The Bloody Dance Of The Qur'an

 

My friend Gaius Arbo sends me an important op-ed from the WaPo. Nothing new to readers of ATB, but still a vitally important message we have to keep on sending. "It shows what we are fighting." Gaius tells me. "It is not Islam - it is the Islamist extremist interpretation of Islam. And it is written by a Muslim woman, Asra Q. Nomani."

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. When dealing with a "disobedient wife," a Muslim man has a number of options. First, he should remind her of "the importance of following the instructions of the husband in Islam." If that doesn't work, he can "leave the wife's bed." Finally, he may "beat" her, though it must be without "hurting, breaking a bone, leaving blue or black marks on the body and avoiding hitting the face, at any cost."

Such appalling recommendations, drawn from the book "Woman in the Shade of Islam" by Saudi scholar Abdul Rahman al-Sheha, are inspired by as authoritative a source as any Muslim could hope to find: a literal reading of the 34th verse of the fourth chapter of the Koran, An-Nisa , or Women. "[A]nd (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them and leave them alone in the sleeping-places and beat them," reads one widely accepted translation.

The notion of using physical punishment as a "disciplinary action," as Sheha suggests, especially for "controlling or mastering women" or others who "enjoy being beaten," is common throughout the Muslim world. Indeed, I first encountered Sheha's work at my Morgantown mosque, where a Muslim student group handed it out to male worshipers after Friday prayers one day a few years ago.

Verse 4:34 retains a strong following, even among many who say that women must be treated as equals under Islam. Indeed, Muslim scholars and leaders have long been doing what I call "the 4:34 dance" — they reject outright violence against women but accept a level of aggression that fits contemporary definitions of domestic violence.

Western leaders, including British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, have recently focused on Muslim women's veils as an obstacle to integration in the West. But to me, it is 4:34 that poses the much deeper challenge of integration. How the Muslim world interprets this passage will reveal whether Islam can be compatible with life in the 21st century. As Hadayai Majeed, an African American Muslim who had opened a shelter in Atlanta to serve Muslim women, put it, "If it's okay for me to be a savage in my home, it's okay for me to be a savage in the world."

Not long after I picked up the free Saudi book, Mahmoud Shalash, an imam from Lexington, Ky., stood at the pulpit of my mosque and offered marital advice to the 100 or so men sitting before him. He repeated the three-step plan, with "beat them" as his final suggestion. Upstairs, in the women's balcony, sat a Muslim friend who had recently left her husband, who she said had abused her; her spouse sat among the men in the main hall.

At the sermon's end, I approached Shalash. "This is America," I protested. "How can you tell men to beat their wives?"

"They should beat them lightly," he explained. "It's in the Koran."

He was doing the dance.

Gaius goes on to say "Nomani is making a point here: How can you expect to stop suicide bombers, jihadists and preachers of violence when it is perfectly acceptable to many Muslim males to engage in domestic violence. She quotes another Muslim woman describing the thought process among too many Muslim males: "If it's okay for me to be a savage in my home, it's okay for me to be a savage in the world."

Well in our culture it is not okay to beat a woman 'lightly' or otherwise. Period.

Comments

[amra]

u know u ppl take things so literally. the furthest that a husband is allowed to beat his wife in islam is explined in the surah as to beting her with a twig (in those days muslims used a twig off tree as toothbrushes-miswaak) so as not to harm the wife at all. so basicallyu the point is not to even bother doing that bc it doesnt do much to her anyway. its a way that it was described to beat someone with a toothbrush will make u laugh and ultimately will make u play around and forgive each other for the mishap. u r not allowed to beat a muslim woman in any harmful way. jsut bc some ppl and imams translate and relate it back to their culture doesnt mean its in the qu'ran nor in the sayings of the prophet (hadith). please research about islam b4 u make judgements based on some ppls beliefs. thats why in islam u follow the word of God and the word of the prophet not the word of any person who might interprete things in his or her own way.

[Peter Piper]

When dealing with a "disobedient husband," an American woman has a number of options. First, she should remind him of "the importance of pleasing the wife in Americam." If that doesn't work, she can "make him sleep on the couch." Finally, she may "browbeat" him, though it must be without, "emotionally hurting, breaking a heart, leaving blue or black marks on the body and avoiding hitting the balls, at any cost. Finally, she may stomp her foot, declare, "I want a divorce" three times, and rid herself of him. The mullahs will certainly grant her wish, gifting her the house, kids and a stipend, commonly referred to under Americam holy law as, "all the money" (pronounced alimony), which the woman's drunk boyfriend is then free to dispossess her and her children of, to the husband's great anguish.

Important to many Christians is the idea that we are all our brothers' keepers - usually taken to mean that we have some responsibility to watch out for and care for one another. This principle is seen as being reflected in Jesus' admonition that loving one another is the greatest of God's commandments. Isn't it strange, then, that the Christian Right tends to ignore this Peter principle, and focus their energies instead on becoming our brother's prison guards and executioners?

[Passerby]

I am a Muslim who accidentally comes upon this site about Christianity. I think it is good, since I've always wanted to know truly what non-Muslims (in this case, Christians mostly) think about Islam.

But I'm saddened by the fact that there is much hatred against Islam. If a Muslim shows that much hatred against Christianity or other religion, I would advise him to stop that. Hatred against other religion and people in it is certainly a barrier to foster closer ties and to erase any tensions among us all.

