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From a Western point of view, the most striking things about this article are how matter-of-factly its author treats women's lack of options in Saudi society, and how casually the perjorative "spinster" is thrown around, underscoring the the notion that a woman's existence is only validated in this society by her relationship to men. Again, you can't reform something if you don't admit there is a problem -- a much deeper problem than a few heartless not-quite-husbands.
Sharia Alert. "Issue of ‘Married Spinsters’ Leave Some Women in Limbo," by Arjuwan Lakkdawala for Arab News:
JEDDAH, 8 March 2008 — Being in your early 30s may be considered a young age in general terms, but in Saudi Arabia a woman who hasn’t found a stable married life by then may never get it. Take Asma as an example. At 31, Asma was facing family pressure to find a suitable husband.
“My father wanted me to marry either a relative or a member of our tribe,” she said. “No one from my family asked for my hand in marriage. Year after year went by. It was then that my mother tried to convince my father that I was approaching spinsterhood, and a marriage had to be arranged fast. Initially he did not listen.”
But after a man, who already had one wife, approached Asma’s family about marriage, it looked like Asma’s life was settled. However, things took a turn for the worse.
“He said that he would force me to rot at my father’s house as a spinster by neither divorcing me nor having the wedding,” Asma told Arab News as she broke into tears.
Today Asma still lives with her father as her husband refuses to divorce her and also refuses to let her live with him. Due to the social customs that prevent interactions among unrelated men and women, the latter — who are more likely to be financially harmed by being single than men — find the closed social upbringing a great hindrance to their ability in finding spouses. Asma’s problem illustrates some of the issues that can arise under this system. [...]
Two years ago, Asma said a man who already had a wife approached her father. Since he was from the same tribe, and especially because Asma was perceived to be approaching spinster age, the family accepted the alliance.
“My father didn’t like the fact that the suitor was already married,” she said. “But because of my age, he finally started to worry that I may end up a spinster, so he agreed.”
The “nikah” (marriage finalization, including the payment of dowry) and “milka” (when bride and groom are allowed contact) took place. But in Saudi Arabia another important element of the marriage process must take place before the husband and wife may live together: a coming-out wedding ceremony. The purpose of this tradition is to ensure that the community is informed that the cohabitants are legally married. [...]
While things started out well during those months, Asma said her husband appeared to gradually have second thoughts. “Suddenly he started making fun of me for being a spinster for such a long time,” she said. “And he asked why didn’t any of my relatives want to marry me — that there must be something wrong with me.”
The taunting got worse, she said. She complained to her mother who urged her to be patient and to try to get on his good side.
“As this behavior continued, I saw my dreams falling apart, I knew that things were going to get worse,” she said. “I took all his insults quietly, but one day it got too much, and I answered back, retorting, ‘If I’m so bad and my family is so bad why did you marry me?’” Asma said her husband then called her father and told him the wedding ceremony would be delayed for six months because of job obligations. It was then that her husband told her she would “rot” at her father’s house.
Asma now was caught in a limbo between living with her husband and being divorced.
She said her father ruled out divorce, meaning she had no family support in taking the second option. “My father was consumed by the shame it would bring on the family if I got divorced at this point,” she said. “And surely no one would marry me afterward.”
In two years Asma has gone from a 31-year-old woman seeking a husband to a 33-year-old ‘married spinster’. And people, she says, are talking about her.
“My parents pity me and know that I am not to blame, but people, such as our neighbors and distant relatives, are all saying horrible things about me, and find nothing wrong with my husband,” she said, adding that her husband has even stopped answering phone calls from her family.[...]
While it’s legally possible to seek recourse from the courts, Al-Kilati says most of the times, the court generally encourages the woman to return to her husband rather than breaking the marital tie altogether. In case of divorce, women also are required to return all or some of the dowry, adding a financial burden on women.
“The law can restore these women’s rights,” said Al-Kilati. “The woman can file a compliant [sic], and her husband will be unearthed wherever he is, and he will, by law, have to either take his wife home, or divorce her and also let her keep half her dowry as compensation, and he will have to sign legal papers stating that he will never harm or slander his ex-wife.”
So, even in a best-case scenario, she's caught between being under the control of her family or her husband. There's more to life than that.
Posted by Marisol at March 8, 2008 12:50 AM
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“My father wanted me to marry either a relative or a member of our tribe,” she said. “No one from my family asked for my hand in marriage. Year after year went by. It was then that my mother tried to convince my father that I was approaching spinsterhood, and a marriage had to be arranged fast. Initially he did not listen.”
It looks to me like the father is at fault. Is it not his responsibility to find a mate for his daughter? Then, he accepted an abysmal wretch for his child.
My assessment? Asma is surrounded by horrible men.
It wouldn't surprise me if an honor killing were in her future. If her "husband" won't have her, she must be dishonorable, right?
I must remember to thank the Lord in my prayers that I was not born in Saudi Arabia.
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at March 8, 2008 2:14 AM
No one from my family asked for my hand in marriage.Gee, I wonder why? After all, as Naseem would point out, wouldn't her blood line remain pure?
None of my relatives ever asked for my hand in marriage either. I feel like such a loser.
NOT!!!
Posted by: Infidel Pride at March 8, 2008 2:35 AM
Wow - what a sharp contrast this story presents from how my Dad treated me. My Dad protected me from any and all harm and no one was EVER good enough for his daughter....
...while this so called father allows abusive losers to court his daughter thus exposing her to danger and heartache - how depressing.
Posted by: champ at March 8, 2008 2:41 AM
The whole point is that this behaviour is sanctioned by Islam and that women have no rights under moslem "Law".
Perhaps the happy women muslims converts in the west should read more stories like these and visit the Islamic paradise in Saudi.
But being brainwashed they would just put it down to western propoganda or, even worse find an excuse for this barbaric attitude towards women.
