Islam’s Contempt for Women

by Brigitte Gabriel –

One of the major hallmarks of a modern, mature culture is equality under law; the guarantee that individuals—including women, minorities, and the poor—have the right to personal liberty and freedom of choice. As long as citizens act within the law, the individual should be permitted to live his life according to his own set of rules. Regrettably, it took hundreds of years for the West, from Europe to the Americas, to give rights to women, abolish slavery, allow freedom of religion, and establish programs to ensure that the poor have access to food, shelter, and medical care. Now, with radical Islam thrusting itself upon the world stage, and as the veil of mystery is pulled off its ideology, precepts, and culture, we are discovering Islam’s morally deficient character and are at risk of being pulled back into its seventh-century way of life.

The moral strength and character of a culture is demonstrated by its capacity for compassion and respect for the weak. There is no greater lack of compassion than in the world of devout Muslims. What sets the Islamic world apart from the West is its so-called, God-given teachings concerning the abuse and even murder of minorities and women.

Islam and the Mistreatment of Women

Islam’s oppressive treatment of women has been in place since Mohammed began receiving revelations from the angel Gabriel. The Qur’an and Hadith are filled with verses that are orders on how Muslim men must conduct themselves when dealing with women and nonbelievers. Regrettably, Islam’s ancient mind-set has not advanced in fourteen hundred years. Control of behavior and disregard for human life are key elements in Islamic ideology.

The following Hadith passage exemplifies Islam’s treatment of women. Tabari, a collection of Qur’an verses and Hadith quotes, illustrates how Allah allows the abusive treatment of women, likening them to animals and sex objects.

“Allah permits you to shut them in separate rooms and to beat them, but not severely. If they abstain, they have the right to food and clothing. Treat women well for they are like domestic animals and they possess nothing themselves. Allah has made the enjoyment of their bodies lawful in his Qur’an.” (Tabari IX:113)

Can you imagine the outrage if the pope made a declaration like that about women? By definition, women in Islam will never be equal to men, and thus always subjugated unless moderate Muslims reform their religion and bring it up to 21st-century standards. The shocking reality is that most Muslim men, including those educated in the West, have no objection to honor killings and the degradation of women in their countries. Across the Muslim world, even in moderate Islamic countries, women’s rights are almost nonexistent.

Women in the Muslim world are hidden away, confined to their homes, and sometimes to their rooms, when visitors arrive. They are hidden away as if they are foreign, not quite human. When they need to go out in public they must cover their shame, their very existence, behind black veils. If you’ve ever wondered why Muslim women dress modestly, covering their heads and/or bodies, consider the following verse:

“Prophet! Tell your wives and daughters and all Muslim women to draw cloaks and veils all over their bodies (screening themselves completely except for one or two eyes to see the way). That will be better.” (Qur’an 33:59)

Woman in Islam are considered unclean, deemed inferior even to dirt:

Believers, approach not prayers with a mind befogged or intoxicated until you understand what you utter. Nor when you are polluted, until after you have bathed. If you are ill, or on a journey, or come from answering the call of nature, or you have touched a woman, and you find no water, then take for yourselves clean dirt, and rub your faces and hands. Lo! Allah is Benign, Forgiving. (Qur’an 4:43)

And the Western world wonders why Muslim men treat Muslim women in such a subservient manner? The Prophet Mohammed set forward numerous examples defining how Muslim men should behave toward Muslim women. The following are two more examples of Islam’s narrow-mindedness toward women.

The Prophet said, “Isn’t the witness of a woman equal to half of that of a man?” The women said, “Yes.” He said, “This is because of the deficiency of a woman’s mind.”

The Prophet said, “I looked at Paradise and found poor people forming the majority of its inhabitants; and I looked at Hell and saw that the majority of its inhabitants were women.”

Islam and Marriage

Women living in Islamic countries face a grim prospect when it comes to whom they will marry. The dark situation often worsens after they marry. The whole deal is tilted to favor the husband. The teachings of the Qur’an give husbands the right and responsibility to beat their wives should they misbehave. In Chapter 4, verse 34, the Qur’an states: “If you fear highhandedness from your wives, remind them [of the teaching of God], then ignore them when you go to bed, then hit them. If they obey you, you have no right to act against them. God is most high and great.”

