Commentary Islam's female Achilles heel By Uwe Siemon-Netto UPI Religious Affairs Editor Monday, September 20, 2004 This second installment of the UPI book review series on the chasm between Islam and Christianity examines Islam's Achilles heel – its treatment of women. The recent massacre committed by Muslim terrorists in Beslan, Russia, has led to a massive turnaround in the public perception of Islam in Germany. Before that kidnapping of 1,200 schoolchildren, teachers and parents – and the slaughter of 350 of them – only 44 percent of Germans believed that a "clash of cultures" was under way between Christianity and Islam, to use Samuel P. Huntington's phrase. Since Beslan, this figure has risen to 62 percent, according to a survey by the reputable Allensbach Institute. Beslan has thus proved disastrous for Islam's image in Germany, a country that is home to 3.4 million Muslims. According to the Allensbach survey, 83 percent of Germans now associate this religion with terror, 82 percent with fanaticism; 70 percent consider it dangerous. A mere 6 percent find Islam a sympathetic faith. By contrast, 39 percent of Americans (39 percent) viewed it positively in a Pew survey that had been, however, conducted before the Beslan bloodbath. In the German poll, perhaps the most staggering result was this: In answer to the pollsters' question, "When you hear the word, 'Islam,' what comes first to your mind?" a full 93 percent replied: the oppression of women. Thus Alvin J. Schmidt is right when he points at the mistreatment of women as the prime example for the huge chasm between Jesus and Mohammed. In his new book, The Great Divide, he reminds his readers of the encounter between Christ and the adulterous women in the Gospel of John (8:11). Jesus told the self-righteous crowd, "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her." The crowd dispersed, and he said to the woman, "From now on sin no more." Writes Schmidt: "When we compare this incident with another involving a wayward woman, namely one, who confessed to Muhammad (sic) and his men that she was a prostitute, we find a very differing response. Muhammad participated in her execution by throwing the first stone." Quoting an American witness to the stoning of a 30-year old woman in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Schmidt continues: "The woman was forcefully placed in a hole dug in the ground. Only her head and neck were visible. When the order was given, people started throwing fist-sized stones at her head and face. "After about an hour, her face became unrecognizable, covered with lacerations and blood, and when her head dropped, the Islamic authorities checked her neck for a pulse beat. She was sill alive, but barely. The stone missiles kept coming. Finally, after another couple of hours death came. Then the woman was left for a few more hours in the hole so others could ... be deterred from committing adultery." In her stunningly well-documented new book, Frauen und die Scharia (Women and the Sharia, or Islamic law), Christine Schirrmacher, president of the Bonn-based Islamic Studies Institute, allows that in most Muslim countries such executions no longer take place. The same applies for amputations and public lashings, Schirrmacher continues. In these countries, of course, women may also drive cars or apply for an I.D. card or a mobile phone by themselves – that is, without a male family member watching over them. But there are other places, such Saudi Arabia where this is not possible. The reason for this, writes Schirrmacher, is that in the eyes of many Muslim theologians women must be kept in check because of their alleged intellectual and emotional weakness and lack of self-control. Women are supposed to be driven by a greater sexual appetite than men. Therefore, they are seen as dangerous creatures. According to the German scholar, this prejudice is used as the principal argument for female circumcision, which supposedly will help women to attain "an appropriate (e.g., lesser) ability to experience their sexuality." Of course, it defies logic that on the one hand women are supposed to be so sexually excessively hungry while on the other hand they must always accommodate the superior sexual drive of men, as Islamic apologetics argue. This is why, writes Schirrmacher, Islamic theologians favor polygamy and the institution of "mut'a," a additional, temporary form of "marriage" meant to give men pleasure. This service is supposed to be paid for, but it is not prostitution in Muslim eyes. Rather, as Schrrmacher writes, "this is a kind of leasing agreement, similar to a car-rental contract." In a German-language Handbook for Muslim Women, wives are instructed never to deny their husband sexual satisfaction, lest men resort to immoral acts or masturbation. As Hian Jilani, a Pakistani woman lawyer, stated soberly in Le Monde diplomatique, a French publication: "(In Islam) a woman has a right to life only when she strictly adheres to norms and traditions. ... The religious forces are too powerful to make thorough improvements possible. The Sharia, or religious law to which all this is linked, has long entered the Western world. This includes a man's "right" to beat his wife – a "right" rooted in this verse of the Koran: "Men are the maintainers of women because Allah has made some of them to excel others and because they spend out of their property; the good women are therefore obedient, guarding the unseen as Allah has guarded; and (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them, and leave them alone in the sleeping-places and beat them" (Surah 4:34). Amazingly, Western scholars often see hope in the fact that in some Islamic countries the exercise of this "divine right" of men is to be curtailed somewhat; they may not break bones, for example, or otherwise cause their wives permanent bodily harm. Yet religiously sanctioned wife beating has long become a reality in the Islamic community in the West. "It is remarkable how many prominent Islamic imams have come out in favor of this," writes Schirrmacher's co-author, Ursula Spuler-Stegemann, a professor of Islamic studies at Germany's Marburg University. She cites a Spanish Muslim cleric, Mohammed Kamal Mustafa, who has penned a manual for punishing women, including the advice not to hit their hands or feet and to avoid causing scars and blood clots. Abdelkader Bouziane, a French imam, counseled his coreligionists to spare their victims' hands and face "so as not to leave visible traces." As Spuler-Stegemann tells it, Ahmet Akgündüz, rector of Islamic University of Rotterdam, supports wife-beating, citing Surah 4:34, as does the Turkish government's Office for Religious Affairs. Turkey, by the way, is eagerly trying to become a member of the European Union. Meanwhile, Murad W. Hofmann, a former German ambassador to Morocco and a convert to Islam living in Turkey, promoted in writing the "symbolic beating ... in the interest of the maintenance of an endangered marriage." This disdain for women may well prove to be the Achilles heel of Islam, however, as the number of Muslims skyrockets in Western Europe. As Spuler-Stegemann observes about Iran, "One can not be certain that this kettle, which is under high pressure, will not explode some day." Women in Iran are showing more and more self-esteem, according to the German scholar. They are increasingly resisting their relegation to an inferior status. Many Iranian women, this correspondent has learned from refugees in the West, are secretly converting to Christianity – at home and even more so in their European exile. "Muslim women are working closely with Christian women's groups, both Catholic and Protestant, in Islamic countries," reports Aldo Giordano, secretary-general of the Council of (Catholic) Bishops conferences in Europe. While many Europeans fret over the waves of Muslim immigrants, the men among those immigrants also have cause for concern – that their wives and daughters will liberate themselves (and with them their offspring) in Berlin, Paris, London or Rome. ® 2004, United Press International

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