feminine-genius

Wednesday Woes XI

This young woman is simply one of at least 700 Christian women and girls who are kidnapped each year in Pakistan, and subsequently raped or forced into marriages with Muslim men. Both the rapes and the forced conversion to Islam make their return extremely difficult, even if their families could find them:

The High Court in Multan will judge and determine the truth about the case of Farah Hatim, the Catholic girl kidnapped, Islamized and forced to marry a Muslim man in the city of Rahim Yar Khan in southern Punjab ( see Fides 25/6/2011 and previous days). This is what Paul Bhatti, Special Advisor to the Prime Minister for Religious Minorities Affairs in Pakistan and leader of APMA (All Pakistan Minorities Alliance) tells Fides. APMA had tried to mediate in recent days, asking the Muslim family with whom Farah is now, to meet the girl, repeating the official request by a judge of the Court of First Instance in Rahim Yar Khan. The attempt failed (see Fides 07/07/2011) because the family did not appear and the judge himself said to "consider the case closed".

So the challenges include living as a small Christian minority where the police won't take your claims seriously, the neighbours obstinately refuse to help, the courts slam the door on open cases, the bureaucracy won't change ID cards back to Christian (despite forced conversions) and the cultural damage to a girl who has lost her virginity or left a marriage (no matter the circumstances). When priests or bishops make too much of a fuss, they are either harmed or have their churches burned, and any closely related to the protest will lose their jobs.

Raymond Ibrahim lists some more cases here, though of course the phenomenon is not limited to Pakistan. Furthermore, immigrants who leave these regions often bring their cultural constructs with them. I'm still looking for feminists who seem to care, though this ardently secular woman did have some squeamish moments about this story. It's a start...

Wednesday woes X

Prayers for this little sister in the faith:

NAIROBI, Kenya, June 15 (CDN) — The Muslim parents of a 17-year-old Somali girl who converted to Christianity severely beat her for leaving Islam and have regularly shackled her to a tree at their home for more than a month, Christian sources said. Nurta Mohamed Farah of Bardher, Gedo Region in southern Somalia, has been confined to her home since May 10, when her family found out that she had embraced Christianity, said a Christian leader who visited the area. “When the woman’s family found out that she converted to Christianity, she was beaten badly but insisted on her new-found religion,” said the source on condition of anonymity.

Her parents also took her to a doctor who prescribed medication for a “mental illness,” he said. Alarmed by her determination to keep her faith, her father, Hassan Kafi Ilmi, and mother, Hawo Godane Haf, decided she had gone crazy and forced her to take the prescribed medication, but it had no effect in swaying her from her faith, the source said. Traditionally, he added, many Somalis believe the Quran cures the sick, especially the mentally ill, so the Islamic scripture is continually recited to her twice a week.

“The girl is very sick and undergoing intense suffering,” he said. Her suffering began after she declined her family’s offer of forgiveness in exchange for renouncing Christianity, the source said. The confinement began after the medication and punishments failed.

The tiny, shaken Christian community in Gedo Region reports that the girl is shackled to a tree by day and is put in a small, dark room at night, he said. “There is little the community can do about her condition, which is very bad, but I have advised our community leader to keep monitoring her condition but not to meddle for their own safety,” the source told Compass. “We need prayers and human advocacy for such inhuman acts, and for freedom of religion for the Somali people.”

Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government generally did not enforce protection of religious freedom found in the Transitional Federal Charter, according to the U.S. Department of State’s 2009 International Religious Freedom Report. “Non-Muslims who practiced their religion openly faced occasional societal harassment,” the report stated. “Conversion from Islam to another religion was considered socially unacceptable. Those suspected of conversion faced harassment or even death from members of their community.”

Wednesday woes IX

The situation for women in Afghanistan is deteriorating, going from bad to worse:

A gunman lying in wait shot and killed an 18-year-old woman as she left her job at a U.S.-based development company Tuesday, casting a spotlight on a stepped-up campaign of Taliban intimidation against women in this southern city where U.S. troops plan a major operation in the coming weeks.

Although there was no claim of responsibility and police said the motive for the attack was unclear, Taliban militants have been particularly harsh with women who work for foreign organizations or attend school. Bands of thugs are increasingly harassing women who want jobs, education and their own style of clothing, women and aid workers say.

