Some time ago we tried to register the product of a company of mine. We wanted to trademark the name of the product to protect it from piracy.
After more than a year the Ministry of Commerce sent us a letter which stated that a year before — this shows the dynamism of the ministry — the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice had objected to the brand name and therefore the ministry refused to register it.
You see, the name of the product is Explorer, which is a direct translation of the Arabic name. The learned scholars of the commission rightly noted that the letter X in the name was a cross, and this aroused their delicate Islamic sensibilities and they banned the registration.
I am greatly relieved that thanks to the vigilance of the commission a great tragedy was avoided. Until then I had innocently and, I must admit, naively assumed that the letter X was just that, a letter of the alphabet, not as it turns out a cunning and dastardly plot by Christians to corrupt our Muslim faith.
Think, dear readers, of all the awful things that occur around us as we walk in our innocent ways; but, thanks to the selfless vigilance of these learned people, we can feel truly safe.
I would like to respectfully suggest to the scholars of the commission some humble ideas to help them in their struggle to maintain our moral vigor. I recommend that they immediately issue an order to the Ministries of both Education and Higher Learning to change all text books containing the plus sign + and the multiplication sign x.
Can you imagine, dear readers, what damage is being done to the minds of our unsuspecting youth as they innocently use these pernicious symbols?
These symbols should be immediately replaced by tasteful little crescents designed by the scholars of the commission.
In addition, I urge them to order the Ministry of Information to ban forthwith any books or publications written in the Latin script until they replace all the X’s with Islamic crescents.
Dear readers, some of you may find this to be a humorous story and will laugh, but for the Muslims amongst you, it would be better to cry.
