In this interview with Sputnik News, Jihad Watch writer Christine Douglass-Williams exposes a great deal about the systematic and institutionalized abuse of women under Islamic law. Indeed, the second-class status of women is ingrained in Sharia, and set out in numerous passages of the Qur’an and Hadith.
The Qur’an teaches that men are superior to women and should beat those from whom they “fear disobedience”: “Men have authority over women because Allah has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because Allah has guarded them. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them.” — Qur’an 4:34
Muhammad’s child bride, Aisha, says in a hadith that Muhammad “struck me on the chest which caused me pain, and then said: ‘Did you think that Allah and His Apostle would deal unjustly with you?’” — Sahih Muslim 2127
The Qur’an likens a woman to a field (tilth), to be used by a man as he wills: “Your women are a tilth for you, so go to your tilth as you will” — Qur’an 2:223
It declares that a woman’s testimony is worth half that of a man: “Get two witnesses, out of your own men, and if there are not two men, then a man and two women, such as you choose, for witnesses, so that if one of them errs, the other can remind her” — Qur’an 2:282
It allows men to marry up to four wives, and have sex with slave girls also: “If you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly with the orphans, marry women of your choice, two or three or four; but if you fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly, then only one, or one that your right hands possess, that will be more suitable, to prevent you from doing injustice” — Qur’an 4:3
It rules that a son’s inheritance should be twice the size of that of a daughter: “Allah directs you as regards your children’s inheritance: to the male, a portion equal to that of two females” — Qur’an 4:11
It allows for marriage to pre-pubescent girls, stipulating that Islamic divorce procedures “shall apply to those who have not yet menstruated” — Qur’an 65:4
Islamic law stipulates that a man’s prayer is annulled if a dog or a woman passes in front of him as he is praying. “Narrated ‘Aisha: The things which annul the prayers were mentioned before me. They said, “Prayer is annulled by a dog, a donkey and a woman (if they pass in front of the praying people).” I said, ‘You have made us (i.e. women) dogs.’ I saw the Prophet praying while I used to lie in my bed between him and the Qibla. Whenever I was in need of something, I would slip away. for I disliked to face him.” — Sahih Bukhari 1.9.490
Another hadith depicts Muhammad saying that the majority of the inhabitants of hell are women:
“I looked into Paradise and I saw that the majority of its people were the poor. And I looked into Hell and I saw that the majority of its people are women.” — Sahih Bukhari 3241; Sahih Muslim 2737
When asked about this, he explained:
“I was shown Hell and I have never seen anything more terrifying than it. And I saw that the majority of its people are women.” They said, “Why, O Messenger of Allah?” He said, “Because of their ingratitude (kufr).” It was said, “Are they ungrateful to Allah?” He said, “They are ungrateful to their companions (husbands) and ungrateful for good treatment. If you are kind to one of them for a lifetime then she sees one (undesirable) thing in you, she will say, ‘I have never had anything good from you.’” — Sahih Bukhari 1052
And in another hadith:
The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) went out to the musalla (prayer place) on the day of Eid al-Adha or Eid al-Fitr. He passed by the women and said, ‘O women! Give charity, for I have seen that you form the majority of the people of Hell.’ They asked, ‘Why is that, O Messenger of Allah?’ He replied, ‘You curse frequently and are ungrateful to your husbands. I have not seen anyone more deficient in intelligence and religious commitment than you. A cautious sensible man could be led astray by some of you.’ The women asked, ‘O Messenger of Allah, what is deficient in our intelligence and religious commitment?’ He said, ‘Is not the testimony of two women equal to the testimony of one man?’ They said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘This is the deficiency in her intelligence. Is it not true that a woman can neither pray nor fast during her menses?’ The women said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘This is the deficiency in her religious commitment.’” — Sahih Bukhari 304
Another statement attributed to Muhammad: “If a husband calls his wife to his bed [i.e. to have sexual relation] and she refuses and causes him to sleep in anger, the angels will curse her till morning.” — Sahih Bukhari 4.54.460
“Human Rights Activist Explains Why Protecting Burqa Rights is Dangerous,” Sputnik News, October 26, 2018:
The UN Human Rights Committee has demanded that France review its law banning the burqa, claiming that it violates human rights. Christine Douglass Williams, a human rights activist and former director of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, explained to Sputnik why such demands pose a danger.
Christine Williams said in an interview with Sputnik that the UN is exceeding its mandate with demands that France’s burqa ban be lifted. According to her, such laws have been adopted by over a dozen states, not only Western ones, out of security concerns. She added that these countries have the right to ignore the UN ruling if the ban is a matter of national security.
Williams also recalled that the burqa issue is of crucial concern to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which withdrew from the UN Declaration of Human Rights in 1990, creating its own human rights declaration based on Sharia. She believes that the UN is playing into the OIC’s hands by trying to repeal the burqa ban in France.
