The time is drawing closer much faster than I anticipated, when the choice Europe faces, the choice many of us who frequent JW, DW, LGT, Matzav, etc. are all quite aware: either submit to Islam or drive it out. (Hmm, kinda like giving in to Satan or casting him out. Where is Father Karas when we need him!)

Europeans still haven't come to a consensus about this and still haven't fully awakened to the threat, although some segments apparently have. When I read articles like this one, I feel, yes, Europe is awakening. But the forces of appeasement are very strong and generally control much of the power (the schools, police unions (in England, e.g., bureaucracy, etc.).

Posted by: Seymour Paine at October 29, 2006 8:48 AM

Oops! I meant as a comment to the next article. Oh well, it's standard time again. That's my excuse.

Posted by: Seymour Paine at October 29, 2006 8:49 AM

This is simply an amplification of the rape question: if a woman dares to frequent her own home unveiled rhen she obviously deserves to be raped at will by her husband. In a marriage for love this could just be seen as an extension of the the sexual norm but in an arranged marriage it is just that:rape.

Posted by: MisIslamist at October 29, 2006 9:06 AM

The obvious problem here is that the reaction of Western men may not be, as it should, one of unambiguous condemnation.

Scarcely a century has passed since the time when the phrase "England expects that every man will do his duty" rang out on recruiting posters during the Great War, and those same men in turn found nothing wrong with the attitude captured in that famous phrase "lie back, and think of England."

But now I am doing the work of a Muslim apologist. Of course the phrase must be taken in its context -- the context of an attitude toward women as inferior beings, not only supported by Qur'anic passages and many stories in the Hadith, but by the details of Muhammad's life, and by the whole business of the burqa, the niqab, the chador, the hijab -- all those words that have now entered the English language, along with jihad, and dhimmi, and hadith, and sira, and dhimmitude (not the same as "dhimmi"), and ayatollah, and hudna, and taqiyya, and kitman, and Dar al-Islam, and Dar al-Harb (and can Bilad al-kufr be far behind?). The O.E.D. makers must be having quite a busy time -- and just how are they going to define jihad anyway? The way Esposito and Armstrong would have it, or the way every Muslim writer on Islam, not aiming to fool an Infidel audience, would define or describe it?

One waits. Samuel Johnson in his own 1755 Dictionary, that one-man monument, famously described the lexicographer as "a harmless drudge." Well, apologists for the Arabs and Islam have over the past 30 years been having a field day rewriting entries on such matters as "Palestine" in various encyclopedias and dictionaries (articles have been written on this, and protests made, to little avail -- the economic power of the Gulf states, and their ability to influence such things, is a subject that needs to be brought to public light, preferably a glaring and unforgivable light).

So when those words "jihad" and "dhimmi" and "dhimmitude" are offered up by the O.E.D., updated for the new constantly changing on-line edition (there will be no more bound editions of the O.E.D., and the 20-volume work, having gone from $3,000 to $995.00, is now down to $895.00 and sinking bathetically), keep careful watch to see what they come up with. Anyone volunterring to play the late Marghanita Laski, and send the good word doctors of Walton Crescent a thousand or ten thousand little pieces of paper with the use, by Muslims, as well as by non-Muslims, of the word "Jihad."

Just to make sure that they stay honest, and do not emulate the disgraceful appeasement of Muslim groups that so many compilers of reference works have, over the past 30 years, engaged in. No need to curry favor with CAIR operatives and Tariq Ramadan and John Esposito. Make sure that those "harmless drudges" remain so, and not "harmful" drudges, as so many have, pace Johnson, in recent decades turned out to be.

But don't bet the farm on this being handled correctly. Don't pawn or pledge your lives, your fortune, or your sacred honor on the lexicographers and encylopedia-makers (not to be confused with "encyclopedistes") to do the right thing and not engage in subtle or not-so-subtle appeasement or shading or sfumating into cleverly nuanced nothingness the real meaning of certain terms.

As Samuel Johnson -- whose spirit asked me this morning if I would mind, just for a few hours, channeling him (I agreed, and in the bargain got an extra hour of morning's sleep) -- might say, when it comes to pledging one's trust in the accuracy of those who supposedly instruct us in the doctrines and attitudes and vocabulary of Islam, nothing oppignerate.

Posted by: Hugh at October 29, 2006 9:43 AM

"...Islamic teaching was that a wife could not refuse sex unless she had a good excuse such as being ill, tired or depressed."

Aha, now we know the origin of the mysterious, "Not tonight, dear. I have a headache."

I'm pretty sure that if I was a Muslim woman living in the ME, I'd be ill, tired AND depressed all the time.