Like "this is not representative of islam etc etc.
Posted by: ericthekuffar at March 8, 2008 4:02 AM
I'm surprised she's not been murdered to maintain the family honour.
Plenty of time yet though.
Posted by: Celsius at March 8, 2008 4:47 AM
This sort of behavior drive some women to suicide thus the family avoid the joy of honour killing
Posted by: Shiva at March 8, 2008 5:00 AM
It wasn't at Ibn Warraq's site, but I'm truly at a loss to think of the other site that carried all those stories by Muslims who left the religion. The story was by a Filipina who went to Saudi Arabia as a maid. She was honored to think she was going to work for an imam. But the imam raped her repeatedly, took photos of her to use as blackmail should she ever complain. His wife was put away as in this article--he sent her back to her parents, which was a mortal disgrace, but then would not divorce her. I think he finally did divorce her, but then he would not remarry, and until the man does, the woman is not free to. Truly a horrifying story.
Posted by: longtime lurker at March 8, 2008 5:15 AM
Remind me again how Christianity is such an oppressive and abusive system and how many people's lives have been ruined by it.
If this chick could manage to get out of the S.A. hellhole, I have a spare room she could use. She could go through the Isabella the Crusader's school
for-girls-who've-bought-into-B.S.-from-men-and-don't-want-to-anymore. Many of my good friends have graduated from this school and have gone on to meet nice men who adore them and not wait by the phone anymore on a Saturday night. I have no tolerance for non-chivalric behavior and I've taught my friends not to either. It's much better to be alone than to be abused. You just have to know that you'll be okay, but so many women don't know that and I'm afraid Asma is one of them.
As for being wife number 2, I would NEVER put up with that crap, and it wouldn't be safe for any husband of mine to suggest it. He might go to sleep one night and wake up dead the next morning.
Hi Champ,
Yes, my dad too would kill anybody who tried to mess with me. I'm almost fifty, my kids are grown and I have my own business but my dad still worries about me and slips me a 20 every time I see him, which is once or twice a week. He drives me crazy that way but I love him to death.
Posted by: Isabellathecrusader at March 8, 2008 6:16 AM
"It wasn't at Ibn Warraq's site, but I'm truly at a loss to think of the other site that carried all those stories by Muslims who left the religion. The story was by a Filipina who went to Saudi Arabia as a maid. She was honored to think she was going to work for an imam. But the imam raped her repeatedly, took photos of her to use as blackmail should she ever complain."
--- from a posting above
Possibly at the site run by the indefatigable Ali Sina: www.faithfreedom.org. In any case, the Filipina was Christian, one assumes, and therefore could be treated any way that imam felt like. She was inferior, as a woman and as a non-Muslim. And she did not have four witnesses to her repeated rapes. Even had she complained, the only thing that might have happened is that she would have been arrested, and promptly deported. Perhaps the imam had some residual worry about a little embarrassment should the truth come out, but that would be about it. That's Saudi Arabia.
Posted by: Hugh at March 8, 2008 8:51 AM
More wonderful islamic family values demonstrating the exalted position women have in islam:
Polygamy:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MThlZGU3MmI1OTAyNWM3ZTUyN2JlMDMxOGM1YWNhZDM=&w=MA==
Forced child marriage:
Posted by: Silvester at March 8, 2008 9:02 AM
Hey! Campus feminists! The glaringly obvious point of the above story is that a female MUST 'belong' to a man. Not just a girl but a grown woman does not exist in Islam apart from her role as her father or husband's PROPERTY. LITERALLY PROPERTY. I know this isn't as vile and oppressive as someone saying 'waitress' instead of waitperson but it bothers me.
Posted by: poetcomic1 at March 8, 2008 9:41 AM
There's more to life than that.
Well, there should be anyway. Islam's not very good at things like compassion, sensitivity, suffering, human rights, and dignity. Only to the limits established by Allah are those recognized, and that is narrow and restricted. Those that worship death also worship what leads to death. The pain and suffering of others. Preferably Jews, Christians, and other non believers. Allah's, historic and perpetual enemies, but not limited to them, as in this case.
What does marry relatives mean? How close of a relative can she marry? Long term inner breeding can cause medical and mental conditions...Oooohhh, the light is beginning to shine...
at March 8, 2008 10:18 AM
"marriage for a woman is as necessary as a bicycle to a fish....." (or something like that). Gloria! O Gloria! Where are you, Gloria Steinen? What are your thoughts? I assume you would favor a boycott of Saudi oil...........
Posted by: tanstaafl at March 8, 2008 10:38 AM
Amazing, isn't it, that this behavior condoned? Even more so that women in that culture still put up with this crap.
Explain to me again, why Saudia Arabia is called the "Holy Kingdom?"
Posted by: PorkFatRules at March 8, 2008 10:47 AM
This will probably sound unkind to some posters here, but these stories about the hideous ways Islam oppressesuslims all have the wrong emphasis and spin. I do not care about the way Islam victimizes Muslims. They made their mess - we should spend very little time feeling for them and their plight. Tales about Muslim suffering because of Islam should simply serve as cautionary tales for infidels - horror stories which emphasize the monstous nature of the system of beliefs which make Muslims Muslims.
Tales of pity, tales of remorse, these push the wrong buttons, both in the West and among the Muslims. In the West, this emphasis perpetuates the deluded idiocy that we must intercede on the behalf of Muslims to save them from the consequences of their Islam. It is their responsibility to save themselves from Islam, not ours. The pity party emphasis for the plight of Muslims suffering from their Islam also fuels their virtually bottomless pit of self serving self pity and victimhood which provides much of the incendiary fuel which powers their perpetual outrage.
