A newly-appointed chaplain for Toronto police is speaking out after coming under fire from the police union for comments made about marriage and women’s duties to their husbands.
Here are “the relevant slides from Sheikh Musleh’s lecture followed by his comments”, courtesy CiJNews:
Duties of the Wife
The wife’s duties towards her husband may be greater than the husband’s duties towards his wife, as Allah says: And they (women) have rights (over their husbands as regards living expenses) similar (to those of their husbands) over them (as regards obedience and respect) to what is reasonable, but men have a degree (of responsibility) over them” [Al-Baqarah 2:228]
• Keep in mind — there is no obedience for the husband in disobedience of Allah
“A halal relationship with her husband”:
• The wife should make herself available to her husband, after marriage has taken place and he has given the mahr [dowry]
• She should not withhold this right from her husband without a valid excuse, e.g. sickness, obligatory fasting etc
• If she refuses without a valid reason then she has committed a major sin
Ask her husband permission before leaving the home
• She should take care to seek permission from her husband before going out of the home that he has provided her
Some of Sheikh Musleh’s additional comments as part of the duties of a wife toward her husband:
even if it doesn’t feel right, or you’re just not in that emotional relationship you know it’s not the right manner, you’re not feeling that at that particular time, still try to make it happen, still try to force yourself even if you have to do that.”
Yet Canada and the West (particularly those under a Multicultural Act) continue to pretend that a clash of cultures does not exist. It is one thing to welcome immigrants of all backgrounds into Western democracies. It is another thing to allow the people of such cultures to undermine our societies and award them influential community roles.
Khan takes the usual position of someone who has been “busted” in the public forum: he explains away his obviously genuinely held beliefs as being “inappropriate if used out of context.” That is a common defense that insults the intelligence of those who know how to read.
“Toronto Police chaplain speaks out after online comments on women’s ‘obedience’ draw concern”, by Natalie Nanowski, CBC News, November 1, 2016:
A newly-appointed chaplain for Toronto police is speaking out after coming under fire from the police union for comments made about marriage and women’s duties to their husbands.
Musleh Khan says he appreciates the criticism of his choice of words after a 2013 webinar surfaced.
Titled The Heart of the Home: the Rights and Responsibilities of a Wife, the webinar is intended for Muslim couples. In it, Khan states that a woman must be “obedient” to her husband.
In the almost hour-long seminar, Khan is heard saying that a woman must make herself available and “not withhold this right from her husband without a valid excuse,” such as sickness or obligatory fasting. The video is posted on the YouTube page for Pure Matrimony, a dating site that brands itself for “practicing single Muslims.”
“Upon deliberating on the definition of ‘obedience’ as being, ‘To yield to explicit instructions or orders from an authority figure,’ I agree that the term was inappropriate if used out of context,” Khan said in a statement Tuesday.
Words ‘inappropriate if used out of context,’ chaplain says“I realise how someone unfamiliar with this nuance can misunderstand my imprecise translation to mean something different to my intended meaning, and the meaning that I know my audience at the time understood clearly,” he added, explaining that the Arabic word often translated as “obedience” in fact denotes loyalty, devotion and love.
In the webinar, Khan breaks down five duties of a wife and then goes on to describe the different rights of a wife. Some Islamic scholars even believe that if a woman “refuses without a valid reason then she has committed a major sin,” Khan says in the video.
“Even some scholars went as far as saying that even if it doesn’t feel right, or you’re just not in that emotional relationship you know it’s not the right manner, you’re not feeling that at that particular time, still try to make it happen, still try to force yourself even if you have to do that,” Khan said.
This list and the explanations behind it have the Toronto Police Association, the union that represents the city’s police officers and the Canadian Council of Muslim Women worried. Earlier Monday, the association raised questions about how the police service vets its chaplains.
Mike McCormack, president of the association, said he’s taken a look at the webinar and has received many calls and emails from concerned members.
‘It’s difficult enough having these comments out there in 2016’“The comments that are attributed to this individual are not what the Toronto Police services or the Toronto Police Association is all about,” McCormack told CBC News.
About 20 minutes into the video Khan explains that a woman should ask her husband’s permission before leaving the home because the man is “the main decision maker of the home.”
“I think it’s appalling,” Alia Hogben, the executive director of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women, told CBC News. “We’ve been fighting for Muslim women’s rights and something like this really sets us back.”
“If his personal opinions are going to interfere with the work he does as a chaplain, that’s pretty damaging for not only the police in Toronto but for the women he might counsel.”
What’s more, Hogben says, Khan’s comments reinforce a stereotype that anti-women views are intrinsic to Islam.
“It is not the Muslim view. Some people, as in any other religion or any other religious communities, think women should be quiet and all the rest of it but that is not the general view within Islam.”
Chaplain underwent ‘thorough background check,’ police sayMcCormack agrees, saying comments like these aren’t appropriate for the police service to be associated with.
“We’re dealing with victims of domestic violence, where it is very traumatic for those victims and asking those victims to come forward,” he said.
“It’s difficult enough having these comments out there in 2016 in a country and in a city that doesn’t support this type of position.”….