More on the Islamic resistance to reform of the sex laws in Pakistan. In my book The Truth About Muhammad I explain the events in Muhammad's life that led to the creation of the Islamic laws requiring four male witnesses to establish guilt in crimes of rape and adultery. Now that book has been banned in Pakistan for containing "objectionable material." But here is one indication that what I wrote in it about Muhammad's words and deeds was an accurate portrayal of how he is understood by Muslims: those resisting the new laws in Pakistan are doing so on Islamic grounds, because they know full well that the Qur'an and Muhammad really did require four male witnesses. By Mazhar Abbas for AFP, with thanks to DFS:
Human rights groups have praised Pakistan for overhauling its Islamic sex laws, but for women like Quratulain Sattar, it is still an uphill battle against trumped-up charges under the harsh legislation.The 25-year-old medical trainee's father lodged adultery charges against Quratulain and her husband, Faraz Shah, after failing to force her to marry the man of his choice.
Now pregnant and in hiding, she complains that even if she and Faraz are acquitted, they remain under threat for disgracing her family's "honour" under Pakistan's atavistic tribal system.
"The new amendments eased my legal battle but I am still in fear of my life and have to run from one place to another," Quratulain said at a shelter run by a charity in the southern port city of Karachi.
"We are husband and wife, we love each other and cannot leave each other," she added.
Quratulain married Faraz Shah in early 2005.
Coming from a conservative ethnic Pashtun background -- the same ethnicity as the Taliban -- her father filed a case arguing that she was already married to another man and that Shah had kidnapped her and forced her to wed.
The couple sheltered in Karachi at the private Edhi Centre, Pakistan's largest charity. They also worked as volunteers following the October 2005 Pakistan earthquake, which killed more than 73 000 people.
Her family's accusations are "completely false", she said.
"I was forcibly engaged with my cousin Bilal in [the conservative north-western city of] Mardan but never married. They are now coming out with fake witnesses," she said.
"I did nothing wrong as my mother and brothers knew about it. They had even met Faraz and liked him, but then they all changed and followed my father's attitude, and rejected my husband."
Her father and other family members were not available for comment despite repeated attempts.
The case is still active and is due to be heard soon at a court in Karachi.
In July, President Pervez Musharraf changed the 27-year-old Islamic "Hudood" Laws to make adultery a bailable offence, leading to the release of hundreds of women awaiting charges -- and meaning Quratulain would not go to jail.
Then last month Parliament passed a hotly contested Bill with further, major changes.
These included distinguishing between rape and adultery. Formerly rape victims had to produce four Muslim male witnesses to prove the allegation or else face adultery charges themselves.
The reforms will also reduce penalties for adultery to a maximum of five years jail, when it was previously -- although theoretically -- death by stoning.
The only way to truly change Islam it appears is to beat it to death and kick it out the door. How does one reform such a mess and still call it Islam? So long as the highly imperfect Mr. Perfect remains the measuring stick for thoughts and deeds there is no way to reform Islam and if you take Mo out of the picture there is no Islam at all.
If you know that five pennies are mixed in with a bag of garbage would it be worth the search?
Anything morally good in islam: charity to your tribe, helping widows and orphans in your tribe, praying, making sacrifices for the good of others and so on can be found in any other truly religious system. The occasional platitudes found in the Qur'an are not exclusive to it, nor are they as restrictive in other faiths. The good in the Qur'an only applies to muslims.
There isn't enough good in the Islamic system to try and reform it. All the good can be had in the faiths that Islam stole from anyway and it applies to a wider body of humanity as well.
The idea that a reform of Islam can be a worthwhile effort is postponing the inevitable. It's not worth getting filthy up to the shoulder while rummaging through the trash for a few pennies and it's not worth reforming Islam for a few platitudes and practices.
That trollop Sattar!!! How dare she disagree with her father and not wish to inbreed with her cousin! Marry the man she loves? Well, we can now see what's wrong with Pakistan these days...
{Remove tongue in cheek}
Shalom
Posted by: A_Plague_on_Both_Houses
There isn't enough good in the Islamic system to try and reform it.
I could not agree more
Trying to reform Islam would be similar to tranforming poop back into the food it once was, only more difficult.
The 25-year-old medical trainee's father lodged adultery charges against Quratulain and her husband, Faraz Shah, after failing to force her to marry the man of his choice.
...................................
This sort of thing is why I am so disgusted when naive people talk about Islam's promotion of "family values". Forcing a woman (even an underage girl) to marry against her will is fine, but an actual loving family like the Shahs has to be broken up with threats of violence and the full weight of corrupt religious and tribal law.
I wonder how many other cases there are like this all over the Muslim world that we never here about.
Here's another very similar case posted here at JW/DW just yesterday:
Sixth month in jail for Saudi woman involuntarily divorced from husband by half-brothers
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/014488.php
Another Muslim rapist in England today:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6199335.stm
Pakistanis are Rapists, that's what they do, that's all they do.
Trying to reform Islam is like trying to reform Communism or Nazism, it can't be done. Hopefully during the attempt to reform it, they will realize that it is Islam itself that must go. I'm sure that will be a painful lesson for them, but not as bad as continuing the barbaric Islamic practices in fear and ignorance. Unlike all other religions, Islam does not allow for seperation of clergy and state, does not allow for dissent or even difference of opinion and interpretation, mostly because everything from Jihad to sex laws are clearly given in Koran and Hadith. Such rigidity does not allow for a true democracy, and so keeps those people in stone age mentality with retarded technological and human rights development. Eventually they will abandon Islam, but no beast goes down without a fight.