Last week a few bloggers (see Wonkette; Marc Cooper; Kaus) noted with a snicker that Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Husaini Sistani in Iraq has a website which, among other things, dispenses rather specific advice on which sex acts are permissable under the Ayatollah's view of Islam.

Two noted examples of the Ayatollah's Dr. Ruth-like pronouncements were the following Q and A's:

ON ANAL INTERCOURSE:
Question: My question is, what does the holy book Quran and prophet Mohammad (pbuh) say about anal sex even if the wife agrees to experience this with her husband?

Answer: Oral sex act is permissible with the consent of both husband and wife provided that no liquid gets into the mouth.

Admittedly, it is always funny in a fifth-grade kind of way to see serious and scholarly folk talk about the pros and cons of various methods of getting your freak on.

But I think it is worth noting, at a more serious level, a common thread in these two responses. In both cases, Sistani makes clear that consent of the woman is an absolute requirement.

Isn't that a good thing?

And, er, don't these answers --- which boil down to "yup, go ahead and do it as long as both parties agree" --- amount to a fairly open-minded view of sex? How many conservative Christian leaders would go this far in blessing anal and oral sex? (Yes, Sistani seems to have a thing against masturbation, but nobody's perfect).

To be clear: I'm not holding up Sistani as some great savior, or strong liberal voice, or ideal moderate Muslim cleric. I don't know enough about him to make those judgments. But in judging these individual statements, they seem to be pretty darned progressive to me.

As background, I'll share with you that I learned a bit about Sistani from listening to Terry Gros' interview with Juan Cole the other day, which gives a good outline of the differences between Sistani's view of Islam, and that of Muqtada al-Sadr. I won't leap to any huge conclusions based on a single source, but Cole's basic argument is that al-Sadr represents a Khomeni-like devotion to full-blown theocracy, whereas Sistani's view is that clerics should not be involved directly in government. I'll judge both on their actions, but the perspective was useful...