Muslims kissing in Cairo / Saudi ClericReveals the Treatment of Love /MPC Journal
A couple kissing in Cairo – © Photo: Islam Unvarnished/Derek

A Saudi Cleric says on the Islamic TV Iqraa (lit. recite) that the treatment of love comes in six potions: Praying, averting one’s glance, keeping distance from the beloved, thinking about bad qualities of the beloved, imagining losing them and getting married.

The excessively popular Islamic figure Muhammad Al-Oraifi cites one of the prophet’s sayings to make the point that women shouldn’t cooperate with the Satan to seduce men: “A woman should not be exposed; when she goes out, she is accompanied by Satan”. While explaining the Hadith of the prophet, Al-Oraifi says if a nicely-dressed woman goes out in the street, Satan will make her look more seductive in the eyes of men.

The problem, says Al-Oraifi who has over 22 million followers on Facebook, is that youngsters may fall in love.

Al-Oraifi teaches mind-blowing examples of how to treat those Muslims falling in love. One of these examples is about university students: “To keep distance from the beloved, for instance at a university, a guy could move to another university, especially if this person couldn’t get rid of love”. “Prison is more favourable for me,” Al-Oraifi adds.

A better way to keep in line, he suggests, is to think of the bad qualities the other person might have: “When a guy falls in love with a girl or vice versa and have become infatuated by their beauty, they should think of bad qualities of the other such as their halitosis, defecation, faeces, urine, and their bad smell when they wake up”.

He hypotheses that “if a person thinks of the bad qualities of another, he will undoubtedly dislike them.”

He also urges people to imagine that their lovers might die so they avoid loving anyone because they risk losing them.

A more functional advice, Al-Oraifi admits, is to get married and forget all about the one you love.

While many Muslims find these teachings not only embarrassing but also nonsensical, Al-Oraifi remains one of the contemporary renowned Islamic clerics who not only appears very frequently on different TV channels, but also teaches at a university level.

By Hakim Charles

Hakim Charles studied political science of the Middle East, European Studies, journalism and linguistics. He has been lecturing at different German universities since 2011 on issues related to ideology and the interplay of power thereof in socio-political life, and religion and its relationship to contemporary politics in the regions of West Asia and North Africa, especially Egypt and Syria. He is also the editor-in-chief of the Mashreq Politics & Culture Journal (MPC Journal) since 2014 and has published over 100 articles in different languages, academic and otherwise, in a wide spectrum of on-line and printed newspapers, journals and think tanks. His current research focuses on Islam-inspired political ideologies such as Islamist extremism and Salafism, radicalisation, de-radicalisation processes in Germany as well as peace and conflict in the Middle East.

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