To justify the intended flogging of the woman before she turned on the male who had ordered it, the rulers pointed to a passage in the Koran that forbids the sale of all drugs except aspirin and antacids.

He was the fist male to receive such punishment at the hands of a woman since the fundamentalist rulers seized control of the capital in June; in fact, the first Islamic male to be flogged by a woman since one of Mohammed's wives got upset with him for trying to make her wear heavy clothes in the summer.

The Somali woman was also irate that the fundamentalist regime had earlier raided a movie house where she and her friends were watching a romance in which the most daring scene was an Islamic woman waving her veil at a camel, in what was considered an illicit come-hither manner.

The fundamentalist leaders consider any entertainment as un-Islamic other than having fun memorizing the Koran. To bolster their case, security officials cited a passage in the holy book that forbids going to a tent to watch a movie and states that doing so is a sin punishable by having to eat cold popcorn and drink warm Coca-Cola.

In light of the beating inflicted by the irate woman, the fundamentalist regime is reevaluating the wholesale subordination and repression of the female half of its population, realizing that the policy may unleash a typhoon of female resentment that sends the fear of Allah into the deepest recesses of the men's under-informed and regressive souls.

And can you believe it? When the group the woman had whipped into submission took up debate to end the subordination of the female half of the nation, the leaders were astonished to see the sky part, golden rays of light shine forth from it, and Mohammed himself appear on a impeccably white cumulus cloud, to say, “Thank you. All this prejudice and violence are starting to give my divinely blessed religion a bad name, especially among the infidels. And we don't want to do that, do we? No, no, shame, shame, oh, bitter shame on whoever disgraces Islam with such behavior and woe is me!”

The group fell on their knees and pledged to abide by his words, at which point he is reported to have thrown them kisses. Then he vanished, no doubt to attempt to convince Allah that there is renewed hope that the religion he founded would nourish mutually considerate and progressive behavior among his many devout adherents, including equal rights for the female contingent, which Allah has repeatedly reminded the repentant Prophet He created with every bit as much zeal.