How can it all come from Christianity when Islam is only 1400 years old?

Posted by: darcy at April 19, 2008 8:54 AM

BTW, RS - all of the comments posted on the "Ranger" article are critical of the article - NOT ONE has been fooled by Martin Herrera's PC BS propaganda. !

Posted by: darcy at April 19, 2008 8:57 AM

'There is a great deal more that could be said on this topic -- see this pdf[...]'

Just noticed that the link doesn't work.

Posted by: awaken at April 19, 2008 9:02 AM

awaken:

Sorry about that. It's fixed now.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Posted by: jihadwatch at April 19, 2008 9:08 AM

Well it is safe to beat up on Christians, as everyone knows. Southern white men are open game also but I'm just a gun toting, Bible thumping bitter Christian southern white man, so it must be me.

Posted by: abinitioadinfinitum at April 19, 2008 9:44 AM

Perhaps it would be useful for there to be a consciousness-raising website devoted exclusively to the suffering of Muslim women in the world today.

Call it "Aisha's Lament"

Posted by: Dhimmisoftheworldunite at April 19, 2008 9:50 AM

If they borrowed the "improvements" in 620 A.D. from Christianity, why are they so resistant to the newer "improvements" that are commonplace in the "Christian" and other parts of the modern world?

Free speech, freedom to change your religion, freedom of bodily expression, dress, marriage, inheritence, legal rights, including the right not to be stoned to death by men for going against 7th century sexual codes, etc. etc. etc.?

Whether Mohammad was a "progressive" figure in murk and superstition and misogyny and malignant patriarchy of the early Dark Ages, or not, is utterly irrelevant to the reality of the current world.

Islam suppresses and torments and degrades and diminishes women NOW.

And shows no signs of progressing beyond Mohammad's dismal Dark Age dictates.

That's the point, not this meaningless quibbling about the status of women in 622 A.D.

It's 14 centuries later, in case they haven't noticed.

Women in Islam, today, are terrorized by Islam.

Spinning tales about semi-improvements to their condition more than a millenia ago is mendacious and moronic.

Posted by: profitsbeard at April 19, 2008 9:56 AM

Perhaps it be best to show them our history and how American women had to fight for their rights. Sometime opressed women feel their lives are not oppressed until they see the other side and how it was obtained.

Posted by: leeve at April 19, 2008 9:58 AM

Islam improved the conditions of Women from pre-medeival times.

Thats like upgrading from a rotting slab of meat to a moldy tuna-fish sandwich. I think Allah could do better!!

Posted by: Jimmy the Dhimmi at April 19, 2008 10:06 AM

Mohammed was not a "progressive" figure! Islam is all about him - "Hey, where's my booty, spoils of war, and slaves of my right hand! Gimme! Gimme Gimme Gimme!"

Jesus, of course, eschewed all material possessions, including money. He is the Real Deal. Mo is a fake, imposter, snake-oil salesman, charlatan.

It is baffling how these people continue to revere an obvious flim-flam man. And worship a "God" that has a clear etiology in pre-Islamic pagan lore, a "god," not "God." Why don't we all just start re-worshipping Zeus/Jupiter?

Baffling. Anybody got a theory?(-ies)

Posted by: darcy at April 19, 2008 10:07 AM

profitsbeard,

Whether Mohammad was a "progressive" figure in murk and superstition and misogyny and malignant patriarchy of the early Dark Ages, or not, is utterly irrelevant to the reality of the current world.

Exactly. For all the points you raise, good post.

Posted by: RalphInfidel at April 19, 2008 10:12 AM

Woman had to fight for their rights in the West, but as far as I know they weren't held back from acheiving their rights by Christianity. If anything, the extension of the Christian ideal of "all men being equal under God" to "everyone is equal under God" helped their cause.

Posted by: madijihadi at April 19, 2008 10:13 AM

"...and no one is speaking out in their defense at all."

Not true, Robert. You are speaking out, and your efforts are being noticed by the likes of Michael van der Galien and Karen Armstrong, among other "dhimmi-centric" apologists for Islamisogyny.

No doubt others not as kindly disposed as these two are also keeping tabs on your latest judicious skewerings, but a Google search didn't call up a Spencerwatch.org; it hasn't been created, yet.

