Islam 101

ISLAM OPPRESSES WOMEN

"I have not seen any woman suffering as much as the believing women" (narrated by Aisha: Bukhari, v.7, b.72, no. 715)

If jihadists ruled the world, perhaps the largest demographic to suffer would be women - that is half the Earth's population oppressed in a single stroke.

It is common today to hear Muslim spokesmen and apologists claim that while women are far more oppressed in Islamic countries than in the West, this oppression has little to nothing to do with Islam or the example of the Prophet. Others even go as far as to claim that Muhammad was a historical pioneer in women's rights. But how true is this? Did Muhammad really sanction misogyny and oppression of women? We shall look now at a number of human rights abuses committed against women in the Islamic world, and examine whether they really are consistent with Islam's core teachings.

Polygamy

The Qur'an is very clear in giving Muslim men the right to marry up to four women at one time, and also to have sex with slave girls: "Marry women of your choice, Two or three or four; but if ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly (with them), then only one, or (a captive) that your right hands possess, that will be more suitable, to prevent you from doing injustice." (4:3)

Meanwhile, if a man is unsatisfied with his wife or wives, Islamic law says that he can divorce them simply by saying "I divorce you". Yet sometimes a man may divorce from his wife in a fit of rage and then want to take her back. This is permissible, but only a maximum of three times. Once the heartbroken woman has been divorced three times, the man cannot take her back a fourth time until she has married and slept at least once with another man. This has led to the phenomenon of "temporary husbands", where some randy Muslim male will "marry" the woman for the night so she can go back to her old husband.

All this is not some ancient custom or confined only to the Middle East. Muslim immigrants are bringing these practices to the West with them. It has been estimated that there are as many as four thousand polygamous families in Britain. Earlier this year it was revealed that Muslim immigrants who engaged in polygamy in Britain would be allowed to claim extra benefits - even though polygamy is illegal in this country.

Polygamy and temporary marriage reduce women to little more than commodities, and reinforce the idea that men and women are not equal partners, but rather women are something a man may accumulate as he wishes.

Child marriage

The Qur'an takes child marriage for granted. Take, for example, this passage, which explains the waiting period required to determine if a woman is pregnant before divorcing her: "Such of your women as have passed the age of monthly courses, for them the prescribed period, if ye have any doubts, is three months, and for those who have no courses (it is the same)" (65:4, emphasis added). Note that last part: here Allah is taking for granted a situation whereby a prepubescent girl is not only married, but is being divorced by her husband.

This may be because, infamously, Muhammad himself was no stranger to child marriage; he married his favourite wife, Aisha, before she hit puberty: "[The Prophet] married 'Aisha when she was a girl of six years of age, and he consummated that marriage when she was nine years old." (Bukhari v.5, b.58, no. 234, and others).

Because Muhammad is seen in Islam as the ultimate model of human behaviour (Qur'an 33:21), his example on this matter is still imitated by Muslims today. Iranian law allows girls to be married at the age of nine. The Ayatollah Khomeini married a girl of ten when he was twenty-eight. UNICEF reports that more than half the girls in Afghanistan and Bangladesh are married before they reach the age of eighteen. Researchers in refugee camps in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, as well other countries, have found over half the girls married by age thirteen. Even in Britain, imams have been caught praising the virtues of imitating the Prophet in this matter, as shown in a recent documentary broadcast on Channel 4.

Wife-beating

The Qur'an explicitly sanctions the beating of one's wife if she is disobedient: "Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them. Lo! Allah is ever High, Exalted, Great." (Qur'an 4:34) Note also at the beginning of the passage the suggestion that women are inferior to men and must be ruled by them.

As with so many things, this not solely an extremist view. In 1984 Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who is highly respected and influential in the Muslim world today, used this verse to justify wife-beating. In Pakistan, over 90% of women have been beaten or otherwise physically abused by their husbands - often for offenses on the order of cooking an unsatisfactory meal or giving birth to a female child. In other Muslim countries there are also alarmingly high levels of domestic abuse. Earlier this year, the President of Al-Azhar University in Cairo - the highest spiritual authority in Sunni Islam - reaffirmed the value and necessity for wife-beating according to this passage.

