I am reading a book called “Reading Lolita in Tehran”, by Azar Nafisi - a memoir of an Iranian women teaching literature to a group of female students in Iran.
One of the students was busy translating the dissertation of Ayatollah Khomeini, entitled “The Political, Philosophical, Social and Religious Principles”. According to her, the text advocates having sex with animals as a way to “cure” a man’s sexual impulses!
It even adresses the problem of whether you can eat the animal afterwards (answer: if you have sex with a chicken, you can’t eat it after - but it is okay to sell it to a neighbour who lives two doors away!).
Is this for real? Have I been “wooshed”?
Did Ayatollah Khomeini really advocate having animal sex?
I found this, which, although it permits the sale of non-meat animals if they have been the subject of human/animal sex, doesn’t in any way appear to say or imply that the act itself is acceptable.
I don’t have a definitive answer, however I have come across this before. I used to moderate a set of boards with vast numbers of topics including religion, and this was frequently trotted out on the Muslim boards by trolls. The “text” in question is often referred to as “Tahrirolvasyleh”. You’ll find a bunch of pages quoting it if you google the name. We tried to verify its existence to our own satisfaction, albeit only with internet research. We came to the conclusion that since the only references to it anywhere are on rabidly anti-Islam sites, it must be a hoax. I’m still not entirely satisfied with this, however. Amazon does have an entry for a book by Khomeini published in 1985 which is cited by several of the pages containing the quotes in question, but I can’t find out anything about its contents from a non-biased source. Basically, I’m inclined to be highly sceptical because the only sources quoting the passages you mention do so in a distinctively cut’n’paste manner; they’re all just quoting each other, and who knows where the original quote came from.
Yes, I tried an Internet search with the same result - a bunch of quotes from various sites with axes to grind.
I wouldn’t believe it myself, from such sources.
However, I have a bit more trouble dismissing it from the original source, the book - which is the memoirs of an Iranian literature professor who lived in Iran through the Revolution, and which in other respects seems reliable.
Maybe this is a job for Cecil … the Straight Dope on this would be appreciated! I have an Iranian friend (who lent me this book) who would be most interested.
Around 1985 I read an article about the Ayatollah’s views on bestiality. As I recall, sex with a dog was forbidden; but sex with cats or pigeons was acceptable. A friend and I got quite a laugh, imagining someone walking around with a shocked-looking cat sticking out from his loins! I think, but am not at all sure, that we read the article in Playboy.
In any case, that was the last I heard of it until this thread.
Just because one hates Khomeini doesn’t mean one has an axe to grind regarding Islam. Khomeini was a bona-fida fucked up idiot. And whether sites out to smear Islam are or are not the only places that show these quotes has nothing to do with whether they’re genuine.
“A man can have sex with animals such as sheeps, cows, camels and so on. However, he should kill the animal after he has his orgasm. He should not sell the meat to the people in his own village; however, selling the meat to the next door village should be fine” Fuck a camel? Sure why not, just don’t sell it to me afterwards. That guy other there sell it to him! That would be the moral thing to do
*“A man can have sexual pleasure from a child as young as a baby. However, he should not penetrate; sodomising the child is OK. If the man penetrates and damages the child then he should be responsible for her subsistence all her life. This girl, however, does not count as one of his four permanent wives. The man will not be eligible to marry the girl’s sister.” *
**So it’s ok to sodomise a child, a bummer about the sister though, eh. **
*“It is better for a girl to marry in such a time when she would begin menstruation at her husband’s house rather than her father’s home. Any father marrying his daughter so young will have a permanent place in heaven.” *
**Such glorious wisdom! I have two daughters, the oldest already six! – I’ll have to hurry now to reserve my place in heaven! **
*“Eleven things are impure: urine, excrement, sperm…non-Moslem men and women…and the sweat of an excrement-eating camel.” *
**Gee so you think I’m impure. But, you know Khomeni my dude, I’m not so hot on you either. **
The problem is that these quotes are repeated on a number of sites - the same ones; which to my mind indicates that they are all quoting each other, or rather they come from some common main source (which may, or may not, be Khomeini).
Now, I already loathe Khomeini for a fundie bastard that did his country infinite harm. I double-loathe him because by best friend’s wife, also a good friend, is Persian and her family went through hell to escape the “Islamic republic” and its medieval repressive ways. But if he actually said that stuff, I would like some more convincing proof - mainly because I look forward to telling my Persian friend (who hates Khomeini more than you or I ever could), and I don’t want to sound like an idiot spreading Internet myths, but have the solid goods.
Unfortunately, the answer may not be available to English speakers …
I don’t see why this particular quote about animals should be so hard to swallow considering the abundance of other equally or even more disgusting quotes. Of course one may doubt those as well, which is fine. However I do think the general character of the man and his ideology goes a long way to make it highly probable that he might have said something along those lines.
Is it possible that some of these are mistranslations or taken out of context? So, something like this (as Rune quoted:
It could mean that, if a man sodomizes a baby/young child, she is still considered a virgin legally, and the man doesn’t have any special obligation to her. However, if her hymen is broken, she no longer is considered a virgin, and he has a special responsibility for her care (along with the normal punishment for raping a child).
The source is indeed Ruhollah Khomeini. I have read the book (unfortunately I don’t have it available any more, there are some real goodies to be found in it) and I recognise Rune’s quotations.
Could mean that any animal that is the subject of bestiality must be killed, and its meat can not be eaten by the people of the village (because they know the circumstances behind its death). However, it is acceptable to sell the meat to another village (because they are ignorant of the reason for the animal’s death, so it’s ok for them to eat it)
Again, I’m not saying that these are the meanings of what he was saying (or that he even said them), just that something like that would make more sense than what its said he said.
Babies? Those were not my quotes, I included them to show how disgusting Khomeini quotes are far from isolated to the animal kingdom only. How so? Do you think they’re part of a Khomeini smear campaign too? I’m not waving the idea away, but do you have any special reason to think so. I doubt anyone would have to actually do anything as drastic as to invent anything when it comes to this man. Anyway, personally I know nothing from the horse’s mouth so to speak, since I don’t know Persian or Arabic. On the other hand I have read plenty where he advocated girls should be married off very young. The one about the daughter’s first menstruation I first heard repeated by an expert on Iranian society. I see no special reason to doubt any of the above quotes – especially seen in the light of the despicably nature of the regime he presided over. But if you can show me they’re in fact wrong I’m more than willing to listen – until then I’ll take them literally because of the mans record.
I don’t need a particular reason to think so. That’s pure logic. The fact that he could be a despicable individual (according to you), due to his “general character and ideology” (your words) doesn’t make any more likely that unrelated statements attributed to him would be true. In the same way, if for instance I’m communist and you happen to deeply dislike my ideology, it doesn’t make more likely that I’m also a baby-rapist.
So, the reasons you mentionned to give credence to the quotes were flawed, and unconvincing, except if, as I stated, you knew for sure that his ideology included condoning sodomizing babies (IOW, except if you already knew that the quotes were genuine, in which case you could have shared the evidences).
