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EIDING FRENZY

Australian Democrats national secretary Suzanne Bassette agrees with Sheik Taj el-Din ole-Catmeat al-Hilali:

I’m going for political suicide here but I’m willing to stand up with anybody else in this country who happens to agree with Sheik Hilali’s sentiments.

Not because of any emotional or religious point of view but from sheer logic. While men who want to assault women exist, there will be women who get assaulted. Unfortunately, how a woman dresses does affect her level of likeliness to be chosen. The subsequent reaction to this latest opportunity to get angry about something is the real lesson here.

Interesting theory. Helpfully, a recent impromptu social experiment in Hilali’s home nation of Egypt allows us to test Bassette’s claim. Cairo’s Forsoothsayer reports:

On the first two days of Eid in Cairo, a mob of hundreds of men swept through downtown attacking and sexually assaulting random girls in an animalistic display that must boggle every mind. Apparently, the utter lack of basic decency, respect for women, or the rule of law was not confined to Ramadan alone - in fact, Ramadan was the only thing suppressing the baser instincts of these men. I feel sick at heart, and may never spend time downtown again, as it seems we women are actively in danger there ...

Below is an eyewitness account I translated, in a somewhat rudimentary fashion, by Malek, a blogger who was there at the time:

“While yesterday the attacks were just random, young men now formed human trains that approached a girl quickly and surrounded her completely and began groping parts of her body ...

“After less than five minutes we found vast numbers of youth whistling and running towards Adly Street. We accompanied them to see what was going on.
We were surprised to find a girl in her early twenties who had fainted on the ground, surrounded by a large number of youth who were groping parts of her body and taking off her clothes ...

“The crowd did not disperse until the appearance of two girls wearing the Khaliji ebaya (loose outer garment worn by women from the Gulf) walking alone down the street. The young men surrounded them completely and a large number of them pressed against the girls and removed the veils they were wearing, and attempted to remove their ebayas ...

“After a short while another girl appeared who was also wearing the veil and the ebaya. She was also surrounded and they succeeded this time is removing the ebaya, but a security guard was able to draw her into a building and shut the gate and prevent the young men from reaching the girl.

“There was another girl who wore trousers that were a little tight and an ordinary shirt. This time her shirt was removed and her bra ripped and no one helped her except one of the security personnel who had a club and who pulled her into a shop.

“These were the incidents I was able to personally witness in less than an hour I spent in that area ...

“The young men did not distinguish when they undertook their assaults between veiled and unveiled girls.

So much for Bassette’s quaint notion. Driven by blogger coverage, the BBC subsequently ran this piece on the attacks (also mentioning heroic shopkeepers who intervened). Tom Gara has much more.

Posted by Tim B. on 11/02/2006 at 10:17 PM
  1. Story first mentioned in comments on this site a few days ago.

    Posted by Zoe Brain on 2006 11 02 at 10:31 PM • permalink

  2. Basette might be right on one part of the issue; if your skirt is blurring the lines between a skirt and a belt, you might well be more likely to be raped/sexually assaulted. But she should clarify that she doesn’t agree with Thick Sheik that this in any way either justifies rape, or makes it the women’s fault in any way.

    When you say you’re “willing to stand up with anybody else in this country who happens to agree with Sheik Hilali’s sentiments”, make sure you agree with all his sentiments first.

    Posted by Leigh on 2006 11 02 at 10:32 PM • permalink

  3. Australian Democrats national secretary Suzanne Bassette agrees with Sheik Taj el-Din ole-Catmeat al-Hilali:

    I’m going for political suicide here but I’m willing to stand up with anybody else in this country who happens to agree with Sheik Hilali’s sentiments.

    Australian Democrats? I guess suicide is no big deal when you are already dead.

    Posted by geoff on 2006 11 02 at 10:33 PM • permalink

  4. Basette might be right on one part of the issue; if your skirt is blurring the lines between a skirt and a belt, you might well be more likely to be raped/sexually assaulted.

    Come on Leigh. The probably of this kind of attack occurring depends entirely on opportunity and the chances of evading the consequences. The victim could be wearing a suit of armour.