Shove their aislam down their throats until they choke, for they will choke on it. Tell these stories, not to elicit pit among "infidels" for the stupidities to which Muslims are pledged, but as cautions to infidels which illustrate the chasm which separates us from them. We don't need to feel solidarity with their plight, we need to magnify their hideousness old Islam to insulate our society from the corrosiveness of Muslims and Islam.
Posted by: jsla at March 8, 2008 11:50 AM
Hey, islam elevates women.
http://www.faithfreedom.org/Gallery/hang4a.jpg
at March 8, 2008 11:50 AM
Many years ago Rush Limbaugh stated that the women's liberation movement was not about liberating women; it was about political activism. If he was incorrect, women's leadership would now be in the forefront of attempts to pressure countries like Saudi Arabia. Their silence tells all.
Posted by: Pelayo at March 8, 2008 11:54 AM
Yikes. Apologies -- I post sometimes on my iPod touch and it mangles posts in the craziest manner -- many of the mistakes above are caused by the "spell check" feature which cannot be disabled, and which clearly does not know much about spelling!
Posted by: jsla at March 8, 2008 11:56 AM
"None of my relatives ever asked for my hand in marriage either. I feel like such a loser."
Infidel Pride,
That made me laugh so loud, it scared my dog! I'll probably be exhausted by the end of the day, once I've pictured myself married to each of my cousins!
Posted by: Abscedere at March 8, 2008 11:58 AM
"We don't need to feel solidarity with their plight, we need to magnify their hideousness old Islam to insulate our society from the corrosiveness of Muslims and Islam."
jsla,
I see and agree with your point, however, compassion is what makes us US, and not THEM. Trying to save the world, one Muslim at a time is impractical.
The spotlight should be focused on the horrors that comprise Islam. At the same time, it's very difficult to feel anything but compassion for the victims--the true, hapless, helpless victims--of Islam. In the West we're reared to empathize with the plights of others.
It's a weakness and a strength. Our sympathy for others saves us from being monsters who talk unstable women into suicide missions, among other things.
I think both mercy for victims and condemnation of the victimizers are needed.
at March 8, 2008 12:34 PM
Hi Isa,
So your Dad was fiercely protective of you too. Bet we could share some interesting stories in that department! One brief story was when I was 16 years old, and Dad ran an old boyfriend off with a gun who was practically stalking me after I broke up with him, so I'm thankful that Dad was there to protect me from losers like that. Some guys just don't take rejection very well, but how can they argue with a revolver? Sort of dries up the conversation rather quickly ...lol ...and I never saw him again, thank God.
Jeez - how did we survive our teen years without our Daddies watching over us? Which makes this headline all the more sadder for me.
Posted by: champ at March 8, 2008 2:01 PM
As Winston Churchill observed, there is no state of a muslim woman's life where she can ever claim autonomy. Child, adolescent, woman; always property of a father or husband.
If Islam provided a religious path for women such as Catholicism does, the convents would be overflowing. It would put a stop to jihadist production, though.
This further proves that islam is not truly a religion. It does not allow vocations for all; it is a system of control that uses women in the worst way.
When I see these young, abaya-clad western girls in Target following their muslim husbands around, I want to tell them, "you're in the US. You can end this stupid mistake. He got his visa. Get out now."
Posted by: CapitalistGig at March 8, 2008 4:09 PM
In any case, the Filipina was Christian, one assumes,. . .-posted by Hugh in response to longtime lurker
Of articles that touch the soul, the story about the Filipina maid mentioned above is one that will stay with me forever. On page 3 of 3, she reveals she was muslim, as stated in the quote below:
During my convalescence I had plenty of time to think and to consider my miserable state. Why would a just and forgiving Allah so despise me that I would be punished so? I didn't ask to be placed in that situation nor seek any of it. I had always tried to follow the dictates of the Qur'an as I understood it but where had I fallen so wrong?
Here is the link to the entire story My Story.
at March 8, 2008 6:50 PM
Islam: brainwashing women successfully since 622 A.D..
Posted by: profitsbeard at March 8, 2008 7:56 PM
With the world today in a state of turmoil, seemingly unable to escape the clutches of idiotic leftists whom seek to appease all others whilst deriding their own, with their insipid ideals of political correctness, one wonders how a figure such as Enoch Powell, would be viewed in our world today.
His "Rivers of blood" speech, was seen at the time as a spiteful hatred, but was he wrong?. Was he a hero or a disgraceful racist?.
Judge for yourselves in the BBC T.V. series WHITE.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/search/?q=Enoch+Powell&go=Find+Programmes
Posted by: Howstupidcanyouget at March 8, 2008 8:06 PM
Hey, being from Brooklyn, I know a racket when I see one and this sounds like a racket, and a EZ profitable one at that.
Made simple because the law (Islamic) and the family (Muslims) don’t care about their “property" (women).
When someone or something has no value to the owner it is up for grabs.
And let’s face it; women have NO VALUE in Islam.
The "cad" (MUSLIM MALE) scouts around for some over the hill property.
He can spot that desperate family who wants “what’s best for their daughter”. oh yea..for sure.
So he does the “nikah” thing (marriage finalization, including the payment of dowry) but skips the “nookie” (never wanted her to begin with).
Then he places her between a rock and a hard place (daddy’s honor).
And is free to keep her “dowry”.
Yep,sounds like a racket to me.
at March 8, 2008 11:31 PM
jsla is absolutly correct in his analysis. The muslim world is steeped ion injustices, slavery, and other horrors. it matters not what we say or do to correct these they will still be muslims, koran will still be the words of god, sharia laws will be god's laws, and muhammed will still be the perfect man,a model for every other man to follow. Even these victims of sharia laws will still remain muslims. That is one of the reason why our policies in Iraq of trying to keep shia and sunni muslims from killing each other is a failure. we can only try to prevent these people from bringing their religion of hate into our sociaties.
