Rape, War, and Sharia Law

Rape, War, and Sharia Law in Muslim Nations
Content: “I had thought it was simple.” Thus said the 20 year old brother of a 14 year old Afghani rape victim after he was arrested for using a razor blade to abort his sister’s baby.

The young girl had been raped by a construction worker and had the further misfortune of residing in an orthodox Islamic community where an illegitimate birth meant that she and her family would be treated like pariahs by their fellow Muslims. So her brother, Ali, took her to a cowshed and, as her mother helped restrain her, used the razor blade to slice open her womb. He removed the baby, buried it, then stitched up the wound with coarse string used to tie potato sacks. Ten days later, the girl was taken on a 30 mile donkey ride to a provincial hospital suffering from infection and later, to protect her from family and community members, was evacuated to Bagram Air Base where she remained in critical condition: http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=41777.

Although such lurid and grotesque tales are not unheard of in Western, generally Christian societies, they rarely if ever result from religious motivations. More likely it is a jealous rival or a psychotic, wannabe mother who would perpetrate such acts. Sharia Law, based on the Koran or Qur’an, however, condones such measures to atone for the shame visited upon a family by the sin of being a rape victim.

The other side of the Koranic coin, the rapist’s side, is far more forgiving. The Koran mentions no specific punishment for rapists, the probable reason for their receiving light or no civil penalties, while the victim may receive a hundred lashes for causing the crime. The girls, if not stoned to death, are shunned by their fellow Muslims and their opportunities for a future marriage are nil.

Demonstrating a serious inconsistency, that same Koran denounces rape, except in the event of mitigating circumstances, namely the woman’s religion: The Koran encourages the rape of non-Muslim women, according to more than one source, including http://groups.google.com/group/soc.culture.australian/browse_thread/thread/74aa640b4928eaaa, which cites a number of verses to support that view.: “Koran clearly sanctions this. No Muslims can deny these verses. They are called “ma malakat aymanukum…. The Koran verses are: 23-6, 33-50, 33-52, 33-55, 70-30.”

That sanction and that crime against the Afghani girl and what they say about Muslim thought are interrelated with our wars in the Mideast.

As the war in Iraq seemingly winds down toward a victorious conclusion and as the companion war...

(Read the rest of this article at http://genelalor.com/.)