This is not an isolated incident, but part of a campaign of terror against those who reject the Taliban's view of life. There have been better times even in the recent past, but now all efforts at reform are shut down violently:

In the best of times, lives of women in conservative Afghanistan are far more restricted than in the West, especially in rural areas where a woman's place is in the home and beneath the all-encompassing burqa. Since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, however, women in urban areas like Kabul, Mazar-i-Sharif and Jalalabad have more choices — with some in parliament, government and business.

Even in Kandahar, the major city of the ultraconservative south, women say restrictions eased in the first years after the Taliban were gone. But as the Islamist movement began to rebound in 2003, pressure on women to adhere to strict Islamist and Afghan traditions increased — with little protection from the ineffectual and corrupt Afghan police.

As long as all religions are seen as equally true, and women''s rights are sacrificed to multi-culturalism, there is no legitimate reason to suggest that societies separate themselves from this anti-woman construct. And relativism will kill as many people as the worst of religions.

Wednesday woes VIII

Today we consider the women of Saudi Arabia who are subject to stringent laws concerning guardianship, which is part of the Muslim world. This summer, a Saudi activist, Wajeha Al-Huweidar, sought to change the existing laws which require a woman to have a man's permission for everything that she does, in addition to traveling with a male escort when leaving the country. In response, a counter-proposal has been launched in the name of Princess Jawaher bint Jalawi. (There are scores of princes and princesses attached to the House of Saud who are wealthy beyond all our imagination.)

This campaign has been called "My Guardian Knows What's Best For Me," and is specifically opposed to calls by those with liberal views to improve the status of women in Saudi Arabia. Some suspect that this has really been started by men, but the point is clear: no reform of existing laws stands a chance of success within the Wahhabi regime in Saudi Arabia.

"[This campaign's] slogan gives the man greater tyranny and greater control, and greater humiliation and greater disregard [for the woman], and expresses a view [of women] as inferior... because of customs from the Jahiliya [i.e. the pre-Islamic period] which some consider to be 'religion.' How can the term ['guardian'] be given to a cheating husband, a drug dealer, a misyar husband or a 'summer husband [these terms are explained in footnotes].

"[The campaign's slogan] is illegitimate and illogical – it is a catastrophe, and the greatest catastrophe is that women themselves fall victim to this idea, and justify the myth of [their own inferiority] and become enthusiastic about it. Even if [the term] 'guardian' in this slogan refers to the ruler, Allah did not create woman so that man should speak in her name...

"Men no longer customarily bury their daughters [alive] as they did during the Jahiliya [the time before Islam]. But some among us have buried women's emotional and psychological needs... [as well as] affection and attention [to them]. The ill treatment of women is [not limited] to any one trend or party. It exists in all streams – Islamic, liberal, and secular. How women are treated is the result of upbringing in the home and of the culture of an entire society, a combination of customs handed down [from generation to generation].

The debate is frenzied and complicated, with many insisting that Islam isn't the problem, but irresponsible men are; some say that this is a plot from Western enemies who want to weaken the country through its women -- implying that patriotism would lead women to love their guardians; others say that it's too big a change and smaller steps would have a better chance -- which would leave the system basically intact.

As I read A God Who Hates (Wafi Sultan) it becomes clearer that Islam cannot see women as anything other than chattel and property of the men in their lives, unequal in dignity to men and tainted from birth by being sources of sin and unable to rise beyond it.

[Her grandmother instilled in her] the Muslim belief that “She is defective! She is grateful to her husband for covering up one tenth of this defect of hers and is waiting for the grave to hide the other nine tenths” (p. 117).

“The most terrifying thing about a Muslim woman’s birthmark is that part which comes from the Prophet’s stories about his wives that create a trap every Muslim woman falls into: no man in my life can be better than his Prophet and I cannot be less obedient to him than his Prophet’s wives were to their husband. Men have internalized the Prophet, and women have internalized his wives” (p. 119).

I want to discuss the moral importance and what [Muhammad's marriage to Aisha] has done, and is still doing, to destroy the moral and mental fiber of Muslim men and women. A fifty-year old man marries a six-year-old girl and consummates their marriage when she turns nine. This is a crime, pure and simple. It may not have been one at the time it happened, but the time has come for it to be considered as such.  The ugliness of this crime does not lie only in the event itself, but in the religious and legal legitimization it has been accorded. It is the moral examples the individual Muslim extracts from this incident which invest it with its importance and gravity, not its time or place.

