Late last week a
strange story emerged alleging that Egypt's parliament was considering a 'Farewell Intercourse Law' to make it legal for Egyptian husbands to have sex with their dead wives for up to six hours after death. Why six hours? I assume to make sure the tender last moments are wrapped up before rigor mortis fully sets in. Though according to
Wikipedia, rigor mortis begins after 3 to 4 hours, so that might be a bit awkward.
Naturally a lot of news orgs ran the story without bothering to do
any kind of fact-checking. Then they had to backpedal after it became apparent there wasn't any kind of truth to the report.
TheAmericanMuslim.org tried to find the source of the story and traced it to a fringe Moroccan sheikh, Zamzami Abdelbari, who suggested (a while ago) that Islam might allow the practice. This recently inspired an Egyptian talk-show host to mention the idea. Then a pro-Mubarak columnist for
Al-Ahram picked up on it, claiming it was an actual law that was being considered by the Islamist parliament. This provoked a TV commentary on the channel ON TV, which was then reported by the English website of
Al-Arabiya. And this, finally, brought it to the attention of English-language news orgs that promptly ran the story. The whole thing was like an extended game of telephone.
Comments
They are all becoming rags.
In theory, with proper arrangements... you know, I'm just gonna stop that train of thought.