Posted by: Isabellathecrusader at October 29, 2006 10:10 AM

The answer to the sex-in-marriage question was changed to: "In this case she has the right to refuse."

That is a suspicious choice of words. Why didn't they choose "In any case..."

Posted by: Archimedes at October 29, 2006 10:51 AM

Abul Kasem, in his article Sex and Sexuality in Islam quotes from the Hidayah (or Hedaya), an authoritative Hanifi commentary on Islamic laws:

"Here is what Hedaya (ref. 11, p. 141) writes:

"One can enjoy a wife by force"

"But not if she be refractory."

"If a wife be disobedient or refractory and go abroad without her husband's consent, she is not entitled to any support from him, until she return and make submission, because the rejection of the matrimonial restraint in this instance originates with her; but when she returns home, she is then subject to it, for which reason she again becomes entitled to her support as before. It is otherwise where a woman, residing in the house of her husband, refuses to admit him to the conjugal embrace, as she is entitled to maintenance, notwithstanding her opposition, because being then in his power, he may, if he please, enjoy her by force.""

Posted by: Archimedes at October 29, 2006 11:02 AM

Note: Abul Kasem is a critic of Islam

Posted by: Archimedes at October 29, 2006 11:06 AM

Three myths that refuse to die:

1)The Loch Ness Monster exists.

2)Elvis is still alive.

3)Moderate Muslims are out there.

Posted by: ISLAMSFORLOSERS at October 29, 2006 4:48 PM

Mother, I'm glad I'm on your side too. But my post was made with tongue firmly in cheek. .

Posted by: Isabellathecrusader at October 29, 2006 6:28 PM

"The O.E.D. makers must be having quite a busy time -- and just how are they going to define jihad anyway?"

The 1913 Webster's:

jihad, jehad, n. A religious war against infidels or Mohammedan heretics; also, any bitter war or crusade for a principle or belief.

"[Their] courage in war... had not, like that of the Mohammedan dervishes of the Sudan, or of Mohammedans anywhere engaged in a jehad, a religious motive and the promise of future bliss behind it." -- James Bryce.

Ah, the good old days... will they be here again?

Posted by: remote_control at October 29, 2006 6:42 PM

Told in another thread, but since it seems to be "muslims sexism night," I repost.

I once worked as an English teacher, and one semester a large group of muslim somolis, both men and women joined the class.

The class was run by an ex-hippie, super-feminist, women liberal to the core. I was the only male teacher. The male somolis refused to allow the female teacher to talk to them, requesting that I teach them. The female somolis also only wanted to talk to the female teacher. The female teacher told the group in no uncertain terms that she ran the class her way, which meant the teachers would instruct the students regardless of sex and they could take a hike if they did not like it. The males did not return after the 3rd class. The women did, and I instructed them as I would any other student.

That ex-hippie, years before 9-11, taught me that the sexist values of Muslims were wrong and must be apposed. As more facts of the real teachings of Islam come out, expect to see American feminists take a stronger role in opposition.

Posted by: ryoga at October 29, 2006 8:35 PM

OT but related.

Well, the aussinfidels are getting mightily riled up.

Even our cartoonists are starting to sink the boot in.

(From Saturday's Australian by Bill Leak, via Tim Blair)

L.Drummond.

Posted by: L.Drummond at October 29, 2006 10:03 PM

http://network.news.com.au/image/0,10114,5287420,00.jpg

Sorry about the linking. I am going to have to find a geek to teach me this.

L.Drummond

Posted by: L.Drummond at October 29, 2006 11:51 PM

Mother Ecclesiastica,

thank you for the work you did in ending 'conjugal rights' in Australia. I understand that it's not so long ago that they were ended in the UK.

But here's the thing, remember the Forsyte Saga? The whole story hinged on one marital rape, which was considered very wrong by many people even then. But is it in islam?

I've written in the thread on the sheikh's 'women as meat' analogy: in the west we've come a long way in a short time on women's rights issues. It is still a fragile situation, and the last thing we need is islam undoing the good work.

Posted by: Lili at October 30, 2006 1:14 AM

Actually, the apostle Paul also instructed both wives and husbands to ensure they, ahem, attended to each others needs.

1 Corinthians 7:5 (New International Version)

5Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

But at the same time they are commanded to love each other, not beat them as Mo instructs:

Ephesians 5:25-26

25Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26to make her holy,

And so once again the difference between Islam and Christianity.

Posted by: Jerusalem at October 30, 2006 6:49 AM

Jerusalem,

Also there is a BIG DIFFERENCE between Christanity and Islam, in that the former holds women in high regards, how they are to be treated, hence the differences on the issue of marriage.

Posted by: bigcatgirl13106 at October 30, 2006 8:38 AM