I really hope that after I post this comment I'm not "beaten up" or something.

For one thing, relating all actions (which some of you may say "unthinkable") done by Muslims to Islam isn't quite the right thing. I shouldn't relate Christians to the fact that during the Reconquista Muslims and Jews in Spain were forced to convert to Christianity, should I?

Just because Iran has very strict laws which, you may say, give no freedom at all for even Muslims there, doesn't mean Islam is like that. Just because you think Iranian law supports men and does not respect women, doesn't mean that Islam is like that.

One piece of advice: It really helps to learn about something before you talk about it.

I read a comment from another article, and I am surprised to see that even a small detail like what the Qur'an consists of is wrong. A person wrote that the Qur'an consists of 2 parts: the proper one, and the hadith, which is the collection of the deeds, quotes, and others about the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

As a Muslim, I should correct that. Hadith is different, and the Qur'an is different. Qur'an is Allah's words. If that simple fact is not known by people who claim to know that Islam is just another religion devised by satan, then only God knows what bigger details they get wrong.

I bet that if you know what Islam says about women, you would have known that there are many hadiths which are about women arguing with the Prophet himself, and, at times when they were right, they were granted what they asked for.

For me I don't know every single detail about Christianity, because everyone around me is Muslim. So I hope to know more about Christianity and Christians through discussions like this.

"Say: O ye Unbelievers!
I worship not that which you worship,
Nor do you worship what I worship,
And I will not worship what you worship,
Nor will you worship what I worship,
To you your religion, and to me mine."
- Surah Al-Kafirun

I just pray to Allah so that all of us are endowed with more knowledge, so we know what is wrong and what is right.

Anyway, our religion is too similar to be against each other. Peace!

[Red Violin]

Ahmadinejad Does Europe

October 24, 2006
The Wall Street Journal
Review & Outlook

Whatever Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's other faults, lack of candor isn't one of them. This week the U.N. Security Council is set to begin discussing the imposition of (very) limited sanctions against Iran for refusing to halt uranium enrichment to build a nuclear weapon.

And so, with his usual sense of timing, the Iranian President issued the following public warning to Europe last Friday: "We have advised the Europeans that the Americans are far away, but you are the neighbors of the nations in this region. We inform you that the nations are like an ocean that is welling up, and if a storm begins, the dimensions will not stay limited to Palestine, and you may get hurt. It is in your own interest to distance yourself from these criminals (Israel). . . . This is an ultimatum."

China and Russia are the main opponents of tough sanctions for violating the U.N.'s August 31 enrichment deadline, but the Iranian must be thinking he can also shake the resolve of European leaders with a little fear of the Mahdi. Short of that, he might be hoping he can begin to intimidate European public opinion. Iran's ballistic missiles can already reach much of Europe, and his threat will be very real once those missiles can be armed with nuclear warheads.

The temptation in many quarters in the West is to assume that Crazy Mahmoud can't really mean what he says; he must be acting out for "domestic" political reasons. And even if he does mean what he says about wiping Israel off the map, well, Europeans and Americans don't need to worry about that. Call us conservative, or even neoconservative, but when a leader relentlessly seeking weapons of mass destruction starts issuing apocalyptic ultimatums, our instinct is to believe him.

http://iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news.pl?l=en&y=2006&m=10&d=24&a=6

[mac Brachman]

News item of the day: Israpundit (israpundit.com) and several other sites report the latest federal (FBI) stats on reported hate crimes involving religious background. 1,314 such crimes were reported in the latest reporting period. According to the stats, over 2/3 of those crimes were directed against individual Jews, Judaism as a religion, and Jews collectively as a people. 11.1 percent of the crimes (1/9, or less than one sixth the number reported as anti-Jewish) were identified as anti-Muslim or anti-Islamic. This works out to 146 hate crimes against Muslims/Islam, or about one every 60 hours, vs. about 900 against Jews/Judaism, or about one every 9-10 hours. As Israpundit and other blogsites noted, this puts the lie to CAIR's campaign to indoctrinate America to believe that Muslims are especially persecuted in this country. You wouldn't know it from the papers, of course; the front page of the largest-circulation daily paper in the Midwest and of my metropolitan area, the Chicago Tribune, had a prominent front page feature today (Monday, 10/23/06) about a young man compelled to undergo lengthy reeducation, er, sensitivity training after tugging on a Muslim woman's niqba as (an admittedly offensive and juvenile) joke. Guess who sponsored the training the young man endured, er, underwent? CAIR's Chicago office. But we must all be sensitive to Muslims, even when they show no reciprocity or insist on veiled anonymity and other gestures to distance themselves from the pluralist society they're supposedly trying to integrate themselves into, while attacking Jews and making them the font of every evil conspiracy on earth (9/11 conspiracy theories, anyone? Holocaust denial, two bags a dollar, cheap?) is perfectly OK. I'll conclude this post before I nauseate myself, and only with great reluctance do I conclude with my usual wish of peace... Shalom, Mac Brachman

[Sandy P]

Well, from what I understand, the koran's supposed to be read in the order it was written, which it becomes more militant, not cover to cover.

[Ghost Dansing]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekQZPozjCX8

[LilMissIndie]

Here is a question for many "practising" Muslims: How many of you read the Q'uran cover to cover? Or do you just accept what the "Mullah Omar"'s tell you? Be very careful with that thing.