It is important to remember that the Qur’an is considered the word of Allah. That this holy book gives directives to Muslim men to beat their wives, and emphasizes that this action is a duty, is an indication that the outlook for the rights of Muslim women is dismal.

Wife-beating in Islamic nations is more prevalent than one can imagine. In Pakistan, it has been reported by the Institute of Medical Sciences that 90 percent of its female population has been beaten for such wrongdoings as giving birth to a daughter or cooking an unsatisfactory meal. After the African country of Chad attempted to outlaw wife-beating, Islamic clerics in that nation deemed the bill “un-Islamic.”

There is contention within Islamic schools of thought as to whether verse 4:34 in the Qur’an, instructing men to beat their wives, truly says “beat” or “leave” or something else less demeaning toward women. The argument apologists offer up is that some Arabic words have different meanings and leave the interpretation up to the reader. This is a red herring.

As someone whose native language is Arabic and can read the Qur’an in the language in which it was written, here is a transliteration of the word in Verse 4:34: “Tad-ru-bu-hu-nna.” It means “beat them.” There is no other translation. But don’t take my word for it. Here are six different translations of the section in verse 4:34 from the Qur’an that address the beating issue:

Ali translation: …refuse to share their beds, (and last) beat them (lightly)

Pickthall translation: …admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them.

Dawood translation: …admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them.

Shakir translation: …and leave them alone in their sleeping places and beat them;

Arberry translation: …banish them to their couches, and beat them.

You’re the reader. You decide.

Clearly Islam’s systematic oppression and humiliation of women denigrates the integrity and social position of females in the eyes of devout Islamic cultures and societies. Let me sum up what is being taught in the Qur’an and Hadith:

• Females can be shut in separate rooms.
• They can be beaten.
• They are to be treated like domestic animals.
• They possess nothing.
• They need to hide themselves behind cloaks and veils.
• They are unclean in the sight of Allah.
• You can’t pray if you have touched a woman and not washed your hands.
• The witness of a woman in court is equal to half that of a man.
• Women have deficient minds compared to a man’s.
• The majority of the inhabitants of hell are women.

Feeding on this poisonous thinking from childhood to adulthood programs both men and women in Islamic culture. It creates an elitist attitude in men toward women and gives women a feeling of inferiority in society. Sadly, these principles are the reason devout Muslim men can perform the ultimate crime against a woman or young girl if she is deemed to have brought shame or dishonor to her family.

Islam and Honor Killings

The contempt Islam holds toward women is best illustrated through its time-honored practice of honor killings. Any woman or girl’s perceived transgression against the teachings of Islam or against a man’s wishes, or behavior that insults a man, permits a male member of a family (father, brother, uncle, nephew, or husband) to murder the female to avenge and restore honor to the family in the eyes of society. Honor killings are executed by slitting the victim’s throat, hatcheting them, stabbing, burning them to death, decapitation, bullets to the head and chest, or by any other means imaginable. In addition, it is also customary to cut off the victim’s left hand or index finger to prove to tribal elders that the deed has been accomplished and the family honor can now be restored. Even moderate Jordan withdrew a referendum to tighten laws on honor killing after devout Muslims said that the law would eradicate Islamic values and traditions.

Furthermore, Article 341 of Jordanian law stipulates that murder is a legal act of defense when “the act of killing another or harming another was committed as an act in defense of his life, or his honor, or somebody else’s life or honor.” Honor killings are performed throughout the Muslim world. In 1997, an attorney general in the Palestinian Authority told an audience of women that in his opinion, the honor killing of Palestinian women in Gaza and the West Bank were close to 70 percent of all female deaths. The independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, citing government figures, said in a 2006 report that about a thousand women die annually in honor killings.

The problem is not limited to Islamic countries. In 2004 European police met at The Hague to compare notes and come up with ways to handle the new European phenomenon known as honor killings. Police are reopening murder files going back ten years to investigate murders in European Muslim homes. The British police alone have re-opened more than 100 cases for investigation.

