I notice into today’s newspapers that the Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi has issued an edict which will send dog lovers into a panic – especially if they live in Iran.

The Ayatollah has condemned Iranian dog-owners as misguided people infatuated with decadence and who are “blindly imitating the West.” He warns us all that owning a dog will lead to “evil outcomes.”

Well I know about the rather unfortunate and evil smelling canine outcomes that I have to dodge sometimes on the street or in the park, not here in Lewes I hasten to add, but I am not quite so clear on what the grand old man is getting at.

We are all aware, I am sure, of those people who take their love for their pet to extremes but generally speaking dogs are great additions to our lives who deserve all the love that we can bestow on them.

Ayatollah Shirazi goes on to say that one of the “evil outcomes” of loving your dog is that you might start preferring them to your husband:

Your wife:

or even, just imagine, your children:

Well, Ayatollah Shirazi,  I like dogs and human beings too – maybe you should stop all this hating it can be very stressful.

The Iranian government takes their Ayatollahs very seriously though so they have announced, on Shirazi’s advice, a ban on all advertisements for pets, pet shops, pet food and other pet products. It is amazing what you can ban when you put your mind to it.

Now, ladies, don’t look at the photograph below……

Last week, another Ayatollah warned women against watching wrestling on television because it can “sow the seeds of lust.” You have been warned.

Now, for those of you who have been following the story of my computer problems, you will be pleased to know that this the first blog that I have written on my wondrously beautiful new iMac computer but don’t look at the picture below, it might sow the seeds of lust – I am already in love with it.

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I love Poussin for his classical refinement mingled with an early form of Romantic humanism and I have enjoyed his paintings of Greek Gods as much as his Biblical subjects treating them all as lessons from mythology.

In this painting, Christ is embarrassing the hard-nosed, unforgiving Pharisees into abandoning their attempt to stone a woman who has been caught in adultery. He says that he who has not sinned should cast the first stone. Something from another age, I had always thought….sadly not so as we see on the news around the World today.

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani was convicted of adultery in Iran in May 2006. She was accused of having an ‘illicit relationship’ with two men and received 99 lashes as her sentence. Despite this, she has been in prison ever since and has also been convicted of adultery and sentenced to death by stoning. The 43-year-old has since pleaded her innocence and retracted a ‘confession’ she said was forced to make under duress.

I don’t know if this poor woman has done what she is accused of or not but I do know that killing anyone by throwing stones at them until they are dead is as cruel and brutal an act as I can imagine. It is shocking that anyone would think of doing it – even a delusional murderer – but that the Iranian government can use this as a form of legal execution is beyond belief.

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, no matter what she has done, should be saved from this terrible death as anyone who has seen the photograph below will surely agree. It was taken in Iran just after the revolution in 1979. No more words, I hope, need be said to gain your support in signing the petition that is circulating the World in the hope of saving the woman from a crime much worse than anything she may have committed.

You can find the petition at:

http://www.petitiononline.com/Ashtiani/petition.html

I don’t often quote The Bible but here is that famous passage that Poussin is illustrating in his painting. As Thomas Paine said, only cruel men can believe in a cruel god:

“Jesus went unto the Mount of Olives.

And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them.

And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst,

They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.

Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?

This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.

So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.

And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground.

And they who heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.

When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?

She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more”.

(John 7:53-8:11 in the King James Translation of The Bible)

Amen!

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