Pakistani Islamic party leader: a woman should not report rape unless she has four witnesses

Miriam,

What a perfect loophole in islamic justice/logic: "Produce four witnesses."

I'm sure the four who commit rape will surely step forward and fess up! /sarc

Pakistani Islamic party leader: a woman should not report rape unless she has four witnesses
.................................

Straight from Islamic texts.

As Buraq so ably notes, it is rare that a woman would be raped in front of four witnesses—most rapes are done in secret. And with those that are not, it is likely some sort of horrific gang rape situation, where most witnesses would either be *perpetrators*, or, at best, cowed spectators. If they were too frightened to act at the time, they might well be too frightened to testify, as well.

Ludicrously, some Muslims try to point to the "four witnesses" rule to show that Islam "protects" women from false accusations.

Muhammed might have "covered his ass" when it came to the 'honor' of his favorite wife, but this rule has hardly worked to protect women ever since.

As noted above, and estimated *seventy-five percent* of women in Prison in Pakistan are accused of Zina. They didn't all "confess" through reporting rape or abuse, and they didn't all have "four witnesses" to convict them, either. Somehow, the "four witnesses" thing only works one way.

Moreover, even if she keeps quiet, if a woman loses her virginity, sustains sexual injuries, or becomes pregnant, these can be taken as signs of Zina, even if she was raped.

In Nigeria, a young girl who became pregnant was charged with Zina and sentenced to stoning, even though she reportedly never left the house and claimed quite plausibly that she was abused by her uncle. After she gave birth, she was only saved from stoning by an international outcry. I don't now is she is still imprisoned or not.

In Bangladesh, a fourteen-year-old girl was raped by her older cousin. They were discovered *during the rape* by the cousin's wife—who then, along with other family members, *beat the victim*.

The girl was then sentenced by the village council to flogging. The rapist was also supposed to be flogged, but he conveniently "escaped" before the sentence could be carried out. The rape victim passed out from blood loss while being caned, and later died in the hospital.

In Somalia, a thirteen-year-old girl was gang-raped. She reported the rape, and was quickly accused of Zina as a result. She was sentenced to stoning, and the stoning was carried out on this little rape victim by a howling mob of pious Muslims—which may have included some of her assailants.

These are just a few recent cases. There are many, many more.

God, I hate Islam.

islam is custom made and tailored for men! I am not sure if you know, I was raised a muslim in Iran. I remmebr when i was in 11th grade my mom wanted to come to the states and visit her brother(my uncle). she had to get the written permission of my dad who was very religoius. my mom was walking on egg shells and that worrying my dad will not get permission. had it not been for my older brother i don't think he would have.
m

Eastview : you are dead right !! That was the point made by Org.Mo. He was trying to save his own ass and he concocted a 'law' about four witnesses. I thought that must have been real witty- he had known you can never find four witnesses, so he saved his own 'reputation and his child-wife's'.

The nitwits MoSlums don't get it - four witnesses are made to save your own f-ass, it is not about punishing the innocent raped victims.

"The four witnesses rule is to prove zina, and has nothing to do with rape."

You are quite right Dave. Here is the 'documentation':

"RAPE IN ISLAM

The following quote, from the book "Role of Muslim Women in Society" by Afzalur Rahman (Seerah Foundation, London, 1986),specifically addresses the issue of - rape - (as opposed to adultery):

During the time of the Prophet, - Hudud - punishment was inflicted on the person who committed adultery on the evidence of the woman who was raped by him. It is reported by Wa'il ibn Hujr that a woman went out in the time of the Prophet to go to prayer, and a man who met her attacked her and got his desire of her. She shouted and he went off, and when a company of the - Muhajirun - came by, she said: "That man did such-and-such to me." They seized him and brought him to Allah's messenger, who said to the woman, "Go away, for Allah has forgiven you," but of the man who had had intercourse with her, he said, "Stone him to death." (Tirmidhi and Abu Dawud).

This tradition leaves absolutely no doubt of the validity of the evidence of women in - hudud - cases. It establishes, first, that in a case of rape, the solitary evidence of the raped woman, in the absence of their evidence, is considered sufficient to convict the rapist of the crime; and second, that the evidence of women is admissable in - hudud - cases, and that there are no plausible grounds not to admit their evidence in the Islamic Shari'ah.

In the light of the above hadith, it shows that the evidence of a *single* person, the female victim, can be sufficient to convict someone of rape according to the teachings of the Messenger of Allah.

The whole confusion over the rape issue to me seems to be that when people ask about rape, all the answers that are given relate to - adultery -. - Rape - and - adultery -are very different things, since in adultery usually both people are consensual, whereas in the case of rape the woman is an unwilling victim. To blindly apply the Islamic rules for adultery for the case of rape to me seems to be completely absurd and totally unjust, particularly when the above hadith demonstrates that the situation for rape is different than that for adultery.

To prove a case of adultery, usually you require four eye-witnesses who saw the act of coitus, except in the special case of when one spouse is accusing another, when if the accused swears innocence the innocence is accepted, as taught in the Qur'an. For the case of -rape -, however, the above hadith demonstrates quite graphically that - four witnesses are not required -, and therefore the case of rape is -different - from adultery.

Of course, a bit of sensible thinking also clearly shows why blindly applying the laws for adultery to the case of rape is unjust. ... Unfortunately, though, many Muslims seem to see no problem with applying the laws of adultery to rape!"

Any comments from sharia specialists? Robert? Anybody?

What other major religion has to run cover for itself time and time again because so many of its believers implement, enable or act in manners clearly inhumane, even assuming the original religious instruction was the opposite of how it came to be interpreted by large portions of that particular religion's followers? Again you miss the bigger picture and that is that Islam is a burden to mankind and no other major faith is.

Do you grasp what I'm saying here? Really? Let me spell it out for you since you are a rank apologist for man's worst religion of all time. Here it is: Islam sucks. Mohanmmed sucked. The Koran is just awful. The Hadiths and Sira unwittingly convey so much that is screwed up about Islam if only one comes to a study of them with no preconceptions. Every year more and more regular folks in the West are getting their fill of Islam. And you clueless about the real reason.

RAPE IN JUDAISM - and/or in CHRISTIANITY?

Let us examine how the Bible deals with the rapist:

"If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay the girl's father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the girl, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives." (From the NIV Bible, Deuteronomy 22:28).

Although this Verse from the Bible only talks about virgins, its the only verse in the entire Bible that talks about raping single women. Not to be biased or anything, but the Bible seems to have quite weird things in it that are quite irrational and quite ridiculous. Deuteronomy 22:28 forces the raped woman to marry her rapist. My question to the writers of the Bible is why in the world would any raped female victim want to be in the same town, not the same bedroom!! with her rapist?."

Did the Christians really take over this Jewish tradition?

"Qur'an (24:13) - "Why did they not bring four witnesses of it? But as they have not brought witnesses they are liars before Allah."

Sura 24 vers 13 refers to adultery NOT rape. Read Robert Spencers excellent comments "Blogging the Qur’an":

"Sura 24, “The Light,” verses 1-20:

This Medinan sura was revealed after the Muslims’ defeat of a pagan Arab tribe, the Banu al-Mustaliq. Much of it is preoccupied with one of the most notorious events in early Islamic history: the rumors that Muhammad’s favorite wife, Aisha, had committed adultery – an incident that has repercussions for Muslim women down to this day.

Verses 1-10 lay down general laws for adultery: adulterers are to receive a hundred lashes (v. 2); a man guilty of adultery may only marry a woman guilty of the same crime or a non-Muslim (v. 3); four witnesses are required to establish guilt, and false accusers should get eighty lashes (v. 4); husbands can establish charges of adultery against their wives if they testify four times under oath (v. 6) and invoke Allah’s curse on themselves if they’re lying (v. 7); a wife so accused can head off being punished by testifying four times that her husband is lying (v. 8) and likewise calls Allah’s curse on herself if she is lying (v. 9). ...."

"Let us examine how the Bible deals with the rapist:

"If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay the girl's father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the girl, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives." (From the NIV Bible, Deuteronomy 22:28).

Actions speak louder than words. As silly as this verse sounds and *IS* I have never heard of a case of a Christian woman being forced by Christians or Christian clergy to marry her rapist.

There may be the odd weirdo sect that tries to literaly enforce this archaic stance but oddballs in the Christian collective are usually quickly and loudly jumped upon by the whole Christian community.

Unlike the ummah that collectively jumps on anyone questioning these obscene tenets of islam rather than on "tiny minority" of their fellow ummah who are *enforcing* these obscenties against humanity like the scumball in the video.

That fact alone is why I am scared sh*tless of islam and its enablers but I'm not afraid of Christianity, Judaism or any other beliefs and their often oddball, weird and sometimes offensive verses.

And speaking of the scumball: mohammadans and libtards take note: he's not an "uneducated, illiterate." He's educated and literate and *STILL* he is "getting islam wrong" in the same way you claim only the ignorants do. Stupidity does not "twist and misinterpret" islam; islam twists and perverts human intelligence and humanity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEy69_qVarI

So, daveydork, you're calling your fellow muslimahs liars?

Typical.

Why do you vile reverts feel the need to defend your indefensible arabic male cult of racism and misogyny from the criticisms of its victims?

Why don't you traiterous reverts who claim it's all "misunderstood, mistranslated, a tiny minority of extremists" march your asses off to the crapistan of your choice and set straight the MILLIONS of bearded half-wits who DO get it so wrong (according to you)?

Why are you trying to teach us the "real islam"? Why aren't you putting your money where your mouth is and teach the "real islam" to all of those fools who are "getting it wrong"?

The questions are rhetorical, of course. I know why you tools don't do it. You're just whiney candy asses who think they can get "right" what others have been getting wrong for 1400 years but you're too chicken-shit to actually live in a crapistan and set the bearded half wits straight. You'd rather stay in the West with your conversion door-prize slave and play the victim.

""Qur'an (24:13) - "Why did they not bring four witnesses of it? But as they have not brought witnesses they are liars before Allah.""

"Sura 24 vers 13 refers to adultery NOT rape. Read Robert Spencers excellent comments "Blogging the Qur’an"

I said nothing about rape and why does anything require 4 witnesses?..

It does not matter what the Bible says on the matter of rape. Western nations do NOT base their legal system on what was written two thousand (give or take a century) ago.

Ole et all, actually Surah 24 1-10 refers to adultery and stops.

I outline the verses for you clearly:

Verse:001
Yusuf Ali : A Surah which We have sent down and which We have ordained: in it have We sent down Clear Signs, in order that ye may receive admonition.

Verse:002
Yusuf Ali : The woman and the man guilty of adultery or fornication― flog each of them with a hundred stripes: let not compassion move you in their case, in a matter prescribed by Allah, if ye believe in Allah and the Last Day: and let a party of the Believers witness their punishment.

Verse:003
Yusuf Ali : Let no man guilty of adultery or fornication marry any but a woman similarly guilty, or an Unbeliever nor let any but such a man or an Unbeliever marry such a woman: to the Believers such a thing is forbidden.

Verse:004
Yusuf Ali : And those who launch a charge against chaste women, and produce not four witnesses (to support their allegation)― flog them with eighty stripes: and reject their evidence ever after: for such men are wicked transgressors

Verse:005
Yusuf Ali : Unless they repent thereafter and mend (their conduct): for Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.