Posted by: Lex at April 19, 2008 10:18 AM

Whether or not women were treated better under Islam during medieval times is something that is not proven by a few examples. The fact the women inherited their own property seems like a real plus. Christianity, unlike Islam, doesn't address things like inheritance directly. If one wants to argue that veils are Christian one must equally accept the idea the women's inequality was Pagan not Christian. The Christian world over the last 1500 years has progressed in terms of women's rights. Islam seems stuck in the 7th century.

Posted by: Jerry M at April 19, 2008 10:23 AM

In the United States, if someone dies intestate* the law requires that the estate be divided equally among the surviving spouse and the children without regard to gender. That has been the law in most states since the founding. The US constitution was not influenced by Islam.

*For those of you attended school after the creation of the US Department of Education, intestate means they didn't have a will.

Posted by: Pelayo at April 19, 2008 10:31 AM

Darcy,
It is baffling how these people continue to revere an obvious flim-flam man. And worship a "God" that has a clear etiology in pre-Islamic pagan lore, a "god," not "God." Why don't we all just start re-worshipping Zeus/Jupiter?
Baffling. Anybody got a theory?(-ies)

It's an ideology that subjugates the individual to the "movement", and continuously studies how to apply every form of intellectual and physical pressure to anyone who dares to dissent... as Islamic "scholarship". It does seem to have a life of its own.

If only Mohammed and those who followed were just ordinary 'flim-flam' men, maybe Islamic ideology wouldn't be such a threat. But, they were psychological and literal warriors, and their latest followers have become dreadfully proficient at what they do. But, it seems more people are seeing their snake-oil for what it is.

Posted by: RalphInfidel at April 19, 2008 10:46 AM

From my post above:

"But, it seems more people are seeing their snake-oil for what it is."

Thanks to people like Robert and others who work so hard, and risk so much, to point it out.

Posted by: RalphInfidel at April 19, 2008 10:53 AM

Off topic, sort of, but I hope the authorities in the United States will bring as much pressure to bear on muslim polygamy, as they are now bringing on the FLDS polygamists in Texas. Same thing, different cult.

Posted by: ImNoDhimmi at April 19, 2008 11:00 AM

I totally agree with your sentiments on this issue in particular. I used to be with a girl who was an extreme feminist (she would wear a miniture labrys around her neck), but at the same time a diehard Islamic apologist. I could never understand how a woman would, on the one hand promote "wimmin's rights" in the West, but quietly defer to Islamist oppression of Muslim "wimmin" in the Middle East. It was, at its very core, an example of cognitive dissonance in the extreme.

Anyway. Shame on her. Shame on the Left. And shame on Islam forever.

Posted by: antishock8 at April 19, 2008 11:05 AM

Thanks to people like Robert and others who work so hard, and risk so much, to point it out.

Posted by: RalphInfidel at April 19, 2008 10:53 AM

You're right, Ralph. Generally speaking, people are MUCH more educated/enlightened about the menace of Islam/Mo/Qur'an than just 2 years ago.

Think how much time the Nazis had to commit their evil deeds before people caught on.

Posted by: darcy at April 19, 2008 11:05 AM

The topic that Mr. Spencer responded to was coming from a dhimmi apologist, but the dhimmi not having much independant study in the field misses the fundamental Islamic point that Islam is older than its founder. I know that sounds absurd but the koran claims Adam, Abraham, and Jesus as being Islams.

Of course you can hear both things being claimed at various times by mahometans, that Mahomet was restoring the "true" worship, and that Mahomet was being given a better revelation. Those who study people will find making contradictory claims that are hauled out as circumstances require not only the province of Islamists.

The early Christian worshippers in their day were urged by Rabbi Saul of Tarsus to have men worship bareheaded and women worship with their hair covered. This was a departure from the Jewish tradition of men wearing the yarmulke during prayer.

Saul gives his reasonings for the rule, that womens hair is their glory, and mens hair is not so that the ideal seems to be one of personal pride being out of place when people gather to worship God and not themselves. But in my own experience the use of hats among some women became just as much a measure of personal expression in church circles, with some hats adorned with flowers, birds and ribbons. And hair for some men also became a matter of vanity.

