Bin Laden’s secret stash of porn

Asra Q. Nomani

TheDailyBeast.com

Pornography is the Muslim world’s “dirty little secret,” said Asra Q. Nomani. That’s why it was hardly a surprise to U.S. intelligence sources when a cache of video porn was recovered from Osama bin Laden’s hideout in Abbottabad. Called fuhsha in Arabic, pornography is strictly forbidden under Islamic law, though Muslim nations that repress and segregate women also have the highest rates of pornography use in the world. It’s “rife in even the most conservative realms,” and porn invariably turns up in raids of al Qaida safe houses. And though it’s not clear whether bin Laden himself viewed the X-rated material found in his home, its presence there points to the tortured hypocrisy at the heart of militant Islam’s restrictive culture.

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“Islam has a very rich tradition of sacred sexuality and eroticism,” but extremists have turned that tradition rancid with their misogyny; by dehumanizing women and making sex dirty and forbidden, they actually encourage young men’s porn fetishes. Bin Laden’s stash is inspiring mocking tabloid headlines throughout the world, but what it reveals about fundamentalist Islam is no joke.