Here is another report that describes the prevalence and severity of domestic violence in a Muslim country without considering Islam's role. The broadcast version of the story, aired tonight, mentioned attempts to convince men that such behavior was un-Islamic and not what Muhammad would want; even that is absent from the online version excerpted below.
But the Qur'an (4:34) says you can beat your wife -- never mind the parenthetical additions of "lightly" by some Western translators. That doesn't help the women in Afghanistan. Nor do fanciful re-translations of the Arabic term. There can be no meaningful discussion of domestic violence in the Muslim world without acknowledging that Islam's scriptures, believed to be the direct word of Allah, approve of the idea of resorting to violence to "control" supposedly disobedient women.
As for Muhammad, he was a wife-beater himself, as Aisha recounts in this hadith that "He struck me on the chest which caused me pain." When, per Qur'an 33:21, a man who marries a child and beats her is your "beautiful pattern of conduct," you've got a serious problem.
That problem continues to manifest itself across the Muslim world. "Exclusive: The Secret Shelters That Protect Afghan Women," by Margaret Ako and Mark Mooney for ABC News, March 11:
Not every Afghan is hoping the Americans soon leave their country. Some are actually dreading it.
"You can't leave Afghanistan," Manizha, who helps run a shelter for battered women, recently warned "World News" anchor Diane Sawyer. Behind Manizha, women who were beaten, bruised and badly scarred shake their heads in urgent agreement.
The secret women's shelter is run by Manizha -- who, like most Afghans, goes by only one name -- and by New Yorker Esther Hyneman. It is one of a string of shelters and counseling centers that opened in 2007 and have since helped about 1,500 Afghan women escape beatings and abuse that can shock even battle-hardened combat surgeons.
Among the most heartbreaking is the story of Bebe. She is 17, and she says her face was mutilated by her husband, a Talib. Bebe's nose and ears were cut off as punishment for running away to escape the constant pummeling by her husband and his family.
She was married to the radical Muslim when she was 12, Manizha told Sawyer. Her marriage was the result of an outlawed tribal custom called "baad" in which the daughter was given away as compensation for a crime or offense committed by a male member of Bebe's family.
Girls given away in baad transactions are often little more than slaves. Bebe was forced to sleep in a stable with the animals, and beatings and pain became part of life for her.
Bebe tried to escape but was captured. Her husband was ordered by the Taliban to punish her by disfiguring her face. While her brother-in-law held her down, her husband sliced off her nose and ears.
Left for dead, she crawled to her uncle's house, but he refused to help. Bebe staggered on to her grandfather's house. He called her father. The local Afghan hospital was unable to treat her wounds, and suggested her father take her to the nearby U.S. military base, Forward Operating Base Ripley in Oruzgan province.
"She was very scared. She covered up," said Air Force Sgt. Lindsey Clark, a medic who was on duty when Bebe arrived three days after the attack.
Maj. Jeff Lewis, an Air Force surgeon, told ABC News he was used to seeing war wounds, but Bebe's injuries appalled him.
"It was barbaric and shocking to see this, that somebody had done this to this young girl... It was unlike anything I've ever seen," Lewis said. "I'm surprised that ... it still exists, this type of problem in the world." Despite their scars -- from fists, knives, burns, electrical cords -- there is an argument that the women at Manizha's shelter are the lucky ones.These women have found a way out of their brutal marriages. Millions of Afghan women are routinely handed over for marriages while they are still children and endure lives of constant battering.
"Ninety percent of Afghan women have experienced some form of human rights violation, 15 million Afghan women probably need our help," Manizha told Sawyer....
Keep repeating to yourself "all cultures are equal" over and over again, until all the ghastly visions that you no doubt envisioned while reading this Islamic horror story are gone.
Not only are you allowed to beat your wives, but also your sex slaves (Possessions of the Right Hand).
Hard to imagine human rights groups in the 21st century giving Islam a pass not only over domestic violence, but also sex slaves. Equally troubling is the Koran verse (65:4) that allows marriage (rape) and divorce of pre-pubescent girls.
