WHY WOMEN SHOULD BE ALARMED

Radical Islam Wants To Strip Away All Your Rights

Gary Short

Radical Islamics uncompromisingly believe that women have no rights of their own. Even moderate Moslem men are allowed to have multiple wives, to divorce them at will and even to abuse the women in their families with impunity. To the most radical, women are meant to bear children, serve men, and have no need for education or any other form of personal betterment.

This week these views have been dramatically underscored in Sudan. Sudan’s Muslim scholars labeled Hassan al-Turabi, Popular Congress Party leader, as an apostate because of his recent liberal statements on women's rights. These scholars called for Turabi to face Sharia law, which means facing the death penalty for his pronouncements about women. What are the terrible things Turabi is propagating? He said, “Women were equal to men, had the right to marry a Christian or a Jew and could even lead prayers.” These views, attributing rights to women, represent a major change for Turabi who has been the country's most famous radical Muslim theologian.

Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who was raised in a Moslem home, and who now has to have a bodyguard to protect herself from radical Islamics, said in a recent article, “In every society where family affairs are regulated according to instructions derived from the Shariah or Islamic law, women are disadvantaged. The injustices these women are exposed to in the name of Islam vary from extreme cruelty (forced marriages; imprisonment or death after rape) to grossly unfair treatment in matters of marriage, divorce and inheritance.” Ali emphasizes that women are not treated as equals; “Under Shariah, a girl becomes eligible for marriage from the moment she starts to menstruate. In countries where Islamic law is practiced, child-brides are common.”

You may be surprised where Shariah law is manifesting it’s enslaving impact on women. Well you won’t be too surprised that, an article in the new Iraq constitution “would establish that the legislature may make no laws that contradict Shariah edicts.” This in all practicality eliminates rights for women and girls. The new Iraq constitution favors men in domestic issues, such as the right to marry multiple wives, ability to divorce a wife without the impartial judgment of a court, simply by repeating "I divorce you" in the presence of two male witnesses. “A wife divorced in such a fashion will receive an allowance for a period of three months to one year, and after that period nothing." This may be why there is reportedly 300,000 homeless women in neighboring Tehran, Iran. On the other hand, "if a wife wants a divorce, she must go to court and prove that her husband does not meet her material needs, that he is infertile and that he is impotent.” These are the kinds of things it would be next to impossible for her to prove. “Once a divorce is finalized, if there are children, the custody of the children will automatically go to the father (for boys at age 7 and for girls from the start of menstruation). Inheritance based on the Shariah means that wives will get only a small portion of the property of their husbands and a sister will get half what her brother gets.” This does not sound like a democracy at least for the women.

You probably will be very surprised that Shariah law is finding a place in a liberal western democracy such as Canada. It seems that Moslem men in Ontario Canada are using that provinces “arbitration act” to negotiate Shariah like conditions into family settlements. According to Ali’s article, Muslim women “are fighting--using the Canadian Charter of Rights--to keep Shariah from being applied as family law” through the arbitration act.
Wherever there are Moslem men who want to live by the barbaric Shariah law the rights of women are in danger. We may expect these conditions to be in places that are traditionally Islamic but the pressure is also being felt in western nations where there is heavy Moslem immigration.

Sources:
Sudan.netnews
Unfree Under Islam Shariah endingers women's rights, from Iraq to Canada. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, WSJ.com
The Women's Forum Against Fundamentalism in Iran Iranfocus.com