Islamic culture attaches no value to childhood. A child is his father’s property, who has the right to dispose of him as he would of any other property. When a mother picks up her young daughter of no more than nine years and places her in the arms of a man her grandfather’s age, her daughter’s childhood has been irreparably violated. When the mother’s action acquired religious and legal legitimacy, it became a way of life for fourteen centuries. (God hates. 120)

Islam was born in an environment that sanctioned the capture and rape of women, holding them – not the man committing the crime – responsible. Islam did not proscribe what was already permissible. On the contrary, it legalized it and enshrined it in canonical law. Man’s need to take his revenge on women because he considered them a source of disgrace was a pressing one (p. 129).

Your women are your fields: go, then, into your fields as you please (Koran 2:223). A woman therefore, is like/the land – the dirt – while the man is the farmer who plows that land and casts his seed into it. The dirt cannot protest as the farmer furrows it, nor can it determine the rime or place of planting. The whole operation takes place under the man’s control and is carried out in accordiance with his wishes. Can the dirt protest? Cant the dirt decide how it is plowed and planted? For fourteen centuries Muslim women have been the dirt of Islam that Muslim men have trod on and “planted” in their role as the farmer  (pp 133-4).

Can anyone explain rules about guardianship (that a Muslim woman is first subject to her father, then brothers, then husband, and later sons) apart from the example set by Muhammad -- the owner of many wives and concubine/slaves? Is this a religion likely to be reformed without renouncing the prophet? He set the example that Muslim men have followed ever since. And for women to say that guardians are necessary and good only exhibits their Stockholm Syndrome. Very, very sad.

UPDATE: Speakingof those guardians and whether or not they know best, consider this guardian who sold his ten-year-old into marriage with an, ahem, considerably older man.

Saudi columnist and former editor of the Saudi daily Shams Khalaf Al-Harbi harshly criticized the practice of underage marriage. In an article titled "Save Elementary School Girls!" in the Saudi daily 'Okaz, he wrote: "How is it possible that an elementary school girl is married to an 80-year-old man and no one lifts a finger to prevent this disaster? [And] how is it possible that, [although] this sad episode is reported on the front page [of a newspaper], the public treats it as a 'private matter'?...

"In an interview with 'Okaz, the bridegroom denied that he was 80 years old… [He also said] that according to shari'a, [such] a marriage is permissible as long as the father of the bride consents to it… and that he was originally supposed to wed the older sister... What is the meaning of all this? The older sister refuses to marry an 80-year-old man, so the father offers him the next in line…

"How can anyone accept such injustice? Where are all the heroic women [who led] the [My Guardian Knows What's Best for Me] campaign? [2] Let them explain the difference between fatherhood and selling vegetables [in the market].

The little girl hid in her aunt's home for over a week until she was found and handed back. For those who wonder about Saudi Arabia's signature to the "International Convention on the Rights of the Child," remember that their the Islamic version of human rights insists that shari'a always takes preference over what the rest of the world considers settled law.

UPDATE: Rachel Abrams is a little more blunt --

The marriage of a grown—not to say aged—man to a ten-year-old girl is a solution only to the case of a pedophile seeking his next victim. If that’s Islamic, call me a Crusader.

Wednesday Woes VII

Throughout the Muslim world, men have known that if they cannot woo a woman, win a wife or wheedle her into matrimony, they can just kidnap a Christian girl, force her to convert at knifepoint, bed her and voila! an ironclad nuptial that law must protect.

A father in Egypt lost his daughter, Myrna, that way, as she was snatched by Osama for his son Mohamed. She begged for rescue, and the ensuing events have sent violence and destruction rippling outward.

On their way to free his daughter, the father, together with his brother and brother-in-law, passed by a cafe near St. George's Church, Sidi Bishr, where Rafaat Girges Habib, a plumber who has done jobs in the father's home, volunteered to accompany them to bring Myrna back.

As they went to the apartment where Myrna was held, they were met by Osama Hefnawy, father of Mohamed and five other Muslims, who threatened them. A struggle ensued, and Myrna left with her father. She was taken away to an establishment dealing with abduction cases like hers, especially that it was found out that she was six months pregnant.