I do not think any realistic person can take seriously what seems to be some peoples version of equality. Men and Women ARE different, chemically as well as structurally, yet the same political correctness that insists that Musselmen are the same as the hebrews and the gentiles is the same PC lunacy that ignores gender differences as being all socially induced.

When I think of equality for women, I think of equal oppurtunity, equal pay for equal work, that does not mean that a woman who works 40 hours a week makes the same as the man alongside her who works 60 hours a week.

I have heard of many differences, such as that small children seem to be able to hear mothers voice better, that hormones have differring effects. And why should a woman who lacks the males upper body strength be required to do the same heavy lifting as a man?

When it comes to equal rights I have no problems with it as I see it, but I do not believe the PC canard that women and men are merely interchangable or that equality is the same as identicality.

Posted by: stickman at April 19, 2008 11:11 AM

re abinitoadinfinitums comment above, "I'm just a gun toting, Bible thumping bitter
Christian southern white man"

I know it is OT but when I heard those remarks it gave me clues to the narrative that BHO tells himself or has learned in his ivy league school.

I do not think it a true narrative, because historically americans were more religious as measured by church attendance back in the prosperous late 1940s to 1960s then they are in todays more economically squeezed times. The bitterness is I think a bit of projection, witness Pastor Wrights commentaries.

If what Wright preached is not bitterness then the word should be redefined.

Posted by: stickman at April 19, 2008 11:22 AM

Posted by: ImNoDhimmi
Off topic, sort of, but I hope the authorities in the United States will bring as much pressure to bear on muslim polygamy, as they are now bringing on the FLDS polygamists in Texas. Same thing, different cult.

I've got to believe that we sometimes tend to underestimate our own government. Call me an optimist, but I wonder if actions like the FLDS roundup, in some respects at least, may be laying the groundwork for just what you're hoping for. I'd be suprised if places like Islamberg were going unnoticed by them. It can't be an accident that we've gone so long without a major attack in the United States.

Having said that, I still believe it's a good idea to keep reminding them.

Darcy,
Think how much time the Nazis had to commit their evil deeds before people caught on.

That's true. I read the other day that one of the Pope's family was killed by the NAZI's because he had Down's Syndrome. When I listen to his general message, then hear some people accuse him of being a NAZI, it's pretty irritating. It makes me want to donate to the church, and I'm not even religious.

Posted by: RalphInfidel at April 19, 2008 11:33 AM

Stickman,
When it comes to equal rights I have no problems with it as I see it, but I do not believe the PC canard that women and men are merely interchangable or that equality is the same as identicality.

Ditto that. Those differences make life a lot more interesting than it would be otherwise (in a lot of different ways).

Posted by: RalphInfidel at April 19, 2008 11:52 AM

Stickman,
Guess I forgot to highlight your words, but I'm sure you recognize them.

Posted by: RalphInfidel at April 19, 2008 11:56 AM

Greetings:

One of the shortcomings I find with JihadWatch is its focus on Islam. The problem we have and now face has one foot in Islam and another in the Arab tribal culture that existed prior to the arrival of Mohammed.

Philip Carl Salzman has an article on the Middle East Quarterly web site examining the effects of that tribal culture on both Islam and Muslims.

I would be very interested in reading Mr. Spencer's analysis of that article.

Posted by: 11B40 at April 19, 2008 12:43 PM

the female Muslim panelists said that the mistreatment of women in the Islamic world stems "largely from the culture that existed prior to Islam's spread throughout the world . . . ."

First, that should be "cultures", unless one presumes that all of the areas conquered by Islam shared the same culture; i.e. that North Africa, West Africa, the Nile valley, Arabia, Persia, central Asia, and the East Indies all shared the same culture pre-Islam. I don't think so: Egypt and North Africa were Christian, Persia was Zoroastrian, the Indies were largely Hindu, etc. Funny how Islam could eliminate these vast differences in religious belief, as well as differences in diet, clothing, and public behavior, but not eliminate the "pre-existing" mistreatment of women. They've had over a thousand years to do so, but strangely have made little progress.