CNR, I wholeheartedly agree. On the subject of how many Muslims read the Quran cover to cover, I'm not Muslim, so I can't answer your question. However, since coming to Christ 8 years ago after having read the Bible cover to cover, I have been frequently astonished by the number of "practicing" Christians (and non-believers) who haven't read any of the Bible, but still quote from it (usually out of context). They also often vote on their pastor's recommendations, expecting him (or her if they allow it) to be knowledgeable enough.

I know I sound critical of my own faith and church, but I'm not. I'm realistic, and I'm worried about the state of things if Bill Maher and Rosie O'Donnell can speak idiotic generalizations to people about Christianity and they get apporoval. GD doesn't speak in generalizations but to some of you appears to be saying that one religion is as bad as another. It may not be true, but there are millions of Americans in the middle class, middle of the road demographic, who, if told it over and over again in the media and by someone with with or education, and if lacking some roots in religion, will start to move out of the middle and to that side of the road. And those are the Americans who will decide our President in 2008. This truly concerns me.

Not really related but I thought this was funny: I once visited a blog that told a Christian commenter, "This is an atheist blog. We're here to criticize Christians, not to debate. Why do you keep coming back?" And the Christian, who I knew to be a thoughtful and loving person, flippantly replied, "So I always know what the enemy's arguments are going to be." They promptly banned her IP.

[Red Violin]

On Yvonne Ridley

She might as well be a spokesperson for the Islamic Republic's "Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution (i.e. Supreme Council of manufactured propaganda against Western democracies)

http://www.answers.com/topic/yvonne-ridley

[Sandy P]

GD, not everyone wants to move to practice their "ideals." They want to stay in America and make me practice their ideals.

Like socialism and the dem party.

[Crusader.NoRegrets.]

What we call "Islam" should properly be called "Orthodox Islam". Fundamentalism doesn't cut it.

If you were a Christian Fundamentalist, you'd believe that Jesus was physically resurrected, according to say the Anglican Church, for whom "the Resurrection" is starting to twist itself into all kinds of strange pretzels. Fundamentalism is not necessarily the same as Orthodoxy. I'd suggest Orthodox Islam is a part of the political process called "Islamisation", whereby absolutely everything in the world around you is the direct result of the interaction of the Islamic political system with the rest of the world.

Christian Fundamentalists frown upon "fornication", "homosexuality" and various other things considered spritually unhealthy. The notion that Christians were instructed to persecute homosexuals would be to transport Mosaic Law into the present day. By the same token, such "christians" would be required under Mosaic Law to sprinkle the blood of a slaughtered lamb on the Mercy Seat in the tabernacle to be forgiven, among other things equally Mosaic, to stone to death disobedient sons, and to force rape victims to become the spouse of the rapist. Clearly, there aren't too many in the Judaic or Christian tradition who today would accept these things. Most probably because unlike in the 15th Century, most of us can now read the bible in the language of our choice, and can see for ourselves exactly what Jesus and the Apostles actually wrote.

The Q'uran has a bigger problem. Despite the fact that illiteracy is rampant in the Muslim world, and in much of the Muslim world, illiteracy is the scourge of most women, the Q'uran itself sets itself up as the answer to the mysteries of the bible. In other words, the Q'uran is very specific,and is read in precisely that way. No margin for prayer, followed by interpretation.

Here is a question for many "practising" Muslims: How many of you read the Q'uran cover to cover? Or do you just accept what the "Mullah Omar"'s tell you? Be very careful with that thing.

I suspect what we are going to see shortly is a realisation dawning on the Muslim populations around the world, that the world is getting sick of their seething, and bitching, and burning, and bombing, and beheading. (Hitler, for example, would have gassed the lot of them for far, far less!!!) Done in their name!

There may be 1 000 000 000 Muslims in the world, but that makes about 5 5000 000 000 non-Muslims. Of those, only about 500 000 000 actually care whether the Muslims get exterminated or not. And those 500 000 000 people and their culture are the object of daily ridicule, scorn, abuse and threats.

The Muslims of the world are starting perhaps to realise, that we Westerners are the only real friends they've got.

[Red Violin]

To compare Christianity with Islam is to compare apples and organges. I should know as someone who grew up in a moslem country until I was 16. I can almost write a book about and back up my statement here...Just to illustrate my point briefly,If Mr. Ghost Dancing decides tomorrow to convert to Islam, does he have also contemplate death and pesecution by the authorities of his previous religion? I don't think so. As a convert, I'm still afraid to go back to the country of my birth and visit my nieces and nephews and my Grandmother-- whom I haven't seen for 25+ years--for I'll be interrogated right at the airport and put to jail as soon as I arrive to Tehran's airport.

[Ghost Dansing]

I agree Alexandra... The so called "Islamic Republics" and monarchys should separate Church and State, in our Western opinion.

We feel that they would prosper more as nations, and progress more as peoples if they stopped trying to replicate bygone eras, and hold their mark of success so closely tied to burkhas and switches for bare legs.

We certainly wouldn't want in 2006 to be living under Catholic laws of bygone eras, and they would feel better if they stopped that sexist nonsense.

And guess what? It's a win-win... Catholicism flurishes today, even if it doesn't get its way in every public square!