The outrage from NOW and human rights groups is nowhere to be found.
Invite the women to the next "Interfaith" conference...
also keep repeating to your self , as a lib might say, those christian fundamentalists are just as worse, sometimes they are hit and told what to do and they deny their children abortions, converting to islam, homosexuality, drug use, joing communist party, and other thing that teenagers are naturally attracted to. yup just as bad.
From Sir Winston Churchill's "The Story of the Malakand Field Force", chapter entitled "The Theatre of War".
On family life and the treatment of women, among Afghan Muslims:
"But passing from the military to the social aspect of their lives, the picture assumes an even darker shade, and is unrelieved by any redeeming virtue.
"We see them in their squalid, loopholed hovels, amid dirt and ignorance, as degraded a race as any on the fringe of humanity: fierce as the tiger, but less cleanly; as dangerous, not so graceful.
"Those simple family virtues, which idealists usually ascribe to primitive peoples, are conspicuously absent.
"*Their wives and their womenkind generally, have no position but that of animals* {and we know the Islamic texts that explicitly *compare* women to domestic animals - dda}.
"They are freely bought and sold, and are not infrequently bartered for rifles."
Further:
"Their superstition exposes them to the rapacity and tyranny of a numerous priesthood--"Mullahs," "Sahibzadas," "Akhundzadas," "Fakirs,"
'--and a host of wandering Talib-ul-ilms, *who correspond with the theological students in Turkey* {nota bene - dda} , and live free at the expense of the people.
'More than this, they {the Talib - dda} enjoy a sort of "droit du seigneur," *and no man's wife or daughter is safe from them* {curiously, I recall somewhere that Khomeini indulged himself in this way at least once - seizing upon, and raping, the delicious prepubescent daughter of a family who were hosting him...alas, I cannot give the reference, perhaps someone else can? - dda}.
'Of some of their manners and morals it is impossible to write {I suspect that here Churchill is alluding to the sexual abuse of young boys, the boy-singers, etc. - dda}.
'As Macaulay has said of Wycherley's plays, "they are protected against the critics as a skunk is protected against the hunters." They are "safe, because they are too filthy to handle, and too noisome even to approach."'
The link doesn't appear to be working.
Almost despicable as this is the silence of the Western Left, particularly the feminist Left. Maureen Dowd, where are you?
Here is something that was posted, here on jihadwatch, in this thread
- read it -
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2007/02/45-yr-old-divorces-4-yr-old-wife.html
by a poster calling him or herself 'american soldier', on February 10 2007. The spelling (or perhaps the typing) is a little erratic but this soldier medic's heart is in the right place.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2007/02/45-yr-old-divorces-4-yr-old-wife.html#c347770
It matches, exactly, the testimony of the posted article.
American_soldier | February 10, 2007 9:56 AM
"Sick indeed.
'He might have already deflowered her.
' If not she still has the bad social stigma of being divorced and she is only four.
'He just has to wait a few more years then she is legal.
'While in Afganistan, we ran a clinic for people in the village.
'You wouldn't believe the number of abused women that were brought there.
' *Young girls around six to 14* {My emphasis - dda}.
'They were burned with scalding water, beat,
'* had all kinds of damage to their reproductive organs. Some women within an inch of their life.* {my emphasis - dda}.
' I am sure alot a killed and there is no reprocussions [sic: repercussions] for the husbands.
'They were often brought by their husbands, who were about 20 to 30 years their senior.
'They freak out when their young brides don't get pregnent or for any reason under the sun.
'I think most these girls by nature just try to be kids, which they are, and their adult husbands can't take it.
'*A women thats older than 14 and not married is an old maid* {my emphasis - dda}.
Any westren woman that would convert to Islam, should live in Afganistan."
And 'American Soldier' added a second posting in the same thread (responding to a poster ['Vulcan'] who had mentioned the sexual abuse of prepubescent boys by Muslims in Egypt):
American_soldier | February 10, 2007 11:37 AM
'Vulcan
'The same thing is true with young boys here.