Osama Hefnawy immediately filed a report with the police and the State Security Headquarters in Al-Farana, Alexndri downtown. Myrna's paternal uncles were arrested and charged with abduction, together with her father. Myrna's family apartment was broken into and the shop of Rafaat Girges Habib was completely demolished by the police.

Is it any wonder that Christians are fleeing the Middle East in droves? Fathers cannot protect their families, and now we have one more family destitute because of the legal deck stacked against them.

Wednesday Woes VI

Many Americans have died in Afghanistan to bring democracy to the region. That concept isn't working out any better for women in that country than other forms of government -- it's the indigenous religion that weighs on them and it's being translated into oppressive laws.

An Afghan bill allowing a husband to starve his wife if she refuses to have sex has been published in the official gazette and become law.

The original bill caused outrage earlier this year, forcing Afghan President Hamid Karzai to withdraw it. But critics say the amended version of the law remains highly repressive. They accuse Mr Karzai of selling out Afghan women for the sake of conservative Shia support at next week's presidential election.

"What matters more to Karzai is the support of fundamentalists and hardliners here in Afghanistan whose support he thinks he needs in the elections."

Women's groups say its new wording still violates the principle of equality that is enshrined in their constitution. It allows a man to withhold food from his wife if she refuses his sexual demands; a woman must get her husband's permission to work; and fathers and grandfathers are given exclusive custody of children.

The law seems to apply only to the Shia minority in that country, but it reveals how expendible women's dignity is in that region. To extrapolate further on who, exactly, will be affected by laws about marriage, consider the wider culture and the marriage of children.

No just society can be built on families that do not honour all members.

Wednesday Woes IV

Britain seems to be headed in the wrong directions on human rights, specifically women's rights. Although there is a constitution in the realm that sees men and women as fundamentally equal, there is "sharia creep," meaning that women who are taken to Sharia courts will be denied the justice inherent in that constitution.

There are as many as 85 sharia courts operating in Britain, according to a new report. Academic Denis MacEoin, the report's author, said the existence of the courts practising Islamic law could lead to different legal standards being applied to Muslim and non-Muslim citizens.

He said many of the courts operate out of mosques and their rulings are closed off to non-Muslims.

In previous reports it was claimed there were only five sharia courts in the UK, working in London, Manchester, Bradford, Birmingham and Nuneaton. He said: "This is not a matter of eating halal meat or seeking God's blessing on one's marriage. It is a challenge to what we believe to be the rights and freedoms of the individual, to our concept of a legal system based on what parliament enacts, and to the right of all of us to live in a society as free as possible from ethnic-religious division or communal claims to superiority and a special status that puts them in some respects above the law to which we are all bound."

His report, published by the think-tank Civitas, includes a list of previous sharia judgements which he believes give an indication of the type of ruling being handed down by the courts working in the UK. Among the examples quoted are laws banning a Muslim woman from marrying a non-Muslim unless he converts to Islam and the removal of a wife's property rights in the event of divorce.

Now, do women choose their court, are are they forced into the Islamic court by the men in their lives? It would seem the latter, since they have fewer rights in Islam, and keeping their case "in the mosque" so to speak means that Muslims live apart, rule apart, decide apart and are not subject to the rule of the land.

For an example of how sharia courts work outside of Britain, consider this lopsided (and brutal) verdict:

A widow was whipped 202 times and a man 101 times following a fatwa by a religious leader for their alleged involvement in "anti-social activity" in a village in southeastern Bangladesh, prompting local protests and action by the police. Piara Begum, a widow of 40, and Mamun Miah, 25, were whipped before hundreds of people at Khaiyar in Comilla district Saturday night. The woman fell unconscious and was rushed to hospital. Doctors said she was critically injured and needed to be given intensive treatment.

To follow up on another story mention in this series, there were two girls in a family abducted and forced to convert and marry  Muslim men. One was recovered, the other cannot be found. The fact that one daughter returned home only exacerbated the family's suffering:

The success of recovering the Coptic girl led to anger, revenge and assaults from the disappointed village Muslims against her family. Nearly 150 Muslims, armed with swords and clubs, physically assaulted five family members of the abducted Coptic teenager, as they drove back to their village after being forced into reconciliation with the abductor's family by State Security, compromising their right to pursue the case any further. "With every blow on us, they chanted 'There is only one Allah' while the Police stood there watching the assault, until we could take no more and three of us were hospitalized," said Nermeen's uncle Sameh Mitry in an aired interview with Coptic News on 6/7/2009. "They dragged us out of the car saying "Get out you followers of the Dog's religion!' They were consumed with anger ever since we got our girl back."