[Alexandra]

Ghost,

The law of Shari'a which accompanies Islamic practices takes care of your entire argument. It makes all those practices lawful, and therefore not comparable to Christian practices which are accompanied by an entirely different law.

Once you make a practice lawful, the entire religious argument is out of the window.

[Ariel]

I will attempt to correct my error this evening so please come back.

[Ghost Dansing]

"GD: What's your point?"

The point is that using religion as a pretext for misogyny is vacuous... but that you probably won't get far in mitigating misogyny with a frontal attack on "Islam" as it is taken by literal fundamentalists...nor is the fact that misogyny is reflected and encouraged in Islam any more a basis to condemn Islam than it is to condemn Christianity. It is quite possible for human beings to interpret ancient material and traditions progressively and abandon old practices that no longer fit cultural aspirations...this isn't theory, human beings have done for as long as there is human history. All sorts of odius practices have been justified by Religion and Law over the millenia... we had people justifying slavery by the Bible, and people who still would if they could get away with it. We have people who are misogynists, and justify misogynistic policies on the basis of religion.

Misogyny is a cultural artifact that has its roots in the very sexual dimorphism of humanity.

Just as misogyny is something that had to be overcome as a cultural norm in the West, so it must in the Middle East.

Incidentally, misogyny does not have to have a "religious" basis... Chinese Communist "one child" policy also exacerbated the cultural emphasis on "males" with little or no reference to religion.

[LilMissIndie]

Ariel, thanks for responding to my question, but, respectfully, I don't think your answers addressed it.

I didn't ask what the difference between Islam and Christianity is, because I know. The question of which rules shaped by either of them would I want to live under is also not the point. If I wanted to live under Islamic values, I would move to a country that is run by them or is nearly there. The inference you drew that I am in danger of falling into any trap, much less that of moral equivalence, is not valid.

I am not arguing the points of Islam vs. Christianity, and the history behind each has nothing to do with my question, nor am I saying that radical Islamic views toward women are moral.

How can we insist our culture reject the beating of a wife, if permitted by a faith based on the recommendation of a religious document, and yet use Christian values to denounce other actions that we might find detestable, e.g., abortion or homosexuality?

...I'm wondering how Christians, and Jews, can reconcile staying faithful to their scripture with conforming to our culture, given that our bar for our culture's limits is moved from generation to generation and sometimes even in less time. (My quote)

My question involved the culture shift in this country. In the the first half of the 20th century it was culturally acceptable for a man to knock his wife around (the basis for the only jokes that bother me in The Philadelphia Story with Hepburn and Grant). It was culturally acceptable in the south to make black people drink from a different fountain than whites. It was not culturally acceptable for a couple to live together in "sin", or for a single woman to adopt a child, and certainly not a black child. Sometimes by law and sometimes by changing times, these cultural characteristics shifted or eased. We are very proud of our Bill of Rights and our Constitution, but we haven't always backed them up with our actions. I know women who could take care of a wife-beater themselves, but they weren't able to fight a corporation when they'd been discriminated against.

I appreciate that your beliefs on issues are not based on any scripture, but for many whose are, the prohibition against abortion is based on the Commandment "Thou shalt not kill." Life begins at conception, and all life is precious. Therefore, to many people, abortion can never be "correct," or even necessary. I remember a class debate back in the 70s about a father choosing who survives a birth where both the mother and the fetus are in danger. A great majority said that the baby was the priority. I doubt that you could get the same results in a survey today.

Many times it was the abuse of scripture that allowed things that are illegal now. No, it doesn't say in the Bible you can beat your wife, but Christians and non alike bent the words regarding submission around so that few would challenge it.

And, many times it has been Christians, striving to model Christ, who have led the charge against society's evils.

I can't speak for Jews, but many Christians believe that the Commandment, "Thou Shalt Not Kill," is the prohibition against abortion. Americans may be split on the issue now, but 50 years ago they were not.

Our nation's view of what is acceptable evolves. Behavior that some consider harmful now may be accepted in years to come; two which come to mind are the legalization of drugs and adult-child sex. The latter's unacceptability has been challenged by Harris Mirkin, a professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City; he's written a paper proposing that adult-child sex isn't always harmful (link below). I hate to use the term "slippery slope", but in this case it fits. Just as abortion opponents in the 70s correctly predicted that abortions would be allowed later and later in the pregnancy, and now partial-birth abortion is a hot button, this professor and a "feminist" author (also in linked article) are paving the way for legitimate discussion in a few years.

Harris Mirkin, a professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, published a 1999 article in the Journal of Homosexuality complaining that boys who have sex with men "are never considered willing participants, even if they are hustlers." He has also written that "children are the last bastion of the old sexual morality."

Our culture nurtures this type of slide. Liberals encourage it (the slide) by ridiculing conservative values and targeting anyone who disagrees by labeling them intolerant and judgemental. And the public hates to be thought of as intolerant, because to be intolerant is to also be a rube or uneducated or unintelligent.

An adult having sex with a child "as young as 12" is harmful, but in 25 years when it is not a crime, will a group of people who murders a pedophile be considered radical and dangerous? I condemn the radical Islamic treatment of women, whether it is based on the Quran or not, but I'm made to wonder if I'm wrong to base many of my opinions on the Christian values taught to me from a young age.

