There is "no compulsion in religion" according to Qur'an 2:256. However, Islamic law abounds in subtle and not-so-subtle means of coercion (cf. Qur'an 9:29) to impose itself on non-Muslim or not-Muslim-enough societies. Hence, in practice, there is no compulsion in religion until the jihadist thugs are strong enough to make you an offer you can't refuse. And once Sharia's strictures are in place, there is not only compulsion in religion, but the power to imprison and kill to enforce it. Chechnya is rushing headlong in this direction.
"RPT-Women without headscarves targeted in Muslim Chechnya," by Amie Ferris-Rotman for Reuters, August 21:
GROZNY, Russia, Aug 20 (Reuters) - Many women in Russia's volatile Chechnya region said on Friday they had been harassed and some physically harmed by bands of men for not wearing headscarves during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
Qur'an 4:34, in its letter and spirit, green-lights the idea of striking disobedient women.
Against the backdrop of a spreading Islamist insurgency, many fear that growing interest in radical Islam could fuel separatism in the volatile North Caucasus, where the Kremlin watches uneasily as sharia law eclipses Russian.
Residents and witnesses told Reuters that bearded men in traditional Islamic dress have been roaming the streets both on foot and in cars since Ramadan started on Aug. 11, demanding bare-headed women wear a headscarf.
"Two men came up to me, one furiously fingering a prayer bead, and said it wasn't pretty to have a bare head during Ramadan," 38-year old Markha Atabayeva told Reuters in the Chechen capital Grozny. "They instilled such fear in me".
Atabayeva was one of at least a dozen women who told of harassment or attacks. One of the women's assailants told Reuters "hundreds" of women had been warned.
Atabayeva said earlier she had seen a group of men with automatic rifles taunting women for not wearing headscarves.
A woman in her mid-30s said she was punched in the face by a man in Islamic dress after refusing to put on a headscarf he had given her.
The men's action follows a radical order earlier this week from Chechnya's spiritual leader to shut all cafes during the month of Ramadan, as well as paintball attacks on bareheaded women in June.
A number of other women described this week how men in cars threatened them with violence if they did not cover up. While some women carry headscarves in their bags, those without were encouraged to go home immediately.
The action targeting women highlights tension over efforts by Chechnya's firebrand Moscow-backed leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, to enforce Islamic rules that can violate Russia's constitution.
One of the assailants, who described himself as an "activist", told Reuters: "We are trying to warn women of their possible sins before God".
"We do this through force, fighting and battles," he said on condition of anonymity, adding that hundreds of Chechen women had been "warned" since the start of Ramadan.
Another assailant said they were working under orders from Chechnya's Centre for Spiritual-Moral Education, which Kadyrov set up 18 months ago.
Critics say that in return for keeping a shaky peace in Chechnya, site of two separatist wars with Moscow since the mid-1990s, Kadyrov is allowed to impose his vision of Islam.
Kadyrov's spokesman declined to comment on the action against women failing to wear headscarves. Alcohol is all but banned in Chechnya and women must wear headscarves in state buildings. Polygamy is encouraged by authorities.
Ridiculous Islamic men in Islamic dress(es). I've been saying all along that they dress like 15th C European women!
Sissy Muselmen!!
http://eleanorruth.typepad.com/blog/2010/07/iran-wants-to-put-men-into-pants-by-2019-says-ahmadinejad.html
"Polygamy is encouraged by authorities."
Islamic women must enjoy sharing their "man" with other women...
Ponder the dualism:
There is no compulsion in religion.
This is compulsion in religion.
Islam makes sense.
Islam is total nonsense.
Hence, in practice, there is no compulsion in religion until the jihadist thugs are strong enough to make you an offer you can't refuse. And once Sharia's strictures are in place, there is not only compulsion in religion, but the power to imprison and kill to enforce it.
This is exactly why Mahoundians cannot practice true freedom of Religion in America...If this is allowed the above will manifest...It's not just Chechnya is that rushing headlong in this direction.
Muslims minds and bodies are becoming mush, and will become steadily mushier the more they inbreed, and we all know they do that at an incredible rate, particularly in Muslim dominated countries. Learning disabilities already abound (not that they'd notice), deformities are on the increase (not that anyone outside the family would ever know), they've got increasingly unstable and more violent men (not that they'd care) but eventually, nature will stop it and there will be mass infertility in women, impotence and sterility in men, and a drop in population.
I don't know how much inbreeding is too much for nature to tolerate, guess we'll have to wait and see?
Haven't seen you for a while, sarge.
"Islamic women must enjoy sharing their "man" with other women..."
This morning NBC did a piece on interfaith marriages. A Christian woman married a Muslim man in an interfaith ceremony. After the wedding she was shown in the bath learning how to put on a head covering.
Each of these dunces covering their heads in the West symbolizes submission to an ideology of control.
I saw an interfaith marriage take place between a muslim man and non-muslim woman.
The bride was not allowed to stand with the groom, but her father did. Her father said the "I do's " for her and the father & groom cheek kissed when it was all over.
