Posted on 06/10/2005 1:46:58 AM PDT by mal
In the first two volumes of the new UN-sponsored 'Encyclopaedia of Women in Islamic Cultures' (EWIC) mostly female authors contribute to the subject of power and violence executed by men over and against women. Some of them arrive at very interesting results. They show that over the centuries the jurists and theologians of Islam have widened the rules of the Qur’an and Islamic tradition into an unlimited licence, some sort of blank cheque, for men to handle women as they deem appropriate. ... So the uniting band of all Islamic cultures is simultaneously the top human right in Islam. It is male and comprises the authority of husbands as well as fathers and brothers who guard what they call the "chastity" of their daughters and sisters. Veiling and domestic arrest secure the so-called "honor" which then equals the human right to female obedience, unlimited readiness for sexual intercourse and punishment in case of disobedience. For the Western mind this is seen as violent abuse, but in Muslim law it forms one of the central regulations securing not only the "honor" but the Islamic state as such. This leads to the first question of why violence and "honor killings" are currently increasing to an alarming extent, not only in the West but also and particularly in the Islamic region. EWIC bases its findings on quite recent UN statistics which show an exorbitant increase of violence in the Arab world. Meanwhile beating, rape and killing of women occur in every third family and, most disquietingly, out of this third almost one third again are rapes in the family, i.e. incestuous actions against women and children. These figures are similarly confirmed for Turkey, an allegedly secular country."
"U.S. Wary Of Syria Targeting Lebanese" (Robin Wright
(Excerpt) Read more at frontpagemag.com ...
Long read, but worth it.
Bump
ping for later read...
"quite recent UN statistics which show an exorbitant increase of violence in the Arab world."
I wonder why the rest of the world hasn't seen these statistics from the UN? Huh?
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