Sharia alert from India, via AFP, with thanks to Scaramouche:
LUCKNOW, India (AFP) - A powerful Muslim body in India has ordered a woman allegedly raped by a relative to separate from her husband, but said she was free to remarry if she wished.The victim, 28-year-old Imrana Ilahi, was allegedly raped by her father-in-law Ali Mohammed in Muzafarnagar district of northern Uttar Pradesh about two weeks ago.
The All India Muslim Personal Law Board, set up in 1972 to protect the rights of Muslim women in the country, said the marriage would have to come to an end.
"As per the Koran, Imrana's conjugal relationship with her husband stood dissolved since she has been raped by the latter's blood relative," the board's woman member Begum Naseem Iqtedar Ali told reporters here.
"Had she been raped by anyone other than a blood relation, she could have stayed with her husband ... but here a sacred relationship had been violated, the consequences of which have to be borne by Imrana and her husband Noor Ilahi," she said.
But Imrana could remarry if she wanted to, she added.
The Muslim body's rulings are binding on all Muslims in the country.
But it was a ruling by a group of local Muslim clerics that the mother of five children marry her rapist and treat her husband as her son that caused an public outcry.
The Muslim clerics said the rape had annulled the woman's marriage to her husband and had ordered that she marry her father-in-law.
Imrana's father-in-law, who is presently in jail, has alleged his daughter-in-law had consented to having sex with him....
When asked whether the ruling was too harsh on Imrana, Begum Naseem Ali said as believers of Islam, they had to "follow what has been prescribed by the religion and even the victim and her husband have professed to abide by Shariat."
You just have to love women's rights under Islam. Not the rape; sadly, that could have happened anywhere, but the aftermath.
"Had she been raped by anyone other than a blood relation, she could have stayed with her husband ... but here a sacred relationship had been violated, the consequences of which have to be borne by Imrana and her husband Noor Ilahi," she said.
It's astonishing that somewhere, at some time, people sat around and came up with such idiotic laws. And even more astonishing that somewhere along the line, people didn't stop and ask "What the ...?" and decide it didn't make any sense and should be changed. It beggars belief that a whole culture can be so dumb to begin with, and so dumb as to continue this evil and stupidity. How does one suspend reality for so long and so continuously? It's amazing these people know to feed themselves.
But Imrana could remarry if she wanted to, she added.
No doubt they think they're being so magnanimous when they say this, that the victim should praise and thank them.
It's hard to follow the logic here: the woman has been the victim of rape, probably more shocking to her because in this case the rapist was her father-in-law.
So, let's see - the Muslim Board ("set up to protect the rights of Muslim women" ???) says that the "sacred relationship" of her marriage was violated - not her person, you see, just the institution of marriage.
So - let's punish her some more. Take away her children - I believe that Islamic law awards them to the father.
Take away her means of support - she is likely dependent upon her husband as "careers" for women are likely scarce or non-existent.
Tell her she's free to marry again - Who in their right mind would want to enter into that type of relationship again, one that's considered more important than your own person, more important than any wrongs done to yourself?
Sadly, I suppose she considers herself lucky that she didn't have to marry the rapist.
And like so many other women in Islam, she will continue to suffer, most often in silence.
Jen,
I can help you to better understand this situation.
There ISN'T any logic there.
Feralee: many of them don't know how to feed themselves and depend on the charity of others. Even Ken Livingstone's notorious Qatar-based buddy, Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi condemned his Arab/Muslim bretheren for their sloth, rubbing the point in even deeper by noting the industry of the much loathed Israelis.
There must be an easier way to get rid of a daughter-in-law. At least he didn't murder her in the name of preserving family honor.
And should some of you wonder what force a Sharia' edict has in Hindu-majority and state-secular India, its this: India's founding fathers played dhimmi with moslems who'd torn the country up in 2 (now 3), caused a massive population shift, butchered innocents by the 1000s etc and agreed to have moslem personal and family law codified as an acceptable legal practice in india's othwerwise secular and well-written (though overlong) constitution.
I don't know of any other religion which seems so consumed by the issues of rape. A sign, no doubt, of its inherent misogyny and the fact that, when it comes to sex, on the whole it is all effed up.
Jen: "Who in their right mind would want to enter into that type of relationship again, one that's considered more important than your own person, more important than any wrongs done to yourself?"
The thing is, there is no such thing as "person" in Islam. Individuals don't matter, families, marriages, tribes, clans, "honor" do. A woman is a tool, a function in these collective patterns, not a "person" in her own right. There is no wrong against a replacable thing who is just a function in a sacred institution, only the institution itself can be wronged.
That's sick enough. But what's much, much worse is that (just in case someone will write here again: where are the feminists?) the "feminism" of the West has grown to hate the "individualist" idea that human beings are persons, so much that they won't say a word against that kind of sickness. That incredible beauty of the "collectivism" and the "family values" of "the other", we don't want to disturb it; we shall not impose on them our imperialist, individualist idea that human beings, including women, are persons; individuals worthy of respect and responsible for their own, and only their own actions. Therefore, no feminist (negative) attention in the West to cases like that: if you react, wou are an imperialist, "patriarchal" feminist, contemptuous of the "other", racist, bad.
Where's dhimmi Nicholas Kristof's outrage about this story????
Someone? Anyone?
Maybe he's afraid to write about this story because it explicitly points the finger at Islam as the culprit of these terrible human rights abuses toward women.
If you notice, Kristof loves to explain away these human rights abuses as "tribal" and "societal" when we all know that they're "Islamic."
To PRCS: Thanks - you're right. I keep forgetting that logic doesn't enter into this!
To rahel: And thanks to you too - I keep forgetting also that the individual really doesn't matter in Islam. I don't think of myself as a "replaceable thing" and so can't wrap my mind around this philosophy.
As for feminists - well, I'm definitely one, but I'm tired of hearing about family and cultural values. The words mean nothing when the individual is sacrificed to these great and untouchable amorphous concepts, which nonetheless inflict concrete damage on their flesh-and-blood victims.
Dhimmi India should be blasted by the international community for allowing "All India Muslim Personal Law Board." Basically, this is a sharia law system separate for Muslims. Set up in 1970's because of demands by Muslims to have sharia law. Let this be a signal to the Europeans and Americans, sharia law will come to your countries as well once the muslims are more than 10% of your country. They're already making calls for it. India is a very diverse country with people of all religions, just like America. Yet, this crap continues to happen b/c of sharia law.
The congress under Sonia will do anything for muslim
vote bank. Justice denied to a hapless woman is not something they care about. Remember Shah Bano case of the eighties ? Who heard Shah Bano's cries ?
Wonder where are the 'secular' muslim intellectuals of India ? No word from them. None whatsoever.
What happened to Saeed Naqvi (the fraud journalist pretending to be secular) , Shabana Azmi (the actress pretending to be secular) or
Abdul Kalam (the president who I thought had better sense) ?
What kind of a society tolerates such nonsense ?
Secularism is only for hindus in India.