I wonder if she finally got the message after witnessing that?
"A woman in her mid-30s said she was punched in the face by a man in Islamic dress after refusing to put on a headscarf he had given her."
I picture an alternative ending to this story. The woman gets up off the ground, dusts herself off, picks up her purse and takes out her Magnum (it's a big purse.) Then she holds the gun three feet from the perpetrators forehead and tells him to put the head scarf on. When he balks she shoots him in the knee. Coward that he is, he puts that thing on pretty fast. Then she leads him to a back alley, tells him to take off all his clothes and climb in the nearest dumpster. This is of course in a part of the city where there is a lot of new construction going on and it's noisy outside. After he climbs in the dumpster she throws his clothes in a shopping bag she just happens to have with her and pulls out a handy dandy combo lock and clasps it on the outside of the guys new prison. She then catches the subway to the airport and jumps on a plane to freedom.
The End
"..in return for keeping a shaky peace in Chechnya, site of two separatist wars with Moscow since the mid-1990s, Kadyrov is allowed to impose his vision of Islam."
For political reasons a superstitious madman is allowed to fulfill his utterly alien and primitive desires for a religio-fascist state, the first victims of which of course are the women. To medieval Islamists of his ilk the modern free woman is just as alien as he is to me, and he quickly sees to it that she is told her place in the community: potential booty, the honor of the family - of the community entire - dependent on keeping her away from general sight, never the equal of the warrior being his prey only.
I love your story., may it come true some day.
Another assailant said they were working under orders from Chechnya's Centre for Spiritual-Moral Education, which Kadyrov set up 18 months ago.
..............
These thugs are, essentially, just a somewhat more informal version of the "Mutaween" (religious police).
More:
The action targeting women highlights tension over efforts by Chechnya's firebrand Moscow-backed leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, to enforce Islamic rules that can violate Russia's constitution.
..............
Russia may believe Kadyrov is "their man", but they are wrong—he is every inch the Ummah's man, every bit as much as the Chechen Jihadists who attacked the Moscow subway.
Just as with aiding Iran's nuclear program, Putin is enabling the Jihad—more fool he...
SA, "Sturmabteilung" of the Nazi party, the street thugs, the intimidators for the political/religious wing, the brawlers, little people with hates and prejudices, always willing to have a go at whichever enemy of the people they are told.
There is one slight flaw in Isabella's story. After being shot in the knee with a Magnum I don't think the Muslim aggressor would be going anywhere under his own steam.
I am so sick of the Muslim faith taking over and making what they believe in LAW....They can do what ever they want to the people who want to be Muslim,, I really don't care. If Muslim women want to be treated like dogs and disrespected because their men are PIGS,, so be it..
If you come into a country,, abide by their laws.. if you don't like it STAY in your own DAMN country which already enforce your sick traditions!! Just because other countries kiss your ass, because they want to be politically correct, doesn't mean the people of that same country will do the same! I am a Christian, and if the Muslims can have their foot bathes in public schools, I can have my 10 Comandments and a religion class and a prayer everyday in my public school too!!!
This country wasn't made to worship one religion is better than the other...
I wonder who was in the marital bed with the groom?
This is better....she picks herself up off the ground, grabs for her weapon, and orders him to put on the headscarf, then she fires weapon into his head....and lets him lay where he falls...making sure the headscarf remains on his head.
And one more thing...making sure headscarf stays on what remains of the Mooslim man's head.
The End.
Isabella, I love your 'story'! I've dreamed up a few of my own, mainly about Somali savages living in the U.S. They form street gangs and terrorize the natives, including the elderly. I would love to see some citizen 'justice' for these throwbacks from hell, which will eventually occur if they continue their primitive activities. They need to be slapped down hard, very hard.
Jokhar Dudayev, the President of Chechnya which led that republic towards a perfectly legal independence was an air force general with no islamic leanings at all.
Russia's repeated aggressions against Chechnya have radicalized the populace: the intimidation to which unveiled women are exposed on the part of Kadyrov-tolerated goons is nothing compared with the mass murder and torture indiscriminately perpetrated by the Russians.
Also, the Chekists deliberately favored the infiltration of Wahhabi preachers to divide the Chechens and discredit their fight for independence.
And now the Russians are dealing with a Muslim Nazi insurgency in the better part of the Northern Caucasus, and Ramzan Kadyrov, the thug they had appointed as "President" of Chechnya, is effectively out of control.
As a consequence of their policies.
Re. Chechnya.
Supposing the Russians had been as scrupulously restrained in their treatment of the Chechen Muslims, and other Caucasus Muslims, as the Israelis have been in their treatment of the local Arab Muslims, both within Israel proper, and outside it; does anyone here really believe that the Jihad against Russia, waged by Muslims both from within and from without the Federation, would have stopped, or would be less violent?
Or, indeed: had the Russians been more conciliatory, does it not in fact seem probable, given what all of us here have been learning about the mind of Islam, that the Jihad would have proceeded with even greater force, given a perception of 'weakness' in the Infidel target?