There are more details about the abduction:

Nermeen Mitry, 16, from Toma village near El-Mahalla town, was on her way to sit for an exam on May 21, 2009, when she was lured by a Muslim female friend to go home with her where she offered her spiked tea. She regained conscious hours later to find herself facing a bearded Muslim man trying to convert her to Islam, in a far away town and another governorate in Egypt, which she later knew to be Zagazig. The traumatized girl recounted the events to Osama Eid, correspondent of the Free-Copts Organization.

"The man was very confident and told me that I would be the fourth Coptic girl to 'know the true Allah' and convert to Islam through him. He also said that a member of my family was converted 15 years ago by him. I told him I am engaged to be married when I come of age, and would never convert to Islam as this would be a catastrophe for me. He did his best to make me change my mind, and then left me alone for a while."

When Nermeen did not return home, the Mitry family went to the police. Unable to get the police to register the case as an abduction, the family subsequently went to State Security and reported the incident, but were delayed there for hours with no progress.

"Meanwhile, one of the abductor's family members contacted Nermeen's cousin Romany and told him he knew her whereabouts, and offered to accompany him to bring her back," Sameh told Coptic News. "I am sure the abductor's family knew that we would have implicated them and they were afraid. We freed the girl ourselves; State Security did nothing to help."

So to put the two stories together, we find the inequalties between men and women, between Christianity and Islam -- both to the detriment of women. Consider another element here., which means that these thousands of girls will have no recourse, even when they can make it back to Britain.

As a corollary to this, perhaps you can join your prayers to those of Pope Benedict for his special intention for this month: "That the Christians of the Middle East may live their faith in full freedom and be an instrument of peace and reconciliation."

Wednesday Woes III

For all the very good things Allied troops have fought for in Afghanistan, the notion that girls should receive and education isn't one that seems to gain traction.

Students were gathering in the yard of Aftab Bachi school in Muhmud Raqi for a morning reading of the Quran when a strange odor filled the area. First one girl collapsed, then others, said the school's principal, Mossena, who fought for breath as she described the event from her hospital bed.

"I saw several students fall down on the ground," said Mossena, who like many Afghans goes by one name. Teachers told the rest of the students to go home. Mossena said she did not know what happened next because she collapsed and woke up in the main hospital in Muhmud Raqi, the capital of Kapisa province, which lies just northeast of Kabul.

At least 98 people were admitted, including 84 students, Mossena, 11 teachers and two cleaners, said Khalid Enayat, the hospital's deputy director. He said they were monitoring about another 30 students to see if they developed symptoms.

Tuesday's incident is the third alleged poisoning at a girls school in about two weeks.

In the Swat Valley of neighbouring "friendly" Pakistan, Shari'a was established last month, which is having a similar effect on education, and is harmful to both women and Christians.

Religious minorities, including Christians, and human rights groups are very concerned about the government’s decision which effectively places the whole region in the hands of militias.

Women, who are already victims of discrimination and exclusion in society, will be the first to suffer from the application of Sharia.

Girls and young women are likely to lose the right to go to schools. Since the start of the year many have been targeted by armed groups.

Since the start of the Taliban military campaign in 2007 168 schools have been attacked, including 104 girls’ schools. An additional 400 private schools could also be shut down.

Altogether some 80,000 female students could have their education put at risk whilst about  8,000 female teachers could lose their job.

On another dark topic, the standard lies that brought us abortion on demand in much of the west are still standard procedures for proponents of legalised abortion, and now the perpetrator is none other than our own Secretary of State.

Last month Secretary of State Hilary Clinton told Congress that half of the women she had seen in Brazilian hospitals "were fighting for their lives against botched abortions." After her comments she was asked to produce evidence as to when she had visited the hospitals or statistics to back her claim, but neither she nor her staffers have been able to produce any evidence.