Verse:006
Yusuf Ali : And for those who launch a charge against their spouses, and have (in support) no evidence but their own― their solitary evidence (can be received) if they bear witness four times (with an oath) by Allah that they are solemnly telling the truth;

Verse:007
Yusuf Ali : And the fifth (oath) (should be) that they solemnly invoke the curse of Allah on themselves if they tell a lie.

Verse:008
Yusuf Ali : But it would avert the punishment from the wife, if she bears witness four times (with an oath) by Allah, that (her husband) is telling a lie;

Verse:009
Yusuf Ali : And the fifth (oath) should be that she solemnly invokes the wrath of Allah on herself if (her accuser) is telling the truth.

Verse:010
Yusuf Ali : If there were not for Allah's grace and mercy on you, and that Allah is Oft-Returning, Full of Wisdom--- (ye would be ruined indeed).

Verse:011
Yusuf Ali : Those who brought forward the lie are a body among yourselves: think it not to be an evil to you: on the contrary it is good for you: to every man among them (will come the punishment) of the sin that he earned and to him who took on himself the lead among them will be a Penalty grievous.

Verse:012
Yusuf Ali : Why did not Believers, men and women when ye heard of the affair― put the best construction on it in their own minds and say "This (charge) is an obvious lie"?

Verse:013
Yusuf Ali : Why did they not bring four witnesses, to prove it? When they have not brought the witnesses such men in the sight of Allah, (stand forth) themselves as liars!

Please note: Verse 6 of this Chapter. Individual and specific evidence of one man or one woman is only acceptable in case of complaint by a spouse.

Otherwise if it is not spouse complaint aianst each other it reverts to 4 witness.

The Maulana is correct as is the reading on this matter from the Hanafi, Maliki, Hanbali and Shafi schools of jurispudence.

Dave and simialr logic only works if the specific limiting condition of verse 6 is ignored. Islamic apologist tend to think that by slcetively ignoring the Quran, especially infront of non muslims will convicne us. If you wish to expunge some parts from the Quran please kindly debate with your fellow islamic scholars in Saudi, Iran, Pakistan etc and do not blame the messenger or reporter Mr Spencer in this case.

Dave,

Thank you for your point of view and your reference. It was very interesting reading.

It's true there were many commentors who castigated Hasan, and who wished to modernize or even replace parts of Islam or even the Koran. Of course, there were many who defended Hasan also.

I had an exchange with a Muslim who thought the system in Pakistan was reprehensible, and did not wish Islam to be judged by just Pakistan. Fair enough. Do we judge Catholicism based on the IRA of the '60's? Nonetheless, in spite of your quoting the Koran to show that true rape did not require 4 witnesses, we find the case, mentioned in the article you cited, of Mukhtaran Mai, raped by a village of men whose convictions for rape were set aside by the high court of Pakistan based on the lack of enough witnesses. So, perhaps rather than trying to convince us of the justness of the Koran, you should be trying to convince Hasan and his ilk.

But, I have the highest respect for some of the commentors, who truly seemed humane and anxious to live in a modern society not dictated by traditional Sharia. The question is, are these individuals doomed to failure and perhaps to a more concrete doom if they publicly oppose the fanatic Islamists?

Unfortunately, we find systematic abuse of women in other countries besides Pakistan: Bangladesh, Nigeria, Egypt, Somalia...generally, Muslim countries. So, you and the other liberals in Islam appear to be fighting a losing battle.

Regardless, I look forward to any counter-arguments you wish to bring to this venue.

"My question to the writers of the Bible is why in the world would any raped female victim want to be in the same town, not the same bedroom!! with her rapist?.""

===================

As I have proven in my previous post, this is a horrible rendering issue.
The Hebrew doesnt mean 'forced' in that passage as it does in the other.

"Why are rape victims punished by Islamic courts as adulterers?"
==========
Because islamic men are cowards and dogs.

Here are the facts as I see them.

1. Islamic "men" MUST have forced arranged marriages because no sane self respecting woman would give any of them the time of day if she had any choice in the matter.

2. Younger islamic boys/dogs use the excuse of 'honor', as if any muslim even knows what honor is, to rape their own sisters because they are nothing but deranged, sex crazed freaks of nature who couldnt get a real woman by their own merits if they tried.
These maggots know they cant get a woman to marry them so they come up with b***s**t reasons to be able to rape some poor Islamic girl (or other).
If it werent for rape these pukes wouldnt ever get a woman to put out.

Rape in islam has nothing to do with honor or anything a woman has done.
It is entirely about sexually deviant 'men'/dogs who cant get sex any other way.

"I said nothing about rape and why does anything require 4 witnesses?.."

The discussion here is about RAPE not ADULTERY!

Why anything requires four witnesses is as good a question as why one of two adults having consentual sex can be convicted of rape and put to jail.

In orther words it depends on the lawmakers and the interpretation of the law by the court, and in some cases good old racism:

"A Palestinian man has been convicted of rape after having consensual sex with a woman who had believed him to be a fellow Jew.

Sabbar Kashur, 30, was sentenced to 18 months in prison on Monday after the court ruled that he was guilty of rape by deception. According to the complaint filed by the woman with the Jerusalem district court, the two met in downtown Jerusalem in September 2008 where Kashur, an Arab from East Jerusalem, introduced himself as a Jewish bachelor seeking a serious relationship. The two then had consensual sex in a nearby building before Kashur left.

When she later found out that he was not Jewish but an Arab, she filed a criminal complaint for rape and indecent assault.

Although Kashur was initially charged with rape and indecent assault, this was changed to a charge of rape by deception as part of a plea bargain arrangement.

Handing down the verdict, Tzvi Segal, one of three judges on the case, acknowledged that sex had been consensual but said that although not "a classical rape by force," the woman would not have consented if she had not believed Kashur was Jewish.

The sex therefore was obtained under false pretences, the judges said. "If she hadn't thought the accused was a Jewish bachelor interested in a serious romantic relationship, she would not have cooperated," they added."

(Quoted from "The Guardian", Wednesday 21 July 2010).

And then there is the special definition of (imagined) rape in Swedish law. Consensual sex may be rape if the woman feels bad about it some time later. In feminist Sweden it is assumed that women always know when it is rape.

So rape is what the lawmakers decide is rape - like statuary rape in the U.S. But that is another mad story.

Rape as we normaly define it in the West is not found in the Qur'an. The punishment for rape doesn't exist in the Quran, only in the hadiths. That may explain the bloomin' buzzin' confusion about this matter in the Islamic tradition and practice.

"Deuteronomy 22:28-29 has nothing to do with 'rape'"

It has everything to do with 'rape'. In Young's Literal Translation the defining words are: "and hath caught her". To catch a person means: "to stop someone after you have been chasing them and not let them get away." (The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English).

"Deuteronomy 22:28-29
Young's Literal Translation (YLT)

28 - `When a man findeth a damsel, a virgin who is not betrothed, and hath caught her, and lain with her, and they have been found,

29 - then hath the man who is lying with her given to the father of the damsel fifty silverlings, and to him she is for a wife; because that he hath humbled her, he is not able to send her away all his days."

Case closed!

It might work if the female is not a Jewish feminist. Because that is 'rape by deception' and you go to jail. ;-)

Se my comment above (July 8, 2011 6:23 PM) about an Arab getting an easy but expensive lay. Never fuck around with Jews!

"Deuteronomy 22:28-29 has nothing to do with 'rape'"

It has everything to do with 'rape'. In Young's Literal Translation the defining words are: "and hath caught her". To catch a person means: "to stop someone after you have been chasing them and not let them get away." (The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English).

"Deuteronomy 22:28-29
Young's Literal Translation (YLT)

28 - `When a man findeth a damsel, a virgin who is not betrothed, and hath caught her, and lain with her, and they have been found,

29 - then hath the man who is lying with her given to the father of the damsel fifty silverlings, and to him she is for a wife; because that he hath humbled her, he is not able to send her away all his days."

Case closed!
================

Case close my rear, friend.
I gave a VERY clear presentation and BACKED it with law from EXODUS!
Contrary to your uneducated views Deuteronomy is a REPETITION of many EXISTING laws...therefore it is EASILY deduced by the LANGUAGE and CONTEXT and the FACT that the Hebrew wording is DIFFERENT, not being 'FORCED' in the passage in question as the previous one, that it is NOT talking about RAPE and the RAPED woman having to marry her RAPIST.

Sorry pal but Ive spent probably TEN THOUSAND hours on the topic of marriage and sex in the scriptures and I frankly dont CARE what the Youngs says..it isnt the best version out there to begin with.

You can either deal with the FACT that the word is DIFFERENT in that passage and DOESNT mean 'forced'....or you can keep your head in the sand and pretend it means whatever nut case story you feel to concoct....but that dont make it so.

Here is ANOTHER translation...

(CEV) Suppose a woman isn't engaged to be married, and a man talks her into sleeping with him. If they are caught,

So why is YOUR translation right and MINE wrong??????

The FACT is the wording is NOT indicative to RAPE in this case....like it or not.

Scholars on the matter;
================================
"and lay hold on her, and lie with her, she yielding to it,>>>>>>>>>>>> and so is not expressive of a rape, as Deu_22:25 where a different word from this is there used; -John Gill
================================

Now....you care to keep pushing a bogus fallacy?

"Deuteronomy 22:28-29 has nothing to do with 'rape'"
It has everything to do with 'rape'. In Young's Literal Translation...................
Case closed!
================

Case closed my rear, friend.
I gave a VERY clear presentation and BACKED it with law from EXODUS!
Contrary to your uneducated views Deuteronomy is a REPETITION of many EXISTING laws...therefore it is EASILY deduced by the LANGUAGE and CONTEXT and the FACT that the Hebrew wording is DIFFERENT, not being 'FORCED' in the passage in question as the previous one, that it is NOT talking about RAPE and the RAPED woman having to marry her RAPIST.

Sorry pal but Ive spent probably TEN THOUSAND hours on the topic of marriage and sex in the scriptures and I frankly dont CARE what the Youngs says..it isnt the best version out there to begin with.

You can either deal with the FACT that the word is DIFFERENT in that passage and DOESNT mean 'forced'....or you can keep your head in the sand and pretend it means whatever nut case story you feel to concoct....but that dont make it so.

Here is ANOTHER translation...

(CEV) Suppose a woman isn't engaged to be married, and a man talks her into sleeping with him. If they are caught,

So why is YOUR translation right and MINE wrong??????

The FACT is the wording is NOT indicative to RAPE in this case....like it or not.

Scholars on the matter;
================================
"and lay hold on her, and lie with her, >>>>>>>>>>>>>>she yielding to it, and so is not expressive of a rape, as Deu_22:25 where a different word from this is there used ================================

Now....you care to keep pushing a bogus fallacy?

Not messing about with Jews is often good common sense. Jewish culture tends to encourage independence and self-defense.

I find that the same is true with a number of other cultures. Mostly ones that I like.

Other than that, having read your comment of 6:23 PM, I'm not sure that I altogether like the aroma of your reasoning.

Do yo or do you not believe in objective absolute reality and objective absolute morality?

That is a yes or no question ... just in case there's some doubt.

==========

That said, I think you're onto something when you assert that rape as understood in the modern western world was not within the conceptual grasp of the authors of the koran. That seems quite plausible.

