3 Little Haram Pigs (part 1)

Written by: Hamzah Moin Once upon a time, there lived three Haram pigs on the meadow. They each liked doing extremely Haram activities. They were known to be the Haramest citizens on the planet.

The first Haram pig was Mr. Straw. He was a shrewd businessman. He would lend people money and charge them outrageous interest rates. He even bought his straw house on a mortgage. Each piece of straw in his house was bought with a ridiculous amount of interest. For amusement, Mr. Straw would throw out truckloads of food in front of poor people to remind them how much he despises the poor. Mr. Straw once punched a homeless man in the face for no reason whatsoever. He later sued the homeless man $10,000 for “Damaging his fists” and won the case in the televised court case Straw vs Homeless Man.

His older brother, Mr. Stick, was evil in his own way. This pig had a loose tongue. He would curse, backbite and spread gossip like there’s no tomorrow. He also enjoyed lying a lot. Nearly every word of his was a lie. If you were to ask him how the weather is he’d say “It’s extremely sunny today” even though it hadn’t stopped hailing and snowing for days. He once concocted a rumour at the local school about how if the kids didn’t give any twigs and sticks to him they’d be shipped to Canada where they would have to wrestle polar bears and baby seals to stay alive. Naturally, this scared the kids so they gave him so many sticks that he built a house out of them. His stick house was built on lies. What makes it worse is that Mr. Stick would backbite about each and every one of these kids because it revitalized him. Sometimes Mr. Stick would curse out old people because he felt they were missing too many teeth and curse at babies because they were too cute. Mr. Stick clearly had a lot of issues.

Their eldest brother, Mr. Brick could quite possibly exceed their evilness. He was a raging alcoholic and adulterer. He drank beer like water. He even used beer as currency and traded some local construction workers a case of beer for a ton of bricks. His house of bricks was fuelled by alcohol. He was so obsessed with beer that he changed all the faucets and taps in his house from water to beer. Yes, he actually bathed in beer. It even prompted jokes of him being a “Beer-battered pig”. This followed with an alcoholic rage and Mr. Brick would beat anyone into a bloody pulp if they uttered this horrendous joke. Sometimes he would drink only when he was behind the wheel, just so he could stick it to the man.

His alcoholism gave him problems in his family life. His better half Mrs. Brick, pleaded for him to stop. Unbeknownst to Mrs. Brick, he was cheating on her with Ms. Piggy who was as obsessed with alcohol and evilness as he was. He later dumped Mrs. Brick because he enjoyed dumping innocent women. Unbeknownst to Ms. Piggy, Mr. Brick was cheating on her with a third pig: Wilbur’s hot female cousin pig from Charlotte’s Web.

Although independently they were each vile, together they owned a powerful media conglomerate called BOX News. They chose the name because of their inside-the-box thinking. It has become the most dominant media on the planet. They spread untruth and injustice. Only one citizen could stop their tyranny…

* * *

Mr. Wolf was running towards the masjid in full tilt. He was eager to pray his first congregational prayer in the mosque. He embraced Islam only a few weeks ago. He salivated… not only because he was a wolf but also because he was thinking about the awesomeness of a tranquil congregational prayer. The masjid wasn’t anything special… it was just a small abandoned coat factory that was being used for the Muslim congregational prayer. When he got to the masjid, he was greeted with a sickening black gate with a large sign in front of it. “CLOSED UNTIL WE BECOME A MORE INCLUSIVE COMMUNITY CENTER… AND TO GET THE STINKING CARPETS CLEANED”.

“Awww man” whimpered Wolf, “I wanted to pray in the masjid. I hope it opens up soon.”

Suddenly, a strange hissing noise interrupted Wolf’s thoughts. “PSSSSSSST” hissed the mysterious voice. Wolf turned around and noticed it was coming from Mr. Straw’s house.

“Hey you, come here.” whispered Mr. Straw. He was standing outside his straw house, puffing away on a cigarette that he bought using his interest money. “Can you please put that out? My lungs feel all funny when I breathe in that nasty smoke and I start coughing. I have asthma.” asked Wolf politely. “No dice, virgin-lungs” scoffed the inconsiderate Mr. Straw as he puffed away some more. Upon hearing this, Wolf became extremely angry then he remembered that he was Muslim and started to recite some Qur’an and felt better.

Mr. Straw turned his head and stared at Mr. Wolf quizzically. “I’m not afraid of you. Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? Not me.” “Why would you be? I’m a nice guy.” replied Wolf politely. “That’s not what I heard. I heard you gobbled up Little Red Riding Hood and her Granny. That’d cold man. Cold. Granny paid her bills late to me all the time. I loved the interest charges heh.” “That wasn’t me. That was some other extremist wolf that gives good wolves like me a bad name. I’m Muslim now so I wouldn’t eat anyone anyway mashAllah.” “A Moslem?” said Mr. Straw as his snout shriveled up like a punctured balloon. “That’s right… a Muslim.” replied Wolf confidently.

Mr. Straw puffed away at his interest-bought cigarette some more. “Those Moslems scare me man. They give away their money to the…” Mr. Straw couldn’t even finish the sentence as his snout shriveled up some more. “Oh? The poor? Yeah. That’s how we roll.” “Disgusting. It defeats the concept of interest. The rich should get richer son, while the poor should get poorer.” Wolf got angry again at such a statement and started doing some push-ups to ease his anger. “I disagree with you” replied Wolf calmly. “Every inch of dust in my house was bought through interest. Yes, you heard me, even the dust. I buy dust on interest just to clean the dust up with supplies that I bought on interest. It’s the best thing ever. I enjoy usury.” “That’s terrible. You’re going to get what’s coming to you.” “Is that a threat Wolfie? You can’t do anything. I’m the co-owner of the largest media conglomerate in the world. Eat me.” “I can’t. You’re Haram. Pigs are Haram. As is interest. So you’re like uber-Haram for me.” Mr. Straw, offended by such a statement blew some smoke in Wolf’s face again. “Haram this” he arrogantly retorted.

Wolf’s asthma kicked in and he started to having coughing fits. “Do you want to come in? I’m having bacon tonight” said the mischievous pig. “Why would you eat bacon? Isn’t that like eating your own kind?” Mr. Straw stared at the Wolf blankly. “I guess that makes me a cannibal.” “You’re a strange pig. I’m leaving.” barked Wolf. As he turned to leave his eyes caught the door knob from Mr. Straw’s front door. Mr. Straw squinted his eyes. “Yeah. It’s broken. I’ll fix it later. When the economy is in the pits so I can pay desperate workers peanuts to fix a simple door knob.” “Isn’t that dangerous? Aren’t there wild animals around here?” “Yeah. I’m staring at one. Stupid wolves.” scoffed the pig. “Like I said, I can’t eat you and-" “Get the hell outta here before I call the police” threatened Mr. Straw.

Wolf was confused. He didn’t think he did anything illegal but quickly ran off before Mr. Straw became too upset. What an unusual conversation. He never met someone so consumed with greed before.

* * *

The next day, Wolf felt dejected. He couldn’t sleep much during the night and huffed and puffed all night long. Making ablution made him feel better. He grabbed the newspaper and spit out his coffee when he read the headline:

A sickening feeling engulfed Wolf. On one hand he felt shocked and dismayed at Mr. Straw’s untimely death. He knew it was because Mr. Straw didn’t fix the door knob. On the other hand Wolf was very angry. Why were all Muslim Wolves to blame for the actions of a few extremist ones?

Wolf knew that the newspaper was owned by the BOX Conglomerate. It was time for him to confront the source of all the lies: Mr. Stick.

CONTINUED IN PART 2....