'We share a FOB with Afgan soldiers and have Afgan locals kids and adults that work here.
'It happens all the time that we catch hanky panky between the locals and the kids.
'They prefer to get them before they grow facial hair.
'*I forgot to mention the fistulas that alot of these young women suffer* {my emphasis -dda}.
'Their young bodies aren't ready for child birth,
'Nor can these young women take a full grown man's penis.
'The result is often perment [permanent] damage and infertility,
'*which they pay for with a life time of beatings* {my emphasis - dda}.
'The situation is even worse in places with female circumcision, like Somalia.
'I think the gowing [sic: going] price for a dowry is really low too, and their fathers are happy to get rid of them as a burden.
' I bet if their husband kills them. They fathers could care less."
Some "liberation" we did in Afghanistan. Why can't our country do a war right? No ideology, no courage, no vision, no sense of direction. The Western democracy has outlived its usefullness. It is not up to the task of dealing with the Muslim world.
Ruslan Tokhchukov, EnragedSince1999.
The beast is truly in our midst. Not in the form of the dragon,nor the ogre,nor the asp, but tis indeed the islam.
I must have missed Sawyer's "special report" on what she saw in this women's shelter, or maybe it was too hot to handle because it defies the politically correct dogma of multiculturalism, diversity, and cultural/religious relativism the left wing useful idiots worship. They would have a hard time convincing anyone that Afghan culture is just as good as any other.
I guess the network just couldn't risk angering our "patriotic" muslim citizens by exposing the primitive, savage Afghans and the brutal cruelty Afghan women and girls are subjected to. After all, those horrible things don't happen here, do they?
Was the ABC link scrubbed? I cannot find it.
This makes me, a man, so angry! And then there are those that will still play the theme of "Islam is innocent until proven guilty". And "it is only guilty if it is proven that other religions, including atheism, have not also the same bad influence as Islam". And then the difference in quantity of bad deeds done by followers of different religions is either completely ignored or "doctored" to match.
Well, even if that could be true, it would only constitute the "Best case", it would only cause people to stop thinking about solutions because the problem is poorly diagnosed.
I think Muslims should let us consider the "worst case", that is that Islam IS a major cause of bad attitudes and deeds. And that Muslims should endeavour to rectify it themselves instead of vehemently protesting against our protests, trying to silence them with accusations of hate-speech, racism, extreme right-positions etc.
And all the more the MUSLIMA's wherever they are. Let us try to make this a worldwide contest between Islamic and Democratic values and rules concerning the rights of Women.
Let us open our arms for all those battered women with Muslim-husbands, let us help them escape, let us give them an alternative, and hope! We may try even to get some of these girls, together with Western and Indian girls to fight in well-trained armies in Afghanistan against the Taliban, as long as we are there with an army.
That would signify at least to the female Afghans (and Muslima's worldwide) what Democracy and Islam are about, and where they differ, regarding Women's rights, and of course, Women's freedom and happiness!
I wish I could teleport all Muslim women and girls to the West so they could live a peaceful and free life (any sane woman would leave Islam if given half a chance I believe - it's SO hard to think why a non-Muslim woman would convert to Islam in the first place), away from Muslim men who oppress them eternally.
The link supplied in the article just links back to Jihadwatch.
This is the ABC article:
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/Afghanistan/abused-women-afghanistan-helped-secret-shelters/story?id=10074409
Of course, this is nothing to do with Islam. Like FGM, slavery, wearing sacks, etc, this is just a tribal custom, and an outlawed one at that. Besides, the Crusaders did much worse things, didn't they?
Excuse me while I go and barf.
Good call St. Patrick. As stated on the front cover of "The Islamic Anti-Christ---The Shocking Truth About The Real NATURE OF THE BEAST"
Author Joel Richardson
The hidden agenda of Islam:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYMQneyuPSM
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2009/12/wafa-sultan-speaks.html