976, Malik presented a landmark paper titled 'Muslim Psychologists in the Lizard's hole at the Annual Conference of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists in Indianapolis. That seeded The Dilemma of a Muslim Psychologist, two years later. Both paper and book questioned the suitability of Western theories and practices for Muslim practitioners. He is working o a sequel which presents an Islamic resolution to The Dilemma. Meanwhile a 1991 release from Sense Perception to Spiritual Insight, is being translated into English. (There is a Bahasa Malaysia edition.) THE AIDS CRISIS: AN ISLAMIC SOCIO-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE. By Malik B. Badri. Intl. Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC), Kuala Lumpur, 1997, Pp. Xxcii+333;9 cartoons. ISBN 983-9379-03-8 (PB). The Sudanese author, a psychiatrist trained in Beirut, Leicester, and Leeds, before teaching at ISTAC had been active in the Lebanon, Jordan, the Sudan, Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia - where he founded the psychology clinic of Riyadh University. He came to the fore with his successful booklet on The Dilemma of Muslim Psychologists (MWH Publishers, London, 1979). While this ideological critique of the Occidental 'shrink' culture was amusing, if only because of its hilarious cartoons, Badri's present weighty volume, given its mortal topic, is alarming. Badri call a spade a spade: (i) AIDS (Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome) is a progeny of Western modernity with its associated sexual revolution, in particular its unihibited, highly promiscuous and drug addicted 'gay' segment. Badri condemns Western racist attempts to blame AIDS on African society. In truth not the reverse. (ii) Given it s libertarian world-view Western modernity through media propelled industrial pornography will continue to entice 'open marriages', anal sex, and any other deviant sex 'orientation'. It is therefore unable to adopt a firm AIDS- preventing moral strategy. Rather the Occident will continue to fight mere symptoms, mainly with condoms, ineffectively. (iii) 'Safe sex' - techniques cannot work in a drug-infested, alcohol-saturated, licentious environment because alcohol and drugs are also immuno-suppressive agents (see Badri's Islam and Alcoholism, American Trust Publications, Washington, DC, 1976). Thus, even if a vaccine against HIV (Human gene mutations is practically certain as long as the prevailing attitudes towards anal sex, promiscuity, and drugs is not radically changed both at the micro and macro levels. (iv) Only Islam seems capable of bringing about the needed change of paradigm - back to the adoption of sexual morality in accordance with revealed guidance and Islamic sex hygiene (e.g. circumcision; ghusl after sex; no intercourse during menstruation). Badri makes intricate bio-chemical processes in virology and immunology accessible to laymen. More important, he portrays AIDS as the end result of a development starting in ancient Greece and Rome: facing Christian sex-phobia, Europe during its Renaissance and Enlightenment found a historical bedrock in the anti-religious and rationalist9c materialism of antique Humanism and its sexual laxity (p.36). The author traces all steps and twists, even linguistic ones, which modernity and post-modernity then took on their disastrous road towards secularism and its associated sexual libertinage: Marxism, Freudianism, neo-Darwinism, Behaviourism, and Humanistic Pshychology - to the point where 'straight' people opposing structural homosexuality are accused of narrow - minded 'homophobia' and pseudo-racist 'heterosexism', and where 'progressive'. Protestant bishops in scandalous ethical relativism view man as a pluri-sexual animal, biologically predisposed to homosexuality, as 'self-actualization' of an alternative 'lifestyle'. AIDS, the most frightening fatal disease in world history, the first one with a homosexual stigma, is also the first one to be deliberately transmitted by revengeful infected persons. It is already the leading cause of death of Americans aged between 25 and 44. HIV is a new, cunning, stealthy, strangely purposeful virus with properties never encountered before in virology., Its long incubation period makes infection of others extremely likely, even while it cannot normally be transmitted via tears, saliva, or mothers' milk but only sexually (aside from blood transfusion and contaminated needles and syringes). It has been shown that the bio-chemical processes which lead to the emergence of HIV are a direct result of sodomy, i.e. anal sex. Yet, recalling the extreme sexual repression of the Church, contemporary secularists reject any idea of returning to 'conventional morality' (or morality, tout court)- as if moralization was worse than AIDS (p.28). For a Muslim it is, however, clear that a scourge like AIDS (like Syphilis before), even while it may look self inflicted is a divine retribution - not so much against specific individuals as a against a mankind which has massively revolted against the divine order by propagating and practising bizarre sexual perversions and altering the very concept of sexual and practising bizarre sexual perversions and altering the very concept of sexual normalcy (p.29). Badri translates the relevant prophetic hadith, transmitted by Ibn Majah, as follows: "If fornication and all kinds of sinful sexual intercourse become rampant and openly practised without inhibition in any group or nation. Allah will punish them with new epidemics and new diseases…' (p.210). That is where we are Already HIV-B has appeared in Honduras and HIV-E in Thailand, with female prostitutes. The author leaves us with both good and bad news: these is now proof that for causing AIDS, HIV is neither necessary nor sufficient. HIV might only be an epiphenomenon, secondary factor in an immune deficiency already caused by (i) alcohol, (ii) drugs, (iii) associated malnutrition, (iv) the gay bowel syndrome (chronic multiple anal infections) and (v) the strong immuno-suppressive properties of semen - the very property which permits sperm to pass the vagina )pp. 75, 131, 138-48). It is in fact likely that the HIV mutated from a tame virus to a lethal monster, and continues to mutate at incredible speed, because of the pre-existence of the factors listed, all linked to anal intercourse. If so, people do not die of AIDS per se but from opportunistic diseases profiting, like HIV itself, of a previous collapse of the immune system. In that case good news! - the spreading of AIDS can be stopped (as is happening) if infected people radically change their life-styles, stopping all (mentioned) risk activities. Indeed most homosexuals dying of AIDS have to blame their risk behaviour both before and after HIV infection! Yet in that case - bad news! - all non-moral prevention strategies which do not interfere in gay sexual practises will fail, and no HIV - vaccine can do the trick. Badri is convinced that Islam (and only Islam) as a religion, life-style and civilization has the potential for eliminating AIDS: because of its hygienic behaviour and its prohibition of homosexuality, promiscuity, drugs, and alcohol. He warns that Westerners who believe that they can go on with their boundless Sex without Guilt (A. Ellis)-ideology are out of touch with moral reality and the fate of earlier civilizations. Many people talk about the Islamization of knowledge. Badri, without even mentioning it, through his competent, holistic, Islam-based approach does a marvellous job exactly at that, complete with detailed guidance for Muslim AIDS workers and psychiatrists helping Muslims to unlearn their (invariably) acquired homosexual habits. He is aware that the AIDS controversy between Islam and the West may be part of the very 'clash of civilizations' predicted by Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington. Small corrections bespeak the overall high quality of editing: the town on p.29 is 'Quedlinburg'; Engels' first name was 'Friedrich' (p.115) on p.77 for Kensy read 'Kinsey'. Quotes from St. Paul should be based on his Letters in the New Testament, not on secondary literature.