    Posted by geoff on 2006 11 02 at 10:40 PM • permalink

  5. The lefty-Islamic alliance grows more and more weird by the day.

    Posted by C.L. on 2006 11 02 at 10:40 PM • permalink

  6. Interesting that the leader of the Democrats today “disowned” Basette’s comments in a letter to The Australian.

    Posted by closeapproximation on 2006 11 02 at 10:46 PM • permalink

  7. Unfortunately, how a woman dresses does affect her level of likeliness to be chosen.

    I’m hard pressed to imagine a more ill informed comment. Even the most cursory perusal of rape statistics suggests trends so at odds with this ridiculous statement that surely one can only conclude Suzanne Bassette’s agenda is fundamentally a danger to the future of a liberal-democratic Australia.

    Posted by Hanyu on 2006 11 02 at 10:53 PM • permalink

  8. What we need here is a survey of rapists, to determine the influence of a woman’s wardrobe on their target acquisition response.

    paco?

    Posted by rinardman on 2006 11 02 at 11:00 PM • permalink

  9. This was on Andrew Bolt’s blog yesterday and Senator Lyn Allison’s advisor also rebutted Ms Bassette’s views - something about being contrary to the Australian Democrat’s views

    Her views are a crock of sh*t, and if I was a card carrying feminazi I would be truly angry with her and I would be screaming about it all over the news

    But - nothing but silence from any of the usual suspects

    What this stupid woman is doing is condoning rapists and blaming the woman - she’s well on the way to being a good Muslim then

    Posted by aussiemagpie on 2006 11 02 at 11:01 PM • permalink

  10. Umm, wait. Didn’t mean to imply paco is a rapist…..just thought Paco Industries SS (Surveys & Statistics) Division could handle the job!

    Posted by rinardman on 2006 11 02 at 11:01 PM • permalink

  11. I thought rape was more about power and not sexual attraction, which means the ‘veil’ argument is all a bit redundant.

    Good article in yesterday’s Times about it.

    Posted by Ian Deans on 2006 11 02 at 11:03 PM • permalink

  12. Sheik promises to tape mouth. Opponents claim this doesn’t go far enough.

    Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2006 11 02 at 11:05 PM • permalink

  13. I thought rape was more about power and not sexual attraction

    Yeah, that’s the nonsense line feminists put out. It’s rather undercut by the fact that the vast majority of rape victims are between 15 and 30.

    It’s like Adam Carolla says - “Rape is a crime of violence, not a crime of sex. It’s just like if you bash somebody’s head in with a baseball bat. And then you cum.”

    Posted by Dave S. on 2006 11 02 at 11:07 PM • permalink

  14. The report does not mention whether the perpetrators were ‘men of no appearance’.

    Those bloody blonde headed Scandivaians show up just everywhere….

    Posted by Bonmot on 2006 11 02 at 11:18 PM • permalink

  15. I tried to warn Amanda Vanstone with her pink lippy she’s a hot target. lol

    The fact is, that the mufti or the leaders of each community are telling the men this statement and therefore could lead them to believe this statement to be true. This is not a scienctific fact at all, and is only a belief.

    This statement is created for power over women and therefore what they are told, they believe, hence this is the ground hog day and we’re back in the dark ages of Arabia or Florence in the 10 century.

    Posted by 1.618 on 2006 11 02 at 11:25 PM • permalink

  16. I hit the links you provided, TIm and all I can say is WHAT A BLOODY DISGRACE. And the bloggers and commenters over there seem unable to know who to assign blame to…..huh, how about the pack of animals circling women, tearing off clothes ...dont click the links unless you want to be sick.

    Posted by debi L. on 2006 11 02 at 11:29 PM • permalink

  17. #4 geoff

    Come on Leigh. The probably of this kind of attack occurring depends entirely on opportunity and the chances of evading the consequences. The victim could be wearing a suit of armour.

    This is exactly true. Of all the women I’ve known that admitted that they had been raped at some time in their lives (there have been several, sadly, including my own sister), not one of them was dressed in any sort of “provocative” manner, but in every case, help was (effectively) very far away.

    Posted by Spiny Norman on 2006 11 02 at 11:33 PM • permalink

  18. I’m going for political suicide here but I’m willing to stand up with anybody else in this country who happens to agree with Sheik Hilali’s sentiments.

    Better get that burqa on first, woman!  Enjoy the political afterlife.