I purposely did not give my opinions on these matters because I did not want to invite discussion on them; I only wanted to know how we reconcile our collective changing culture with what we believe to be unchanging Christian values.

I believe that God's name has already been removed from the public square. And I fear you are right, that the absence of God will harden our society to the point of shattering when people can no longer remember "why" we value those ideals we do.

Link referenced: http://www.come-and-hear.com/editor/ca-wt-04-19-02/

[mac brachman]

Right on, Sandy P. and Red Violin.
GD: What's your point? We can all dig up history to "contextualize" atrocity into meaninglessness; the fact is that outside Muslim societies in the present day, domestic violence against women (or anyone else) is a serious crime; in most Muslim countries, it is not only legal but encouraged. Your reasoning is what gives cross-cultural studies a bad name. Shalom, Mac Brachman

[Ariel]

Luckily there are so few Christians comparable to Islamic extremists. One does need a sense of proportion, after all.

[Sandy P]

And honor killings, don't forget honor killings.

[Red Violin]

Domestic violence is cross-cultural plague but it is also a criminal offense in Western-style democracies which if reported is investigated and the perpetrator prosecuted. Is this the case in places like Saudi Arabia and Iran? I don't think so.

The sad irony is that most woman in these cultures don't even know they have any rights and they accept the abuse as the norm and believe they deserve what they get. They are prisoners of their own minds.

[Red Violin]

Does anyone remember any Christian or Jewish woman being stoned to death lately?

[Ghost Dansing]

Interesting...however misogyny is a cross cultural phenomenon reinforced by the prescriptions and proscriptions within the context of multiple religions...cultural artifacts of human striving toward God, but always falling quite short in practice.

As an example see and academic critique of Boyarin, but note Boyarin's thesis:

"IS PAUL THE FATHER OF MISOGYNY AND ANTISEMITISM?" by Pamela Eisenbaum

"For Boyarin, Paul's flaw -- the confusion of equality with sameness best expressed in Gal. 3:28 -- becomes a pathology in Christianity. Christianity came to understand religiousness as faith in Christ which was not concretized in the kinds of prescriptions Jews followed. In other words, Christianity began to see itself as a purely spiritual religion able to encompass all the diverse peoples of the world, while it saw Judaism as inordinately preoccupied with its peculiar ways of doing things and thus devoid of the spirit. Similarly, women became associated with the material body, and men with the transcendent spirit. Thus, Boyarin argues, Paul marks the beginning of the dominant male, Christian perspective of Western culture. This perspective imagined human essence as the white civilized Christian male and viewed both women and Jews as, at best, limited kinds of persons farther removed from the ideal human essence and, at worst, as the particularized "other" in relation to the universal human being (in other words, the opposite of the ideal). Thus, Boyarin thinks Paul is the father of misogyny and antisemitism."

As an argument, the theme "Islam is bad because Islam is misogynistic" is easily countered with accusations about Christianity (by no means the only religion practiced that has been used as a justification for misogyny).

"Christianity is misogynistic. Misogyny is fundamental to the basic writings of Christianity. In passage after passage, women are encouraged—no, commanded—to accept an inferior role, and to be ashamed of themselves for the simple fact that they are women. Misogynistic biblical passages are so common that it’s difficult to know which to cite. From the New Testament we find "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church. . . ." (Ephesians 5:22–23) and "These [redeemed] are they which were not defiled with women; . . ." (Revelation 14:4); and from the Old Testament we find "How then can man be justified with God? Or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?" (Job 25:4) Other relevant New Testament passages include Colossians 3:18; 1 Peter 3:7; 1 Corinthians 11:3, 11:9, and 14:34; and 1 Timothy 2:11–12 and 5:5–6. Other Old Testament passages include Numbers 5:20–22 and Leviticus 12:2–5 and 15:17–33.

Later Christian writers extended the misogynistic themes in the Bible with a vengeance. Tertullian, one of the early church fathers, wrote:

In pain shall you bring forth children, woman, and you shall turn to your husband and he shall rule over you. And do you not know that you are Eve? God’s sentence hangs still over all your sex and His punishment weighs down upon you. You are the devil’s gateway; you are she who first violated the forbidden tree and broke the law of God. It was you who coaxed your way around him whom the devil had not the force to attack. With what ease you shattered that image of God: Man! Because of the death you merited, even the Son of God had to die. . . . Woman, you are the gate to hell.

One can find similarly misogynistic—though sometimes less venomous—statements in the writings of many other church fathers and theologians, including St. Ambrose, St. Anthony, Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine, St. John Chrysostom, St. Gregory of Nazianzum, and St. Jerome.

This misogynistic bias in Christianity’s basic texts has long been translated into misogyny in practice. Throughout almost the entire time that Christianity had Europe and America in its lock grip, women were treated as chattel—they had essentially no political rights, and their right to own property was severely restricted. Perhaps the clearest illustration of the status of women in the ages when Christianity was at its most powerful is the prevalence of wife beating. This degrading, disgusting practice was very common throughout Christendom well up into the 19th century, and under English Common Law husbands who beat their wives were specifically exempted from prosecution. (While wife beating is still common in Christian lands, at least in some countries abusers are at least sometimes prosecuted.)