Posted by: desidude at March 8, 2008 11:43 PM
Abscedere - we should not continue to feel we owe the Muslims anything. We do not owe them proof of our decency. We do not need to prove to them our compassion or our generosity. Further, it is a gross distortion of truth to suggest that we would not somehow continue to be decent, compassionate, or generous if we were to cease sqandering these attributes on the Muslims. A kindly disposition towards a people who intend our annihilation should not be the measure of our worth.
How many fans have we won among Muslims, how many of their hearts and minds have we won by dying in our thousands, sacrificing our finest young men and women, and expending more than a trillion dollars to bring Muslims justice and freedom in Iraq and Afghanistan? We have gained far too little, and they still hate and betray us too much to justify our staggering sacrifice.
How many have we won by sending several billion to Muslims after the tsunami? Or a similar amount to sufferers after those tremendous earthquakes?
How many Muslim fans have we won by allowing several million of them into America to enjoy and exploit the fruits of our forefathers' blood sweat and tears? The Muslims who are here demand ever more outrageous concessions from us, and have the gall to lecture us, the freest, most open, and most generous people on earth on the wrongness of our thinking and the rightness of their own. Truly there has never been a more poisonous or arrogant set of sinister thieves and parasites than they?!
Our best attributes are betrayed consistently by the Muslims. Our gifts, our outreach, ourattempts to help them out of their self imposed Islamic sewer only encourages the worst aspects of Islam. Due to the malignancy of their creed, Muslims neither mollify nor modify their hideous Islam when we show openness or kindness or generosity or sacrifice towards them. Rather, their sense of grievance is magnified, their hatred is stirred. Their contempt is inflamed, and their arrogance multiplies.
When we are kind, when we show compassion, it is their hideous and evil godhead Allah who gets the credit - our gifts and understanding are most often interpreted by them as tribute owed by us to them at Allah's behest. This simply reinforces their worst convictions of our servile position relative to them, and cofirms in their poisoned compromised minds their Muslim superiority to us.
I reserve my pity and compassion for the truest victims of Islam and the most threatened object and target of their bottomless Islamic hatred and depravity: we unbelievers.
We owe Muslims nothing. They are already lost to utter darkness.
Posted by: jsla at March 9, 2008 1:19 AM
Hugh, if you are still reading, I think you are right that it was Ali Sina's site. But the filipina was a muslimah, in that watered-down way that much of southeast Asia's Islam once was. That's why she felt so completely betrayed by the imam's actions, who she probably thought would behave like a wiser version of the village elder back home. The good news, though, is that she posted to (or wrote to) Ali Sina's site. She eventually escaped, became a Christian, and told her story there.
I learned much from his site, not least when I read a story there that sounded all too familiar to me. Sure enough, the poster had been a guest in my house on two occasions before 9/11. Unfortunately, the poster chose the month before the 2001 school year to flee Islam, setting the poster up for a fair amount of follow-on trouble. But what was most instructive was that the local community of "moderate" Muslims had por-trayed the incident as the poster running away with significant other, when many, if not all of them, knew exactly what had happened. Whether it was peer pressure, the pressure of the dollar (since many were studying in the US on Petronas scholarships), or some actual filial loyalty to Islam, they closed ranks around the incident in order to prevent any damage to the reputation of Islam. They openly and clearly lied to deceive me, who they perceived as an befuddled American revert to Islam. Oh, I learned much from Ali Sina's site.
Posted by: longtime lurker at March 9, 2008 4:59 AM
In the greater interest of civilization, my article " Islam and the
Woman " may be reproduced, whole or part, in English or in
Translation. Copy Rights reserved for the author).
**************
Islam and the Woman
Part-I
Before the advent of Islam, the pagan Arab women generally enjoyed a
respectable status in society; many of them like Khadija-the first
wife
of the prophet of Islam, had the right to engage in business and
choose
or
dismiss their husbands in a matrilineal fashion; they took part in
most
activities of war and peace including the public worship.
In female oriented Arab paganism, goddesses had special status; in
Mecca, the female goddess Al-Uzza, in Taif the goddess Al-Lat and in
Medina the goddess Manat (all three collectively known as "The
Daughters
of Allah" were the most popular deities, and their
statues were most revered while the statue of the stern Allah, an
Arab
ancestor whom the ancestor-worshipping and ignorant tribal Arab
Bedouins
worshipped along with other 300 ancestor-Gods, was almost neglected.
Arab pagan poetry was mostly concerned with the beauty and grace of
their women, and the glory of their tribal values in peace and war.
It
was only in one predator Mecca tribe that the evil custom of
burying alive of the daughters prevailed.
It was highly unusual for a man of pre-Islamic Arab society to have
more
than one wife in his house; and it is quite certain that polygamy was
introduced and encouraged by the prophet after the revelation of
Islam
to multiply the number of Muslims.
Women were to produce as many Muslim babies as possible. This
ultimately
resulted in the degradation in the status of the married woman in the
Islamic society, degrading them into mere sex-toys and Muslim-
breeding
human-
machines. Whereas the pre-Islamic Arab custom allowed many looser
forms of marriage on the matrilineal and matri-local tradition that
gave
the woman freedom and liberty as full human being, the
artificial rules of Islamic marriage-the Nikah-reduced the
institution
of marriage into mere sexual and social slavery.
The prophet of Islam, before prophet-hood, opposed the burying alive
of
the newborn daughters; he was eager to work for a woman and gladly
married a divorced woman.