Posted by: ebonystone at April 19, 2008 12:50 PM

The following excerpt from a paper on Islam shows how the slight increase in the welfare of women in Arabia itself under Islam was more than balanced by the massive decline in their position in the conquered territories:

"However, it does appear that Islam somewhat ameliorated the lot of women in Arabia proper, although at the cost of curbing the spirited and free behavior of some upper class Arab women prior to Muhammad’s rule. But there is no doubt that an even larger price for that improvement was the deterioration of the condition of a much vaster number of women in the various conquered territories. Consider the following as an example of the high status of women among the Iranian tribes of the central Asian steppes before the coming of Islam; such assertiveness of women was characteristic of many nomadic societies:

'Of particular interest is the position of women in most Sarmatian tribes, but especially among the Sauromatians as described by Herodotus. … their wives kept to the ‘ancient Amazon mode of living, going out on horseback to hunt, and joining their husbands in war, wearing the same dress as men’. He also says that no virgin was permitted to marry until she had killed an enemy. … The relatively large number of graves of armed women … is usually looked upon as evidence of the survival of the ancient pre-Sauromatian social order based on a matriarchy. … Hippocrates maintained that Sarmatian women were not only warriors, but also priestesses.'

In the provinces of the Byzantine Empire, another area overrun by the Arab forces in the first years of Islamic expansion, the population consisted primarily of various Christian sects. Under the Roman Empire before the advent of Christianity women participated in business, social life and athletics. In various parts of the empire, opportunities for women were increasing over time:

'In Greece and Asia Minor, women participated with men in religious cults … While the leading roles were reserved for men, women took part in the services and professions. Some women took up education, the arts, and professions such as medicine. In Egypt, women had attained, by the first century A.D., a relatively advanced state of emancipation, socially, politically, and legally. In Rome, forms of education had changed around 200 B.C., to offer to some children from the aristocracy the same curriculum for girls as for boys. Two hundred years later … the archaic, patriarchal forms of Roman marriage were increasingly giving way to a new legal form in which the man and woman bound themselves to each other with voluntary and mutual vows.'

While orthodox Christianity ultimately rolled back many of these gains, early Christianity “showed a remarkable openness toward women.” Some Christian sects went quite far in extending recognition to women. In fact among some “gnostic groups … women were considered equal to men; some were revered as prophets; others acted as teachers, traveling evangelists, healers, priests, perhaps even bishops.” Even in later centuries after the position of women deteriorated under Christianity, their subjugation was never nearly as complete as it was to be with the Muslim conquest.

Thus, the expansion of Islam was everywhere, outside of Arabia proper, marked by a severe loss of social status and legal rights for women.'

Posted by: RBLA at April 19, 2008 2:49 PM

Just an observation, but one that might have some validity: Perhaps, just as Muslims in the ME don't want democracy, could it be that a majority of Muslim women don't want equal rights?

If Muslim women were granted the equality that women enjoy in the West, they would be taking on additional responsibilities, as well.

Until Muslim women stand up and demand for themselves social equality, they won't get it. It's not our job to get it for them, either, whether we are feminists or not.

As far as I'm concerned, my responsibility for Muslim females is to dial 911, if I see an act of crime being committed upon one.

Until and unless I'm asked by her, personally, to do more than that, I'm not going to wrestle Abu for Aisha's freedom.

Yes, I did inherit the freedom I enjoy. My job is to keep it. Period.

Posted by: Abscedere at April 19, 2008 6:51 PM

" "I have not seen any woman suffering as much as the believing women" (Bukhari 7.72.715)."

not much has changed for Islamic women since this was written...

Posted by: pulsar182 at April 19, 2008 7:24 PM

Robert wrote: "...the notorious Karen Armstrong, who has never shown any intense regard for the truth."

I was leafing through Armstrong's "Islam: A Short History (Revised and Updated)" recently, having some chuckles at her over-the-top apologetics.

There was a blatant error on page 22 (of the softcover copy I was reading), where she writes:

"The Quran teaches that war is such a catastrophe that Muslims must use every method in their power to restore peace and normality in the shortest possible time."

Not only is this wild claim not supported by any evidence, she erroneously cites verses 8:16-17 in her reference notes as supporting her claim. Verses 8:16-17 are bellicose verses of fighting and say nothing about seeking peace.

Posted by: Kinana of Khaybar at April 20, 2008 8:51 AM