Morning Star

Islam and adultery (Egyptian law)

 

After watching, consider these points:

• while Islam claims that adultery must be proven by the "four witness" rule (which refers to this defining anecdote) I find it stunning that one man can be four witnesses alone simply by swearing the same thing four times -- surely rational people must take issue with such an interpretation (even of an already onerous law);
• there seems to be no real argument about murder as a reasonable response to adultery, whereas most of the world would consider it an over-reaction. His dispassionate explanation made one wonder if the anger of the husband was jealousy founded on betrayed love or a natural reaction to the sullying of his property, the property to which he had sole right of intimacy;
• his ludicrous explanation that notifications of subsequent marriages might get lost in the mail made a mockery of the law that husband's must notify their wives first; and notification is very different than attaining permission, which the Muslimas on the set seemed to think was proper before adding new wives to a "family."
• the parsing of killing "on the spot" and killing an hour later is still subject to the husband's interpretation, for the "other man" caught in the act certainly isn't going to stick around to give police a time-table;
• the fact that a legal system codifies such details betrays the fact that such incidents are widespread and subject to much discussion over the just response to adultery -- on the part of wives; furthermore, the fact that women have no such codes to protect them remind us that polygamy and male-initiated divorce make her ability to love and trust her husband extremely difficult, if not impossible.

As for the show, I find it interesting to see the various outfits on the women, who must have been chosen to represent different segments of the population. The premise must make for lively exchanges and great ratings, especially by inviting hard-line imams to propose such outlanding readings of their faith.

"Muhammed's law"

After years of involvement in Afghanistan, there is no more respect for human dignity than before, According to this report in AsiaNews , especially for women:

[A mother and her daughter] were killed yesterday in Ghazni, 138 km southeast from Kabul, a few hundreds of metres from government offices. Although the area was recently handed over to Afghan authorities, international forces are still in control. “Everyone knows such violence goes on,” sources said.

Yesterday, a group of armed men entered the house where a young widow lived with her daughter. After accusing them of adultery, they took them out to the yard, where they were stoned and then shot dead. The attack was carried out only 300m from the governor's office in Ghazni city, but police arrived too late on the scene of the crime.

Despite the sound of screams and gunshots, neighbours did not help or inform the authorities. Officials says that a number of religious leaders in the city have been issuing fatwas, asking people to report any one who was "involved in adultery." Sources told AsiaNews that some imams, even in the capital, have also been stirring up people against foreigners and demanding everyone submit to Sharia to the letter.

Ten years after the fall of the Taliban, nothing has changed. “The international community has spent billions of dollars in the country, but they have been used to set up an army and enrich political elites; very little has gone to the people,” sources say.

“In Kabul, if you step outside the area around the government compound, you’ll see only crumbling houses, mud roads and poverty. No one has showed Afghans why democracy is good. Little has been done in the way of building schools, hospitals and businesses.”

The West is also at fault for allowing the government to base its laws exclusively on Sharia, using the excuse that it is a domestic matter.

“The government continues to be weak, corrupt and not very credible,” the sources say. “Extremists and religious authorities use Muhammad’s law without fear to settle disputes in total impunity.”

Has our involvement there been worthwhile? That is certainly debatable at this point. There seems to have been no meaningful changes at the grassroots level.

We will never know if this woman was guilty as charged, but that is the difference between Islam and Christianity. Although both creeds abhor adultery, Christianity admonishes the sinner, preferring repentance to death. If a Muslim is sure of the guilt of another, then dispatching the sinner while still in sin endangers the soul for all eternity. What is loving about that?