The National Catholic Register contacted Department of State spokeswoman Laura Tischler to see if there was any record of Clinton’s trip to Brazilian hospitals. Tischler said, "I am unable to confirm where or when the trip she referred to in her testimony was — where specifically in Brazil she was visiting or when the trip occurred."

[Representative Chris] Smith said that this approach of exaggerating numbers and using "junk science" was how former abortionist and founding member of NARAL, Dr. Bernard Nathanson, attempted to influence public policy. Nathanson once said that 10,000 women were dying in the United States because of botched abortions, but later after his conversion to Catholicism, said that he and other pro-abortionists exaggerated those claims and the number was closer to 200-250 women annually.

Nathanson said their tactic was simple: "Repeating the big lie often enough convinces the public."

Nothing ruffles the feathers of feminists in pursuit of access to abortion, not even the fact that many babies are killed because they are girls. This is rampant in Asia, but even Europeans have firm plans when it comes to sex-selection, and the law must apply:

Doctors had asked health authorities about the matter after a woman from southern Sweden had two of her children killed in utero for being an undesired sex. The woman had already given birth to two daughters.

The gender was determined during an amniocentesis requested to determine whether the child had a disability. Concerned doctors at Mälaren Hospital then asked Sweden's National Board of Health and Welfare to determine a protocol for future instances in which they "feel pressured to examine the foetus's gender" without a medical necessity.

The medical board responded that such requests must be accommodated. According to Swedish law, abortion is legal on any basis whatsoever up to the 18th week of gestation, and therefore the board said doctors cannot deny a mother seeking to have an unborn child killed because it is the wrong gender.

Interesting that the doctors were even frustrated -- after proving to the mother that each of the children was healthy, they were killed because they were not boys. Let's pray that this sad case at least causes those offering abortions to rethink their service. Imagine what the two daughters will think one day -- since this case is so public.

Another European country, purportedly Catholic, is undertaking a new and grievous step:

The Spanish government announced yesterday that pharmacies will be required to sell the abortifacient "morning after pill," without a prescription and without an age limitation, throughout Spain. The new regulation, which was announced by Spanish Health Minister Trinidad Jimenez and "Minister of Equality" Bibiana Aido, will take effect in three months.  Jimenez clarified that all pharmacies will be required to carry the drug.

"Once the sale of this drug is authorized, the obligation exists for pharmacies to have it available," she told the media.  She also claimed that a committee of physicians had determined that the drug poses no serious risks and does not need to be given by prescription.

However, pro-life physicians strongly contradicted Jimenez' claim.  Dr. Gador Joya, spokesman for the Spanish organization Right to Life, told the pro-life website HazteOir.org that in fact, "the so called day after pill has an abortive effect.  The measure announced by the minister envisions establishing free abortion … It also assumes that children will be given the power to have abortions using this method without their parents' knowledge or authorization.  It is not only a humanitarian aberration, but a medical one."

The International Federation of Associations of Catholic Physicians issued a statement opining that it is "inconceivable that a civilized country would distribute drugs with powerful side effects without medical control" and calling it "one of many perversions of the system towards the medical profession and respect for the life, health, and education of our children," in the words of the president of the Federation, J.M. Simon.

The problem is two-fold -- not only are abortions being procured without full knowledge or understanding (because of the spin claiming otherwise) but pharmacists are forced to comply, inhibiting their freedom of conscience.

Wednesday Woes II

We begin with one of the most sad and ironic tales of the year thus far, which is the killing and beheading of Assiya Hassan (37) by her husband, Muzzammil (44). They were the poster couple for Islam in America -- working together through Bridges TV, to show Muslims in a more positive light; but they were also well-known to the local police, for their tortuous six-year history of domestic abuse.

“I think of Aasiya as a martyr,” said Faizan Haq, a local professor who helped launch Bridges TV, the station in Orchard Park that the Hassans started in 2004. “She has given her life to protect the image of American Muslims. And as an American Muslim community, we owe it to her not to let this happen again.”

Of course one domestic squabble doesn't a mysogynistic sect doesn't prove, but few could miss the incongruity of having a man chosen to evangelise for the Muslim cause while being a bully and wife-beater. This may just show what a hollow endeavor it is to whitewash Islam. Our prayers for her soul, may she now rest in peace.

