Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t think of himself as a basher of Islam. He believes that a significant portion of the Muslim world lives under a rather twisted interpretation of Islam. He says this not as a Muslim, but as a man firmly rooted in the Western Judeo-Christian tradition. There are aspects of Islam that a praisworthy, and there are plenty that leave your Maximum Leader just scratching his head wondering what the hell is going on.

To wit:

Two years ago, a knock on Fatima and Mansour al-Timani’s door shattered the life they had built together.

It was the police, delivering news that a judge had annulled their marriage in absentia after some of Fatima’s relatives sought the divorce on grounds she had married beneath her.

Now, your Maximum Leader believes that his own lovely and intelligent wife, the wonderful Mrs Villain, married beneath her station. She is a wonderful and giving woman - and marvelous mother (and frankly your Maximum Leader is… well… a man). But to think for a moment that Mrs Villain’s relatives can sue in court to have his marriage annuled is beyond the pale.

Excursus: Let it be known that your Maximum Leader is, here and now, declaring that no man is good enough for either Villainette. He will sue any man that attempts to marry one of his daughters by claiming they are beneath the girls station.

So… To continue with Fatima and Mansour’s story…

Fatima said her husband, a hospital administrator, followed Saudi tradition in asking her father for permission to marry her in 2003.

“My brother reported good things about him, so my dad accepted his proposal,” said Fatima, a computer specialist who was 29 when she married.

She said her father knew that Mansour came from a less prominent tribe than hers, but that he did not mind because he “cared about the man himself.”

A few months after the wedding, several of Fatima’s relatives, including a half brother, persuaded her father to give them power of attorney to file a lawsuit demanding an annulment, she said.

Then her father died, and Fatima said she had hoped the case would be dropped.

But on Feb. 25, 2006, police knocked on the couple’s door to serve Mansour with divorce papers — which said his marriage had been annulled nine months earlier.

Your Maximum Leader admits that this is one instance where he is willing to overlook a little pontificating by the Assocated Press (who ran this story). The story, like your Maximum Leader’s reaction to it, is rife with an undercurrent of shock that this sort of thing can happen in a “civilized” country. Of course that last line implies that Saudi Arabia is a civilized country. Your Maximum Leader isn’t sure that his definition of civilized and the Saudi’s would be quite in line. It is at times like this when your Maximum Leader wants to go all Charles James Napier on some foreign country.

Excursus: Can your Maximum Leader try and coin a phrase? He’d like to see “going Napier” or “pulling a Napier” but into the lexicon as meaning “to subdue a nation or tribe by force.” Your Maximum Leader means this in the most positive way of course. Frankly, your Maximum Leader would like to see the more foreign policy based on “pulling a Napier.” But it isn’t going to happen… Sadly…

Anyhoo… According to the AP article, if King Abdullah doesn’t reverse the al-Timani’s annulment Fatima (who is incarcerated by the way - with her children - whom your Maximum Leader supposes are bastardized by the annulment) says she will kill herself.

Your Maximum Leader tries to be a modest Christian at times and doesn’t easily bandy about his thoughts on someone’s eternal fate. He knows that status of one’s soul is determined by the Almighty. And in a case like that of the al-Timani’s, if Fatima were to kill herself because of the injustice done to her, your Maximum Leader would hope divine retribution is severe on those who drove her to the fatal act.

Carry on.