Individuality in general, and the individuality of women in particular are concepts that the arabs of the koranic period may not yet have mastered. Or if the high culture of the time had figured it out, they had not yet popularized the notion, and the more brutish koranic authors were just going with the pop culture of the time as they felt it in their own lives.

I.e. apelike collectivism and the understanding of women as useful but not properly conscious beings. Pre-cultural really.

==============

And to finish it off ... I fear that I have to inform you that the noble savage act works just fine with Jewish leftist feminists just like any others.

Trust me on this.

"The discussion here is about RAPE not ADULTERY!"

""Qur'an (24:13) - "Why did they not bring four witnesses of it? But as they have not brought witnesses they are liars before Allah.""

"Sura 24 vers 13 refers to adultery NOT rape. Read Robert Spencers excellent comments "Blogging the Qur’an"

You pointed out that the 4 witnesses were required for adultery not rape...I merely pointed out that when Muslim women are claiming a rape has occurred that the Muslim jurists will accuse her of adultery which does require 4 witnesses...

The "dave742" wrote:

The four witnesses rule is to prove zina, and has nothing to do with rape.
...........................

Our resident Hizb'allah supporter is being entirely meretricious here. The concept of "Zina" is merely "unlawful sex"—*any* sex outside marriage. It does not take the concept of consent into account at all. Hence, a rape victim is every bit as culpable as a woman committing adultery.

Ole Hartling wrote:

The whole confusion over the rape issue to me seems to be that when people ask about rape, all the answers that are given relate to - adultery -. - Rape - and - adultery -are very different things, since in adultery usually both people are consensual, whereas in the case of rape the woman is an unwilling victim.
...........................

Although you cite a Hadith that shows the "Prophet" Muhammed accepting the word of a rape victim, this is rarely the case in Islam historically.

In my post above, I cited the cases of three obvious rape victims, above, who were all *sentenced to death* by Islamic bodies.

Consent and free will rarely come into it. If a woman is "guilty" of Zina—if she has had any sort of sex outside marriage—she is "defiled" and must be made to pay for it.

gravenimage,

Four witnesses were not required when the perpetrator confessed or when there was other evidence of the crime.

Muhammad didn't simply accept the word of the rape victim. In that case, he accepted the word of the man who confessed to the crime. Here is the full quote (see Hadith Search Truth, Abu Dawud) [my emphasis] (parentheses of the translator):

Sunan Abu Dawud, Book 38, Number 4366:
"Narrated Wa'il ibn Hujr:
When a woman went out in the time of the Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) for prayer, a man attacked her and overpowered (raped) her.
She shouted and he went off, and when a man came by, she said: That (man) did such and such to me. And when a company of the Emigrants came by, she said: That man did such and such to me. They went and seized the man whom they thought had had intercourse with her and brought him to her.
She said: Yes, this is he. Then they brought him to the Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him).
When he (the Prophet) was about to pass sentence, the man who (actually) had assaulted her stood up and said: Apostle of Allah, I am the man who did it to her.
He (the Prophet) said to her: Go away, for Allah has forgiven you. But he told the man some good words (AbuDawud said: meaning the man who was seized), and of the man who had had intercourse with her, he said: Stone him to death.
He also said: He has repented to such an extent that if the people of Medina had repented similarly, it would have been accepted from them."

As I noted in a previous comment about this issue, apparently there was no "need" for four witnesses in that case, because the perpetrator confessed! How often does that happen? More often, the perpetrator is either not identified or found, or is identified by the victim but denies her accusation.

Also note the penalty here: Stoning to death--the same penalty as for adultery.

The "crime" in that hadith was forcing, or attempting to force, a free Muslim woman to have sex. In this case the man is not her husband.

The Reliance of the Traveller says: O-24.9
"If testimony concerns fornication or sodomy, then it requires four male witnesses (O: who testify, in the case of fornication, that they have seen the offender insert the head of his penis into her vagina)."

From Islam q and a:

Sheikh Muhammad Saleh Al-Munajjid wrote:
"[...]The punishment for rape in Islam is the same as the punishment for zina (adultery or fornication), which is stoning if the perpetrator is married, and one hundred lashes and banishment for one year if he is not married.
Moreover, Ibn `Abdul-Barr (may Allah bless his soul) said
The scholars are unanimously agreed that the rapist is to be subjected to the hadd punishment if there is clear evidence against him that he deserves the hadd punishment, or if he admits to that. Otherwise, he is to be punished (that is, if there is no proof that the hadd punishment for zina may be carried out against him because he does not confess and there are not four witnesses, then the judge may punish him and stipulate a punishment that will deter him and others like him). There is no punishment for the woman if it is true that he forced her and overpowered her. (Al-Istidhkaar, 7/146).[...]"

From the Hedaya:

“Evidence is of several kinds, that of four men, as has been ordained in the Qur’an; and the testimony of a woman in such a case is not admitted’ because… “in the time of the Prophet and his two immediate successors it was an invariable rule to exclude the evidence of women in all cases inducing punishment or retaliation”; and also because the testimony of women involves a degree of doubt, as it is merely a substitute for evidence, being accepted only where the testimony of men cannot be had; and therefore it is not admitted in any matter liable to drop from the existence of doubt. (Hedaya 1982, 353-54 bk. 21, chap. 1)”

-quoted on p. 120 in Asifa Quraishi's chapter Her Honor
An Islamic Critique of the Rape Laws of Pakistan from a Woman-Sensitive Perspective
In Windows of faith: Muslim women scholar-activists in North America
By Gisela Webb (Ed.) (2000) Syracuse University Press

From Bewley, Maliki jurisprudence,
The Risala of 'Abdullah ibn Abi Zayd al-Qayrawani (310/922 - 386/996)
A Treatise on Maliki Fiqh (Including commentary from ath-Thamr ad-Dani by al-Azhari)

"37.23. Conviction for illicit sex (zina)
37.23a. Establishment of guilt
The hadd for illicit sex is only carried out when proven by confession, clear pregnancy, or the testimony of four free men who are adult and of good character who see the actual act, like a kohl stick entering a bottle.
[If someone confesses to zina, even once, that obliges the prescribed hadd. Clear pregnancy is proof when the woman has neither husband nor master. The third form of establishing guilt is the testimony of four free men who must see the act of penetration in illicit sex.
[Hashiyya: In the case of confession, it must be someone whose confession is valid by his being adult, sane and not compelled.]"

"37.27 A Kitabi rapist
If a Christian rapes a Muslim woman he is killed.
[Or a Jew. When the rape is proven by four witnesses because this action violates their contract. When one of them breaks the contract, he is killed.]
[If he rapes a Kitabi woman married to a Muslim, there are two positions about whether he is executed. If he marries a free Muslim woman and she does not know that he is a dhimmi, she receives no hadd and there is disagreement about killing him. If she knows that he is a dhimmi but does not know that it is forbidden for her to marry a dhimmi, she receives no hadd. He is not killed, but is punished severely. Four witnesses to the actual act are required, and the child has the mother's deen, not that of the father. He must pay the bride-price to her.]"

"37.29. The one who carries out the hadd punishment on slaves
A master imposes the hadd punishment for illicit sex on his slave or slavegirl is she becomes pregnant or if there is other evidence in the form of four witnesses, or confession. But if the slavegirl has a free husband or her husband is the slave of someone else, the hadd punishment is only carried out on her by the ruler."

"38.3b. Acceptable witnesses
One only accepts the testimony of reputable witnesses.
[ Being reputable ('adala) is not that a man is investigated for obedience so that no act of disobedience sullies it because that is impossible and only the true are capable of it. What is meant is he usually is obedient to Allah and avoids wrong actions.]
[Someone who is 'adl is free, Muslim, sane, adult, free of iniquity, debarment due to foolishness, and free of innovation. Innovation includes Mu'tazilites and Kharijites. Al-Qarafi said, "In our view, 'adala is Allah's right from the judge. He is only permitted to give judgement with reputable witnesses. Ash-Shafi'i said, "Since it is Allah's right, even if the litigants agree to accept the testimony of an unbeliever or one with whom Allah is angry, the judge is not permitted to give judgement on that basis." Ibn al-Qasim said that.]"

http://bewley.virtualave.net/RisShahadat.html

RonaldB:

///Mukhtaran Mai, raped by a village of men…///

I looked up this issue. Mukhtaran was not “raped by a village of men”, she was allegedly raped by four men:

“…four men, including one of the tribal council members, allegedly raped Mukhtaran Bibi…”

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2002/07/11/letter-president-pervez-musharraf

I am guessing that your impressions of this case come from reading the MSM. The MSM rarely provides both sides of an issue, and never gives any details. If you are interested, I found some details that were not covered in the MSM:

http://www.pakistanpressfoundation.org/userMediaFilesDetails.asp?uid=25565

///Unfortunately, we find systematic abuse of women in other countries besides Pakistan: Bangladesh, Nigeria, Egypt, Somalia...generally, Muslim countries. So, you and the other liberals in Islam appear to be fighting a losing battle.///

You say that Muslim countries systematically abuse women, but you give no proof whatsoever, much less any context. Why not look at the issue of this thread, which is rape, and compare it to what we have in the US? How about looking at the rates of rape in Pakistan and compare them to the rates in the US?

Here is an often-quoted statistic about the estimated number of rapes in Pakistan:

“Rapes occur in Pakistan at an estimated rate of one every two hours, and the rape itself is only the beginning of the horror…”
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/02/opinion/02kristof.html

This is not the number of reported rapes, but an estimate of the total number of rapes.
(Whenever you bring up rape rates in a Muslim country, the standard response is that rapes are not reported. This is not an issue here. The stat above is for estimated total rapes, not reported rapes. As far as the issue of reporting rapes is concerned, I read this:“In the past few years the internationally notorious cases of Mukhtaran Mai, Shazia Khalid and Sonia Naz have revealed a great deal about the problem of rape in Pakistan. There are no reliable statistics, since 80 percent are believed to go unreported.” http://parisar.wordpress.com/2007/03/08/rape-and-the-us-sponsored-islamization-of-pakistan/ . Eighty percent of rapes go unreported in Pakistan! That certainly sound bad, but it is not really much different in the US: “One of the more striking findings of this study was that only 16% of all rapes were reported to law enforcement.”
http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/219181.pdf ).

So let’s look at the Pakistan rape stat. One rape every two hours. Sounds awful. Let’s express that stat as a yearly rate. There are 8,760 hours in a year, so the estimated number of people raped in Pakistan per year is 4,380. The population of Pakistan is 169 million.

The number of rapes in Pakistan is about one out of 38,500 per year.

In this publication, it says that in the US about 800,000 a year are raped:

“During the past year alone, over 1 million women in the U.S. have been raped: over 800,000 who have been forcibly raped, nearly 200,000 who have experienced drug-facilitated rape, and about 300,000 who have experienced incapacitated rape.”
http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/219181.pdf

The population of the US is 307 million. The number of rapes in the US is about one out of 380 per year.

The rape rate in the US is 100 times higher in the US than in Pakistan.

In this publication, the value given for the number of women raped in 2006 in the US was 113,290:

http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/cvus0602.pdf

Using this value, the number of rapes in the US is about one out of 2,700 per year.

Using this value, the rape rate in the US is 14 times higher in the US than it is in Pakistan.

