A light hearted view of Bukhari Alone alternative.

Many Muslims will obviously object to the alternative as outlined below. In my defense, each and every statement in the scenario is true as far as the secondary sources of religion go, obviously none of the issues made fun of here are present in the primary source the Quran, both these facts are verifiable with ease.

The alternative goes something like this;

People, here is a shining manual to lead your life by, it is complete and perfect but there is a catch, don’t take this the wrong way but you cannot understand it. You see, God likes to play tricks on the hapless humanity, please ignore the repeated reminders in the manual about how easy it is to understand. Now if you really really want to understand you will need to complete 11 masters’ degrees. No, that is not a typo, it is “eleven” and join at least one sect. You see sect-less people makes us uncomfortable.

Sorry. We are not done, in case you are beginning to get ideas, you are not allowed to follow your "whims" and "desires", one of favorite saying. That means, you can only use your hard-learned knowledge to confirm the take of earlier scholars, you heard that right too, otherwise we will declare you Kafir and if you don't know what that implies, we will explain, in a bit. One more thing, we have another manual compiled by a superhero and he assures us that it is 100% accurate. You must accept blindly the instructions in this second manual, in case you were stumped by “Obey the messenger” during your unauthorized attempt to understand the first manual, this is it, now you know. 

Oh wait, you can't understand the second manual either. Just do as told is what we are trying to get to. We must admit, it took us a couple hundred years to agree on the deception, sorry compilation but we do very well now in selling the Chinese whispering concept to unsuspecting foot soldiers by now, aye aye sir, better late than never.

If you challenge the 100% claim or deviate from the established explanations then we will so show you the door, at this point, it is important to identify your Madhab, we have to decide whether to shoot you in the back for leaving us or not. You see there are still some gaping holes in our claim of "consensus of the scholars" but we keep it under wraps. No rap for you, more on that later. Don't take it in a personal way, that is what happens to Kafirs, voila the promised implication. We know a bit or two about peer pressure as well, resistance is futile. Another thing before you start accusing us of twisting the words of the first manual, we are just following orders from God or at least that's what it says in the second manual.

However, if you become a yes man and decide to stay, we have a very attractive incentive package, provided you happen to be a male. In case you didn't notice our deft use of the term "yes man" and not "yes woman". Anyway, for starters, we can offer you the hand of a nice obedient woman, in fact, we can up the offer to four at a time, additionally you may get rid of any one of them if you get tired of looking at her face. What more it is almost as good as no fault divorce, you will pay her pittance and replace her with a brand new model.

I bet you can’t better that but we can, we will give you the added privilege of marrying underage girls, as young as 9-year-old, if you are into that sort of thing. We don’t even need her explicit agreement, you see she is a child, she doesn’t understand. We will make sure she is scared half out of her wits on her wedding day, we will ensure she loses her voice, this is the good part, the second manual tells us that her silence will be a binding legal admission that she has no objection to marrying a 50-year-old. We will throw in the added enticement that in case she steps out of line you can slap her around, kinky, if you are into that sort of stuff, of course. You both can laugh and laugh about it one day. Welcome, brother.

We don’t have a clue what to offer you if you happen to be a female. Even if you promise to be a "yes woman" as if there is any other kind. Haha. Oh yes, we will protect you, sort of. If you need protection from the 50-year-olds who wants to have their way with you, we are here to protect , but there is a catch, the second manual is kind of big on catches, anyway, you will have to cover yourself from head to toe in a suffocating tent for starters, it can be of any color as long as it is black. After a while, you will start to appreciate the other side, the outside, which you will be allowed to spy on through a tiny slit for one eye. We don't find it necessary that you need two eyes for seeing. It is important for you to understand this, the institute of marriage depends on it. We have a small situation on our hand because of those pesky French and Belgians but we will keep you posted.