At about the same time that English Common Law (with its wife-beating exemption) was being formulated and codified, Christians all across Europe were engaging in a half-millennium-long orgy of torture and murder of "witches"—at the direct behest and under the direction of the highest church authorities. The watchword of the time was Exodus 22:18, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," and at the very minimum hundreds of thousands of women were brutally murdered as a result of this divine injunction, and the papal bulls amplifying it (e.g., Spondit Pariter, by John XXII, and Summis Desiderantes, by Innocent VIII). Andrew Dickson White notes:

On the 7th of December, 1484, Pope Innocent VIII sent forth the bull Summis Desiderantes. Of all documents ever issued from Rome, imperial or papal, this has doubtless, first and last, cost the greatest shedding of innocent blood. Yet no document was ever more clearly dictated by conscience. Inspired by the scriptural command, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," Pope Innocent exhorted the clergy of Germany to leave no means untried to detect sorcerers . . . [W]itch-finding inquisitors were authorized by the Pope to scour Europe, especially Germany, and a manual was prepared for their use [by the Dominicans Heinrich Krämer and Jacob Sprenger]—"The Witch Hammer", Malleus Maleficarum. . . . With the application of torture to thousands of women, in accordance with the precepts laid down in the Malleus, it was not difficult to extract masses of proof . . . The poor creatures writhing on the rack, held in horror by those who had been nearest and dearest to them, anxious only for death to relieve their sufferings, confessed to anything and everything that would satisfy the inquisitors and judges. . . . Under the doctrine of "excepted cases," there was no limit to torture for persons accused of heresy or witchcraft.
Given this bloody, hateful history, it’s not surprising that women have always held very subservient positions in Christian churches. In fact, there appear to have been no female clergy in any Christian church prior to the 20th century (with the exception of those who posed as men, such as Pope Joan), and even today a great many Christian sects (most notably the Catholic Church) continue to resist ordaining female clergy. While a few liberal Protestant churches have ordained women in recent years, it’s difficult to see this as a great step forward for women; it’s easier to see it as analogous to the Ku Klux Klan’s appointing a few token blacks as Klaxons.

As for the improvements in the status of women over the last two centuries, the Christian churches either did nothing to support them or actively opposed them. This is most obvious as regards women’s control over their own bodies. Organized Christianity has opposed this from the start, and as late as the 1960s the Catholic Church was still putting its energies into the imposition of laws prohibiting access to contraceptives. Having lost that battle, Christianity has more recently put its energies into attempts to outlaw the right of women to abortion.

Many of those leading the fight for women’s rights have had no illusions about the misogynistic nature of Christianity. These women included Mary Wollstonecraft, Victoria Woodhull, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Margaret Sanger (whose slogan, “No God. No master,” remains relevant to this day)."

http://www.seesharppress.com/20reasons.html#numbersixteen

The history of relgion vis-a-vis misogyny is an excellent argument for separation of Church and State... A Liberal, progressive, secular non-religious democratic governmental structure that accomodates the idosynchrocies of archaic religious practices while enforcing the common good and human rights regardless of sex, race, age, religion or subcultural affiliation, goes further in ensuring human rights and even changing religious practice, than does fundamentalistic adherence to any religious form. Such a stucture, it could be argued, could actually have been inspired by the teachings of Jesus Christ, implementing His philosophy of tolerance and love into into its worldly and imperfect facsimile on Earth.

The argument that the Muslim should transcend backward practices of the past, making Islam a living religion is legitimate, and a legitimate theological challenge to the Islamic fundamentalist extremist, just as it is to the Christian fundamentalist extremist.

[Red Violin]

Islam Has Expired
By Amil Imani

Excerpts:
(...)

What Expires Religions?

The death of a biological entity is caused by trauma, viruses or bacteria. Viruses and bacteria are major killers of humans and present great challenges to medicine. They can be deadly and have the uncanny ability to mutate. Yet, they are there for their mission of ending life.

Poorly understood and little appreciated are psychosocial viruses—PSVs. As is the case with their biological kin, psychosocial viruses also work to corrupt any idea, mental functions or belief and help supplant them with new ones. Various forms of mental disorders are the result of interaction between the PSVs and the person’s pre-disposition for the condition. Not all mutations caused by PSVs are pathological. Many serve to advance the human enterprise. Without the contributions of the beneficial PSVs humanity would still be stunted in its development at the level of day one.

In the case of Islam, a special group of PSVs set out to work the minute Muhammad launched his faith and mutation rapidly followed. First, there was the Islam of Mecca or the Islam of Meekness. For thirteen years, Muhammad’s teachings, as recorded in the early Suras of the Quran, were about many good things. Very few people became attracted to what he preached. In fact, the people scorned the man, harassed him and eventually made him flee his hometown of Mecca for Medina.

Then a major mutation took place: the Islam of Medina or the Islam of Tyranny arrived on the scene. The Quran Suras of Medina are replete with exhortations of intolerance, exclusivity, and sanctioning of violence against non-Muslims. This mutation deeply appealed to the temperament of the Arab savages and they flocked to Muhammad’s faith.

The PSV of the time of Muhammad continued to mutate as it reached other peoples and other lands. Each peoples’ own ideas and beliefs—their cognitive immune system—responded differently to the invader. Some completely resisted the assault and defeated it. Others were overwhelmed and forced into submission. Yet some of the vanquished, over time, managed to repel the invader while others incorporated it to various extents into their own system of belief. In due course, the mutation among the vanquished people has become so divergent that some of the variants can hardly be recognized as the progeny of the original.