Let’s look at how many girls under the age of 13 are raped in the US.

http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/CRV92.PDF

If you look at the chart in this link, numbers are given for rape of 13 year olds or less for 8 states. The following list contains those states, followed by the percentage of rapes in that state which are of children under 13, followed by the total number of rapes, followed by the number of rapes of children under 13 (the two previous numbers multiplied):

Alabama: 10% 1404 140
Delaware: 29% 78 22
Idaho: 9% 221 19
Michigan: 35% 4731 1655
North Dakota: 35% 124 43
Pennsylvania: 14% 2996 419
South Carolina: 16% 2193 350
Wisconsin:10% 1314 131

The total number of rapes in these states of women under 13 is 2779. These states contain 13.2% of the total US population. If the rate of rape under 13 is approximately equal in these states compared to the entire country, then the total number of women under 13 who are raped in one year in the US is about 21,000.

The number of rapes in the US of children under the age of 13 is about one out of 14,600 per year.

In the US we rape over twice as many girls under the age of 13 than people in Pakistan rape women of all ages.

People here like to argue that Islam teaches rape. Let’s assume that this is true. In spite of this, Pakistanis rape women at a far lower rate than Americans do. If Islam teaches rape, then why is the rape rate lower in Pakistan than in the US? Are Pakistanis genetically less prone to rape women, and even when taught to rape, they still rape at a lower rate than in the US? Or does Christianity teach rape more efficiently? What is it?

///… who truly seemed humane and anxious to live in a modern society not dictated by traditional Sharia…///

“Traditional Sharia” is not what you might think it is if you get your information from JW. See here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/20753339/Gates-of-Ijtihad

"Moreover, Ibn `Abdul-Barr (may Allah bless his soul) said The scholars are unanimously agreed that the rapist is to be subjected to the hadd punishment if there is clear evidence against him that he deserves the hadd punishment, or if he admits to that. Otherwise, he is to be punished (that is, if there is no proof that the hadd punishment for zina may be carried out against him because he does not confess and there are not four witnesses, then the judge may punish him and stipulate a punishment that will deter him and others like him). There is no punishment for the woman if it is true that he forced her and overpowered her. (Al-Istidhkaar, 7/146).[...]"

The key words here seems to be: "... then the judge may punish him and stipulate a punishment that will deter him and others like him). There is no punishment for the woman if it is true that he forced her and overpowered her."

Four witnesses are not needed because rape is a 'hiraba' crime":

"... The crime of rape is classified not as a subcategory of ‘zina’ (consensual adultery), but rather as a separate crime of violence under hiraba. This classification is logical, as the "taking" is of the victim’s property (the rape victim’s sexual autonomy) by force. In Islam, sexual autonomy and pleasure is a fundamental right for both women and men (Ghazâlî); taking by force someone’s right to control the sexual activity of one’s body is thus a form of hiraba.

Rape as hiraba is a violent crime that uses sexual intercourse as a weapon. The focus in a hiraba prosecution is the accused rapist and his intent and physical actions, and not second-guessing the consent of the rape victim. Hiraba does not require four witnesses to prove the offense, circumstantial evidence, medical data and expert testimony form the evidence used to prosecute such crimes. ..."

Quoted from "Rape & Incest: Islamic Perspective" (2002) by
Uzma Mazhar.

Link:

http://www.muslimaccess.com/articles/Women/rape_in_islam.asp

In my (neutral) opinion Mazhar seems to have some valid juridical points based upon the Hadiths.

In the end it boils down to who has the power to decide how to prosecute a case of rape. In Islamic Sharia 'hell holes' the cards are stacked against the female victim of rape in any imaginable way and traditionally she is victimized twice. No doubt about that.

But there seems to be a way out of the 'hell hole' whithin the framework of Islamic jurisprudence. The West must apply political and moral pressure whenever the rights of Muslim women are violated. Sometimes it helps:

"A court in Bangladesh has (in July 2010) outlawed punishments handed down by Islamic edicts or fatwas after a series of cases of women being beaten, caned and whipped for “offences” they were judged to have committed by village elders.

... In one of the most notorious incidents, a 16-year-old girl was flogged 101 times with a whip when she became pregnant after being raped. The teenager, from the Brahmanbaria district in eastern Bangladesh, received the punishment after village elders decided she had acted immorally. The 20-year-old rapist was pardoned. ..."

Link:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/bangladeshi-court-outlaws-fatwa-punishments-2024229.html

"Strict - and even less strict - Muslim countries have solved this problem by segregation and/or very, very severe punishment to the rapist"

Are you kidding? Muslim countries haven't "solved" anything! Muslim females get raped and molested just as much as females anywhere, and Muslim rapists don't get any severe punishment!

The difference in Muslim countries is that rape isn't reported because the females have no chance to win a case in which, absurdly, 4 male witnesses must be provided, and also because a raped female dishonors her family and would probably eventually be honor-killed for the crime of being raped. So, they're not reported.

Due to uber-misogynist shar'ia law and the "honor" society of Islamic countries, Muslim males commit rape and molestation of females with 100% impunity. Find a case in which a Muslim male was prosecuted and convicted of rape - I bet you can't.

"Islam the religion of raping women with impunity"

Exactly, as I also said above. "4 pious male witnesses" renders prosecution impossible. And the women know it, so what's the use? Which is why Muslim countries don't have rape statistics.

Once again, nitwits, four witnesses is for zina. Four witnesses is to protect the women from charges of zina.

//Moreover, even if she keeps quiet, if a woman loses her virginity, sustains sexual injuries, or becomes pregnant, these can be taken as signs of Zina, even if she was raped.//

Wrong. As I pointed out in my paper (cited above), "the woman can avoid the hadd penalty by saying that she got pregnant in her sleep without her knowledge, or that the pregnancy was the result of heavy petting without penetration!"

See:

“cases of zina and theft, the only offenses that required, respectively, capital punishment or mutilation – aside from highway robbery – were, short of confession, nearly impossible to establish.”
Wael Hallaq, "Shari’a: Theory, Practice and Transformations" (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 312

See also,

“In the Hanafite doctrine in particular, it is nearly impossible for a thief or fornicator to be sentenced, unless he wishes to do so and confesses.”
Peters, Rudolph, "Crime and Punishment in Islamic Law" (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005) p. 54

Even if you were caught having sex, you could simply say that you married each other:

“Hanafis were willing to accept statements from the accused such as ‘you married me’ or ‘I married her,’ even though there had been no legal marriage, as sufficient for establishing shubha [judicial doubt]. Although a man owed his partner monetary compensation in this case equivalent to the amount of a fair dower, the judicial doubt established by these claims voided hadd penalties.”
Tucker, Judith E., Women, Family, and Gender in Islamic Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 189

Re: Deuteronomy 22:28. You argue as follows:

”The Hebrew word translated as "take" with the accusative has the meaning employed in "he takes his shirt", or "he picks up his sword", at most "he grabs his sword" but only referring to him as the active part and the sword (in Deut 22:28 the unbetrothed girl) as the passive part. Much as a man would brag perhaps: "I took her" not implying that he raped her.”

The key word here is not 'take', but 'hath caught her' – the literal translation of the Hebrew words used. To catch a person means: "to stop someone after you have been chasing them and not let them get away." (The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English).

Allow me a comment in Danish. Som 12-årig lærte min fremmelige kusine, der var et par år ældre, mig et lille frækt vers: “Og ka' du finde mig så må du binde mig, og ka' du holde mig så må du bolle mig.” Den remse har jeg aldrig glemt selv om episoden nu ligger 55 år tilbage i tiden.

Anyhow, you are dead wrong. Just check the official Danish translation of 5-22:28. In the 1933 version it says 'forced intercourse' (tiltvinger sig samleje med hende). In the new translation the word 'rape' is used in 22:29. So please don't try to confuse a simple matter.

Well, I should have known there would be a couple of cases.

However, for the most part, Muslim males escape punishment for rape for the reasons I already cited above, and 100% impunity for honor killings.

I wonder how they found the 4 male witnesses?!

Re Deuteronomy 22:28

My sources are "Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia" and "Wilhelm Gesenius' Hebraiches und Aramäisches Handwörterbuch"

Oh, this one is one of the more well known gang-rape cases from Saudi Arabia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatif_girl_rape_case

when - naturally - the victim was convicted too. Her tale is quite interesting and confirms much of what I wrote: " "I [was] 19 years old. I had a relationship with someone on the phone. We were both 16. I had never seen him before. I just knew his voice. He started to threaten me, and I got afraid. He threatened to tell my family about the relationship. Because of the threats and fear, I agreed to give him a photo of myself".
From then on she was in his power - always that fear that disclosure is worse! - and eventually the gang rape was unavoidable.

The rapists were actually quite lucky there: theoretically they could have been beheaded: sentences do not get more severe ...although a thousand lashes applied hard does not come across a something to be desired. (And I now see our dave obligingly has supplied more cases)

As to the number of unreported cases ...we simply do not know. We do not know. We can only look at how the secular law, the religious law and finally tradition look at rape, and how some societies view rape as an enforcing your will on another group. And accordingly they themselves see to it that their own women are "protected". Projection pur.

I remember from the Sudan how the rapist shouted - according to a victim: "I shall give you Arab children!"

We could also begin to discuss why arranged and forced marriages should not be rape. And why segregation as such isn't a form of rape on woman.

"As to the number of unreported cases ...we simply do not know"

Over 1400 years? Gazillions.

"Over 1400 years? Gazillions"

An unprecedented number! lol.
Nah, it's not a funny subject. But I was referring to these present days when some societies are less open than others and statistics are less than easy to come by, and we have to refer to nebulous claims like "one rape every two hours!!!, a number clearly applied only to make it seem horrific. Even if at closer inspection it perhaps is less so.

Dave,

Thank you for your well-documented reply. I read through the article on Mukhtaran Mai, and I agree the case has very questionable circumstances.

You make a case that the rate of rape in the US is far higher than in Pakistan. That may be true. However, although your statistics of rape in the US came from officially-sanctioned, academic studies, your figures on rape in Pakistan came from hearsay. It's true that you chose an article highly critical of the treatment of women in Pakistan, which would not knowingly underestimate the number of rapes in Pakistan. But, it may have unknowingly underestimated the number of rapes. We just don't know.

It may be as Steffan Larsen put it: "Unfortunately they are part of the price women have to pay for mingling in a free society."

But, your point is that Islam per se does not encourage rapes.

I think your article that you linked to is much more interesting, though: http://www.scribd.com/doc/20753339/Gates-of-Ijtihad

You argue that the West, and Orientalists in particular, consciously shattered the foundations of real Sharia, which provided for stability and change in Muslim countries, so the West could kill Muslims without regret, break up their territory, and steal their resources.

I actually think you and I agree on a few things, which is that by and large, the European countries should not be engaging in military actions in Muslim countries, unless directly provoked. Afghanistan is a case of direct provocation, although there is no good reason to remain.

But, certainly at this point in time, there is no need for the West to steal anything from Muslim countries. The countries with oil are all too willing to sell it to us, and the countries without oil have very little to offer, as their technological, scientific, and productive capacities are primitive and underdeveloped.

Perhaps your thesis will be given a test if countries like Egypt are able to dodge the bullet of a Muslim Brotherhood government. I doubt you will be happy with the results, but I hope I am wrong in that respect.