Honor killings have also come to North America thanks to the rise of Islamic immigration. In December of 2007, in Toronto, Canada, Aqsa Parvez, a 16-yearold Muslim immigrant from Pakistan, was strangled by her father. Aqsa wanted to dress like other Canadian teenagers and refused to wear a hijab, the Muslin head covering. She even went so far as to move out of the family home. More recently, in January of 2008, two sisters were brutally murdered by their Egyptian father in an honor killing in Dallas, Texas. Their crime was wanting to adopt a more typically American teenage lifestyle. Since that incident we have had another two cases of honor killing in America where a father killed his daughter in Georgia and a husband beheaded his wife in New York. The husband in New York was the CEO of “Bridges TV” a Muslim cable channel founded by the husband and wife to show how moderate Islam is. He was used as the example of a moderate American Muslim businessman and interviewed on ABC, NBC, CBS and CNN.

Many argue that honor killings are a cultural practice only in the Middle East and that it has nothing to do with Islam. If this is the case, then why don’t we see Christian Arabs and Jewish Arabs murdering their daughters? Why does it only occur in Muslim families? Honor killing has become a trend in almost every Islamic community in Europe. What kind of a culture would sanction killing one’s own flesh and blood? Parents raised in other world cultures—religious or not—would give their own lives for their children’s. If Westerners analyzed the question of how a father can kill his own flesh and blood without remorse or conscience, they would be forced to realize that if Muslim people kill their own children they would kill the infidel with even more ease.

Islam and Child Abuse

Mohammed was forty-nine years of age when he became betrothed to Aisha, the daughter of one of his closest friends. At the time, she was six years of age. Three years later, after she completed her first menstrual cycle, Aisha and Muhammad consummated their union. At the time, Mohammed was fifty-two and Aisha was nine. Unfortunately, the Islamic practice of marrying a child bride of the age of nine is still practiced today. It occurs so often, that in 2001, Iran passed a law lowering the legal marrying age for females from twelve to nine years of age.

The motivation behind the early marrying age stems from the precedent of Mohammed. Because he married and consummated his union with a nine-year-old girl during his years of prophesying, Muslim men believe that it is a symbol of their devoutness if they do the same. Mohammed’s advice is being followed by Muslim families around the world. The United Nations Children Fund surveyed the children in an Afghan refugee camp and found that two-thirds of second-grade girls were either married or engaged, and most girls who were past second grade were already married. Although marrying underage girls is legal in conservative Islamic circles, in the United States, we would label the type of man who does so a pedophile and incarcerate him.

One of the most devastating practices to young girls of the Islamic world is female genital mutilation. Young girls have their clitoris removed without anesthesia to eliminate their sexual drive and preserve them for a life of sinlessness and purity. As so much rides on a woman’s honor, including the livelihood and community standing of every member of her extended family, the practice is a kind of insurance policy. Female genital mutilation ensures that honor will be preserved because the girl will not have any sexual attraction to boys. It also will ensure that the girl, who is considered a financial burden to the family, will be prime property on the marriage market as a virgin.

In Bandung, Indonesia, a free female circumcision event is held every spring by the Assalaam Foundation, an Islamic educational and social services organization. A 2003 survey by the Population Council shows that 96 percent of respondents acknowledged that their daughters had been mutilated by the age of fourteen.

Unlimited Humiliation and Abuse
The handling of sexual politics in Islam is heavily weighted in men’s favor. Whereas women are held on a tight rein, one Islamic cultural practice allows men to marry temporarily (for as little as one night) in order to have sex outside the marriage without the baggage of divorce. This practice is known as m’uta (pleasure) marriage and is practiced primarily among the Shia Muslims. A Muslim woman married for more than one night is nothing more than a disposable commodity that can be tossed out of her home by her husband saying: “You are divorced. You are divorced. You are divorced.” The husband is usually awarded custody of the children and the wife is given no financial help. She is now used property, without any prospect of remarriage, forced to work as a servant to feed herself. Considering how young Muslim girls are forced to marry, many find themselves divorced by their twenties, sentenced to a life of humiliation, depression, and hardship.

Rape in Iran is punishable by death. . .for the victim, that is. Atefeh Rajabi, fifteen, was hanged in a public square in Iran after being charged with “adultery.” Many charges of adultery in Islamic nations really mean that the woman was raped. Punitive actions are almost always taken against the female victim who is usually looked down upon in Islamic culture as “perpetrator of all crimes.”

