Shamelessness, Certain Manifestations and Remedies Part 1

By M

Bismillah

I’m convinced. There is a genius on earth, and his name is Sheikh Yassir Fazaga. Beautiful speaker, brave in his attempt to address uncomfortable issues, and a gentleman. Alhamdulillah. 

In one of his lectures, he said something quite profound, that one could pick safe topics to address, but the messengers were sent to address challenges that the masses were facing. One should take this as a standard and an incentive to address the relevant challenges that our society faces, no matter how uncomfortable these may be to talk about, in order to facilitate change.

So when given this topic choice, I accepted. And although interested, I became weary of this challenge; until I started doing research, realizing soon enough that this is a relevant and important subject. Amazingly, it is a subject dealt with quite extensively and I would like to share these discoveries with you.

The issue is pornography and masturbation. Yes, yes, uncomfortable issue to discuss, I know. But listen to this. These are problems that affect societies, from every background, race, and religion, all over the world. It is serious; pornography. It has become an addiction. Studies show that it starts off with what’s called, soft core, which is relatively tame compared to the disturbing hard core pornography it inevitably leads to, as people tend to get bored quickly.

Furthermore, a person may end up falling into viewing certain things which he would ordinarily not view, like paedophilia. Imagine that! So called ‘softer images’ grow quickly to more graphic ones, often even elevating to child abuse. It is in essence a form of abuse, at all levels, to men, women and children; exploiting, demeaning, and objectifying women as subordinate physical objects of pleasure rather than equal human beings worthy of respect. It does the same to men and children.

So ready yourself for some disturbing stats:
· 24% of divorces are due to pornography
· 420 million pages on the World Wide Web are dedicated to pornography.
· 4.2 million Websites are dedicated to pornography only.
· At every given second, 29 000 people are looking for pornography, translating into 69 million searches a day, 160 000 of these searches are for child pornography.
· Studies have shown that children are first exposed to it as young as the age of 11, some studies showing age 8.

It’s just a click away. If you don’t look for it, it looks for you; like in the spam section of your email.

Nowadays, even young kids are prone to addiction due to its prevalence. It almost draws them in, to the point that some can’t go to sleep without watching it. This is sad because before these kids are fully developed emotionally; they become addicted, and are left unable to fully understand how it affects them on an emotional and mental level.

A spokeswoman for the congress in the USA, as researched by Sheikh Yassir Fazaga, said something very interesting: addiction to porn is more serious than crack or cocaine because these drugs can be detoxified from the body. However, images of porn ingrain themselves into the mind of the watcher rendering him captive, imprisoning him.

How does it cause damage?
Pornography kills natural stimulants in the person who’s consuming it. Watch it once and it’s exciting; watching it more and more desensitises a person, so an individual will push for more, in quantity and severity.

The four steps of addiction, further discussed, create a vicious cycle, with the addict thinking and fantasizing, then planning out how to do it, then executing, followed by guilt. Eventually this is repeated so much that the person feels no guilt, thereby killing their conscience. These are the poisonous arrows of shaytaan; unlawful glances. A person may stop a salaat out of shame or despair, then may stop another out of feelings of hopelessness over the first, creating a chain of events.

It is interesting to note the 4 stages of viewing pornography, after the initial exposure as identified by Dr. Victor Cline of the University of Utah:

• Addiction - The desire and need to keep coming back for pornographic images.
• Escalation - The need for more explicit, rougher, and more deviant images for
the same sexual effect.
• Desensitization - Material once viewed as shocking or taboo is seen as
acceptable.
• Acting out - The tendency to perform the behaviours viewed, including
exhibitionism, sadistic/masochistic sex, rape, or sex with minor children.

Masturbation; What Islam Has to Say
Masturbation is not explicitly mentioned but falls into the category of unlawful.
An excellent video concerning this is found at this address: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2L6ziwRea0&feature=related
The Sheikh shows proof for this with the following evidences.

“Those who guard their private parts, except from their wives, or those whom their right hands possess, for these surely are not to be blamed. But he who seeks to go beyond this are transgressors.” (Al Ma’arij:29-31) 

The act of masturbation would contradict this statement and thus, falls into the bounds of those seeking to go beyond the options stated.

Supporting Hadith:

“O youthful people! If any of you have the means to he should get married as it lowers the eyesight and protects the private parts. Those who have not the ability should fast. And it will be a shield for him.”(Bukhari and Muslim) 

Thus it is not permissible to do this act in anyway. If it were it would have been stated as an option. Note that in Christianity, these behaviours are also not permissible.

According to a research conducted by Hamza Yusuf for a lecture, pornography is an attempt to replace something missing inside an individual, something lacking. Boredom is also a facilitator to masturbation.

So, what does this result in? What are the solutions?

I'd love to hear your views on this topic. Please post in the comments section below! :)

Posted in: Islam,M,Masturbation,Pornography,Society,Solutions,Yassir Fazzaga