    I suppose women who are raped in their own homes by intruders shouldn’t be wearing nightgowns, those hussies.

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2006 11 02 at 11:35 PM • permalink

  19. A psychologist, Amr Abu Khaleel, attributed the predatory behaviour to the possible use of drugs and the breakdown of traditional values.

    Interesting that they should mention drug use, along with rampant sexual frustration.  I’ve had a feeling for quite a while that the average, alcohol-averse but easily excitable, jihad-prone Muslim male does an unhealthy quantity of drugs.  After all, that’s not banned in the Koran, is it?

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2006 11 02 at 11:46 PM • permalink

  20. Did they smoke hashish in Big Mo’s time? De HE imbibe? It wouldn’t surprise me.


    Can I get a fatwa?

    Posted by Spiny Norman on 2006 11 03 at 12:06 AM • permalink

  21. Somebody please explain something to me.  Are these horse’s asses who keep coming out of the woodwork to praise Hilali traditionally thought of as Pat Robertson types with an abundance of lumber up their asses, who think the Islamists have the right idea where women are gays are concerned, or are they more in line with the American left and seeking to delay any intercultural nastiness by giving into the Islamists’ low opinion of Australian society.  The political landscape has become so perversely aligned it’s hard to tell who these people are.

    Posted by Mark V. on 2006 11 03 at 12:13 AM • permalink

  22. Somebody please explain something to me.  Are these horse’s asses who keep coming out of the woodwork to praise Hilali traditionally thought of as Pat Robertson types with an abundance of lumber up their asses, who think the Islamists have the right idea where women and gays are concerned, or are they more in line with the American left and seeking to delay any intercultural nastiness by giving into the Islamists’ low opinion of Australian society?  The political landscape has become so perversely aligned it’s hard to tell who these people are.

    Posted by Mark V. on 2006 11 03 at 12:15 AM • permalink

  23. Sorry for the double.

    Posted by Mark V. on 2006 11 03 at 12:15 AM • permalink

  24. #20, actually they did.  Interesting discussion here and here.  Note that those are wikipedia entries, but they seem accurate from what I remember.  MentalFloss could probably give you a detailed overview.

    Where is MentalFloss anyway?

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2006 11 03 at 12:20 AM • permalink

  25. Mark V. -

    It’s very simple. Leftists have no constructive or positive philosophy or agenda. They are simply oppositionists. Since they hate the West, the U.S., Republicans, conservatives, whatever, they will take the side of whomever else is, even if those people espouse views opposite of those professed by the Lefties. Clear?

    The result of this is what we’re seeing now - Lefties with a modicum of rationality are leaving the Left, so the movement is becoming increasingly shrill and irrational as its lunacy becomes more concentrated.

    Posted by Dave S. on 2006 11 03 at 12:48 AM • permalink

  26. #4, Geoff: Note that ‘might’ is in italics. You can’t really prove it one way or another, so to make concrete comments like Basette has down is ill-advised at best - as is said earlier in comments, “This is not a scienctific fact at all, and is only a belief”. Likewise, we can’t say that it never, ever has any relation to who gets raped, anywhere.

    Posted by Leigh on 2006 11 03 at 12:53 AM • permalink

  27. Update Via Andrew Bolt

    I am no longer (thank goodness yeeha) the national secretary of the Democrats…

    Posted by Dan Lewis on 2006 11 03 at 01:20 AM • permalink

  28. Imagine the hue and cry if a white male made those comments. Remember the left and Downers’ ‘things that batter’ comment? They still haven’t forgotten it.

    Posted by Nic on 2006 11 03 at 02:09 AM • permalink

  29. Wait, were the male shopkeepers closely related to these women, their “Mahram”? If not they could be in trouble for being alone with these women!

    Posted by bobpence on 2006 11 03 at 03:27 AM • permalink

  30. I think a lot of the problems facing Muslims, from rioting to jihad, stem from their perverse views of sex, which must occasion the greatest mass sexual frustration in history.

    Posted by saltydog on 2006 11 03 at 03:30 AM • permalink

  31. Its a desperate grab for votes.  Nobody votes for the Australian Democrats these days, so why not attempt to capture a new market?

    Posted by tdw77 on 2006 11 03 at 05:13 AM • permalink

  32. #14
    Is there such a thing as a Scandinavian-Presbyterian?

