In my previous entry, I commented on the Islamic restrictions on women, particularly the law of  khuwla, which forbids women to be alone with a man who is not their spouse - or a close relative. 

My Muslim critics claim these honest appraisals of Islam are inflammatory and complain that Westerners do not understand the Muslim culture. Therefore, we don’t have a legitimate platform from which to comment. I disagree. The issue is not whether we understand their mores, but whether those mores violate inalienable human rights – a concept that Islam rejects.

My purpose here is not to throw stones. After all, I live amidst a culture that seems to celebrate debauchery to an unprecedented degree.  My purpose is to help believers understand the desperate condition of women in Islam so they might be sensitive for opportunities to provide solace.  And to offer the refuge found in Christianity for these beleaguered women.

My brother recently told me of an encounter he had with a young woman - a high school friend of his daughter’s.  I’ve called her Dareen in my new book in order to protect her identity.  

Dareen was born in Egypt and immigrated to America with her parents when she was young.  They were nominal Muslims, and she embraced the American culture, which eventually had a corrupting influence on the traditional values she had been taught.

Dareen’s parents began to have marital difficulties and her mother returned to Egypt.  During her junior year in high school, Dareen was encouraged to visit her mother.  Once she was back in Egypt, her mother’s real motivation became clear.  She began to pressure Dareen to submit to an arranged marriage. She and the male family members had selected a promising young man.  Dareen knew that to submit meant she would never be allowed to return to America, and the only life she’d ever known.  The pressure became unbearable and it seemed there was no alternative.  Desperate, Dareen confessed to her mother that she would not make a worthy Muslim wife; she had already had relations with a boyfriend in America. 

Fortunately for Dareen, Egypt is not as fundamental as some Islamic countries, which would have consented to having her stoned to death.  But her mother and the male relatives took her to a doctor, who surgically stitched Dareen in such a way that any further misconduct would be impossible.

Dareen was able to get in touch with an underground movement that helped her return to America. She was reunited with her father, but was afraid to inform him of what had happened to her.  Dareen returned to school and resumed her relationship with her friends. 

One evening, she was in my brother’s home for dinner.  When there was an opportunity, Dareen urgently appealed to my brother for help.  She told him what had happened, and asked if he would help her seek medical help to reverse the medical procedure because scar tissue was beginning to bond in a way that caused great discomfort.

Although my brother does not condone her earlier misconduct any more than her family, he felt compassion for Dareen.  He informed her that since she was under age, there were legal barriers that prevented him from helping her.  If she were seeking an abortion, that would be another matter… 

My brother encouraged Dareen to confess everything to her father, who did not not seem to adhere to the harsh standards of Islam.  Dareen did so, and was rewarded with loving compassion.  Her father sought medical treatment for her, which was successful.

You may think this is an isolated incident, or blown out of proportion. Far from it. In spite of Dareen’s horrible experience, she is fortunate that her family didn’t follow the customary practices demanded by Islamic law. Even in Egypt, “honor” killings for this type of sin are common. Mark Gabriel recounts his personal experience in his most current book, Culture Clash: Islam’s War on the West.
took place in Egypt when he was young:

Islamic governments look the other way when a woman or girl is murdered for an honor killing. Jordan and other Arab Gulf countries have many honor killings. If a female’s family discovers that she has sinned, she can disappear. The neighborhood will notice the woman is missing, but nobody will talk.

When I was in middle school in Egypt, I saw honor killings… More than once I saw a man or woman being shot and killed and thrown off the bridge into the canal… The body would stay stuck against the bridge for two or three days because no one would call the police. People in Egypt don’t want to get near the police… The worst honor killing I ever saw happened in the summertime… we saw two men dragging a young girl in between them with her hands tied behind her back. They crossed the road and made her sit down and bend her head down toward the water. Then one man put a knife to her neck and decapitated her while the other man pushed her body into the water… Why is the Muslim world trapped in these seventh-century ideas of justice? It’s because Islam is a religion and a way of life [emphasis mine].

There is a news story that also demonstrates the unusual standards imposed upon women trapped in Muslim cultures.  A Saudi court this week handed down a startling ruling, affirming and augmenting a previous ruling that was being appealed from October, 2006.

The story involves a 19 year-old woman, who is married. She had met with a male acquaintance who had promised to give her back an old photograph of herself.  While she met her acquaintance in his car in Qatif, Saudi Arabia, a gang of seven men attacked and raped both of them, multiple times. The Qatif court sentenced four of the assailants to between one and five years in prison and between 80 and 1,000 lashes. However, they were only convicted of kidnapping, because prosecutors could not prove rape. The court reportedly ignored evidence from a mobile phone video in which the attackers arrogantly recorded the rape. 

Her testimony was not admissable because, under Islamic law, accusation of rape must be supported by four male witnesses. Women are considered unreliable and their testimony is worth only half that of a man (see notes below).