_____________________

In Saudi Arabia, it is illegal for women to drive. So one woman asked for a ride from a stranger and paid a terrible price: the driver took her to a house where he and four friends gang-raped her. Not only is she now pregnant, but she's also been charged with adultery (for having intercourse outside of marriage), will be imprisoned for a year and will endure 100 lashes after the birth of her child. Who thinks of these laws -- and applies them without mercy or mitigation? What kind of God would their religion worship?

_____________________

It is with great sadness that we read that Somalia has embraced Shari'a for its guiding light. There is a long history of war between Muslims and Christians, but followers of Muhammed have been there for centuries. It is with greater sadness, though, that we read that Shari'a is extending its influence in Europe, where women might otherwise have access to a fairer system of laws. This woman has the very credibility to speak to this injustice because of her own story.

[“Hannah Shah”] is ... the daughter of an imam in one of the tight-knit Deobandi Muslim Pakistani communities in the north of England. Her father emigrated to this country from rural Pakistan some time in the 1960s and is, apparently, a highly respected local figure.

He is also an incestuous child abuser, repeatedly raping his daughter from the age of five until she was 15, ostensibly as part of her punishment for being “disobedient”. At the age of 16 she fled her family to avoid the forced marriage they had planned for her in Pakistan. A much, much greater affront to “honour” in her family’s eyes, however, was the fact that she then became a Christian – an apostate. The Koran is explicit that apostasy is punishable by death; thus it was that her father the imam led a 40-strong gang – in the middle of a British city – to find and kill her.

Hannah Shah says her story is not unique – that there are many other girls in British Muslim families who are oppressed and married off against their will, or who have secretly become Christians but are too afraid to speak out. She wants their voices to be heard and for Britain, the land of her birth, to realise the hidden misery of these women.

The beauty of her story is not only that she found Christ, and not only that she wishes to help other Christian converts, but that she has witnessed to the power of forgiveness in her own life. Despite being betrayed by her father, by her mother who didn't protect her, and by the British system that stupidly sent her back to her cage of abuse, she knows the path to peace:

So does Hannah offer Christian forgiveness to the father who raped and abused her and who, by her own account, was even prepared to murder her?

“It’s taken a long time and it’s only in the past few years that I’ve got to that. It’s very hard to get there and it’s taken a lot of shouting and screaming behind closed doors, and praying, to get me to the point of being able to say: I forgive. I have to, partly because otherwise I would be a very bitter and angry person and I don’t want to livea life that’s full of anger.”

This at least allows this installment of "Wednesday Woes" to remind us of the brilliant, dazzling silver lining that is our God of Mercy. Please pray for all the women trapped by mysogyny, injustice and violence. Perhaps we could also benefit by reading her book (though it sounds like very painful reading.)

Wednesday's Woes I

If I can remember, I'll try to make this a weekly feature, so that all my stories on Islam are put together, rather than heaved scattershot.

First, a comment allowed to go unchallenged on an NPR story posits that honour killings are something that all cultures could produce. A young Pakistani woman who lived in Atlanta was killed by her father, who felt obliged to act for the shame she brought on his family.

Sandeela Kanwal was the 25-year-old daughter of Chaudry Rashid. [Detective Mike] Christian says when police arrived at the house, they found the 57-year-old pizza shop owner sitting cross-legged in his driveway, smoking a cigarette. "They talked to him and asked him what was going on," says Christian, "and he said, 'My daughter's dead.' They asked him again what he'd said and he said, 'My daughter's dead.'"

Police found Kanwal dead on the floor of her bedroom, still in her Wal-Mart uniform. She'd been working the late shift that night. As they surveyed the scene, police tried to piece together what had happened. Rashid was taken into custody and questioned.

"He admitted to actually taking the life of his daughter," says Sgt. Stefan Schindler, a 13-year veteran of the Clayton County Police Department. "And the reason he took his daughter's life," says Schindler, "by his own words was that she wasn't being true to her religion or to her husband."

But there is no room for reproach, evidently:

He says Rashid told police he strangled his daughter with a bungee cord, which he later burned and flushed down the toilet. Police were unable to find it. That's just one of many holes in this case, says Rashid's lawyer, Alan Begner. [He] hopes the state doesn't make this about Islam or ethnicity. This death could have happened, he says, in any culture, with any family.

Similarly, another woman, surprisingly, cannot see the forest for the trees -- even while on the run from her husband.