    Posted by kae on 2006 11 03 at 05:13 AM • permalink

  33. “It urged those who had anything to report to contact the police.”

    And the incentive for victims to report being attacked would be….....

    Posted by PeterTB on 2006 11 03 at 05:31 AM • permalink

  34. So it seems that the Sheiks original home country is a hot bed of things that are not allowed. Deport him back to where he wants to belong end of story.

    Just a question for the forum here, is Australia a multicltural society or a multi racial one? I go for the multi racial side as I grew up believing we go forward based on Christian principals (whether they be right or wrong)

    Posted by artful-dodger on 2006 11 03 at 06:25 AM • permalink

  35. Oh Goody. Things should liven up in Brisbane over the weekend, we’re having an Eid Fest.
    Every host on local ABC has interviewed one of the organisers during the week, especially asking about the impact on the festival of the Catmeat Sheik’s extollations (or should that be Ayatollations?), regarding women.

    Do any other religious festivals/celebrations get so much publicity?

    Keysar Trad was speaking for Catmeat today and he said that it was obvious that the media had victimised Sheik Catmeat. He was vilified.

    The B/S meter is off the scale.

    Posted by kae on 2006 11 03 at 06:43 AM • permalink

  36. See, it’s because men have no moral faculties. They are, like robots, incapable of making choices as to how they should behave.  The programming is all.  They see a woman who’s either half-way decent looking, or (in the case of those women who are only showing their eyes) possibly half-way decent looking, and they cannot restrain themselves.  The button has been pushed.  No thought intervenes.  They must rape.  It’s in the Y chromosome.  Nothing can stop them.  They are mindless beasts who MUST act on every stray sexual, and other, impulse!!!  </sarc off>

    If Suzanne Bassette had said, “how a woman dresses does affect her level of likeliness to be chosen by men who have not been taught to accept current Western standards of male/female behaviour I might have some sympathy with her.  But she didn’t.  She assigned responsibility to women and how they dress and not to men and how they respond to how a woman dresses.  Very lefty.  There have always been decent men (and women) who will not lower themselves by taking advantage of what looks like an opportunity offered to get away with doing wrong.  There have always been less than decent men (and women) who, like Adam, are only too willing to try to take advantage of such opportunities and then, if caught, to blame the other for what they have, of their own volition, chosen to do.  Such people do not appreciate Jeremiah 31:30, “But every one shall die for his own iniquity; every man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge.”  Their lack of appreciation will, someday, bite them hard.

    Posted by Janice on 2006 11 03 at 06:54 AM • permalink

  37. Well Sheik my mouth

    Posted by stackja1945 on 2006 11 03 at 07:05 AM • permalink

  38. This is one area where I tend to agree, at least in part, with the usual feminazi line.

    How a woman looks or dresses (or doesn’t) shouldn’t affect how I react to her (or don’t).

    It does but that’s my problem. When in the vicinity of a woman I consider attractive (for what ever reason, clothing or not) I will generally look a little longer, move a little faster to offer my seat (if I have one and she doesn’t), be a little nicer, smile a little brighter (while trying my best not to look frightful or weird) or generally make attempts to present myself in my most positive manner.

    Now, I shouldn’t be like that (in a non-human, utopianist moronocracy mindset)and all women deserve equal treatment, but I just can’t help myself. I gotta be nicer to the pretty ones.

    Only rapists rape. I can honestly say that the idea of taking sex from a woman by force has never occurred to me.

    Posted by Grimmy on 2006 11 03 at 07:32 AM • permalink

  39. I was sitting in the office browsing through the newspaper, checking out current events. Dick Tracy had just put Flat Top away again, and I was wondering idly whether Tracy could open a can of soup with that razor-sharp schnozzle of his, when Sheila walked in.

    “Here’s the mail. The landlord sent a little note wondering if you’d misplaced your lease. Something about rent being due and payable on the first of each month.”

    “He’s here in the same building. Why doesn’t he just walk down the hall and save himself the price of a stamp?”

    “He said the last time he came into your office, your werewolf almost took his leg off.”

    I glanced fondly at Bogan, snoozing away in the corner in a beam of golden sunlight, like the Archangel Michael after a good day of kicking the devil’s ass.

    “Incidentally, there’s a ‘Farouk’ on the horn.”