“The OIC has made no secret of its interests to impose its Shariah imperatives globally, which includes the inferiority of women who must be covered in accordance with Quran 24:31 and 33:59. Five years ago, under Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the UNSC openly encouraged the active contribution of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, so it is apparent now that the UNSC is doing OIC bidding,” she said.
The human rights activist admitted that drawing a line between one’s religion and the laws of the country where a person lives is a challenge for modern democracies. She noted that certain loopholes could be found under the pretext of freedom of religion.
“One must also take into consideration the concept of ‘choice’ as a guideline. With specific regards to the burqa, it is a common understanding that victims of abuse have little to no choice. Abuse victims are stripped of free choice, movement, and punished for ‘disobedience’ and perceived rebellion,” she said.
She further questioned how the burqa could be a choice if its use is mandatory in Islam and not wearing it is punishable by imprisonment, lashings or even death. Williams noted that an “incalculable number of women” have suffered abuse for their decision to stop wearing full-body veils.
“When migrating to democratic countries which enshrine equality between genders, this norm is not necessarily abandoned, particularly if impinging Muslim community pressure is present. The funding of mosques throughout the West by the Saudis, and now even by Turkey, enables the proliferation of Wahhabi/Salafi ideology which mandates the covering of women,” she added.
“Us” vs “Them” Narrative in Human Rights Struggle
Williams told Sputnik that the global struggle for human rights today could be described as “dispiriting.” She explained that it’s plagued with an “us-versus-them narrative,” where “us” are “Western white people and Jews” and “them” are everyone else, including Muslims and blacks.
“When one thinks of human rights, one should simultaneously think of equality of value between races, genders and equal rights to practice religious beliefs. The key word is ‘equal’, not special privileges and supremacist entitlements that harm the whole. Why are human rights violations tolerated from some like: female inferiority, female genital mutilation, child brides, forced marriage, murdering gays, persecuting religious minorities?” she wondered….
“Many governments have cowered and prioritized their own fear of being called ‘racist’, ‘Islamophobic’, and ‘xenophobic’ over the security and freedoms of their people,” she concluded.
mortimer says
Since the Islamic veil is enforced by men against the wishes of women who wish NOT to wear it, compulsory veiling is a VIOLATION OF WOMEN’S HUMAN RIGHTS … namely, the right NOT TO PRACTICE a RELIGION.
However, the Islamic veil is not PRIMARILY RELIGIOUS in nature, since it is a BEDOUIN CUSTOM that has been sacralized by Mohammed. The TRUE PURPOSE of Arab veiling was to KEEP THE MONEY IN THE FAMILY … the Islamic veil is COMMERCIAL IN NATURE and PURELY PATRIARCHAL.
The Islamic veil is supposed to protect the RIGHT OF FIRST REFUSAL of a male first cousin in the matter of marrying his female FIRST COUSIN. Such marriages are designed to KEEP THE MONEY IN THE FAMILY.
There can be no greater example of PATRIARCHY than the ISLAMIC VEIL.
elee says
And the libbers continue to revile white men! Don’t bother trying to deploy any logic here…….
Benedict says
It’s my contention that the growing imposition of nakedness and the normalization of the same in the public space and in the minds of people in the West make it difficult to argue against imposed or voluntary Muslim dress code in our part of the world.
In the Muslim world it’s quite another situation.
gravenimage says
This is, I believe, now a half dozen times just in the past week or so that Benedict has flogged the imposition of the veil–including the Burqa–on Western women. He has even said he wants this imposed *on children*.
Of course, his claim that nakedness is imposed on Westerners is claptrap., Who is forcing Westerners to go naked? No one, of course.
And the idea that we should not be allowed even to speak out against *imposed* veiling–and its concomitant murders of women and girls–is just sickening.
And note–he does not want to impose the veil on men–just on women. If he really thought that the Muslim veil was the only way to opposed supposed forced nakedness in the West, why wouldn’t he want to force both women and men to wear it? Of course, this is not his concern at all.
Benedict says
Another of your straw men, G. Try with a steelman for a change.
gravenimage says
Note that Benedict does not say what I have supposedly gotten wrong–because he cannot do so.
He is back at flogging the imposition of forced veiling again today, on this thread:
“Israeli ‘Freedom is basic’ ad featuring model taking off niqab ripped as “Islamophobic,” is withdrawn”
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2018/11/israeli-freedom-is-basic-ad-featuring-model-taking-off-niqab-ripped-as-islamophobic-is-withdrawn
In fact in the past week or more here, Benedict has done nothing else. Why is he so wedded to imposing Shari’ah law on Western women?
Malcolm Jackson says
So Nigel Farage does not have a problem with Islam.
What sre Farage’s views on women being treated as second class objects, for men to do with as they wish.
