June 4, 2014: In Holland an enterprising brothel (they are legal there) manager heaed about the Shia Islam custom of Nika &s717; al Mutah or “marriage for pleasure”. This is an old Shia custom of "temporary marriage" which, in effect, made prostitution, or shacking up, legal. Of course, you needed a cooperative cleric to sign off on the deal. This usually required a fee for both the cleric and the lady in question. The Amsterdam based brothel manager arranged to find some prostitutes who three Shia clerics agreed were worthy (they did not drink or smoke and followed Islamic law, including praying five times a day and having sex in an religiously acceptable fashion). The brothel manager then advertised his new service to the large Moslem community in Holland and did good business thereafter in his new establishment the “Hot Crescent”. This may end badly however.

Not all Moslems consider Nika &s717; al Mutah legitimate, especially non-Shia (only about ten percent of Moslems are Shia). But most young Moslem men who are not married are more inclined to be more tolerant of this Shia custom and at least try it out. Despite its rejection by many Islamic clerics, Nika &s717; al Mutah survives, usually in the shadows.

Occasional efforts to use Nika &s717; al Mutah on a wider scale runs into problems with religious conservatives. In fact, back in 2007 the Iranian government backed away from a plan to legalize prostitution. A cleric has advocated encouraging the use of Nika &s717; al Mutah to placate the many impoverished young Iranian men who could not afford to get married and were rather restless as a result. There is already a lot of prostitution in Iran, and the new proposal was seen as another ploy by the corrupt clerics to extract more money from the people, in this case, horny men.  As a result, the government backed away from officially backing the proposal. Many ultra-conservative clerics want to maintain the ban on prostitution, and the clerics running terrorism operations don't want illicit sex interfering with the recruiting of suicide bombers (who are assured of 72 willing girls in the afterlife). Despite government timidity, Nika &s717; al Mutah continues to be used, discreetly, in Iran and in other countries where there are a lot of Shia. The Hot Crescent is not the first brothel to try this halal (clean according to Islamic law) approach. Similar establishments have operated in Thailand and Indonesia for years.

The Dutch brothel manager has been warned that his establishment might be attacked by Islamic terrorists with no sense of humor and low sex drive. Apparently Hot Crescent management hopes that satisfied Moslem customers will quietly pass along any rumors (in the Moslem community) of an attack. That often is enough (after alerting the police and media) to avoid an attack.

In combat zones Nika &s717; al Mutah is used by some Islamic terrorist groups, along with drugs and whatever else is required to keep the holy warriors motivated. Islamic scholars are currently debating if it would be halal for Moslem men to have sex with robots as it appears that android prostitutes are only a few decades away.