    “Farouk who?”

    Her normally peaches-and-cream complexion colored suddenly. “Well! Y’know, if you’re going to insult me, you might at least spare me the baby talk.”

    It took me a couple of seconds, but I puzzled it out. “No, no, I mean, ‘Who is Farouk’?”

    “Oh. Well, I think he’s that guy who was in here a few weeks ago. The one the Feds nabbed.”

    This was strange. Why would the world’s most hapless terrorist call me from jail? “Ok, patch him through.”

    The phone thundered with a combination of Muslim rage and terrorist ecstasy.

    “Ha! Dhimmi pig! You are mine at last!”

    “Hi’ya, Farouk; how’s the boy? I hear you guys raise your own chickpeas for the daily ration of hummus. Must grow pretty fast there in Guantanamo, huh?”

    “ ‘Ha!’, again, and a thousand times ‘Ha!’, dog of an unbeliever! I escaped the clutches of your yankee Zionist stormtroopers!”

    I sighed. Farouk was now officially “unnabbed”. 

    “Bwahahahah! You are doomed! I planted a bomb in your cell phone and am going to detonate it now!”

    “But I don’t have a . . .”

    I heard a sharp, percussive sound on the other end of the line.

    A few minutes later I got a call from FBI Agent Smedley.

    “Sorry, Paco, he slipped away from us in Miami. But we’ve got him now.”

    “What happened?”

    “Well, Johnson and I were playing ‘scissor, paper, rock’ to see who was going to pay the restaurant tab . . .”

    “No, no, no. I mean, what happened just now?”

    “Oh. Well, it seems like Farouk made his way back to your office, stole a cell phone, and put a mini-bomb in it. But you know Farouk - about as smart as John Kerry on the campaign trail – and he got your phone mixed up with his own.”

    I was about to explain to Smedley that I didn’t have a cell phone, when Sheila came in. “Say, Paco, have you seen my cell phone? I think I left it on your desk last night.”

    At that moment, the opening strains of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony sounded in hinky little electronic tones. The sound came from Bogan’s stomach.

    “Gotta go, Smedley. I have to see a man about a dog.”

    Posted by paco on 2006 11 03 at 08:50 AM • permalink

  40. The Farouk character was used with the gracious permission of Jules Crittenden.

    Riiinnnnggg!

    Hello? Oh, hi Jules. How’s everything in Beantown? Huh? Oh, yeah. Heh. About that. Now, I know that I didn’t acually, technically ask for permission to borrow Farouk, but it’s not like I just totally ripped him off . . . .Ok, ok, it’s exactly like I totally ripped him off. But he was so right for the part! The whole bit was built around the “Farouk who?” gag, so I had to have him. Besides, he was between gigs, and, y’know, that’s show biz, baby! Tell you what: you can borrow Paco and Sheila, and I’ll even throw in Bogan (but if you leave him tied up in your yard, make sure the leash doesn’t extend as far as the mailbox; I’ve had a very nasty letter from the Postmaster General).

    Posted by paco on 2006 11 03 at 09:07 AM • permalink

  41. That’s priceless, Paco!

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2006 11 03 at 09:48 AM • permalink

  42. “I’m going for political suicide here but I’m willing to stand up with anybody else in this country who happens to agree with Sheik Hilali’s sentiments.”
    Wow! What a gormless twat. I nearly cracked a fatwa. It’s a pity Spot-Destroyer’s (she’s soooo rightious) not at the helm any more, she would have put Bassinette straight….....wouldn’t she? What does serial piss-head Bartlett think?

    Posted by Skid Marx on 2006 11 03 at 10:21 AM • permalink

  43. #41: Thanks, Rebecca. I will have to make sure and send you an autographed copy of the Oxford University Press edition of the Collected Detective Paco Stories.

    #42: Skid, that’s pure poetry!

    Posted by paco on 2006 11 03 at 11:00 AM • permalink

  44. Aw, the “Holy” month of Ramadan just gets better and better!

    Posted by Patricia on 2006 11 03 at 11:59 AM • permalink

  45. I have to wonder…..just where is Miranda Divide?  You’d think s/he would be all over this thread, complaining about Muslim bashing and how the blogmire is the blogmire, and supporting al-Hilali.

    Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 11 03 at 12:04 PM • permalink

  46. Skid, may I suggest she’s a gormless fatwat?
    Himmelfahrtskommandoaufrollshuhe!  What other word to describe a woman who’s chosen to kiss the whip and join the side of antediluvian oppression? A true lack of gorm, indeed.

    Posted by kiwinews on 2006 11 03 at 12:22 PM • permalink

  47. Farouk who?

    Jeez, Paco, I almost fell out of the rack!  I’da been kissin’ the deck for the better part of an hour before someone showed up to put me to rights.  You oughta warn a girl. ...  Nah, I guess that wouldn’t work, would it?  Still and all, you pose a constant danger.

    You steal Farouk, I steal that gag.  I don’t know what Crittenden gets out of it, but I’ll take the deal.

    Posted by saltydog on 2006 11 03 at 01:37 PM • permalink

  48. There is no single one of their constituencies that the left will not sell out to achieve their ultimate goal: the destruction of Western civilization. They wasted a century hitching their wagon to the commies, but now they think they have finally may have a winner. Remember that old f***ing protest whore on Downing Street? “Support a Caliphate Today!”

    Watch how they’ll scramble to justify the inevitable orgy of gay-bashing and killings in Holland as soon as that becomes a “hot” media issue.

    Mark my words: the Left has found its new darling, and he’s wearing a f***ing turban.

    Posted by DrZin on 2006 11 03 at 01:54 PM • permalink

  49. #47: Sheila shoulda known better; Paco might not be a gentleman, but he doesn’t use that kinda lingo. Delighted that you liked the tale!

    Posted by paco on 2006 11 03 at 02:13 PM • permalink

  50. Bassette is the secretary of the Australian Democrats. It would be hard to think of a position less relevant to ANYTHING in Oz, except perhaps to the Democrats themselves -all 47 of them.  And yet she gets a chance to open her cakehole on national media. 
    Why do we bother???

    Cheers
    RodC

    Posted by Rod C on 2006 11 03 at 04:09 PM • permalink

  51. She quit?
    Eider Down!!

    Posted by blogstrop on 2006 11 03 at 04:29 PM • permalink

  52. #24 RebeccaH. So kind of you to ask after me. The past week or so I have been surrounded by spinning magnets and clunking apparatus where G-d knows what dark science paints digital images of grey and black—whose ominous portent is equally lacking in cheerful colours.

    That aside, I have compiled a brief timeline of the use of Hasish for your delectation (and yes, widespread use in Central Asia, the Ancient, Medieval and Modern Middle East [though, oddly, only one mention on it’s medicianl properties in the Talmud])

    We’ll start with the Scythians, though there are 6,000-year old references from the Far East. The Sufi Haydar was the guy that really got “the ball” rolling, as you will read from the link provided.

    Was Mo’ a user? Dunno. (O/T: I met a psychiatrist from NYU at the Monastery of Santa Katerina on the putative Mount Sinai back in the ‘70s who’d been given a grant to prove Moses was high on local mushrooms)

    1500 B.C. Scythians cultivate Cannabis and weave fine hemp cloth from it.

    700 B.C. - 600 B.C. The Zoroastrian Zend-Avesta, an ancient Persian religious text of several hundred volumes, and said to have been written by Zarathustra (Zoroaster), refers to bhang as Zoroaster’s “good narcotic”

    700 B.C. - 300 B.C. Scythian tribes leave Cannabis seeds as offerings in royal tombs

    500 B.C. Scythian couple die and are buried (at grave site in Pazryk, nothwest of the Tien Shan Mountains in modern-day Khazakstan) with two small tents covering censors. Attached to one tent stick was a decorated leather pouch containing wild Cannabis seeds. Unknown whether this was for purely ritual or also intoxicating use of Cannabis.