The early Islam started in tribal Arab language of Arabia, it dealt
in
local Arab language, taboos and traditions, and it essentially
expressed
Arab tribal ethos; and
continued with much of the pre-Islam Arab Bedouin custom and culture
like pagan Hajj, though some of the myths and stories the prophet
learned during his early travels to Syria were also added. Islamic
prayer, for example, is an imitation of the Iranian manner of
ancestor
worship as introduced by early Iranian converts like Hazrat
Salman Farsi. As Madina was predominantly Jewish town, we also see
inclusion of some essentially Jewish traditions in Islam, from
praying
in the direction of the Holy Jerusalem to the Jewish custom of
circumcision, and to the inclusion of Jewish religious mythology in
Koran. Also, for example, there were for examples no Hijabs or veils
for
women of
Madina, and at a later date only the nine wives of prophets were
restricted in their
social intercourse as their home was constantly full of visitors,
however, the prophet's women sex-slaves were not restricted in any
such
manners.
Indeed, the semi-transparent half-face veil (hijab) was actually a
very
old custom originating in the Assyrian times, a status symbol and a
mark
of social distinction for the free women. The pre-Islamic pagan Arab
woman of the cities often wore the fashionable semi-transparent
half-face veil but the tribal women never did.
Later, Islam added measures for "the preservation of modesty for
women"-like casting down their eyes in public, concealing their
breasts
and jewellery and the likes. However, these restrictions were later
extended by the followers of the prophet far beyond his original
intentions as expressed in Koran, and remained more or less a
permanent
fixture of Muslim life thereafter.
Later on, however, the insecurity of early Islam gradually added to
the
exclusion of women, and 100 years later, by the reign of the Abbasid
Caliph Haroon ur Rashid in 8th Century, women became merely the
sexual
toys
and breeding
machines; and as married women they were socially restrained maid
servants: mere
man's social appendages. Moreover, as female sex-slaves, women were
freely bought and sold in open markets of all Islamic countries, and
loaned, rented or bestowed as gifts to friends. The prophet himself
bestowed women sex-slaves to his favourites. There was no limit to
the
number of slaves one could own; one of the companions of prophet
Hazrat
Zubair Ibn ul Arvan, for example, had had 1000 men-slaves and 1000
women
sex-slaves. Islam degraded the woman as merely the land tilled by the
man where he
spilled his seeds.
The prophet, as a tribal leader of the ignorant Islamic Bedouins,
himself took part or guided nearly 100 wars or raids or
attacks for forced conversion to Islam, loot, plunder or conquest.
After
him,
his followers continued the offence. The
fierce Islamic tribal Bedouins with centuries long experience of
ruthless and cruel tribal warfare proved to be the worthwhile
surprise
and shock
troops of Islam. After Iraq, Syria fell to the Islamic Empire in 634
CE.
Despite surrenders, great massacres took place in at many places in
Syria where
thousands of men were slaughtered and their women and children were
sold
into
slavery; monasteries were ransacked, monks and villagers were slain
and
nuns were
raped. After the conquest of Iraq and Egypt, many towns were put to
sword and their entire population wiped out. Great massacres also
occurred in
Cyprus and Africa. Men were forced to convert to Islam as an
alternative
to death.
The Roman province of Iraq and Egypt, the Syrian province of Iran,
and
the conquered Iranian Empire brought hundreds of thousands of
men-slaves, women
sex-slaves, and the vast fertile lands, of these once mighty and
civilized kingdoms and empires, where women had been held in high
respect e.g.
the Manichaecian Mespotania today called Iraq; the Pharonic and
Alexandarian
Egypt; and different African civilizations in Africa, for example the
nearby Ethiopia. Islamic colonization of these countries gave rise to
the worst type of feudalism not unlike that of Roman coloniser's
feudalism and later the physical and spiritual Christian feudalism in
Europe; and like the Christian feudalism of the evil Holy Roman
British
Empire in India..
As in Egypt and Iran, wherever the conquering Islamic Bedouins armies
went, they destroyed the local civilizations and cultures and imposed
their
Islamic tribal medievalism, recklessly murdering men and degrading
women
to perpetual sexual slavery. In short, the Islamic tribal Bedouins
and
barbarians did the same to the surrounding higher civilizations what
the
Roman barbarians did to the highly civilized ancient Greeks.
Meanwhile the Islamic Bedouins continued to raid and abduct the
European
women for Islamic slave markets during the early Islamic centuries.
The Islamic conquest of Syria forced the conversion of thousands of
Christian priests to Islam, who changed their religion but not their
profession:
they became the stern anti-feminine Islamic mullahs, and not only
continued their religious magic and rituals but also introduced
the Roman and Christian medieval ideas into Islam, thus giving rise
to
the evil institutuion of the Islamic mullah, a rustic imitation of
the
Eastern Orthodox Christian priest..
In short, as a result of these conquests, destructions and
imposition of
Islamic tribal medievalism, societies under the Islamic Empire went
farther than any other in their total exclusion of women from
political
power and social influence. In their tribal and medieval Islam, the
ignorant Islamic Bedouins legislators went far beyond anything
the prophet had originally dreamed of in his tribal religiosity. They
cheated the miserable Muslim women of their rightful place in society
and in legal m
matters of inheritance. Where originally the Koran gave women the
rights
of
inheritance (two women's share being equal to one man's share), the
Islamic mullah invented the legalized institution of
Waqf- the religious foundation, thereby excluding daughters and their
descendants from inheritance. Moreover, although the Koran does give
woman the
halved right of inheritance , she continued to be a minor; usually
uneducated
needing a guardian in father, husband or the son, thus practically
losing any advantage out of her half inheritance. Indeed, the status
of
women in Islam is theoretically exalted but utterly deplorable in
practice.
Multiplying number of harems (residing place for the female sex-
slaves
of the Islamic religious political head, the Khalifa and other
magnates
of the Islamic
states), finally institutionalised under Caliph Al-Walid II
emphasized
the
inevitable degradation of womanhood under Islam. Haroon ur Rashid,
the
Islamic Caliph (ruler) had 2000 female sex-slaves in his personal
harem,
Caliph Mutwakkal had
4000 female sex-slaves; and indeed, every mullah, official or
soldier of
Islamic
state had some men-slaves and women sex-slaves belonging to the
conquered civilized nations.