/// your figures on rape in Pakistan came from hearsay///

No. It comes from the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, which is non-profit and not connected with the government:
http://www.hrcp-web.org/aboutus.html

This statistic is quoted often:

“According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan it is estimated that a woman is raped every two hours and a gang rape occurs every eight hours…”
http://www.humanrights.asia/news/ahrc-news/AHRC-STM-059-2008

See also:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6148590.stm

//But, it may have unknowingly underestimated the number of rapes. We just don't know.//

Although the statistic is an estimate of the actual number of rapes, and not a figure reflecting reported cases, and because it originates from a well-respected source, I think it is as accurate as anything coming from any country, including here. There may still be some effect of underreporting, but as I showed above, the US has the same issue. 84% of rapes go unreported in the US as well. No amount of ifs, ands, or buts can overcome the fact that the rape rate in Pakistan is 20 to 100 times less than in the US. Any objective person has to accept the fact.

// Perhaps your thesis will be given a test if countries like Egypt are able to dodge the bullet of a Muslim Brotherhood government.//

A Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt would not go back to a Sharia law which would be in any way connected to the Sharia of the past. The Sharia of the past is gone forever. The Sharia that some Muslims want now is simply a reactionary response to being militarily subjugated and humiliated. Reactionary trends always tend to gain support under these types of conditions. If China invades the US, occupies us, kills large numbers of us, takes our homes and make us live in the desert, etc., then reactionary forces in this country will also gain in popularity. The Christian right would have a field day. Abortion, porn, alcohol, bikinis, etc would all become illegal, and we would become much more conservative. Even in the face of our empire collapsing this is happening already. Imagine how much it would accelerate under foreign occupation.

Islam was fine until they were occupied by the West. Their culture was far more advanced than ours. The best thing we could do is to close all 800 military bases around the world, stop bombing their countries, and instead try to actually compete for resources through hard work and good example, rather than by force. Simply leave people the hell alone, and they will be fine.

You seem much more level headed than 99% of people here. Maybe you can understand this: I am not a Muslim. I think religions are silly, although I do connect on some level with what Zed Buddhism teaches. My defense of Islam originates in feelings of empathy. I do not like it when people are subjugated, humiliated, and killed in my name. Although I have no religious motivations, I can imagine how Muslims feel and what motivates them. When I put myself into their shoes, I am shocked at how peaceful they are. I know that if China occupied the US, took my house, and killed my wife and dog, I would resist violently in a second. If there was no effective way to resist, I would also consider suicide bombing. This seems like a natural response. (BTW, at the end of the movie “Independence Day”, the alcoholic ex-pilot becomes a suicide bomber to kill the invading aliens. When the suicide bomber is on your own side, doesn’t it seem heroic?).

Re Deuteronomy 22:28

"My sources are "Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia" and "Wilhelm Gesenius' Hebraiches und Aramäisches Handwörterbuch"

You are still confusing the matter and not providing any documentation for your claim. A source reference is not documentation for anything.

If you fail to supply the German translation of 22:28-29 from "Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia" and thereby prove your point you stand refuted.

I have found a commentary by the English commentator on the Bible, Matthew Henry, from 1706 which in all respects confirms my claim:

"V. If a damsel not betrothed were thus abused by violence, he that abused her should be fined, the father should have the fine, and, if he and the damsel did consent, he should be bound to marry her, and never to divorce her, how much soever she was below him, and how unpleasing soever she might afterwards be to him, as Tamar was to Amnon after he had forced her, Deut. 22:28, 29. This was to deter men from such vicious practices, which it is a shame that we are necessitated to read and write of."

A 'damsel' means 'a young unmarried woman', and 'abused by violence' is what we today call a classical case of 'rape'. Plain and simple.

Link to full commentary to Deuteronomy Chapter 22:

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/henry/mhc1.Deu.xxiii.html

"I am not a Muslim"

Well, that's really weird, Dave. Seeing as how your paper contained quotes like the following:

The plan is to end Islam. This plan, however, will not work. Although the West has done incredible damage to
Islamic culture of the past two centuries, ultimately, Muslims will not allow their culture
and religion to be destroyed by the West. Islamic culture is in the process of
transformation, and regardless of the exact outcome, Muslims will not allow their system
of law to become a copy of the West:

If you recall, I never asked if you were Muslim. I assumed you were, but I read your references and took your arguments on their own merits? Why is it necessary for you to emphasize that you are not Muslim? I guess it is because there is so much in your writing that would make a reasonable person assume that you are a Muslim, and wondering why you are claiming to not be Muslim.

As far a supporting Hezbollah, and wishing for the destruction of Israel, this demolishes your pretenses of being a reasonable person. Israel is a sliver of land in the Middle East. There was a war of independence, resulting in about 500,000 (very roughly) Arab refugees, and 500,000 Jewish refugees. The Arab countries lost. Now, in spite of trillions of dollars in oil revenues, and as much independence as they could ever wish for, they continue to blame Israel for their sorry economy and sorrier record of human rights.

Yes, I wish the US would stay out of it completely. I don't like to see the US shooting at Iraqis, or Afghans, and certainly not Libyans. Contrary to your claim, the US is acting thoroughly against its own interests in pursuing these will 'o the wisp and immoral wars. If we stayed out of Libya, either Khadafi's forces would win, and carry out a small masssecre

massacre of the opposition, or the opposition would win and carry out a massacre of the Khadafi forces. Either way, it would be over quickly, and US forces would have done no killing of Muslims or other Arabs, which is important to me.

The unreasonable rage against Israel has everything to do with Islamic doctrine. Most/many secular Egyptians also don't like Israel, but they are not willing to destroy their country to act on it. The Islamists are willing to destroy anyone to eject what they see as infidel invaders.

The Palestinians destroyed Lebanon, tried to destroy Jordan and other countries, and were kicked out of Kuwait for Yassir Arafat's treachery. The West Bank, now under the Palestinian Authority, is experiencing a rapid economic growth of over 10% per year, as they did before the first intifada. So, why do we encounter the continuing rage against the Israelis, and the support, like your own, of the terrorist groups like Hezbollah? It's the Islamic view that divides the world into Islam versus non-Islam, and the dictat to never allow Islamic territory to fall into infidel hands.

In a way, Dave, you love to have your cake and eat it. Anything wrong or unreasonable or retrograde about Islam, you can attribute to the British occupation of India. Everything is the fault of the West, which distorted the true, benign Islam beyond recognition and beyond recovery. You now depend on the likes of Hezbolah to restore the independence of the Arab countries. This is the same group that tortured their prisoner, William Buckley, for years, in a manner that passed savage.

But, in a way, we still have a common point of view. If the US does anything to destroy itself, it will be its costly, fruitless, totally misguided attempts to use military force to mold the Muslim countries of the Middle East. The very best policy we can have towards Muslims and Muslim countries is very, very strong, secure, and non-porous borders. And, a strong partnership with Israel.

Dave needs to report back to Loonwatch, where he lives, they need him over there more than posters need him here...

Certainly. I only concentrated on the word "take". Your translations are as good as anyone's, I only looked closer at the verb translated to give the meaning of "rape". Now and then a few surprises pop up that make the established seem not so very certain.

The Hebrew word employed is the verb "t-f-s". With the "w-" prefix for "and" and the "-ah" suffix for "her" in the accusative. Written w-t-f-s-h.

I quote Gesenius:
1) "fassen, ergreifen". Examples given are plentiful with and without a preposition (a robe, a sword) until one in particular: "m.d. acc. d.P. De 22:28" (my emphasis), with no other meaning given.
2) m.d. acc "einer Stadt habhaft werden, sich dort festsetzen, sie erobern"
3) "Sich an Gottes Namen vergreifen
4) als part m. folg. gen "etwas handhaben", "gebrauchen u. behandeln"
5) "Einfassen", "beschlagen"

I would hesitate to use a stronger word than "take". It is a pretty strong word on its own. The actual meaning of it here however I think is open to discussion, and most would say "and he takes her by force", and so would I probably if I was for asked for a dead certain interpretative translation, perhaps by the word "grap". I would look very carefully at the preceding verses however, to see if it is meant in opposition to not only the married or betrothed woman, but perhaps also in opposition to "rape".
Marrying a woman off to the man who has raped her against some recompense seems a strange and alien concept ...but very likely this is what is meant.

That he "lies with her" of course tells us what he has in mind. But is it quite certain she does not agree?

I used the expression "hesitate" meaning exactly that. As a suggestion worthy of some consideration. This is not adultery, but is it also not rape?

In the Gesenius there is suggested a connection to a similar word in Arabic that does mean "mit Heftigkeit ergreifen". But meanings of words tend to become fluid across the centuries.

"Also, the Muslim Brotherhood has already been bought-off by Usrael. Although I am not religious, I support Muslim resistance groups such as Hezbollah because they are extremely effective, and because they cannot be bought off. Their religion gives them unparalleled integrity, and I respect that. IMO, the best chance Muslims have to defend themselves is from religious groups such as Hezbollah. The Muslim Brotherhood, howver, is not in the same category. They have been bought, and if they came to power, they would serve the West just as Mubarek did. I do not support them."

bwahahahahahahahaha!

"A senior Hezbollah official has now stated publicly for the first time that his organization has been providing Hamas with "every type of support" for a long period of time.
"We have always said that we supported the resistance in Palestine, but we have not mentioned how or given details of such support," Naim Qassem, the deputy leader of the Lebanese organization, said in an interview published by the Financial Times on Wednesday.
"But Egypt has now revealed that we have given military support to Palestine."and we all know how the Palestinians love Israel" We have done so for a while, but we have not talked about it," he continued.
It is one of the secrets of the resistance that we don't talk about the details of our support, but suffice to say that we are giving them every type of support that could help the Palestinian resistance. Every type that is possible," he said.

The statements are the clearest yet of the ability and desirability of Shiite Muslim armed groups (Hezbollah) to tactically ally themselves with armed Sunni groups (Hamas). This means the transfer of technology, lessons learned, tactics, intelligence etc. is well advanced among groups that have long and valuable experience in terrorism and irregular warfare.
While the intelligence community for years denied such alliances were possible, they have long been operative. One of the key bridges between the Sunni and Shiite world has been the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Brotherhood has mediated or attempted to mediate a host of disputes between Shiite and Sunnis, including the unsuccessful efforts by the International Muslim Brotherhood's Yousef Nada to negotiate an end to the Iran-Iraq war.
One of the biggest bones on contention between the MB in Iraq and the al Qaeda groups of Zarqawi was the latter's insistence on targeting Shiite groups, while the MB units viewed that as a far lower priority than targeting the Americans.
The understanding of the structure of the Muslim Brotherhood has often been misunderstood in the United States, where it is often viewed as Egyptian organization. The international structure is largely ignored. It is also worth remembering (although it seldom is) that Hamas is, according to its own statutes-article 2-an organic part of the Muslim Brotherhood.
That means that Hamas cannot be acting in this regard without the knowledge of its "mother ship," the MB.

As you can see Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Muslim Brotherhood are co-conspirators dedicated to the destruction of Isael....Hezbollah has not been "bought off by the Israelis"...

"Islam was fine until they were occupied by the West. Their culture was far more advanced than ours"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Yeah, thanks, Muslim dave.

The Mohammedans have invented nothing. Everything they have is due to the West. The Mohammedans didn't even invent the light bulb! Which is an apt metaphor - Islam is Darkness. The Islamic culture is a parasitic culture on the West. Parasites.

As duh swami said above:

"Dave needs to report back to Loonwatch, where he lives, they need him over there more than posters need him here..."

