MUSLIM men are so undisciplined and uncontrollable that one of their leaders has been forced to speak out about, ahem, embarrassing physical reactions. And it is, of course, the fault of women themselves if they should get raped.

The sight of women, it seems, causes such arousal among the men – the heterosexual ones, at any rate – that Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat, the spiritual leader of the opposition Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, is accusing the women of “emotional abuse”.

The menfolk just cannot keep their djellabas, tunics and robes from taking on strange shapes when pretty women walk by in body-hugging T-shirts and arse-gripping jeans.

“We always [hear about] the abuse of children and wives in households, which is easily perceived by the eye, but the emotional abuse of men cannot be seen,” Mr Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat says on the party’s website. “Our prayers become unfocused and our sleep is often disturbed.”

According to a story in the International Herald Tribune, Nik Nik has made twattish comments about women in the past,

. . . including that women should stop wearing lipstick and perfume to lower the risk of being raped. Women’s groups have slammed his statements, saying Islam teaches both men and women to be responsible for modesty. They say comments like these encourage rapes because it puts the onus on women.

Once again, at enormous expense, The Freethinker has acquired exclusive material, this time concerning Nik Nik’s pity for his members’ members. We have been handed a document purporting to be a transcript of a sermon he gave to his brethren within the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, which shows that not all is bad, and some Muslims are rising to the challenge. Nik Nik said:

Brothers, it is with a sad heart that I come before you today – though “come” may not be the most appropriate of words in these hard— er, these trying times.

I am truly cognisant of how uncomfortable it is for us to pray, kneeling as we do. These harlots do not realise the anguish caused to us five times a day when we come here to commune with Allah (pbuh) and our Pillars of Islam make painful contact with the floor.

But, in his great munificence and generosity of spirit, most merciful Allah (pbuh) has smiled on his poor, hard-done-to creatures, and has provided gracious compensations.

My great friend Dawoud al-Har Don in Rawalpindi is now making a great profit (pbuh) by selling mini-burqas to his brothers in that great city so they can cover their impressive members while undressing for bed, in order that their womenfolk might not become violently aroused at the sight of them and seek to rape them.

In New York, where he runs a street stall selling most agreeable and delectable sweetmeats, my good friend and cousin-twelve-times-removed Hadir al-Priapus has found a novel and amusing way to present his halal doughnuts to customers.

And my wife’s uncle, Mahmoud el-Stiffi – in Bradford in England – has at last found somewhere to hang his donkey jacket.

And as for myself, my brothers, I have grown an affection for my member and have decided to give him – er, it – a name. I have chosen for his name Mohammed (pbuh).

The International Herald Tribune is not the only news outlet to carry the story. But no publication other than The Freethinker has hard evidence of Nik’s letter to his hard-done-to brethren in Malaysia. We have hard copy, and we have it firmly backed up on an external hard drive. (The drive was not hard, however, till it noticed a pair of floppies.)