In the Saudi case, the October 2006 ruling sentenced both the victims (the woman and man who had been raped) to 90 lashes each for what it termed “illegal mingling,” an application of the law of khuwla.

In an interview in December, the rape victim described to Human Rights Watch her treatment in court:

“At the first session, [the judges] said to me, ‘what kind of relationship did you have with this individual? Why did you leave the house? Do you know these men?’ They asked me to describe the situation. They used to yell at me. They were insulting. The judge refused to allow my husband in the room with me. One judge told me I was a liar because I didn’t remember the dates well. They kept saying, ‘Why did you leave the house? Why didn’t you tell your husband [where you were going]?’”

Keep in mind that this twisted logic is emanating from the same kingdom that is spending billions of oil profits planting mosques and madrassah schools throughout the industrialized nations of the world.  Every Friday, faxes and emails are sent to these mosques and schools with their Wahhabi-oriented sermon outline for the weekend and guidelines for their students.

Pray for opportunities to reach out to Muslims.  News stories like this create unease with the fundamental flaws in Islamic philosophy and present an opportunity to share the Gospel.  May the Lord lift the veil.

Here’s the CNN story on the recent court ruling:

Notes:

Women in most Muslim countries will not make an accusation of rape, even if there are witnesses. As noted above, there must be four male witnesses who will corroborate the facts. If her testimony is even allowed, it is worth only half of the testimony of a man. The hadith below explains the origin of this legal theory. If a woman is bold enough to claim rape, she risks imprisonment in even the most beneficent Islamic countries, and death in the most repressive ones. Why? Because in the peculiar Islamic way of thinking, she has admitted adultery and self-incrimination is acceptable. In Islamic countries, the Shari’a sentence for adultry is stoning.

Muhammad himself laid down the punishment for adultery in a encounter that stands in stark contrast to the grace and forgiveness offered by Jesus in a parallel situation. When a woman caught in adultery was brought to him, Muhammad allowed her to live until her son was weaned. Then he had her buried to her neck and then had her stoned to death. This technique is sill a favorite in Muslim countries today.

Islam is arguably the most repressive environment in the world for women. Hirsi Ali was brave enough to create a movie and write two books chronicaling the many humiliating practices practiced in Muslim society, including female genital mutilation, which she personally was subjected to. Her death has been ordered by a number of Muslim clerics and she has been in hiding for years. You can view her brave exposé of Islam here: Submission This movie was produced by Theo Van Gogh, who was assassinated on the streets of Amsterdam because his movie dared to expose the truth. He was shot repeatedly and a death threat to Hirsi Ali was pinned to his chest with a knife.

Here is a Hadith (an event from the life of Muhammad) that explains why women are held in such low regard. It comes from Sahih al-Bukhari, Volume 1, Book 6, Number 301:

Once Allah’s Apostle [A term reserved for Muhammad] went out to the Musalla (to offer the prayer) on ‘Id-al-Adha or Al-Fitr prayer. Then he passed by the women and said, “O women! Give alms, as I have seen that the majority of the dwellers of Hell-fire were you (women).” They asked, “Why is it so, O Allah’s Apostle?” He replied, “You curse frequently and are ungrateful to your husbands. I have not seen anyone more deficient in intelligence and religion than you. A cautious sensible man could be led astray by some of you.” The women asked, “O Allah’s Apostle! What is deficient in our intelligence and religion?” He said, “Is not the evidence of two women equal to the witness of one man?” They replied in the affirmative. He said, “This is the deficiency in her intelligence. Isn’t it true that a woman can neither pray nor fast during her menses?” The women replied in the affirmative. He said, “This is the deficiency in her religion.”

A slightly different version is narrated by Abu Said Al-Khudri:

The Prophet said, “Isn’t the witness of a woman equal to half of that of a man?” The women said, “Yes.” He said, “This is because of the deficiency of a woman’s mind.” (Sahih al-Bukhari, Volume 3, Book 48, Number 826)

Liam Roberts

Other blog entries you may find interesting:

The New Dark Ages: A Long Eurabian Night
Hand-Wringing Diplomacy: Mideast Peace is an Impossible Goal
Islam: What the West Needs to Know
A Woman’s Place in Islam
Islamic Law Requires Breast Feeding of Male Co-workers
What is the Qur’an? Archaeological Find Invalidates Islam’s Holy Book
Love Your Enemies and Pray For Those Who Persecute You
Madrassah Schools: Why They Pose a Threat to Western Civilization
Violence in the Bible: 1st Response to a Muslim
Validity of Scripture: 2nd Response Presents The Bible as Superior to the Qur’an
The Historic Alliance of Christianity and Science
DNA and the Flood: The Biblical Account is Written in Our Genetic Code
Jihad.com: Islamofascists Are Recruiting Via the Internet
A Brief History of Islam
Submission: The Movie That Led a Muslim to Assassinate Theo Van Gogh
Honoring America’s Fallen Warriors
Profile of A Reluctant Hero: Why Christians Should Defend Themselves
The Enlightenment of Atheism