WHEN it comes to beauty contests, Saudi Arabia is a world leader in choosing the country’s sexiest camels.
Contests involving women, though, were unheard of until Khadra al-Mubarak came up with the idea of choosing “Miss Beautiful Morals”.
The first of these contests took place last year and was won by Zahra al-Shurafa. Now the search is on for a second winner, whose identity – but probably not her face – will be revealed in July.
Phoaaar! Ain't she a beaut!
The judges, according to this report, don’t care about a perfect figure or face. What they’re looking for in the quest for “Miss Beautiful Morals” is the contestant who shows the most devotion and respect for her parents.
Said pageant founder Khadra al-Mubarak:
The idea of the pageant is to measure the contestants’ commitment to Islamic morals… It’s an alternative to the calls for decadence in the other beauty contests that only take into account a woman’s body and looks. The winner won’t necessarily be pretty. We care about the beauty of the soul and the morals.
Around 200 contestants will spend the next 10 weeks attending classes and being quizzed on themes including “Discovering your inner strength,” “The making of leaders” and “Mom, paradise is at your feet” – a saying attributed to Islam’s Prophet Mohammed to underline that respect for parents is among the faith’s most important tenets.
Pageant hopefuls will also spend a day at a country house with their mothers, where they will be observed by female judges and graded on how they interact with their mothers, al-Mubarak said. Since the pageant is not televised and no men are involved, contestants can take off the veils and black figure-hiding abayas they always wear in public.
So far, we have not heard any mad mullahs condemning the contest – but we do know that at least one cleric is less than delighted with the camel competitions.
In 2007 leading Islamic cleric Sheikh Abdul-Rahman al-Barrak a thundered in a fatwa:
Everyone must repent of these acts from which no good can come because of its evils, and they should beg forgiveness from God.
Attacking the contests as a backward tribal custom from pre-Islamic Arabia, he added:
Millions of riyads are spent on buying camels just to feel proud and not for the reasons God created camels, like for food, drink, riding and work.
Camel pageants, according to this report, have become major events in the desert kingdom in recent years as tribes hold ever larger competitions, with bigger prizes and wider publicity.
Delicate females or strapping males which attract the right attention during a show can sell for more than a million riyals (£127,000). Sponsors spent ten million riyads on prizes for one competition in 2007.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
May 15th, 2009 at 9:35 am
"Yes love I don't care what you look like, just as long as you keep a civil tongue in my arse."
May 15th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Maybe I'll send the missus.
May 15th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
'And the winner is……'
(insert drum roll of your choice)
'….the post box on the corner of the high street !!!!!!!!!'
May 15th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
So "God created camels for food, drink, riding and work", did he?"This anthropocentric view of the world is just so typical of ignorant, ill-informed fundamentalists. There was a T.V. documentary in which a red-necked American miner was being asked whether he felt any guilt over the extraction of coal, which is doing so much damage to the environment when being burned in such vast quantities, and guess what his carefully considered reply was? "Nope – that`s what God put it there for!" How on earth can you argue with that sort of logic?!!
May 15th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Cor! Look at the hump on that! Phorrrrh!
May 15th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
maybe why did god create the aids virus, if he is so nice….
May 15th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
barriejohn. You cannot. What you can do is ridicule it.
May 15th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
Compere: Our next contestant is Miss Riyadh. Tell us what you do?
Miss Riyadh: I don't do anything. It's not allowed.
Compere: Well done. (Applause). What are your ambitions?
Miss Riyadh: I wish to bring death to the Zionist Imperialist Western Jew-dog pig scum infidels, and work with children and animals.
Compere: And world peace?
Miss Riyadh: No.
May 15th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
That`s hilarious remigius! BTW, if she looks like a camel as well, would she win BOTH contests?!!
May 15th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
I wouldnt be suprised if some Imam issues a Fatwa declaring that Female camels should wear the Burka!
May 15th, 2009 at 10:12 pm
'Tis apposite that you should mention that barriejohn!
In our western culture the two greatest taboo's are paedophilia and bestiality, yet in Islam both are halal, or lawful. Yet something as mundane as sharing a bottle of wine with a person of the opposite sex would be punishable by stoning!
Either we are morally wrong in not condoning child-rape and interspecies erotic pleasure, or the moon-worshippers have seriously misinterpreted Mad Mo's Book of Shite. But having read it, and the Hadith, as a student at the University of London SOAS, I think that he was a bit of a perv!
And mentally ill as well!
May 15th, 2009 at 11:41 pm
"Everyone must repent of these acts from which no good can come because of its evils, and they should beg forgiveness from God."
Are we to take it they've been getting up to no good with the camels then?
May 16th, 2009 at 11:14 am
I guess the reason camels are called "ships of the desert" is because of all the arab seaman that is in them. The joke works better when you don't have to spell the homonym.
May 16th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
I haven`t read much of the Koran, so I`m not an expert, but the bits that I HAVE read look like what they are – the efforts of a not very clever person who has read the Bible to write in the same style, whilst rehashing some of the stories in his own words! When Old Mo`s memory fails him, and he makes an obvious error (as in stating that it was the queen who discovered Moses in the bullrushes, rather than the princess), his barmy followers proclaim that the OT is "corrupted" and Mo is the one who has got it right!! However, I have to say that in the contest for "Silliest Holy Book of All Time" the Koran probably comes second to The Book of Mormon – which doth indeed, verily and verily, I do say unto ye, sound as if it was written by someone at least one sandwich short of a picnic!!!
May 16th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
Obviously – to cover the camel`s foot!!!
May 17th, 2009 at 12:52 am
How do I clean semen from my keyboard and monitor?
May 18th, 2009 at 10:20 pm
Sorry for the delay in replying to your comment, Broga, but of course you are absolutely right: it`s the most effective weapon in our armoury, since they do seem impervious to logic! I mean to say, if God really did put the coal in the ground just for us to use as fuel, then why didn`t He pack it up in nice little sacks? Or even better, make sure that it was stored in big buildings marked "Coalhouse"? When, as an evangelical, I heard people seriously contend that God had put the dinosaur bones in the ground just to test our faith, I knew that my days with them were numbered!!
May 19th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
"With great difficulty" has to be the only and obvious answer to that one Webbi!