One of the most devastating stories involving the mistreatment of women occurred in Saudi Arabia in 2007 and captured the world’s attention. A nineteen year old woman was ordered to receive ninety lashes after being repeatedly raped by a gang of seven men, to the point where she was mutilated by the ferocity and extent of the attack. The court reasoned that this was justly deserved because the poor lady was found meeting with an unrelated male friend when the men attacked her. When she appealed the court order and went to the media for sympathetic publicity her punishment was raised to 200 lashes, because the victim attempted to “aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media.” The courts did not stop there. The woman’s attorney was also punished—he was banned from defending his client and his law license was revoked. In addition, the victim’s lawyer is required to attend a disciplinary hearing at the Ministry of Justice, where further punishments may be handed out. After world outrage and a realization on the part of the Saudis that the story was not going to disappear from the world media, the king reconsidered the 200 lashes. (The men in the case were also punished, and sentenced to two to nine years in prison.)

Women are discriminated against and belittled in Saudi Arabia and many other Islamic countries by the court systems. As archaic as it seems, today in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere it takes the testimony of two women to equal the testimony of one man. Furthermore, in divorce cases, which are rare, women are not allowed to speak on their own behalf. They must deputize a male relative to speak for them.

In Islam, women as sexual beings pose a danger to a man’s leadership. Women living under the literal interpretation of Islamic law are not allowed any authority in society other than in their capacity of serving and becoming extensions of men as wives or mothers. Islam’s prophet says: “There is no salvation for a man or a nation who allows women to rule over them.” Islamic culture also dictates that the hijab separate men from women, protect society from any possible moral and social risks or damage.

In the Qur’an 4:34, Allah makes clear his views on a woman’s place in society: “Men have authority over women, for that God has preferred in bounty one of them over another, and for that they have expended of their property. Righteous women are therefore obedient. . .and those you fear may be rebellious, admonish them to their couches, and beat them.” The symbol of the veil is so important that in 2002 in Mecca, religious officials allowed fifteen schoolgirls to perish in a fire rather than let them seek refuge outside without their head coverings. Female students are allowed to remove the coverings only when indoors, where there is no male student population.

Brigitte Gabriel is the author of two New York Times Best Sellers Because They Hate and They Must Be Stopped. She is President of ACT! For America (www. actforamerica.org) the largest national security grassroots movement in the United States with 80,000 members, 361 chapters nationwide and a full-time lobbyist on Capital Hill.

Honor Killings

Misogyny is rampant in the Islamic religion. Perhaps one of the most horrifying manifestations of this mindset is the practice of “honor killings.” Whenever a woman,
regardless of her age, is under any suspicion of having brought shame upon her family, it is sufficient cause for the woman’s family to murder her to restore the family’s honor. This is called an “honor killing,” and the following examples of said killings illustrate the presence of this practice in Islamic homes around the world.

ATLANTA, USA, January 2009
25-year-old Sandeela Kanwal was strangled by her father in her house after returning
from her job at Wal-Mart. She was seeking a divorce to get out of a marriage arranged
by her father, which would have apparently brought shame to her family. This shows that
these honor killings occur (though in much fewer instances) even in the West, including
the United States.

TURKEY, February 2010

A 16-year-old girl was buried alive after her family agreed that she had brought shame upon them. The autopsy shockingly revealed that the girl was fully conscious at the time of her burial. Her crime: speaking to boys.

PAKISTAN, September 2008 Five women (including three teenagers) were killed by their families. They were each thrown into a ditch and buried alive after being non-fatally beaten and shot. These killings happened after the women defied tribal elders and sought the opportunity to marry husbands of their own choosing through the civil courts. Despite protests from many activists in Islamabad, current Pakistani law has special provisions for men convicted of honor killings which allow them to be given lighter prison sentences.

JORDAN, September 2003 After receiving a tip on their whereabouts, three Jordanian men find and brutally murder their sisters, the elder of whom had left the family to marry a man of her own choosing, and the younger had left to join her sister a short time after. The three men were incarcerated after admitting that they carried out the murder for the sake of their family’s honor, but received light sentences due to provisions in Jordanian law. Often, perpetrators of honor killings in Jordan receive sentences of as little as six months.

(First published in Areopagus Journal Vol. 10 No. 1 – Is Islam a Religion of Peace?)