Farage knows full well women’s status under Islam, so does Farage agree with that status.
Farage should read this article and enlighten us with his comments.
Walter Sieruk says
Concerning the brutal ,harsh treatment of females , both girls and women, because of the cruel misogyny of Islam, a reiteratio.n of two examples in very fitting.
First, about that ruthless cruel brutal tyrannical regime of Iran what so unfittingly has the word “Republic” in its title ,for its called “ The Islamic Republic of Iran” [ I R I]. On the topic of this Islamic tyranny a former Muslim revealed that “The IRI system recognizes women as dependent upon men and incomplete human beings who need to be supervised and controlled by men and the State. This author further exposed that “Women are created for the purposes of giving pleasure to men and child bearing – functions that confine them to the home” This is a male Chauvinistic as can possibly be. In addition this writer further makes it known that “The IRI legal system still retains traditional patriarchal bias that can be described as nothing but systemic subordination of women , which is undoubtedly a human rights violation .” This author further reveals that “Iran is of what Islamic fundamentalists desire, an Islamic State, and the consequence of achieving it “State Terror. Instead of utopia, Iran is an Islamic totalitarian nightmare…” and “the Islamic Republic of Iran exists and operates as what every Islamic fundamentalist dreams of, an Islamic state ruled by Sharia …What followed its establishment was the inevitable consequence and inexorable logic of its Islamic premises; state terrorism, a merciless tyranny.” [1] This heinous Islamic has been also exposed by another author who was born and lived in a Middle Eastern nation for many years. She wrote “Female freedom and independence is one of the greatest sins in Islam…” and “Women in Islam are considered unclean, deemed inferior even to dirt.” [2] All this is wicked, unjust and misogynistic to the extreme. Islam had not regard for human life, regardless of what the apologists for this religion will claim.
[1] THE ISLAM IN ISLAMIC TERRORISM BY Ibn Warraq. pages 345-347.
[2] THEY MUST BE STOPPED by Brigitte Gabriel pages 62, 172
Second, that harsh brutal oppression of girls and women in this tyrannical Islamic regime of Iran has ,many times, becomes even worse the forcing females to wear hijab against their will . As this following example reveals.
That heinously cruel and murderous Islamic tyranny of Iran is very brutal and vicious to the Iranian people. Especially regarding females. Both girls and women. For example a teenage girl in Iran was talking to her boyfriend on the phone and then the Islamic state “police” walked over to her and shot her dead. They did that wicked and malicious thing to her because she was talking to her boyfriend and they also didn’t like her clothing. [1] That was a clear cut case of murder and vicious Islamic madness by Iran’s Islamic state “ police”, who call themselves the “Revolutionary Guards”, they got away with their hideous and malice –filled evil because the mullahs as well as other villains in power in that tyrannical Islamic regime
[1] A TIME TO BETRAY by Reza Kahlili page 240
gravenimage says
Good post, Walter.
Walter Sieruk says
In different countries there have been many confirmed cases and proven reports the some Muslim men , because they are so full of Islamic misogyny have been so vicious and cruel as to have literally thrown acid into the faces of girls who are unveiled
Such malicious and misogynistic have thoroughly infected with this malice-filled way of thinking because of the religion which is Islam.
What makes this, even more, outrageous is that after ,myself , reading a number of Islamic propaganda booklets written for Westerners,. many of whom are uninformed and outright ignorant about the reality of what Islam is actually like. .Those Muslim propaganda booklets ,many times , the the completely false claim the Islam “respect women.” Likewise, those same booklets also make the totally bogus claim that “Islam respect life, all life” The harsh hand brutal reality is a great contrast to the reality and truth about Islam.
gravenimage says
+1
Ibrahim itace muhammed says
Mr spencer, decent and modest dressing is not an abuse of Muslim women because it is not men who impose it on them against their will, they believe that it is good to do so as a matter of faith. However, according to preponderance of opinion of Muslim jurists covering the face is not required going by Quranic verse “illah ma Zahara minha (except what is apparent from the body) which they interpreted to mean that face needs not be covered .
gravenimage says
The foul Ibrahim itace muhammed wrote:
Mr spencer, decent and modest dressing is not an abuse of Muslim women because it is not men who impose it on them against their will, they believe that it is good to do so as a matter of faith.
………………………
Really? How does Ibrahim itace muhammed explain the demonstrations against forced veiling in Iran?
“Iran: Women protesting against hijab to be charged with inciting prostitution, jailed for up to ten years”
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2018/02/iran-women-protesting-against-hijab-to-be-charged-with-inciting-prostitution-jailed-for-up-to-ten-years
And how does he explain the murder of girls like poor Aqsa Pervez?
“Spencer: The Lonesome Death of Aqsa Parvez”
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/06/spencer-the-lonesome-death-of-aqsa-parvez
Notice he has *nothing* critical to say about the arrest, imprisonment, and murder of these women.