If you don’t follow the above instructions to the letter then it will be your fault if your tent accidentally slips, never mind if the guy sets aside their instructions of lowering gaze and checks you up. Boys will be boys. Where were we, oh yes, you would be held responsible for breaking the marriage of a complete stranger on the street who was all but invisible to you. Did you know, that men ogling other women is the number one reason for divorce according to the second manual, a little trivia for you, you must have noticed we talk a lot about the second manual. Don’t argue, it’s our little secret to keep your mind off the first manual. So we are good?

In certain countries where the full force of our deception, sorry Freudian slip, orders are in place, you have to be extra careful about the security aspect. If by any chance one of the guys is not getting enough in spite of his four ever ready err wives, we will defiantly explain, we are very good at it, sorry got side tracked again. Yes, so the fellow decides to attack you, please ensure that he does that in front of four witnesses, otherwise, wait for it, we will have to stone you to death, we will give you a few moments to stop trembling.

I know that came as a surprise but you will eventually realize it is for your own good but don't worry, we apply this "goodness" only if you admit to having sex during the unprovoked vicious attack, alternatively if you turn hostile we can use other means, sorry evidence. Like, after the attack you were careless enough to get pregnant. You see we will get you one way or another. You can blame evolution for this one, more precisely a group of monkeys and a goat, long story, another time. In the unlikely event that you are over 9 years old and not yet scoped up as one of the wives of the God fearing male member of the community, we may let you off the hook with a warning and 100 lashes for good measure, preferably in a stadium with wild cheering crowds. Think of it as, extreme sport.

We cannot guarantee it but if you follow the additional precautions as underlined below, you can increase your chances of, what is the word ...... breathing.

1. Please do not talk to any male outside your immediate family. We thought this would be a cool way to solve your problem of; don't talk to strangers.

2. If you are found in the company of a male not related to you, then please don’t try to pull wool over our eyes, we know you were having sex. We will encourage a stupid cousin or uncle to kill you in order to protect the family honor. We must admit this is not a prescribed punishment in the manual but we do encourage this sort of behavior to further improve God’s laws.

3. If you must travel you will have to be accompanied by a bodyguard, what we meant to say was family-spy, to ensure you are complying with the number 1.

4. Don’t be surprised when told that your parents sold, sorry gave you away in marriage when you were 2 years old. Don't you love surprises !

5. We will declare you dirty once a month for a week or so, you are not to pray during this period, pun intended. We don’t have a clue what we gain from it or how that makes you secure but it helps us regain our self-esteem battered by years of showing our ankles. It's a male thing, don't get any ideas.

6. Say goodbye to makeup especially nail polish that is if you are going to insist on venturing out of the house, BTW as a rule, you are not allowed out of the house, we are not sure how it is relevant since you will be walking around in a tent but that is the law, remember the second manual. You must look pretty for your husband, though, there you go, we were kidding about no makeup, you will see the funny side shortly. You are totally allowed to wear nail polish for your husband provided you systematically remove it five times a day before every Wudu. Ha ha.

7. If you happen to live in a certain country you will not be allowed to drive, don’t ask why it’s complicated. Let us remind you about your crooked rib origins and we will leave it at that.

8. While shopping, look angry and snap at the confused shop attendants, just in case they think it’s a barter deal as opposed to selling their stuff in order to feed their families.

9. When your husband snaps his fingers, drop everything and be prepared for every conceivable form of sex, explanation, as promised, hey we forgot, we can offer you something after all.

A few last minute mopping up, funny choice of words, don't you think? You will not be allowed to pluck your eyebrows, let's say we like the wild look, no talking back to your man, no listening to music, if it would make you feel any better, even men are not allowed because it says in the second manual. No rapping boys. Sorry about that but we haven't yet come around to solving the exception for you. By now you should have figured out which manual is more important. Ok let's get back to women specific don'ts, it's just more fun, no colorful clothing, no saying no to your husband, we thought that one is worth repeating.

I know what you are thinking, who would want to join this living hell but we assure you, once we are done with you, you will be so proud once your birdy with the soft down is cooked. And any objecting woman or a stupid man, although it's tough to imagine why would a hot-blooded man object, that would be so gay and we will be able to see through any objecting women as the western educated whiner that they are. Welcome, sister!