Yeah, go back to idiotic Loonwatch, daveMuslim, you Loon.

"Ugghh.. how I wish Islam would just go away"

Earth would immediately be an improved planet. Islam has been a plague on humanity for 1400 years. Barbarians. In the 21st century still practicing polygamy and impregnating child brides. Disgusting. If I had one wish - Islam would be extinct. Like the dinosaurs.

"BTW, you probably idn't (sic) know that most suicide bombers are secular. Once again, it's occupation, not religion"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Do you really believe your titanic BS Muslim dave? Wow, I'm responding to a brainwashed person. Totally brainwashed. Please stay at LOON watch where you belong.

Ole,

Yes, rape can be dealt with under hirabah, or fasad, the penalties for which are laid out in Quran 5:33. Since these categories are so broad and general, many kinds of sins/crimes deemed to be contrary to Islam or the Islamic social order can be dealt with under these categories, e.g., apostasy and blasphemy, for example, have also been treated as hirabah by jurists. Marriage or consensual sex between a non-Muslim man and a Muslim woman, for example, has been considered as corruption (fasad) on earth; dhimmi males guilty of this would be considered to have violated the dhimma and would be punished as harbis.

Further from my Islam q and a sourced cited previously:

"[...] In addition, the rapist is subject to the hadd punishment for zina, even if the rape was not carried out at knifepoint or gunpoint. If the use of a weapon was threatened, then he is a muharib, and is to be subjected to the hadd punishment described in the verse in which Allah says (The recompense of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and do mischief in the land is only that they shall be killed or crucified or their hands and their feet be cut off from opposite sides, or be exiled from the land. That is their disgrace in this world, and a great torment is theirs in the Hereafter) (Al-Ma’idah 5:33).
So the judge has the choice of the four punishments mentioned in this verse and may choose whichever he thinks is most suitable to attain the objective, which is to spread peace and security in society, and ward off evildoers and aggressors."

I would question your apologetic source's implication that zina (illegal sex) and hirabah are considered mutually exclusive categories, with mutually exclusive rules of evidence and punishments. Obviously, from the hadith I cited, a zina punishment (stoning to death) was used by Muhammad to kill a confessed rapist. The "Islam q and a" source I cited noted explicitly, as did the classical Maliki source, that four witnesses is considered one of the forms of valid evidence relevant in rape cases.

Also, from the hadith I cited, Muhammad said the woman was forgiven. This implied that the woman had done something wrong (i.e., zina), but was being absolved of punishment because she was forced. If she had done nothing wrong, then it would not be appropriate to say she was forgiven. Imagine a non-Muslim Western judge, today, telling a rape victim that she is forgiven.

It's one thing for Islamic polemicists/apologists to disagree with the classification of rape as a form of zina. It is quite another for them to sweepingly deny that such a classification exists in Islam.

Anyways, relevant to the Pakistan situation, legally, rape there is specifically referred to as "zina-bil-jabr (zina by force)". Apologists may disagree with this classification. They may claim that it does not reflect true Islam as they see it, and so forth. But they cannot honestly claim that the classification of rape as a subcategory of zina does not exist in Islam.

You wrote:
[Start quote]
"Four witnesses are not needed because rape is a 'hiraba' crime":
"... The crime of rape is classified not as a subcategory of ‘zina’ (consensual adultery), but rather as a separate crime of violence under hiraba. This classification is logical, as the "taking" is of the victim’s property (the rape victim’s sexual autonomy) by force. In Islam, sexual autonomy and pleasure is a fundamental right for both women and men (Ghazâlî); taking by force someone’s right to control the sexual activity of one’s body is thus a form of hiraba.
Rape as hiraba is a violent crime that uses sexual intercourse as a weapon. The focus in a hiraba prosecution is the accused rapist and his intent and physical actions, and not second-guessing the consent of the rape victim. Hiraba does not require four witnesses to prove the offense, circumstantial evidence, medical data and expert testimony form the evidence used to prosecute such crimes. ..."
Quoted from "Rape & Incest: Islamic Perspective" (2002) by
Uzma Mazhar.
Link:
http://www.muslimaccess.com/articles/Women/rape_in_islam.asp
"
[End quote]

When she claims that zina and rape are mutually exclusive categories, the author appears to be presenting her own personal opinion as a universal fact or policy in Islam, when in fact what I posted was sufficient to show that this is not so.

The comment about the taking of sexual autonomy is misleading, because it ignores the fact that in Islamic law, wives and lawfully owned slave girls did not have sexual autonomy. Citing Ghazali adds insult to injury, since Ghazali believed that the objectives and methods of Islam were to "…suppress the enemies of religion through the jihad in His cause, and to gain their wealth, women, and lands until they surrender to Islam." Gaining their women would entail among other things taking female captives (right hand possessions) and raping them, all in accordance with the Quran, Hadith, and classical Islamic law.

///Do you really believe your titanic BS Muslim dave? Wow, I'm responding to a brainwashed person///

Ariel Merari is head of the Center for Political Science at Tel Aviv University. Would you believe what he has to say on the subject of suicide bombing?

Thank you, Mary, for your piece on domestic abusers and Stockholming.

Kinana,

Thanks for your reply and critique. I admit this is a difficult and very abstract discussion because Islamic jurisprudence and sharia law lacks firm or rational foundation; basic concepts are not clearly defined, everything is fuzzy. We are in an area where the principle of uncertainty dominates everything.

In order to get some handle of things in our discussion I have read the relevant section of 'Reliance of the Traveler' (RT) (Justice), reflecting the position of the Shafi'i school of jurisprudence, and the first Islamic legal work in a European language (1991) to receive the certification of al-Azhar, the Muslim world's oldest and most prestigious institution of higher learning.

You make references to rulings from 'Islam QA', and I have consequently checked relevant rulings about 'rape'.

You sum up the critique as follows:

“When she (Uzma Mazhar) claims that zina and rape are mutually exclusive categories, the author appears to be presenting her own personal opinion as a universal fact or policy in Islam, when in fact what I posted was sufficient to show that this is not so.”

Her position is not just a personal opinion, but supported by other people acknowledging the weak legal position of rape victims due to the special and extreme situation in Pakistan.

You disregard her reference to basic principles of figh and Hadiths after examining only one – the punishment of a self confessed rapist and acquittal of his victim. I admit her position is weak and stretching the interpretation to or beyond the limits.

However, Mazhar's basic claim that zina and rape are, if not 'mutally exclusive categories', at least very different ones, seems to be confirmed in RT.

Rules about various forms of zina are specified very detailed in RT, under separate headlines, but 'rape' is only mentioned with a few words in a parenthesis:

“o7.3 To defend means to use the minimum amount of force required. If one knows that shouting will repel the aggressor, one may not strike him. If a hand is enough, a stick may not be employed. If a stick will do, a sword may not be used. If cutting the other's hand will suffice, one may not kill him. (O: Mawardi states that this precedence order is for crimes that are not indecencies. As for when an aggressor is raping someone whom it is unlawful for him to have sexual intercourse with, it is permissible to kill him forthwith.) Someone who knows (O: i.e. believes) that an aggressor cannot be dissuaded by anything short of killing him may kill him and is not accountable for it.”

So rape is an - aggressive 'indecency' – a special category where the victim (and potential witnesses) is entitled to and fully justified in killing the attacker on the spot. This is not the case with zina-crimes. One of the supporters of Uzma Mazhar, Aziz Ponawalla, explains:

“In the Qur’an, four witnesses are required to prove zina (adultery), not rape. That is a key distinction, and the Qur’an is merciful, in that by requiring 4 witnesses, the standard for proving adultery is set so high as to be impossible. That is as it should be, since the penalty for adultery is so severe (100 lashes – the Qur’an does not prescribe stoning). But adultery is not rape. If you are raped, you did not commit adultery. Adultery is a category of illicit, but mutually consensual, sexual intercourse. Obviously in rape, the sexual intercourse is forced by one party upon the other without their consent – that is the very definition of rape.”

Not a living word about rape in the Qur'an which leaves the founders of the schools of jurisprudence in a black hole. They are left with a limited number of Hadiths about rape, and forced to use analogy. The preferred analogy is of course zina crimes. In my unschooled view it is clearly a severe mistake not to put rape in a special category with its very own rules. To me the 'non-treatment' of rape in RT, and the quoted short comment by Mawardi demonstrates an unwillingness to deal with the problem of rape in Islamic jurisprudence.

This lack of clarity is evident in all the the rulings referred in Islam AQ:

“Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr (may Allaah have mercy on him) said:
 
The scholars are unanimously agreed that the rapist is to be subjected to the hadd punishment if there is clear evidence against him that he deserves the hadd punishment, or if he admits to that. Otherwise, he is to be punished (i.e., if there is no proof that the hadd punishment for zina may be carried out against him because he does not confess, and there are not four witnesses, then the judge may punish him and stipulate a punishment that will deter him and others like him). There is no punishment for the woman if it is true that he forced her and overpowered her, which may be proven by her screaming and shouting for help.”

Clear evidence seems primarily to be a confession or four male Muslim witnesses. As I understand RT neither the accused or the victim are allowed to give witness at the trial, because they have a personal interest in the outcome of the trial.

Four witnesses who saw the actual act – head of penis inserted into the vagina – is an impossibility almost by definition, so no hadd punishment of a rapist is possible.

Left are only the possibility that some witnesses heard the girl screaming for help and/or fought the attacker to deter him. If he is deterred before committing the actual rape he cannot be prosecuted according to RT: “o7.4 When one has warded off an aggressor, it is unlawful to take further measures against him.”

Worst case scenario for the rapist is a lenient sentence not involving hadd punishment, but that only happens if he is identified and the girl screams and/or attempt to fighting him off were observed by witnesses and they come forward to give evidence in court.

If the rapist is totally acquitted then pure logic dictate that he girl made a false accusation against an innocent person, and that is a very serious crime. The only way to get out of this dilemma is to make special rules for rape cases, instead of placing rape under the general rules of zina, as suggested by Uzma Mazhar and her supporters.

The obstacle to solving the problems regarding rape is of course that the doors to ijtihad was closed so decisively a millennium ago that all attempt to open it has failed to this day. When Muhammad Ali as-Sanusi (1787-1859), known as the Grand Sanusi, attempted to reopen the gates to ijtihad, he was rebuked in a typical fatwa by the mufti of Cairo, who said, “For no one denies the fact that the dignity of ijtihad has long disappeared and that at the present time no man has attained this degree of learning. He who believed himself to be a mujahid (a scholar qualified to exercise ijtihad) would be under the influence of his hallucinations and of the evil.”

The translator of 'Reliance of the Traveler', Shaikh Nuh Ha Mim Keller, specialist in Shafi'i and Hanafi jurisprudence, answered a question about 'Re-Forming Classical Texts'. In conclusion he said:

“ We should remember, among the other points mentioned above, that issuing a fatwa on the exceptional rulings we have mentioned (or interpreting the present relevance of past fatwas given under such exceptional circumstances) requires a mufti qualified to do ijtihad--I have mentioned elsewhere the qualifications needed by such scholars, and in consequence, how rare they are--and is a path to hell for anyone else. Secondly, an exception made to protect a "vital interest" (darura) cannot exceed the minimum necessary to obviate harm to that interest."

Keller opens the doors to ijtihad a tiny bit. If the vital interests of Islam are perceived to be harmed by the unjust treatment of rape victims because of widespread protests, an exception could be made from earlier fatwas and traditions.