Bu then, why would he?
And the Muslim veil has *nothing* to do with modesty–it is for Muslims to identify women owned by Muslims so they know who is fair game to rape:
“O Prophet! Tell thy wives and daughters, and the believing women, that they should cast their outer garments over their persons (when abroad): that is most convenient, that they should be known (as such) and not molested…”
–Qur’an 33:59
“Molested” means sexually molested. Muslims have the right to rape all unveiled women–Ibrahim itace muhammed himself has affirmed this.
How is Muslims raping women “modest”?
More:
However, according to preponderance of opinion of Muslim jurists covering the face is not required going by Quranic verse “illah ma Zahara minha (except what is apparent from the body) which they interpreted to mean that face needs not be covered .
………………………
This is actually quite vague:
And tell the believing women to reduce [some] of their vision and guard their private parts and not expose their adornment except that which [necessarily] appears thereof…
–Qur’an 24:31
Certainly, a Hijab by itself does not reduce a woman’s vision–only the one-eyed Niqab and Burqa do–both of which do indeed cover part or all of a woman’s face. Many Muslim clerics claim that every part of a woman is a “private part”.
Forced covering of the face is common in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Yemen, Oman, and many parts of Afghanistan.
If Ibrahim itace muhammed *really* had a problem with this, he would take it up with his coreligionists–rather than spewing Taqiyya at the good Infidels here at Jihad Watch.
Rob says
The enforced “modest dressing” of Muslim women is an abuse. That it has anything to do with faith is irrelevant. Faith is what you require when you have no evidence so where is the virtue in that?
gravenimage says
Christine Douglass-Williams: “Incalculable number of women” abused for decision to stop wearing full-body veils
………………….
Hideous–but we knew this.
Ibrahim itace muhammed says
Ignorant liar Gravenimage, don’t you know that it is women police who enforce such sharia compliant code in Iran, not necessarily men? I said the preponderance of opinion among Muslim jurists, there is minority view which is chosen by those countries you have mentioned. Read Fiqh books for these divergent opinions if you can. Remember, the holy Prophet Muhammad said divergence in understanding Islamic sources is a blessing (wa fi ikhtilafikum Rahma) .The terrorist groups who condemn those holding different opinions from their own have violated this Hadith.
Rob says
That it is women police who enforce such sharia compliant codes in Iran is totally irrelevant and you know it, so why the deception? The fault lies with those who make the laws and the laws are made mostly by men, right? Therefore Gravenimage is correct.
Ibrahim itace muhammed says
Rob, Liar Gravenimage is always wrong because she said she simply hates anything Islamic without cogent reason. you are also wrong to say Sharia compliant code is made by men alone. Are you aware that there are women among members of parliament responsible for codifying Sharia laws in Iran? so, the question of bias by men will not arise.
gravenimage says
The appalling Ibrahim itace muhammed wrote:
Ignorant liar Gravenimage, don’t you know that it is women police who enforce such sharia compliant code in Iran, not necessarily men?
……………………….
I have, in fact, noted many times that some Muslim women enforce the horrors of Shari’ah on other women.
But it is also absurd for Ibrahim itace muhammed to pretend that women are enforcing this on their own, rather than on the violent diktats of Muslim men.
And note that Ibrahim itace muhammed is unable to cite anything I have said that is not true. But then, he never has been able to.
More:
I said the preponderance of opinion among Muslim jurists, there is minority view which is chosen by those countries you have mentioned. Read Fiqh books for these divergent opinions if you can. Remember, the holy Prophet Muhammad said divergence in understanding Islamic sources is a blessing (wa fi ikhtilafikum Rahma) .The terrorist groups who condemn those holding different opinions from their own have violated this Hadith.
……………………….
Well, this is just grimly hilarious. Here’s Ibrahim itace muhammed talking about the glorious multiplicity of opinion in Islam, while in the same post above he has confirmed that Muslims violently enforce the horrors of Shari’ah on their victims.
More, in reply to Rob:
Rob, Liar Gravenimage is always wrong because she said she simply hates anything Islamic without cogent reason.
……………………….
The idea that opposing the oppressive horrors of Jihad and Shari’ah are not cogent reasons is grotesque–but hardly surprising.
More:
you are also wrong to say Sharia compliant code is made by men alone. Are you aware that there are women among members of parliament responsible for codifying Sharia laws in Iran? so, the question of bias by men will not arise.
……………………….
The implication that women are enforcing veiling in Iran while men are desperately trying to stop them from doing so is simply absurd, of course.
In Iran the Ayatollah is the ultimate leader–and he is a proponent of forced veiling. He has, in fact, said that unveiled women deserve to be raped.
He has also imprisoned Nasrin Sotoudeh–the lawyer who took the cases of some of the women who are fighting the veil.