Islam of today is composed of a dozen major sects and hundreds of sub-sects and schools. Just two examples should demonstrate the fact that Muhammad’s Islam has expired and decomposed.

One branch of Sunni Islam, the Wahhabi for instance, has interbred with the Pashtune culture of Afghanistan and Pakistan and the result has been the Taliban version of Islam: a most reactionary, repressive and savage “religion.”

On the Shiite side, for example, there is a sect of the Ghulat Alavi that holds only to one of the five pillars of Islam: the Shehadah, an Islamic credo that says, “I testify that there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger.” This sect does not subscribe to the remaining four pillars of praying five times a day, fasting one month a year, pilgrimaging Mecca at least once in a lifetime, and paying the religious tax of zakat. The Alavi women are allowed participation in all religious events and are not required to don the hijab—a stark contrast to the Taliban who deny even rudimentary education to women and forbid them from leaving home without the accompaniment of a male relative.

The Ghulat Alavis deify the Imam Ali and the other Imams. They particularly revere the Imam Ali and worship him as a co-rank of God. They profess, “Ali khoda neest, valee as khoda joda neest”—Ali is not God, but he is not apart from God. This very same sect places Imam Ali above the Prophet Muhammad.

In conclusion, Muhammad’s dating of his faith notwithstanding, the facts conclusively show that Islam has expired. Over time, its component parts have undergone drastic mutations to the extent that the only thing that all Muslims have in common is the name of Islam and the Quran.

[Jack]

Actually the part about "beat them lightly" is NOT in the Quran. I've asked many arabic speaking muslims to show me the text that says "beat them lightly" in the Quran. None to date have ever answered with the arabic text ... and they do the dance around the subject after I call their bluff!

[Red Violin]

FWP: You're absolutely spot on. Woman are nothing by Chattles in Islam.

Most of the hadith and sharia laws are the result of battlefield ethics and should've expired a long time ago.

* In Germany, in August 1997, an 18-year-old woman was burnt to death by her father for refusing to marry the man he had chosen. A German court gave him a reduced sentence, saying he was practicing his culture and religion.

* In Iran, women and girls are forcibly veiled under threat of imprisonment and lashes, and cultural relativists say that it is their religion and must be respected.

* In Holland, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs states that Iran’s prisons are “satisfactory for third world standards," allowing the forcible return of asylum seekers.

Cultural relativism serves these crimes. It legitimizes and maintains savagery. It says that people’s rights are dependent on their nationality, religion, and culture. It says that the human rights of someone born in Iran, Iraq, or Afghanistan are different from those of someone born in the United States, Canada or Sweden.

Cultural relativists say that we must respect people's culture and religion, however despicable. This is absurd and calls for the respect of savagery. Yes, human beings are worthy of respect but not all beliefs must be respected. If culture allows a woman to be mutilated and killed to save the family “honor,” it cannot be excused. In the Islamic Republic of Iran, religion rules and has become the mass murderer of people. If religion says that women who disobey should be beaten, that flogging is acceptable, and that women are deficient, it must be condemned and opposed.

Cultural relativists go further to say that universal human rights are a western concept. How come when it comes to using the telephone or a car, the internet, the technology to extract their oil and refine it, the mullahs do not say it is Western and incompatible with an Islamist society? Isn't nuclear technology a 60-year old technology invented in the West and pursued so feverishly by the Islamists as we speak?

Some say that exposing reactionary beliefs serves racism. Opposing the rape of a nine year old girl who is forcibly married does not serve racism? Opposing the sexual abuse of a child even though the Islamic Republic of Iran's court says the father was forced to abuse the child because his wife did not satisfy him, does not serve racism - Culture for the sake of culture is not sacred. Racism and fascism also have their own cultures. A culture that cannot defend human beings to live a better life is worthless.

As Leila Farjami puts it so eloquently, "a stifled female Always means a Defeated Male. A Defeated Male means the endangered world we live in now". Sorry, if I sound like I'm outraged...But I really am.

[Ariel]

"How can we insist our culture reject the beating of a wife, if permitted by a faith based on the recommendation of a religious document, and yet use Christian values to denounce other actions that we might find detestable, e.g., abortion or homosexuality?"

LilMissIndie,

Islam embraces the first and rejects the second two, the more fundamental Islamic societies execute the last.

Our secular culture is permeated with Judeo-Christian values, you must recognize that. You should ask yourself, given the choice of current Judeo-Christian values and current Islamic values, which would you want to live under? Don't fall into the moral equivalence trap.

There are articles on the web, I no longer have the links, that argue our present scientific secular society arose because of the Christian separation of Caesar and God, Protestant individualism, and the Jewish love of learning and logic. Not despite but because. This argument is not new, but are the ones that opened my eyes over a decade ago, as did my Christian wife.

As for me, I find abortion as birth control detestable because it is the taking of innocent life, not because of some verse, if any, in the Bible or Talmud, but I do understand that there are times when abotion is correct. I believe that homosexuality is to be tolerated and that civic rights should not be denied them, but that every demand they make does not have to be embraced, and that not every "right" they claim is theirs to claim. None of this from religious writings, as I am an atheist. But I do know that I benefit from hundred of years of evolving Jewish and Christian thought.