Not being allowed to learn, experience or think for herself, it is no
wonder that there are hardly very few outstanding women in 1600
years of
Islamic history, and those who by chance or by the force of the
ancient
pre-Islamic customs came into light or in the corridors of power,
were
sooner or later eliminated on the orders of some pious and religious
Islamic mullah. Indeed, Islam's violent anti-feminism have been as
nefarious as Christianity's torturing, burning and drowning of
hundreds
of thousands of European women as witches in 16th, 17th and 18th
century. The
female hating instruments of the Islamic Empire, the mullahs and the
Caliphs,
continued this degradation of women under the formal and sordid
Islamic legal code of Shariah, the final seal on the complete
subjection
of the female element under the Islamic political and spiritual
empire..
The modern
face of Islam is essentially the continuation of the Islamic tribal
medievalism; only the
phraseology and the façade is modern.
II
Islam and Women Part-II
" Indian sub-continent suffered the humiliation and destruction under
Islam, as did Africa. The Islamic General Mohammad Bin Qasim
decimated
great Buddhist and Hindu civilizations. Acting on the orders of a
representative of the Islamic Caliph, Governor Hijaj Bin Yousaf (who
was
a deadly enemy of the Hazrat Ali and Hazrat Hussein's family-some of
whom have taken refuge under the Buddhist monarch Raja Dahir in
Sindh),
Mohammad Bin Qasim conquered the kingdom in 712 CE. His Islamic
plunderers and looters demolished temples, shattered sculptures,
plundered palaces and killed thousands. It took his Islamic army
three
days to slaughter the inhabitants of Debal, their women and children
were taken into slavery. Later on he pardoned many prisoners and
tried
to establish a just rule of law which enraged the very Islamic and
murderous Governor Hijaj Bin Yousaf; therefore Qasim again reverted
to
the Islamic barbarity and massacred between 6-16 thousands in
Brahiminabad, their women and children were sent to Arab Islamic
slave
markets.
This was the beginning of the destruction of the destruction of the
classical ancient Indian civilization, and start of the medieval age
of
Islamic darkness in India. The 11th century witnessed another Islamic
murderer and plunderer, Sultan Mahmud Ghaznavi an agent of Islamic
Caliph, who utterly ruins the great Indian civilization and looted
and
plundered most of its wealth. Fifty thousand Hindus were massacred in
just one of his attack s at Somnath; he invaded India more than 17
times. Thousands of Hindu men and women were sent to the Islamic
Afghani
slave markets. The highly cultured and civilized daughters of the
noble
Hindu families were sold to the illiterate, un-cultured and barbaric
Afghanis for equivalent of just one Frank (Pound/Dollar) each. After
every Afghani Muslim had four wives each, there were lots of surplus
women left; to that the evil Islamic mullahs responded with an
ingenious
translation of Koranic verses proving that Allah allowed each Muslim
to
marry 18 women at a time along with an unlimited number of women as
concubines. Soon the new military instruments of the Islamic Caliph,
the
Turks and the Moguls followed, decimated captured Delhi and turned
whole
of India into a grand open-air slave camp. Sultan Firoze Shah
Tughlaq-
an Islamic Turk ruler had 100,000 men-slaves and thousands of female
sex-slaves in his harem; the pious Islamic Mongol (Mogul) Emperor
Shahjehan had 15,000 female sex-slaves and concubines for his
personal
harem. Indeed, the Islamic Turk invaders and rulers did the same in
India as they did in Armenia-the whole races of peoples were
exterminated.
((However, credited must be given here to the agnostic and
secular-minded, humanist Mogul Emperor Akbar the Great who refused
the
title of " the King of Muslims" and preferred to be called " the
shadow
of God"- for his God, he declared (in accordance with the mind and
language of his age), is the beneficial deity and protector of
all-Hindus, Muslims and other races of humans and creatures alike. He
gave up his faith in Islam and tried his genius in creating a
pluralistic religion comprising traditions of all the prevalent
religions and ideologies of India. He even invited the Christian
Jesuits
priests from Goa to his ideology-discussion-palace but could not
swallow
their childish Jesus-son-of-God myth; and the assertion that Christ
died
for our sins. "Indeed", he replied,"Christ died for his own sins and
nobody else's. This was a gangerous, unethical and immoral
proposition
he thought, for if Christ died for the sins of Christians , then
Christians can mass murder and torture for ever without impunity!
Also
he found "Justification by Faith"-Christian theory to be repungent to
his theory of Tolerance and Humanism. For Justification by Faith
would
mean any wrong done by one's co-religionists is not wrong! A horrible
scenario, indeed! The mass-murders committed by the Christian Nazis,
are
they wrong from Christian point of view?)).
The medieval Islamic Empire of the Turkish Osmania Caliphate
disappeared
after Axis defeat in the WWI and with the rise of the Turkish secular
hero Mustafa Kemal Pasha. However, it soon metamorphosed into the
modern
Saudi Islamic spiritual Empire.
It is noteworthy that while the very Christian Holy Roman British
Empire
of the West required a standing army of soldiers to control the
bodies
of men in
all its colonies, the theocratic Saudi Islamic Spiritual Empire of
the
East depends on the standing army of clerics-Mullahs and Imams-
stationed
in mosques to control the minds of men-the social, cultural spiritual
and psychological control.
It is true that Islam dismantled the old Arab tribal loyalties and
some
of its taboos and traditions; however it created a new tribe on the
name
of Islam with prophet himself as its chieftain and his family and
tribe-Hashmis and Quresh acquiring an elevated and sacred status (the
Islamic
replacement of old medieval tribe with a new theocratic tribe.