A British mother facing three months in a Dubai jail after an appeal court upheld her conviction for adultery is on the run with her two young children. Marnie Pearce, 40, fled with her sons Laith, seven and Ziad, four, after a court ruled that she should be jailed for three months for being unfaithful to her Egyptian ex-husband Ihab El-Labban, 41.

Pearce insists she never had an affair, but was framed by her former lover so he could win custody of their sons. Under Dubai law the husband of convicted adulterers decides when they should go to jail.

"My ex-husband found out where I am and got a message to a friend warning that unless I hand myself in to the police in the morning he will send the police round," Pearce told the Sunday Mirror. "I am begging somebody to help me, please help me. I am scared that if I go to prison my ex-husband will take the children and I will never see them again. All I am left with is precious hours with my babies. I am sitting here about to make lunchboxes up for school, and I simply can't imagine a life without them."

Pearce, who converted to Islam, met El-Labban, a well-off company executive, in Oman and married him in the Seychelles in September 1999. They moved to Dubai but their marriage eventually broke down.

She said: "The Koran says that heaven is at the feet of the mother. I am Muslim - there should be nothing in this world that takes children from their mother. This is not about religion, or culture. It is about his revenge - and how he has abused the system to get it. My husband could get this case stopped tomorrow but he won"t because he wants me locked up... This is barbaric: this country has been my life for the last 13 years and I have loved and respected and honoured every part of it."

Well, evidently heaven is not at her feet, despite how she personally has interpreted her new faith. The law of Dubai is firmly based on Shari'a, which is what the husband is relying to put her in jail. Surely, there is vindictiveness as well, but the court supports his revenge, and not her motherhood. That's what's wrong with Shari'a.

Speaking of Shari'a, its application in Iran has led to a new wave of arrests of Christians who are held without bail, without charges, and seemingly without hope:

Arrests and pressure on Christians from authorities have ramped up even further in the past few months, the source said, adding that the reasons were unclear. Another source, however, said the arrests are part of a concerted, nationwide government plan.

“We are quite sure that these arrests are part of a bigger operation from the government,” the source said. “Maybe up to 50 people were arrested. In Tehran alone already some 10 people were arrested – all on the same day, January 21.”

Sources noted that whereas past waves of intense harassment and arrests of Christians eventually have subsided, recent pressure has been “continuously high,” with reports of arrests in almost every month of 2008.

“In the past there have been waves of incredible pressure, but then it seemed to calm down a bit sometimes,” said one source. “Then we had the feeling pressure came and went, but now it is continuously ongoing.”...

The arrests are particularly disturbing in light of the Iranian parliament’s approval last September of a new penal code calling for a mandatory death sentence for “apostates,” or those who leave Islam. In the past death sentences for apostasy were issued only under judicial interpretations of sharia (Islamic law).

In Bangladesh, a more "vigilante" strain of justice is allowed to run unchecked. In Pakistan, insult is added to injury because of the particular hatred for Christians. This heinous attack was specifically to "to violate their faith," but the act is more redolent of "Insult Islamic-style" because they imagined that girl was "ruined." Actually, according to their Christian faith, she remains a child of God (essential dignity intact). (Perhaps they thought that the parents would be obliged to kill her afterwards; little do they understand Christianity.)

And I know you won't forget to pray for dear Martha. Still no word, though I've scoured the web.

UPDATE: Heavens! An alert just surfaced indicating that Martha Samuel Makkar has been granted bail on Sat (Jan 24th). There is no word of the status of her sons, who were being starved to pressure her to recant her faith. She left after an encounter with a snake who hissed menacingly in her ear:

Attorney Nadia Tawfiq said Judge Abdelaa Hashem questioned Makkar extensively about her Christian faith during the hearing. Makkar explained her reasons for conversion, avowing her Christian faith and repudiating the judge’s claims that converting from Islam to Christianity was impossible. “Then he said, ‘I want to talk with Martha alone,’ so we all left the room, and he said to her, ‘Nobody changes from Muslim to Christian – you are a Muslim,’” Tawfiq said. “And she said, ‘No, I am a Christian.’ He told her, ‘If I had a knife now, I would kill you.’

Her dry martyrdom is not over by a long shot. Poor dear. Her whole extended family would like to see the judge do as he promises.