Is it a moment of truth or a moment of scandal?

Do you like scandals? Have you thought to admit your mistakes in public saying: I stole and committed adultery, I loved and hated, I conspired and did so and so, and other things which people usually avoid to confess?

Do you mind to be interrogated while cameras are playing and recording your confessions to broadcast them worldwide? Would you do that for a sum of money that you may not earn in months, in a year, or perhaps in years?

You shall be asked strange, weird, and unusual questions, and if I said: They are surprising, astonishing, or even reprehensible, it would be the truth. Of course, you shall answer: God forbid that I want to expose what Allah has concealed out of His Mercy and Compassion.

Now you shall ask me: Why do you ask these questions?

If you are from those people whom Allah protected against scandals and bestowed His Mercy upon them by concealing their defaults and sins, unfortunately, there are other people have answered (yes); they were asked to confess and they did!

Dear brothers and sisters, these questions have taken place in my mind when I watched a U.S. program in Alarabia Channel, which intends to promote the American culture: A program is called "The Moment of Truth," and it is better to call it "the moment of scandal" because it exposes secrets and faults to the public.

The core of the program is a participant sits on what is called the chair of confession and before him sits the interrogator and the participant is connected by "a lie detector device." When the interrogator asks the participant about confidential matters or faults and sins which he committed and the participant tries to lie, the device says no, you tell lies. Then he loses all the money he collected during the episode, however if the participant wants to tell the truth i.e., to expose his secrets and faults, the devices says: True, and the participants wins the money. He keeps on confessing thinking that he wins the money but, in fact, he loses himself because he exposes his secrets and mistakes in public. So, he takes half a million for humiliating himself in public.

Of these strange and embarrassing questions are:

Do you think you can be faithful to your wife? The participant replied: No while his wife is present.

Have you practised sex outside marriage with more than a woman? He smiled and said: Yes.

Have you taken money for sex before? He replies: Yes.

Do you regret marrying your husband? She says: Yes.

Have you practised sex with a married man before? She says: Yes, while her husband is present.

Do you think this is frankness?!

I could not imagine that a day will come in which a person exposes his secrets with his own hand for money, but we are not surprised to hear this as long as it is connected with money! People can give up everything even their dignity; is not that the logic of pragmatism?!

Pragmatism says: Anything that would achieve my personal interests will be true and correct and we should run after, but if it that thing will not achieve my interests, it will not avail and will be false. Those people have no absolute facts or fixed principles, but they run after individual benefits.

The moment of truth program and similar programs such as American Idol, and Hollywood movies which invaded the whole world, in addition to "McDonald's" and "Coca Cola" firmly establish the values and constants upon which the US intellectual and cultural life is based. This culture and these values are contradictory to our values, principles, and traditions which we drove from our religion.

Of these constants, which they fight to promote, are:

1 – Pragmatism that we have just talked about.

2 - Excessive individualism which eliminates the principle of "the group," whereas an individual is the essence and the nucleus; therefore the individual interests takes priority over the public interests.

3 – Materialism which says: What matters is money only and nothing else, as the saying goes: "It is the matter that matters."

4 - The frenzy of shopping and consumption which many people love, and the reason for that is: "It is not based on certain social or cultural relations, or on special environmental specifications, but it tries to be separated from history, time, and place to present new civilized forms free of restrictions. The motto of this type is: The goal of human existence on earth is not to search for the truth, goodness, or beauty, or enjoining good and forbidding evil, but that man should enter the empty cycle of production and consumption, thereby he produces to consume and consumes to produce." [1]

5 - Survival is for the fittest and there is no place for the weak. This principle is taken from the Darwinist principle: The survival of the fittest.

It could be argued that these five constants and others which we have not mentioned were melted in the crucible of modernity that is separated from values and principles, which overwhelmingly dominated the Western society in general, and the U.S. society in particular, then the Arab world after that.

Dr. `Abdul-Wahhab Al Messiri (may Allah show mercy to him) tells us in his article "modernity which is separated from the value, morals, costumes, and sports" about the principles and values which have been created to demolish our Arabic and Islamic culture. He says: "The model of modernity which is separated from the value has dominated all walks of life; the important and non important, and became the basis of the cognitive map for the modern Westerners and many of the Third World peoples, especially the ruling elites.

The image of man in modernity, which is separated from the value, is that he has full sovereignty and the goal of his existence is to achieve individual benefits and glorify enjoyment and lust. So, he either cares for himself or for his lusts, however he is a normal person who has no connection with good or evil or even any value that lies outside his five senses.

Modernity, which is separated from the value, has expressed itself in many fields; of the most important is the field of ethics. Ethics is the output of our sensual or material experiments, and claiming that there is something which is called morals outside these senses is a mere lie. Moreover, some professions which used to occupy the top of the professional hierarchy lost their positions because of the separation of function from the value.

Jobs like: (fashion modeling), (movie starring), or (flight attendance), were not acceptable in many societies for various reasons. A model exposes her body and the costumes she wears to encourage women to buy the product she sells. The purpose of clothes in the past was to cover the body, but the purpose separated from the value and has become attracting attentions to the body, deepening the sense of lust, and sexual arousal. Then the mini-skirt appeared exposing the leg and the micro-skirt which announces the end of history, civilization and clothes. We can say that the hamburger —from this perspective— became the top of separation between the value and food because it looks like the fuel which a person puts in the car to run and he puts it to continue work without thinking or feeling." [2]

Here it becomes clear the danger of cloning these examples and principles and bringing them to our Arab and Islamic countries under the pretext of entertainment because these programs transfer with them patterns of culture and ethics that are different from our own principles and ethics.

Everyone follows up these Western programs is under a dangerous cultural attack that destroys the Arabic and Islamic principles and marginalize our customs, traditions, and ethics.

If you want to see one example, you may compare between these two Hadiths which confirm the necessity of concealing one's faults and sins from humans and the program of "the moment of truth":

• The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: "All the sins of my followers will be forgiven except those of the Mujahirin (those who commit a sin openly or disclose their sins to the people). An example of such disclosure is that a person commits a sin at night and though Allah screens it from the public, then he comes in the morning, and says, 'O so-and-so, I did such-and-such (evil) deed yesterday,' though he spent his night screened by his Lord (none knowing about his sin) and in the morning he removes Allah's screen from himself." [Reported by Al Bukhari in the book of manners, chapter on concealing one's faults from people No. (6069) and was reported by Muslim in the book of asceticism, chapter on the prohibition of exposing one's secrets, see the commentary of An-Nawawy (18 / 119 )].

• It was reported in Al Muwatta of Imam Malik (may Allah have mercy on his soul) that a man confessed of fornication in the time of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him). The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) called for a whip, and he was brought a broken whip. He said: "Above this," and he was brought a new whip whose knots had not been cut yet. He said: "Below this," and he was brought a whip which had been used and made flexible. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) gave the order and he was flogged. Then he said: "People! The time has come for you to observe the limits of Allah. Whoever has had any of these ugly things befall him should cover them up with the veil of Allah. Whoever reveals to us his wrong action, we perform what is in the Book of Allah against him." [Al Muwatta in the Book of the Prescribed Punishments, chapter on those who confess adultery (2 / 825), Muhammad Fouad Abdul-Baqy's edition, published by Dar Al Hadith, in 1985].

O Allah, cover us with Your Nice Forgiveness in this world and in the Hereafter, and do not expose our faults and sins before people. Amen!