However,
it essentially continued many of the ancient pagan rituals of
worship as
well as many of its old taboos and traditions. The tribal blood
loyalties were replaced with the new tribal religious loyalties. At
an
intellectual level Islam is merely the continuation of the medieval
Jahiliya (Ignorance) in the holy garb of Islam- the Islamic Jahilia
(the
Islamic Medieval Ignorance). Modern Islam is, indeed, merely a
continuation of that medieval tribal ignorance and mental
backwardness.
Since the advent of the Saudi oil, petrodollars have started to
support
the
Islamic extremist movements all over the world and continue to do so.
The Saudi petrodollars have created thousands of Islamic centres for
social and political control and propaganda- the mosques-all over the
world; 1000 mosques were built in the USA only in just last few
years.
Islamic brainwashing and political propaganda continues in these
mosques
and madrassas-the religious schools, as well as through the Islamic
newspapers, magazines, radios and televisions.
All kind of extremist Islamic terrorism and fundamentalism emanates
and
flows from the " Kernel of Evil- the Epicentre of the ugly Islamism-
the
Saudis". For Allah of the Saudis makes submission to Islam obligatory
for all humans. Those who refuse their submission to Allah or differ
from the Saudi version of Islam are called the Satan's party, and
must
be eliminated by Saudis or their paid and brainwashed zombies-the
Muslims- called the Allah's party. Saudi Arabia is in fact the worst
example of Islamic medievalism, and mental, social backwardness.
Slavery
was legal in Saudi until 1960s when it was officially abolished on
the
personal request of the non-Muslim US President J F Kennedy!
However, it
continues in new names: the foreign female domestic servants-the
private
property of the Islamic Bedouin barbarians.
Saudi petrodollars continue to support the extremist and
fundamentalist
mullahs, and continue to lure the Islamic states into the barbarity
of
the Islamic medieval Shariah laws, and the Saudis continue to spread
Islamic mullah terrorism and Islamic theocratic totalitarianism all
over
the world."
III
Islam and the Woman
Part III
Iran basically an Islamic spiritual colony, is the godfather of the
Shiite Islamic terrorism (Saudi Sunnis are an Islamic sect like the
Christian Catholics while Shiites are like the Protestant
Christians).
This Allah's government in Iran is the most evil religious state
today.
Torture, murder and Islamic absolutism- an Islamic version of
Hitler's
Nazi-ism, Stalin's Communism and Mussolini's Fascism combined. There
were 5,195 political and religious executions only in 1983 alone!
Few years ago a bill was presented in Iranian Parliament asking that
in
according with the tradition of Islamic prophet marriage should be
allowed with 9 years old girl child!
Human rights are definitely not allowed to exist in the Islamic Iran,
where according to the English language Radio Iran, the Holy Spirit
of
Imam Khomeni hovers over Iran all the times. Women have been hanged
on
suspicion of sexual crimes. Even proved virgins have been sent to
gallows, however, they are hanged only after being Islamically
raped, as
Iranian
Islam does not allow hanging of virgins. Iran had used its oil money
in
the interest of Islamic revolutions all over the world, and
continues to
do so.
Algeria, known for its Islamic civil war continues with its Islamic
horrors. Islamic absolutism and totalitarianism is imposed with guns
and
slaughters in the interest of religion of Islam. Men are usually
killed
for their religio-political crimes while women are killed just for
the
crime of being a woman in an Islamic country. Thousands were
islamically
raped and more than 500 were killed only in 1993. Women have been
killed
for not wearing hijab (veil) or refusing to do so when imposed, for
refusing to engage in Iranian-style temporary marriage, for being
married to foreign men, and for working and living alone. The victims
have been as young as 9 years and as old as 69 years. Women are often
raped and tortured before being slaughtered.
Thousands find themselves imprisoned in Islamic camps for no
legitimate
reasons. It is worth mentioning that women had a respectable status
in
society before the conquest of Algeria by Islam.
Egyptians, heir to the great Pharonic and Alexandrian civilizations
continue to suffer the chronic evil of Islam. Known for the miseries
of
hijab and female genital mutilation, Egypt is also a center of child
prostitution for the wealthy Saudi Islamic Bedouins. In Egypt, four
out
of five women are forced to wear some kind of hijab. Female genital
mutilation is very common; up to 73% in Cairo and 95% in rural
areas. In
1995 a shaikh (religious dignity) of Al-Azhar University Cairo
issued a
fatwa (the religious decree or bull), which reportedly announced the
procedure pf Female Genital Mutilation as "laudable practice that
does
honor to women"; and stating that it was, a religious duty as
important
as praying to Allah.
Sudan had a long history of Islamic conquest and repression. Islamic
totalitarianism and barbarity continues to this day. Recently, Sudan
was
brutalized by the Saudi-backed Gen.Numeri's Islamic fascism. In 1992
a
religious decree-fatwa-was issued that gave justification to the
military onslaught against the non-Muslims. Islamic barbarism and
genocide continues in Darfur to this day.
Indonesian Islamic army mass-murdered 200,000 East Timurian non-
Muslims
before East Timor got its independent. The country is known for its
extreme religiosity, corruption, ethno-religious problems and Islamic
extremism.
Pakistan, an experimental laboratory of Islam, had turned into a
horror.
Notwithstanding the hundreds of thousands of rapes, abductions and
murders under the watchful eyes of the very Christian administration
of
the Holy Roman British Empire at the time of religious division of
the
Indian sub-continent in 1947 by the Empire; when half
a million people were forced to migrate, Pakistan has never made any
certain move towards civilization and continues to be a center of the
Islamic
fundamentalism, extremism and terrorism.
