Harussani bin Haji Zakaria
Malay Islamic cleric/scholar Harussani bin Haji Zakaria has some seriously messed-up beliefs. Sure, that makes him just like every other person featured on this site, but this one’s pretty special. He’s even gone so far as to forbid Muslims from performing certain dances.
“If a Muslim who is fasting sees a woman’s awrah then it’ll just erase their benefits,” Zakaria said. The awrak is any area of the body that is prescribed to be covered under sharia. Needless to say, plenty of benefits from Allah were undone.
Of course, women don’t have to be uncovered for Zakaria to view them as problematic. On a jihad against cinemas that allegedly promote haram gender-mixing, the crazed cleric commented: “Even the cinema itself allows people to engage in immoral activities, what more with couple seats which encourages people to make-out in the theater. They should not be given the license. They do not want to watch movies, but they want to make-out in there. The cinemas are already showing ‘romen’ (romance) stories, people who watch them want to ‘romen’ at their own seats; I don’t get why all this is happening.” Aww, poor Zakaria’s marriage must be loveless and desolate, so he has to take it out on everyone else. Poor, poor guy. Maybe he should go cry in a corner instead of trying to ruin others’ fun… oh wait, he’s a Muslim, he’s ordered to command what is (allegedly) good and forbid what is (allegedly) evil, even at society’s expense.
Outlawing cinemas wasn’t far enough for love-hater Zakaria. “Anti-vice enforcement officers should not just focus on cinemas, as whenever they see unwed couples sitting together, just apprehend them.” Considering Islam’s penchant for child marriage, I wonder how long it would be before parents were arrested for going downtown with their kids…
Zakaria had to stick his foot in his mouth once more in a recent controversy over marital rape: “…the Prophet says that even when they’re riding on the back of the camel, when the husband asks her, she must give.” Uhh, no. There’s this thing called consent, and maybe if you understand why it matters and practiced it 100%, women wouldn’t hate your guts. Zakaria then went on to tell women they could only refuse their husbands’ advances if they were menstruating, ill, or had recently given birth. He also claims a man is “always entitled” to intercourse with his wife. I feel incredibly sorry for Zakaria’s wife…
The cleric also got in the center of a recent controversy about whether or not Muslim women can participate in gymnastics after a female Malay athlete competed at the international level. “Gymnastics is not for Muslim women. It is clear that exposing one’s awrah and the shape of one’s body is haram. If Muslim women want to participate in gymnastics, they have to find outfits which cover the awrah and this, in turn, might not be suitable for the sport.” So basically he’s saying that women can’t do gymnastics because of bizarre 7th-century rules. I don’t know who he thinks he is, telling women how they have to behave. But of course, we in the west must repeat the lie that Islam respects women because to say otherwise is “Islamophobic.”
