By Nazir Jahangir
The most tragic and ugly side of our culture is shyness in genuine expressions. People, men and women equally, suffer from some crucial sex problems but feel shy in telling them to medicos, as a consequence, their life turns a misery for them. Even majority of our doctors are not adequately educated in this regard and do not encourage people to feel free in telling them such basic problems of life. It is a sorry state of affairs that most of our religious leaders and doctors as well, have made our cultural atmosphere so suffocative and, in a sense, demoralized that sex problem has become guilt here. This has resulted depressions and other psychological problems to common people in general and young men and women in particular. Sometimes, because of this feeling of guilt, a friend treats another friend with his/her own ‘prescriptions’, which too cause serious consequences.
I made couple of tries to write a book on this topic and this idea continued to spin round my mind for a long. Alhamdulillah, this book is now in its finishing stage and may hit the stalls next month. While writing this book I sailed in the same boat what a writer described his experience while penning his novel. He reveals his emotional ups and downs by rightly saying, “You will often feel like your writing is amazing one day and the worst the next. Some days, you might feel like you’re going to be able to finish the whole book in a few days. Others, you might feel like you can’t write a single word and you’re just going to give up……”
Anyway, I could make it by the Grace of God, though being ditched on many occasions by some people on this account. (It is very easy to cheat a naive and gullible man like me).
Infact, I wrote the major portion for this book some 25 years back, but I felt a little shy to bring out this book and print it as I too am nourished in the environment where people have constructed the norms of morality on their own tastes and wills, not according to the teachings of Islam. So our Islam is different what it is known in its pristine purity. I knew it that Islam guides us for the private moments of life also, and I knew it that men and womenfolk would approach Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) for personal issues also and took guidance from him for marital life, private problems, matrimonial issues and spousal delicacies. I knew it that there was nothing to be ashamed to print this book, yet I could not. I knew it that Ahadith are replete with the incidents when companions, both men and women, would ask Prophet Muhammad (sallallahu allihi wassallam) for the solution and guidance of their very delicate problems also. Prophet never restricted them from such enquiries. No one should feel shy to know the truth and learn the truth. It is written in holy Quran, “Allah does not feel shy to tell the truth”. But in spite of knowing all these things I was at a loss to decide whether to publish this book or not?
It was perhaps 2000 A. D., when a small book titled “Aadab-i-Mobashirat” (Islamic way of sexual copulation) by Dr Aftab Ahmad Shah came in my hands wherein sexual matters have been discussed elaborately. I was amazed to know that great Islamic scholars, like Dr Moulana Fazal-ur-Rehman Sewani Nadvi, Reader of Department of Islamic studies, Aligarh, Moulana Mehmod-ul-Hasan Sahib, Mufti Azam Deoband, Moulana Mufti Abdul Qayoom Sahib, writer of Quranic exegesis, Dr Rahat Ali Khan Sahib, MBBS, MD, Aligarh, Moulana Manzoor Nomani Sahib, Mohadis, Moulana Muhammad Zaid Sahib, Mufti Jamia Arabia, Hathora, and many other well known scholars have appreciated and acclaimed this attempt of Dr Aftab Ahmad Shah Sahib which revolves around the subject of sex and said it the need of hour. This inspired and encouraged me to move ahead in my plan and publish this book.
How ironical, people are not ashamed of watching obscene films clandestinely but feel it bad if anyone tells them the truth. What a hypocrisy! They do not feel ashamed to lie and ditch people but pretend to be more modest than wanted.
It appears that Islamic scholars have not done much work in producing reasonable literature on sex; as a result, Muslims appear to be negligent about both lawful and prohibited activities. There needs to be more done to educate the people about sex in the light of Islam so that circumspection is observed while going for it.
Nazir Jahangir is a nolted journalist