Pakistan's very Islamic army invaded her province of East Pakistan in
1971, killing hundreds of thousands of Bengali Muslims and non-
Muslims
and raping half a million women ranging 9-69 years in age in its
attempt to create a half breed Pak-Bengal race which would be loyal
to
Islam and Pakistan. In 1974 Pakistan army invaded its province of
Baluchistan resulting in similar calamities. In 1980 Islamist General
Zia ul Haq introduced further islamization under the Saudi pressure
for
introduction of the medieval and tribal Islamic Shariah. Along with
the
compulsory public prayers, there were brutal Islamic laws against the
very
natural sexual acts and for the presumed blasphemy: the repressive
Hudood Ordinance and the infamous Blasphemy laws. Thousands of
innocent
women continue to suffer under these and other Islamic fascist laws
for
mere allegations. Raped women had been sent to gallows for the crime
of
being raped. (Islamic Shariah is the only system of law, which
punishes
the victims: Fatemollah). Pakistani state has proved to be a willing
and
sinister instrument of the evil Islamic mullah fascism and terrorism.
Pakistan created the hated Afghan Taliban and many other such
organizations in Afghanistan. Similar organizations continue to
flourish
in Pakistan and try to create a totalitarian and fascist Islamic
state.
Despite all tall claims of fight against the Islamic terrorism, the
evil
continues to flourish. Pakistan is undoubtedly a major source of
supply
for the Iraqi terrorism. Illicit drug trade continues with the
blessings
of the Islamic mullahs and the ISI (the Islamic Military
Intelligence)
There are Islamic prostitution centres in every Islamic city of the
Islamic Pakistan where abducted and non-Muslims women are forced to
suffer the very religious Muslims.
The secular, liberal and rationalist intellectuals continue to
suffer in
Pakistan like the victims of the infamous Christian Inquisition of
medieval Europe. While the Christian churches burnt the heretics,
Islamic mullahs get them indicted for Blasphemy and get them locked
in the Death-Cells.
IV
Part IV: Constant vigilance is the price of civilization
While fundamentalism, superstition, ignorance, lack of human rights,
female genital mutilations, forced seclusion of women within their
houses
and in their hijabs; religious extremism, fundamentalism, suicide-
bombing and Islamic terrorism continue to be the hallmarks of the
Muslim
states and societies
under the influence of the evil Saudi Islamic Spiritual Empire of
the petro-dollars or the fascist Iranian Shiite area of influence
under
its Shiite oil-money;
it is high time for the civilized world to wake-up from the stupor of
multi-culturism
and blind tolerance of the organized intolerance; for the disease is
spilling herein already.
Many of the acts of the Islamic states and societies, organizations
and
individuals
are barbaric and medieval; the beheading of the innocent hostages,
death penalties and murders for religious reasons; chopping of hands
and
feet; stoning to death of women for getting raped or on accusation of
natural sexual intercourse; honour-killing on mere suspicion,
suicide-
bombings and acts of terrorism; these are
indicative of a deep-seated disease. Murder on the name of a merciful
Allah is mere hypocrisy.
The rise of Saudi-sponsored extremist Islam is a danger to
civilization
everywhere. All extremist Muslims are potential terrorists and
Arabian
Allah's
soldiers. There is no place for the tolerance of the religiously
organized
intolerance and religious fascism against liberalism, human rights
and
women's equal status as well as against
other manifestations of our collective human civilization.
Muslims in civilized and democratic societies, if required to take
the oath of loyalty to the state and democracy may remain peaceful.
Political right to
vote to those whose political loyalties are located
in some far off desert is not only harmful but also suicidal for the
state and civilization as well as for the very ideology and system of
democracy.
Giving political right to vote for those who wish to destroy the very
system of
democracy?
Think again, Ladies and gentlemen!
There is no place for optimism for a liberal Islam.
Nearly all Islamic states and
societies
have failed to appreciate the basic human rights of their people,
their women and their minorities.
Saudis and Emirates are the worst offenders; and are the financial
godfathers of
fundamentalism, extremism and Islamic backwardness everywhere.
Nearly every Islamic country is dangerous not only for itself but for
the world as a whole. Pakistan, for example, after supplying Iran and
North Korea with nuke-secrets continues to
offer the dangerous technology; Vietnam and Brazil, Malaysia and some
other countries are the new
customers. The nuke-terrorist Dr. Abdul Qadir Kahn is safe, well
protected and facilitated by the State of Pakistan, with full
impunity;
of course, he openly declared the complicity of the state of Pakistan
in
his evil deeds.
You civilized people!
Yesterday you refused to acknowledge the dangers
inherent in the rise of the very Christian Nazi and Communist
ideologies.
Yesterday you supported Islamic Taliban even when they trampled
rights
of their women under their feet. Your refusal to confront militant
Islam
today may cost us more dearly than our individual lives-our cherished
achievement
–our civilization.
Beliefs have consequences-the centrality of Islam to mental, social,
intellectual and
cultural backwardness; organized offences against women and
minorities;
fundamentalism, extremism
and modern terrorism are impossible to deny.
"Religions of peace and tolerance" are mere empty words.
Islam is an organized crime against humanity!
***************
French, Spanish, Finnish and German translations are available at:
(In the greater interest of civilization, my article " Islam and the
Woman " may be reproduced, whole or part, in English or in
Translations. Copy Rights reserved for the author).
************
at March 9, 2008 7:31 AM
Humanist:
Interesting and informative article. But you forgot to post the link for translations.
Posted by: templar at March 9, 2008 2:39 PM
humanist_2008:
lovely article, especially the equation of Christianity with witch burning and Nazism.
Posted by: CapitalistGig at March 9, 2008 4:45 PM
humanist_2008
You forgot to mention the Hindu suttee (wife burned on a funeral pyre). This is a truth, also, as were the other citations you mentioned. It stretched much further throughout history than did witch burning.
There is a lot of blame to be spread by many cultures, including Christianity, throughout history.
I wish you could have made your point without denigrating a faith that has done much to elevate women.
Posted by: CapitalistGig at March 9, 2008 4:50 PM
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