We are not talking about new interpretations of Qur'anic verses here only reinterpretation of a few insufficient Hadiths on rape and special laws made in Pakistan particularily. The scholars are in fluid territory when it comes to rape so a change is a possibility within the basic framework of jurisprudence.

Some of the rulings about rape in the material in Islam QA points in the same direction:

“So the judge has the choice of the four punishments mentioned in this verse, and may choose whichever he thinks is most suitable to attain the objective, which is to spread peace and security in society, and ward off evildoers and aggressors.”

The judge is left with a large degree of freedom about how to handle rape cases and mere practical considerations – the interest of Islam and peace in the society – may take precedence over purely legal considerations based upon figh and the tradition.

I have some comments to your closing remarks but will revert to it at a later time.

Ole Hartling:
///The obstacle to solving the problems regarding rape is of course that the doors to ijtihad was closed so decisively a millennium ago that all attempt to open it has failed to this day.///

This is false. Practice some "ijtihad" yourself:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/20753339/Gates-of-Ijtihad

Thanks for replying, Dave742.

The analogy with the Scientologists was meant as follows: To my knowledge prior to any American military intervention the Taliban ruled Afghanistan and the Baath Party ruled Iraq. Those I compare with mythical Scientologists. When the Chinese came to America, liberating the Americans from these Scientologist oppressors, who would still be fighting from out of hideouts, and the Chinese would organise elections, then no, I would not fight the Chinese, but the Scientologists who wanted to impose tyranny.

You ask about the cut-off? But it seems straightforward enough; both perpetrators and victims (including then living relatives), all die out. So if you kick me out of my house and then you and me die, a new situation arises. Israeli's and Palestinians are supposed to be DESCENDANTS from perpetrators and victims. Daniel Pipes wrote about that and he, I think rightly states, that we almost all are descendants from perpetrators and victims of land-stealing.

About Israeli's kicking out Palestinians out of their houses now, and about Hezbollah defending territory. If that were true, yes you would be right. But Israel is a democracy, and is it true?

And even if roque Israeli's commit criminal acts, look, what you are doing is getting Palestinians of the hook concerning their possibilities and hence their responsibilities. I know you hold that making peace with Israel is impossible to them, but I and many hold that Palestinians do have and had that possibility. And so it became their responsibility.

We hold that because of stubborn Islamic prejudices they refused peace. Peace at the cost of land, yes. But I know of preciously few people who enduringly get happiness from mere dust, mere location where they live. But what the Palestinians are doing now, keeping a war on unnecessary, it burdens their children and that is very egoistic, negligent of them. They could give their children peace, prosperity and that is proven to be good for their happines, where dumb land or even nationhood in itself provides none in the long term.

My point to you is; turn the responsibilities around. I. Let us both forget that either Israelis or Palestinians are like the Angels, who are responsible yet blameless, OK, both aren't angels.
II. Now finally admit to us how you loathe the Israeli's, BUT this time consider them childish, crazy, animal-like even. Accept for a moment that they really are INCORRIGIBLE.
III. Now consider the Palestinians as the better people, who are changeable, mature, sane, real humans. And tell them to react more wisely than to constantly threathen and anger these strong Israeli Tigers.

Dave,

You definitely wrote an interesting and informative paper:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/20753339/Gates-of-Ijtihad

It has perhaps permanently modified my viewpoint of people like Irshad Manji, a Muslim reformer who pins her hope on the concept if Ijtihad.

However, I definitely detect some problems with your worldview. For instance, you concept of Zionism:

"Nations around the world are getting tired of the psychotic Zionists.
All non-Zionists are better people than Zionists."

What is the definition of Zionism? It is the intention of providing a homeland to Jewish people. The Zionists have created the state of Israel. How does Israel manifest Zionism in particular? It gives immigration preference to born or converted Jews. That's it.

Israel in no way abridges the rights of non-Jews who are Israeli citizens. Muslims and Christians can own property, are protected by the laws and courts, and have their places of worship protected by the government. More importantly, any non-Jew can speak or worship freely.

Let us contrast this with, say, Saudi Arabia. In Saudi Arabia, no bible is officially allowed, no non-Islamic worship is legal, and no non-Muslims are allowed in the cities of Mecca or Medina. It goes without saying there are no churches or worship services are allowed, and any underground Christian devotion is savagely punished.

And, so the Zionists are psychotic?

I loathe Zionists. The Palestinians are better people than Zionists. All non-Zionists are better people than Zionists.

Let's look at the history. The Palestinians claim the territory of Israel based on their conception of the nabka, or the large migration of Arabs out of Israel during the War of Independence in 1947-1948. The most telling claim is that the refugees were fleeing due to the massacre at the Arab village of Deir Yassin, carried out by the Irgun and Lehti Gang, two fanatic Jewish underground groups later attacked by the Haganna. But, the massacre was real, and has been a black eye on the country of Israel ever since. Interestingly enough, the massacre was acknowledged and condemned by virtually every Israel head of government, excepting perhaps Begin.

Anyway, it is also a fact that Arab broadcasts urged the Arab population to clear out to provide maneuver room for the armies attacking the Jews. These broadcasts were monitored and documented.

Regardless, the fact is, the events occurred during a hot war. The Jewish population was attacked by Arab armies. Do you know what would have happened to the Jews if they had lost?

So, the Arabs who fled, lost their homes and their citizenship rights in Israel. The Arabs who stayed are fully-protected citizens of Israel. Unfortunate but true. Those are the fortunes of war.

Did the Jews throw the Arabs off their own lands? The fact is, the Jewish Agency bought all the land from the Turkish administration of Palestine. And, this was during the Ottoman rule, not the Kemal Young Turks. You are very complimentary of the Ottoman government in your paper, citing it as a good example of reasonable and flexible sharia.

So, the presence of the Jews in Israel is not due to conquest, but purchase. They won a certain amount of land in a war which the Arabs started. So, I'd say they get to keep what they have, fair and square.

You might say that the possession of any land won by force of arms is invalid. I'll go with you on that. In that case, the Muslims should leave Syria, Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq, Morocco, Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Did I miss any? I guess they can keep Saudi Arabia, as the religions from which Mohammed stole that territory have long since been wiped out by Islam.

All non-Zionists are better people than Zionists. Of course, that vote might not happen, because I expect that our Israeli masters will order us to start a war before then, and we will faithfully comply, and our nitwit soldiers will be off to another war to die for Israel.

Dave, this is just paranoid rambling. Israel never has asked American troops to become involved in its wars. We have troops protecting Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, but the last thing the Israelis want is for the US to involve itself militarily in Israel's wars.

In conclusion, when you look at Zionism analytically, it involves no loss of rights whatsoever for non-Jews.

You started the analogy by comparing so-called "American occupation" with Chinese occupying America.

I agree totally with RonaldB, whom I appreciate/ thank. Look, even if many are still alive from the events in 1948, all you have got to distinquish any land-stealing by Israeli's from Muslims is the date. And in this game time is running out for Palestinians and in favor of Israeli's.

But I defy you and say we live in 2011. I look at 5000 years of history of mankind. And out of Arabia once came a conquering army, killing, conquering, subduing, taxing, oppressing people in all the lands RonaldB mentioned. Infinitely more in terms of people and territory than what the Israeli's allegedly did.

To be fair, many many more people had those conquering armies, including the Americans versus the red Indians. But to select only the Jews of 1948 and hound them for their injustice and not also condemn all the others, that is using double standards.

Maybe you are right about Palestinians getting roughly treated, more people have told me this, but I am not sure. It's a tragedy, all right? But it would not happen had Palestinians taken their responsibility and made peace.

And I defy you again and tell you that the Zionists are totally incorrigible but the Palestinians they can change and that gives them responsibilities.

If you loathe Zionists and they are the ones in power in Israel, my point is that you do loathe them, as criminal, greedy, ruthless. Well, then, go one step further and consider them incorrigible also. Now, you still seem to respect their capability of change, of being good people, too much. The Palestinians are better people in your opinion, yet no angels in my opinion. To me it means that you or others start telling Palestinians it is up to them, not to the Israeli's.

But of course the protests against Israel are meant to force the Israeli's and your comment about them getting their asses kicked by Hezbollah perhaps indicates that your side sees possibilities there, think Israel is weak.

But Israel is a country with now it's lowest unemployment ever, with high yearly economic growth. 27th in the world in the UNlist of nations. It has very well educated people, very, very high-tech-industry and it is going up, going somewhere.

Even demographically the Israeli's are now catching up with the Palestinians and have 3 children on average. in # 2050 there will be 24 million Israeli's and in a healthy distribution across the ages.

That's what I mean with strong Israeli Tigers. That in all probability means they are unbeatable and that is what Palestinians should realise and they should bequeath to next generations peace and prosperity if they can.

@Roland @ Demci

While you write excellent refutals, it's quite useless to reason with Dave. It's clear from his post that he is a racist anti-semite. (No, dave not because you are criticizing Israli policies, but the substance of your reasoning.) Dave refuses to acknowledge the Palestine goal of elimination of Isreal (as exemplified in the HAMAS charter), how children are taught to hate and kill jews on state-sponsored Palestinian TV, and he even approved of hezballah, another TERRORIST orginization who's stated goal is to liberate Isreal "from the river to the sea" (That's all of Isreal!). He also lies about the Isreali goverement attacking children (they don't, that's HAMAS that does that to Jewish children) or "slapping around old women", and the lie that Isreal destroys indescriminately arab houses because their Arab (Hint: It has to do with permits). He completely ignores the reason for zionism (Jewish national self-determination), while praising and cheering palastinan national self-determination and ignoring (or even more sinistry, I suspect, knowing) how the palastinans see it ALL as theirs (look at some of the maps they show on TV, even on kids show sometime!).

Dave does indeed sees 1948 as a "Nakba", a disaster (He even uses that word), because of his hatred of Jews he doesn't believe their right to exist in their own land that they have been living CONTUNOUSLY for the last 6,000 years.

Note that I didn't say your posts are useless, and I expect you write your posts knowing this, the target isn't loonitic fascist racists like dave, but the confused leftists and those tottering on the very edge of morals and reason, who threaten to fall into a pit of insanity and hatred, trying to pull them back.

RonaldB:
In the past, people on JW would constantly bring up the “gates of ijtihad” nonsense to me, which is something that scholars knew was untrue since the 1960’s, and was completely debunked in 1982 – nearly 30 freaking years ago. I would refer people to the relevant information, but this led nowhere. Most people on JW have never been to a library, and cannot read something if it cannot be found on the internet. For that reason, I spent about 6 months or so writing up the paper you read (It was a lot of reading – see the bibliography). Now, when people bring up that nonsense, I can simply refer to the paper. My point – even a simple issue takes some time to completely debunk when you are talking to people with absolutely no objectivity. I am at this moment working on a debunking a single paragraph from a Bostom article – I have been doing so for a year (along with several other papers concurrently).

(BTW,if you want to read about some lies about Iran. See: http://www.scribd.com/doc/39038338/Pierre-Goldschmidt-Critique )

Anyway, in a similar way, everything you wrote in your post are lies that have been completely debunked decades ago. Do you people read a single freaking thing that hasn’t been approved by AIPAC? If I were to address everything in your post, it would take a year.

