Paradox of Muslim Intolerance
Islam and Women
"After me, I have not left any `Fitnah' (trial and affliction) more harmful to men than women." (Muhammad - Sahih Bukhari, vol. 7, bk 67, no 5096)
Muhammad did not intend to emancipate women and in spite of considering them to be harmful to men, this did not prevent the prophet from having at least ten wives, and by some estimates, as many as 14. They may have been just too much competition for him since the prophet was known to have perfumed his body, painted his eyes, and dyed his hair. (Source: Will Durant, "The Age of Faith" 1950)
There are many Arab defenders of the attitude of Muslim men towards women and paradoxically there are also some Islamic women who defend that kind of abuse. They say that Allah will decide those things which are important and if Allah wills it it must be true.
"The male's brain is anatomically distinguished from the female's, showing signs of superior intelligence and mental growth." ("Women in Shari'ah" (Islamic Law) by Professor Abdur Rahman I. Doi, published by A.S. Noordeen)
"Men have a degree of advantage over women." (Sura - 2:28))
"Men have authority over women because God has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them." (Sura - 4:34)
And Muslim men are told that
"Women are your fields; go, then, into your fields whence you please.." (Sura - 2:223)
"Good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because God has guarded them. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them." (Sura - 4:34)
However a Muslim must be careful how he beats his wife.
"He should never hit sensitive parts of the body such as the face, head, breasts or stomach. He should only hit the hands or feet using a rod that is thin and light so that it does not leave scars or bruises on the body. The husband's aim..should be to cause psychological suffering and not to humiliate or physically abuse his wife." (From Mohamed Kamal Mostafa's book, "Women in Islam" and quoted by Flora Botsford, "Spanish Women's Fury at Islamic Advice," BBC News, 24 July, 200 - from Spencer)
Misogyny
"Certainly some Muslims have taken to misogyny with gusto, as evidenced by the dreadful tale of the fifteen girls who died in a fire at their school in Saidu Arabia in March 2002. With no men in the school had taken off their Islamic garb for lesson. The Saudi religious police, the muttawa, would not allow them to leave the building because they were not veiled. Death for the girls was preferable to the risk of subjecting the men in the vicinity to impure thoughts." (Robert Spencer, "Islam Unveiled" - 2002)
A wife must neither receive male visitors nor accept gifts from them without the husband's approval. The husband has the legal right to restrict his wife's freedom of movement such as leaving the house without his permission. Thus the husband can forbid her family visiting her or his wife from visiting her family. Muslim women are subordinate by Islamic law to men.
"A feminist can take some dim comfort from the fact that the Taliban's egregious misogyny is finally considered newsworthy. It certainly wasn't high on Washington's agenda in May, for example, when President Bush congratulated the ruling Taliban for banning opium production and handed them a check for $43 million--never mind that their regime accords women a status somewhat below that of livestock." (Barbara Ehrenreich, "Progressive Mag" - July, 2001)
"If any of your women are guilty of lewdness (lesbianism) ... confine them... until death do claim them." (Sura - 4:15)
However for males, the Koran says:
"If two men among you commit indecency (sodomy) punish them both. If they repent and mend their ways, let them be. Allah is Forgiving and Merciful." (4:16 - Koran)
"The man must not deprive a wife of sex: the maximum time allowed by the Islamic Law for such punishment is four months."
"The Laws of Marriage and Divorce in Islam"
Women may not refuse to have sex with their husbands. The Prophet said:
"When a man calls to his wife to satisfy his desire, she must go to him even if she is occupied at the oven." (Tirmidhi)
"In the case of an intractable wife whom the husband cannot reform, the best solution is to take another wife. The same is true if his wife is ill, barren, aged, of unsound mind or if the one wife does not satisfy the man's natural desires. In such cases polygamy can provide an answer, but "a man who marries more than one woman and then does not deal justly with them, will be resurrected with half his faculties paralyzed." (Muhammad)
Islam allows men to have more than one wife (polygamy), but does not allow women to have more than one husband (polyandry):
"If we examine the origin of venereal diseases, we find that they originate from a woman being sexually visited by more than one man." (Mhurshid Ahmad - "Women in Islam)
It is always the woman's fault.....
Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is carried out among Muslims in Egypt, the Sudan, Saudi Arabia, South Yemen, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman, the Philippines, Malaysia, Pakistan and Indonesia. Some apologists point out that it is not performed in Iran, Iraq, Algeria, Libya, Morocco or Tunisia. They will also note that female mutilation was carried out in pre-Islamic times and is practised in some non-Islamic African states. This does not absolve Muslims for continuing the barbaric tradition and throws doubt on the "civilizing role" of Islam. Indeed some of the clergy still advocate female mutilation.
These barbaric practices, including "Honor Killings" are not condemned. They are encouraged in practice by clerics and even codified into law in many Muslim countries.
There are three main degrees of female "circumcision" Firstly the "sunna proper" where the clitoral hood or prepuce is removed. A number of female relatives hold the girl down and the piece of skin is removed with a razor blade.
If a minor child is given away by her father or grandfather the marriage is binding on her. A girl is often virtually forced to marry an old man because he owns some land or can provide a large dowry. The Prophet consummated his marriage with A'isha when she was nine and this was considered the age of consent for a long time. Even today Islam believes a girl is adult at the first signs of puberty.
Islam also has an obsession about virginity for girls. God has provided Only 40% of girls have a "normal" hymen that will rupture and bleed on the wedding night: for 20% it is so fine that it breaks during childhood, and 40% may have an elastic hymen that may not rupture. 30% of girls have no bleeding at all during their first sexual act. In this case, the father of the bride cannot hold up the white towel stained with blood the next morning and the bride is disgraced and may even be divorced or murdered.
The second level of female mutilation is clitoridectomy where the whole of the clitoris is removed. This is particularly traumatic for the girl: the pain and bleeding may continue for days-the clitoris is well-supplied with blood vessels so that it can swell on stimulation. This is analogous to the removal of the penis of a male as the clitoris is the centre of female sexuality and most women cannot achieve orgasm without it.
There is also pharaonic circumcision (often called infibulation, the Roman practice of putting rings across the vaginas of slave women.) All exterior genitalia are removed: the clitoris, the labia minora (the inner lips) and the labia majora (the outer lips). What is left of the vulva is sewn up leaving a small hole for urine and menses to escape, but penetration by a penis is impossible.
On marriage, the macho male tries to penetrate often causing "hufta"-invaginated skin near the vaginal opening. On divorce, social pressures dictate that the opening be sewn up again. On childbirth, the skin must be cut but even then there can be complications: prolonged labor, foetal death and brain damage.
Many males favor the pharaonic method as the vaginal orifice can be made tight to enhance their sexual pleasure even if it is painful to the woman. Indeed, many women find anal sex preferable. If the woman is Makhtoma, too tight, she can take an hour to void her bladder and it is common for the abdomen of a girl to swell with undischarged menstrual blood-girls have even been murdered by fathers thinking that they were pregnant.
Pharaonic circumcision often leads to permanent trauma, frigidity, urinary and gynaecological infections, abortions or sterility, painful menstrual periods, fistulas, scar tissue, abscesses and even cancers. And yet the girl's relatives and the bridegroom expect it. The little girl aged 4 to 8 must have her tahara (purification) as she would be unacceptable in a Ghalaja (uncircumcised) state.
The reason for female mutilation is sometimes given that it prevents promiscuity. A random survey of 200 prostitutes in Cairo showed that 170 of them had suffered a clitoridectomy, exactly the same percentage (85%) as the general population. Of fifty women who had sexual experience before "circumcision", none had been able to reach the level of satisfaction they knew before-hand.' (Source: "The Laws of Marriage and Divorce in Islam")
The examples of abuse towards women are extensive and I have only touched on a few of them here. Islam is far from modern and therein lies much of the problem. Indeed there are many cultural differences. It seems doubtful that Islamic culture will any time soon join a civlized world.
Hank Roth
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Today is Wednesday July 23, 2008
Hank Roth (on the Internet since 1982)
While I don't use a standard blog (weblog software) mostly because I've been doing this too long - having been there with Ike when the precursor to the Internet, Arpanet got started and every step of the way since, I can't get into all the many fads over the years (now it is social networking), but I have been an observer and participant in events which shape the world since my time with NSA and with Army Security and as a voice security cryptologist in the White House for the President, and the War Room at the Pentagon for the Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff plus two wars. You could say this site is one of the better kept secrets [grin] on the InterNUT. You are invited back as often as you would like to see what I and others, I trust, may be saying.
-- Hank Roth