If you removed "God" from the public square, which would actually become the rejection of Judeo-Christian thought, you would destroy the very civilization which you wish to save.

[Francis W. Porretto]

The Muhammad precedent is, as in all things Islamic, the determining factor.

Muhammad, once he'd achieved the stature of a Prophet-Warlord, was accustomed to having his way with whatever woman struck his fancy. That included the wife of his brother and a nine-year-old girl. His lusts were the central component of his life; virtually everything he did aimed at satisfying his desires for women or wealth.

Inasmuch as Muhammad is regarded by Muslims as the Ideal Man, for them to treat their spouses (and women generally) as chattels to be disposed of as they please is merely consistent. Does the attitude have a causal relation to their enmities toward non-Muslims? That's less clear...but there can be little doubt that it negatively affects non-Muslims' attitudes toward them.

[LilMissIndie]

Perhaps a much more difficult question to answer is, why do some of my comments end up in italics? Is there some code, like a phrase between < and > that helps highlight words or text? I need inflection tools, dammit.
[One of the commenters didn't close the italics. I've done it now. The brackets you have above are perfect simply put the letter i in the middle of them and at the end of the word or passage that you want in italics you have to close the html by doing the same sign but with / in front of the i ]

[LilMissIndie]

I started to leave this comment on Blue Crab, but I am much relieved to see the article over here, where I am familiar with commenters' remarks and maturity. Let me preface it by saying that I am a conservative feminist, but my question is this:

How can we insist our culture reject the beating of a wife, if permitted by a faith based on the recommendation of a religious document, and yet use Christian values to denounce other actions that we might find detestable, e.g., abortion or homosexuality?

Please don't draw conclusions about my beliefs from this question.

One reason I thought of this was because of a recent story out of the Midwest, wherein a church leader fired a woman from a teaching position based on the teachings of, I believe, 1 Timothy 2:11. I realize that this is a church issue and we have no right to interfere, and I realize that many would consider firing a woman is much different than "lightly beating" her (I'm not one), but I'm wondering how Christians, and Jews, can reconcile staying faithful to their scripture with conforming to our culture, given that our bar for our culture's limits is moved from generation to generation and sometimes even in less time.

Please don't confuse the question with the seeker. I was just suddenly struck with the thought that perhaps our nation must, indeed, become fully secular so that generations might change the culture according to what appears to be acceptable or not while they are living in it. That would mean taking the concept of God completely out of schools, government buildings, public venues, and prohibiting even the singing of God Bless America on the Capitol steps. Yes, I understand that individuals would still use free speech to witness, to broadcast religious material on their own stations, continue their religion-based schools.

I would appreciate your thoughtful responses. Thanks.

[Red Violin]

A Must Read:

See Husband-killing on the rise in Iran. Also read the stories of some of these women here on the Amnesty International site.

Shahla Moazami, a criminologist in Iran, performed a conclusive research in 2003 on the topic of “spouse-killings”. These were her findings:

“From her interviews, Moazami found a clear and common pattern in the stories of the female killers. The women married young, often 12-14 years old, and they had from 5 to 7 children. At the time of the murder their average age was 29 years old. Many of them tell that their husband had lost interest in them, and they felt that their beauty was fading.

When a new man takes an interest in them, they fall easily for him. The law gives women few possibilities to get a divorce, and the murder of the husband is planned and done together with the new boyfriend. Only 33% of the women did the killing on their own. Moazami also found cases where women, sometimes with the assistance of their daughters, killed a violent husband.

Moazami thinks there are several structural causes to spouse killing. She mentions poverty, illiteracy, traditional opinions and Iranian women’s position in marriage and society. Young marriage age is also important. Moazami thinks that the women were too young to understand marriage when they married at 12-14 years old, and it was difficult for them make their own demands.” Source: Norwegian Information and Documentation Centre for Women's Studies and Gender Research.

Let’s tackle the first issue: marrying young. Who decides for a girl to marry young in the first place? Every one knows in traditionally male-dominated households, nothing takes place without the Father’s permission. So, the answer is a “Male”.
Who decides for women’s divorce? A male judge based on religious and patriarchal interpretations of family laws.
In 67% of the cases, who carries out the murder? A male lover.

Since illiteracy is indicated as one of the cultural triggers to spousal killing, in a traditionally male-dominated society, who decides when and why and how a young girl should go to school or if she needs to go to school at all? The Father; or any other empowered Male figure.

Isn’t it crucially striking that the Father, the Judge, the Killer, and the Murder Victim are all Males? more...

[Red Violin]

Thank you Alexandra for highlighting the plight of muslim women. The veil is the least of their problems. The true Islam is the Taliban sort of Islam as everything they practice is clearly stated in the Koran and if some countries like Iran are more lenient in some aspects like allowing woman to go to school or drive, they're actually not following the Sharia laws.

Islam and Woman 101:
I'm a Msulim Woman

[Angel]

I will link to this hun...on my recent post..keep burning the light of Truth!

[rich]

Not on topic but did you see that Oriana Fallaci gave her books to the Pope?

http://www.washtimes.com/world/20061021-113644-3489r.htm

It is a wonderful world.

[rich]

Here is the link to the article in the Washington Post:

ISLAM AND WOMEN
Clothes Aren't the Issue

By Asra Q. Nomani
Sunday, October 22, 2006; Page B01

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/20/AR2006102001261.html