Covering up

For some reason, many people in the West seem to have assumed that the burqa was invented by the Taliban or some other such radical Muslim group. But in fact, it was also mandated by Muhammad: "Asma, daughter of Abu Bakr, entered upon the Apostle of Allah (peace be upon him) wearing thin clothes. The Apostle of Allah (peace be upon him) turned his attention from her. He said: 'O Asma, when a woman reaches the age of menstruation, it does not suit her that she displays her parts of body except this and this,' and he pointed to her face and hands." (Abu Dawud b.32, no.4092)

While this symbol of Islamic oppression is not strictly followed in all parts of the world, in some areas women have been brutalised and even killed for not adhering to it. One infamous example took place in Mecca in 2002. Fifteen girls died in a fire at their school when the Saudi religious police refused to let them out of the building, because in the female-only environment of the school they had shed their concealing outer garments. The muttawa preferred that the girls die rather than show themselves to men in public, and even battled with emergency services who were trying to open the doors.

Rape laws

One of the most appalling Islamic abuses of women concerns rape, and is a direct result of Muhammad's own behaviour.

Islamic tradition tells how Aisha was once accused of adultery. Muhammad was outraged by the accusations and refused to believe that they could be true (which they probably weren't, in any case). Eventually he received a new revelation from Allah which absolved Aisha of all guilt and scolded the accusers for failing to bring forward four witnesses to testify to the crime: "Why did they not produce four witnesses? Since they produce not witnesses, they verily are liars in the sight of Allah." (24:13)

Indeed, Islam discriminates against women by stating that their testimony is worth half that of a man's: "And call to witness, from among your men, two witnesses. And if two men be not (at hand) then a man and two women, of such as ye approve as witnesses, so that if the one erreth (through forgetfulness) the other will remember." (2:282). The Islamic legal manual Umdat al-Salik says women can only testify in "cases involving property, or transactions dealing with property, such as sales". Otherwise only men can testify.

The consequence of this is that it is virtually impossible to prove rape in Islamic countries. As long as the man denies the charges and there are no witnesses, he gets off scot-free because the victim's account is inadmissible. Even worse, if a woman makes an accusation of rape but cannot prove it with appropriate testimony, she may be incriminated on charges of adultery. This accounts for the fact that up to 75% of women in jail in Pakistan are there because they were the victims of rape. In Nigeria women have also been sentenced to death for being raped.

So are there any malpractices which aren't sanctioned by Islam? Well, yes, actually there are a couple:

Genital mutilation

Female genital mutilation, or circumcision, is designed to reduce a woman's sexual drive so that she will be less likely to commit adultery. There is little to nothing in Islamic tradition to justify this horrific and painful act, and it is also practised outside of Islam, but in any case it is still disturbingly common in an Islamic context, and is supported by some Islamic authorities. Umdat al-Salik says that circumcision is required "for both men and women". Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi, the grand imam of Al-Azhar University, says that female circumcision is "a laudable practise that [does] honour to women".

Honour killing

Honour killings are extremely common in the Islamic world. Women are killed by their own families for being raped or for being seen in public with a man who was not related to them, because they are viewed as having brought shame to the family or having compromised its honour. Justification for this in Islamic texts is scant, and once again it is not solely an Islamic custom; yet it could be said that these actions are the result of a culture that concentrates far more on shame and honour than on individual responsibility - and Islam has in many ways fostered this culture in many of its followers.

The bottom line

The fact is that adhering to Qur'anic literalism will inevitably result in more and more women suffering - whether it be by physical abuses or the heartbreak of multiple instantaneous divorces, they will suffer. As long as men continue to read the Qur'an and take it literally, women will be at risk. And given that the current global jihad network does indeed take the Qur'an very seriously, we should all hope that they never succeed in their mission to impose this system on us. In the mean time, we should give sober consideration to the suffering women are already going through in lands where such laws and behaviour hold sway.

Next time: What Islamic law mandates for dhimmis - that's most of you unless you convert with haste