    430 B.C. Herodotus reports on both ritual and recreation use of Cannabis by the Scythians (in my version of Herodotus The Histories 430 B.C. trans. G. Rawlinson)

    0 A.D. - 100 A.D. Construction of Samartian gold and glass paste stash box for storing hashish, coriander, or salt, buried in Siberian tomb

    70 A.D. Dioscorides mentions the use of Cannabis as a medicament

    170 A.D. Galen alludes to the psychoactiity of Cannabis seed confections

    500 A.D. - 600 A.D. The Jewish Talmud mentions the euphoriant properties of Cannabis (Still looking for the exact Tractate and passage)

    900 A.D. - 1000 A.D. Scholars debate the pros and cons of eating hashish. Use spreads throughout Arabia

    1090 A.D. - 1256 A.D. In Khorasan, Persia, Hasan ibn al-Sabbah, the Old Man of the Mountain, recruits followers to commit assassinations…legends develop around their supposed use of hashish. These legends are some of the earliest written tales of the discovery of the inebriating powers of Cannabis and the supposed use of Hashish. 1256 Alamut falls (Salahdin discovered a plot against his life and took the freaking bastards out)
    1155 A.D. - 1221 A.D. Persian legend of the Sufi master Sheik Haidar’s of Khorasan’s personal discovery of Cannabis and it’s subsequent spread to Iraq, Bahrain, Egypt and Syria. Another of the ealiest written narratives of the use of Cannabis as an inebriant.

    Early 12th Century Hashish smoking very popular throughout the Middle East.

    12th Century A.D. Cannabis introduced in Egypt during the reign of the Ayyubid dynasty on the occasion of the flooding of Egypt by mystic devotees coming from Syria (I’ve got this study, M.K. Hussein 1957, sorry no ISBN)
    1231 A.D. Hashish introduced to Iraq in the reign of Caliph Mustansir

    1271 A.D. -1295 A.D. Journeys of Marco Polo in which he gives second-hand reports of the story of Hasan ibn al-Sabbah and his “assassins” using hashish. (Salahdin was apparently not entirely successful, eh?)

    13th Century A.D. The oldest monograph on hashish, Zahr al-‘arish fi tahrim al-hashish, was written. It has since been lost. (See what happens when you get stoned? Ya start losing manuscripts, or using ‘em for rolling a spliff)

    13th Century A.D. Ibn al-Baytar of Spain provides a description of psychaoctive Cannabis

    1378 A.D. Ottoman Emir Soudoun Scheikhouni issues one of the first edicts against the eating of hashish.
    1526 A.D. Babur Nama, first emperor and founder of Mughal Empire learned of hashish in Afghanistan.

    mid 16th Century A.D. The epic poem, Benk u Bode, by the poet Mohammed Ebn Soleiman Foruli of Baghdad, deals allegorically with a dialectical battle between wine and hashish.

    17th Century A.D. Use of hashish, alcohol, and opium spreads among the population of occupied Constantinople

    Late 17th Century A.D. Hashish becomes a major trade item between Central Asia and South Asia.

    1798 Napoleon discovers that much of the Egyptian lower class habitually uses hashish. He declares a total prohibition. Soldiers returning to France bring the tradition with them.


    There’s lots more, but you get the idea…

    Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 11 03 at 05:57 PM • permalink

  53. Why would a rapist choose a woman who’s showing more uncovered meat?

    Because there’s less social disapproval and he’s less likely to go to jail for it!

    Why?  Because of woman-hating idiots like Hilaly and Bassette!  They sit on juries.  They’re influential people with the power to change their listeners’ minds.  And they’re using that power to back rapists.  They can both burn in Hell.

    It damn well sure should be political suicide.

    Posted by Michael Levy on 2006 11 03 at 08:50 PM • permalink

  54. Funny, I didn’t see this on the ABC news!
    Imagine if it had been a black women, or any women, attacked by dozens of white men in the American deep south, the seismic outrage at the ABC! Their cherry-picking gets worse and worse, and more bizarre and ridiculous everyday.
    Weeks can go past on the ABC’s main news bulletin without any mention of China, Russia, India or Latin America, but as for North America, story after story…all bad! No mention recently of America’s latest Nobel prizes for chemistry, physics and medicine. Typical!

    Posted by Brian on 2006 11 03 at 09:00 PM • permalink

  55. As for Ms. Bassette…Jesus H. Christ!

    Posted by Brian on 2006 11 03 at 09:02 PM • permalink

  56. Marvellous MentalFloss.  I rather envision you looking like this.  By the way, why is my minion, MarkL, in the photo with you?  He was supposed to be waxing some black op helicopters.  They don’t just do themselves you know.

    Posted by wronwright on 2006 11 04 at 09:38 AM • permalink

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