///Anyway, it is also a fact that Arab broadcasts urged the Arab population to clear out to provide maneuver room for the armies attacking the Jews. These broadcasts were monitored and documented.//

This, for example, was shown to be untrue in 1959. This is over 50 freaking years ago. (I swear, the real world is more insane than what Orwell wrote about in “1984”.) Here is the article I am talking about:

http://www.palestine-studies.org/enakba/exodus/Khalidi,%20Why%20Did%20the%20Palestinians%20Leave.pdf

Even the Zionist asshole Benny Morris doesn’t pretend that this stupid myth is real:

“Whatever the reasoning and attitude of the Arab states' leaders, I have found no contemporary evidence to show that either the leaders of the Arab states or the Mufti ordered or directly encouraged the mass exodus during April. It may be worth noting that for decades the policy of the Palestinian Arab leaders had been to hold fast to the soil of Palestine and to resist the eviction and displacement of Arab communities.”
Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem 1947-1949, p. 66

Please stop reading JW and go to a library. Read journal articles, or at least books published by University Presses. I don’t have time for this.

///Even demographically the Israeli's are now catching up...///

"There have been studies originating both in Israel and abroad that show 'as many as half of the Jews living in Israel will consider leaving ...if in the next few years the current political and social trends continue.'"

http://www.counterpunch.org/davidson06152011.html

Dave,

Thanks for comment:

"Practice some "ijtihad" yourself:"

That is exactly what I have been doing all my life as a rationalist and agnostic.

I started to read your paper on 'ijtihad' and so far it does not look too good for the position taken by Robert Spencer.

If you are right in your claim that the gates of itjihad remained open then how do you explain the fossilization of Islam and the closing of the Muslim mind?

I think Islam has been left behind in the spiritual evolution in all areas of human endeavor for at least half a millennium. Acquiring knowledge for its own sake and asking the ethical question was considered un-Islamic or irrelevant to the main task of serving and submitting to the perfect and immutable laws revealed by Allah.

The rejection of reason and the definition of Allah as absolute transcendent and pure will are some of the main factors responsible for the deformed theology which produced the spiritual pathology of Islamism, and a deeply dysfunctional culture.

Islam is in deep crisis - morally and politically - and I am afraid that even a mujtahid of the first order cannot solve the basic problems rooted in the Qur'an and Sunnah. A good beginning would be a 'Muslim Luther' who separated to two regiments and scraped divine law. Without secularization there is no way towards democracy and the rule of law. The young well educated Muslims who spearheaded the 'Arabic Spring' seems to be aware of the necessity of secularization.

You could even call them modern day mujtahids! ;-)

Ole Hartling:
As always, it is difficult for me to respond since I disagree with so much that you said; and at so many levels. I think I address some of what you write about in my paper, if you decide to finish it. If you do, I would ask you to think about it in a larger context. The "gates of ijtihad" is one small issue in how the West views Islam. Your view of Islam is a mountain of assumptions and perceptions that are similar to the "gates of ijtihad" concept. If you read my entire paper and have any objectivity, which I think you do, it will be very obvious that the entire concept of the closed "gates of ijtihad" is false. If you do realize this, ask yourself; "what other assumptions that I have about Islam might also be false?". Pick one of these assumptions and research it. Pick one issue and read the hell out of it, but do it from the "other" point of view. I read a lot of material from people who have opposing viewpoints. Try doing that yourself. It is usually pretty easy to find who has written the authoritative material from the "other" point of view. Read that stuff. At worst, you will disagree and have your original viewpoint validated even further. On the other hand, maybe you will change your mind on some things. By reading material that I did not initially agree with, I have become a completely different person than I was 20 years ago. It's fun. You cannot grow if you anly talk to people and read things you agree with.

I never said that, that was Demci. Care to actually refute what I say? Do you now, denounce HAMAS and Hezballah as racist and genocidal? Do you acknowledge that much of the barriers to peace has been violence and preaching of the same by the Palestinianss, and not Israel? Will you acknowledge (or be good enough to present proof of the claim) that your claim that Israel targets children is false? Do you here and now refute the idea that the land of "Palestine" belongs completely to the Palestinians, from the "river to the sea", as HAMAS, and the so-called "more moderate" factions claim? I expect either "yes" or "no" in response to each question.

The problem is, sir, that you, and the rest of the "Palestinians" Arab muslims (at least the very vocal "anti-Zionist" ones) are looters, seeking for justification of his looting. You tried to take the land of the Jews in 1948, then 1967, then 1974, and again and again and again even now, all while claiming to be the victim. I WILL NOT give you what you want. God forbid the evil dream of the annihilation of Isreal happened, I would hope we'd see Everett Wyatt's fireworks first. Let it burn before it is taken by the looters!

(The parallels is only so clear because I'm currently reading through this book for the first time. There is so much stunningly great parts in it, though over all, it is a bit of a slog through.)

Hi Ole. You said:

Although this Verse from the Bible only talks about virgins, its the only verse in the entire Bible that talks about raping single women. Not to be biased or anything, but the Bible seems to have quite weird things in it that are quite irrational and quite ridiculous. Deuteronomy 22:28 forces the raped woman to marry her rapist. My question to the writers of the Bible is why in the world would any raped female victim want to be in the same town, not the same bedroom!! with her rapist?.

Nasty topic but there is one other occurrence of rape of a single woman that you may have forgotten, "The Rape of Dinah".

This story may give an answer to your question about why in the world any raped female victim would ever agree to marry her rapist.

The story is told in Genesis 34.

Dinah was a virgin, single and the daughter of Jacob and Leah.

This story is interesting in many ways. It looks like this was consensual sex but it does get treated as rape. That may mean that women at that time could not give consent (i.e. statutory rape).

In the story, there is no indication that Dinah objected to the marriage and there is no indication that Jacob objected to it. So, if there was a concept of statutory rape in cases where young lovers are concerned, you may have your answer.

This story turns out badly, however, because Shechem the paramour offers to marry Dinah. Hamor, Shechem's father, offers to pay any price Jacob asks to allow the marriage to take place. It is clear that he is an honourable man and is trying his best to make peace and Jacob agrees to the marriage.

Ultimately, we may be looking at the first case of honour killing but not on Dinah, on the entire nation or city of Hamor. Simeon and Levi, the sons of Jacob broke the agreement between Jacob and the Hivites by slaughtering all the adult males of the city.

Jacob confronts his sons on what they've done and they make it clear that they place family honour over their own father's treaty.

There are a lot of parallels in the events of this story with practices that we generally assign to the Muslim mindset such as:

honour takes precedence over family;
breaking of treaties and oaths
having no friends outside your religion
taking the wealth and property of those you defeat in war
war is deceit
taking women and children as spoils of war

etc.

Take care, nice talking to ya.

Who is Everett Wyatt?

Kinana of Khaybar wrote:

gravenimage,

Four witnesses were not required when the perpetrator confessed or when there was other evidence of the crime.

Muhammad didn't simply accept the word of the rape victim. In that case, he accepted the word of the man who confessed to the crime.
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Dear Kinana, I am quite aware of this.

I was quoting Ole Hartling, who apparently believes that rape victims were taken at their word by the "Prophet" Muhammed. Perhaps I wasn't clear enough in my reply.

In any case, thanks for your lengthy response and excellent research.

dave742 wrote, replying to RonaldB:

///Mukhtaran Mai, raped by a village of men…///

I looked up this issue. Mukhtaran was not “raped by a village of men”, she was allegedly raped by four men:

“…four men, including one of the tribal council members, allegedly raped Mukhtaran Bibi…”
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dave is being meretricious as usual here. Mukhtaran Mai was *sentenced* to be raped by her village council. So, she was not just raped by four criminals—she was sentenced by her village to be raped for her brother's allegedly having "improper relations"—which reportedly just included chatting—with a girl from a higher-ranking family. There is also the possibility that her brother had been sodomized by the girl's brothers, and the charge that he had bothered her was made to cover up this first crime.

So, Mai's family may have been victimized twice.

More from dave:

I am guessing that your impressions of this case come from reading the MSM. The MSM rarely provides both sides of an issue, and never gives any details.
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And what is the "other side" of ordering rape? The link recounts lots of niggling details, but the main point is that the writer considers it more likely that Mai's brother had indeed had some sort of illicit sexual relations with the girl, as accused, and that it is unlikely that he had been sodomized.

Let's assume that this is the case. That still means that Mukhtaran Mai was *sentenced to be gang raped* for the non-violent actions of her brother.

*This* is what "justice" looks like to a repulsive supporter of savage Shari'ah law like "dave".

Who is Everett Wyatt? Who is John Galt? the answer is, we all are. We who are the true victims of looters and thieves who pretend they are doing it for the "good of society". They pretend that somehow they are justified in thievery because of this so-called ideals. That is what the Palestinians are doing.

As a more literal answer, Wyatt is a character in the book "Atlas Shrugged" by Ann Rynd. Everett Wyatt was a business man who was destroyed by looters in Washintgon, making the rules to steal from him, all the while pretending what their doing was business. He choose instead to destroy his oil fields in a blaze of fire.

I see though you'd rather discuss literature that the substance of what I wrote.

More meretricious verbiage from Hizb'allah dave:

//Moreover, even if she keeps quiet, if a woman loses her virginity, sustains sexual injuries, or becomes pregnant, these can be taken as signs of Zina, even if she was raped.//

Wrong. As I pointed out in my paper (cited above), "the woman can avoid the hadd penalty by saying that she got pregnant in her sleep without her knowledge, or that the pregnancy was the result of heavy petting without penetration!"
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Perhaps you should bring this to the attention of the Shari'ah authorities in Nigeria who sentenced the girl who got pregnant as a result of incest to be stoned to death.

It seems your vicious coreligionists are all too unfamiliar with this supposed aspect of Islam.

More from dave:

“cases of zina and theft, the only offenses that required, respectively, capital punishment or mutilation – aside from highway robbery – were, short of confession, nearly impossible to establish.”
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It seems that one form of "confession" includes reporting rape. See the little 13-year-old who was stoned to death by a howling mob of Muslims for the "crime" having been the *victim of gang rape* in Somalia.

Yet more:

Even if you were caught having sex, you could simply say that you married each other
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If only 14-year-old Hena had thought to say her rapist cousin had taken her as a second wife, she would be alive today...sarc/off

More and more:

A Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt would not go back to a Sharia law which would be in any way connected to the Sharia of the past. The Sharia of the past is gone forever.
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Is that so? Is that why women have been under sentence of stoning in Iran, in Nigeria, and in Somalia? Is that why Saudi Arabia and Somalia are amputating theives' hands, and Saudi Arabia is beheading people? Is that why apostates are facing sentences of death in Afghanistan and Pakistan? Exactly what part of Shari'ah is "of the past"?

More:

The Sharia that some Muslims want now is simply a reactionary response to being militarily subjugated and humiliated.
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Yes—that's why the American's instituted Shari'ah law when they gained independence from Britain...oh, wait...no, they didn't...

More:

Islam was fine until they were occupied by the West. Their culture was far more advanced than ours...Simply leave people the hell alone, and they will be fine.
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Yes, things were so much better when they were raiding the coasts of Europe for slaves and committing piracy on the waters of the Mediterranean...or perhaps invading Anatolia, the Balkans, and the Iberian peninsula...

Things were *fine* then—fine, at least, if you were a Muslim slaver or invader...ah, the good old days dave pines for...