See the Light

Scoliosis, modus vivendi, Dialectics, Assignation, Simoon, Tarn, Idolatrous.

This week, on A Stray World:

• Rufaqa Corp, a Study of a Study.

Modern society is a pain in the perineum. Therefore, it is understandable why people would slip into the comforting cot of religion to seek solace and meaning to the inanities of life.

Religion, no doubt, has been a huge contributor to humanity's follies, and successes.

Follies:The crusades, Al-Qaeda, Iraq, Tamil Tigers, Pope Benedict and his misquoted reading of the evils of Islam.

Successes:Mother Theresa, Dalai Lama.

As they say, things come and go, and that has been the way in the evolution of religion. First came deitified inanimate objects, e.g., Ayer's Rock. Then, god organizations, e.g., Zeus, his wife Hera, his children, stepchildren, brothers and sisters etc.

Finally, we were introduced to the soloists.

After a few thousand years of warfare as a direct result of religious differences, we have finally found peace in warfare as a direct result of religious differences.

It is therefore, quite understandable why the powers that be would wish to put an end to the development of new religions.

As ancient history has shown, how the image of Buddha was adopted from the Greek god Apollo, Al-Arqam adopted an image of Islam.

Al-Arqam, and its succesor, Rufaqa' Corporation, are centred around Ashaari bin Muhammad bin Idris bin Ali bin Malae bin Abdul Kadir (AbMbIbAbMbAK).

According to his personal website on www.rufaqa.com, AbMbIbAbMbAK was a person born of noble blood, which means no cattle blood had ever been introduced into his family, unlike the rest of us.

Apparently, a well known but unheard of teacher of Islam predicted after his death, all of us would be as aimless as motherless chicks until the appearence someone named Ashaari...

After a few decades, a boy was born, and he was named Ashaari after daddy dreamt about an island. He grew up in the unmodernized village of Kampung Pilin.

Just like the ancient fable of racial unity through selected injustice the government has foisted onto us, Pilin was an untouched Utopia. Here, in a rural impoverished stretch of dirt where any hope of watching The Sound of Music died like birds with SARS, the villager's children are equally shared.

Everyone in the village was a parent, and any child may be apprehended and beaten while tied to the end of an ox.

In abject poverty, these people would cannibalize the weak until trees bore fruit, where they would become docile creatures upholding the traditional Malaysian values of giving and sharing the bounty.

By the time AbMbIbAbMbAK was 17, he had learnt everything he needed to know about life in a creepy rural village.

He went to the best school he could think of, pre-9/11 Arabian school. After attaining his Certificate of Enlightenment, AbMbIbAbMbAK decided it was time he became a leader to all the motherless chicks in Miami.

A wrongly purchased plane ticket later, AbMbIbAbMbAK set foot on the godless land of Malaysia, where he began running his "true path of God" business through Al-Arqam.

Soon, the Malaysian government and their misguided Islamic arm declared AbMbIbAbMbAK's teachings as deviationist, and with the grace of another god, pulverized Al Arqam in 1994.

AbMbIbAbMbAK though was a man possessed. He would not give up his vision of leading motherless chicks. Rufaqa' Corporation was established in 1997, and by practising the tenets found in God's Guide to Business for the Carzy and Maimed, saw his company grow by 1000% every year (at the expense of a few praiseworthy people who willingly parted with their life savings for a reach-god-quick-scheme).

Rufaqa expanded worldwide, and held nasheed concerts throughout the world. Even Prime Minister John Howard was touched by the soul enhancing and human illuminating concerts in Australia.

Rufaqa also busied itself holding brainwashing camps for young men and women and creating AbMbIbAbMbAK approved developments throughout the country.

It has also launched a book detailing the miraculous birth and life of AbMbIbAbMbAK, handicraft approved by AbMbIbAbMbAK, herbs patented by AbMbIbAbMbAK and AbMbIbAbMbAK friendly tourist packages.

So after exhibiting nothing but excellent acumen in business and a life lived in the image of god, the government has seen fit to shut AbMbIbAbMbAK down once more.

But fret not, like that cynical god-bashing skeptic who believes in the natural predisposition for all living things to freely select mates with preferable traits to be passed on to their children and eventually incorporated into the species so they may adapt more successfully into their environment, AbMbIbAbMbAK will be back.

Dead of the Week: 11
Total Dead (Since 12th Jan 2006): 962