Thank Allah for little girls

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Thank Allah for Little Girls by Jonathan Tuttle

"The average woman is born into near slavery, leads a life of drudgery, and dies invariably in oblivion. This grim condition is the stark reality of half our population simply because they happen to be female." —Findings of a 1985 Pakistani governmental commission investigating the status of women in that country

It is disturbing that many Catholics have adopted a philosophical preference for Islam over Judaism. Furthermore, in some instances, some prominent Catholics have even made the unfortunate suggestion that there is much commonality between the true Faith and the religion of Islam.

I have to believe that in doing so, they have little or no idea what Islam preaches or how its followers manifest their faith in the real world. It's time for an expose of what the Koran and Islamic Law actually teach, and how that teaching is applied by its proponents.

It is not enough to simply say that life for Moslem girls is harsh and leave it at that. Catholics must come to some understanding of what life is really like for young girls in Islamic countries, so no reputable Catholic may ever again make the absurd claim of commonality between the Mohammedan religion and the one, true Catholic Faith.

Forced Mutilation

One grisly practice that is common in most Moslem countries is female circumcision, or, as the Western medical authorities have more aptly named the practice, female genital mutilation (FGM). Without going into graphic detail, this process involves the removal of female genitalia.

According to the World Health Organization, "female genital mutilation is normally performed by traditional practitioners with crude instruments, such as knives, razors, blades and broken glass, usually without anaesthetics." 1 This report finds that, though some girls are mutilated at birth, "most girls are mutilated between the ages of 4 and 12." 2

Not only is this practice completely medically unnecessary, barbaric, and unethical, it carries significant health risks. The WHO report continues:

The practice of FGM often leads to complications. Short term complications include severe pain, shock, hemorrhage, urine retention, ulceration of the genital region and injury to adjacent tissue. Hemorrhage and infection can cause death. Long-term complications include cysts and abscesses, keloid scar formation, damage to the urethra resulting in urinary incontinence, dyspareunia (painful sexual intercourse), sexual dysfunction, urinary tract infection, infertility and childbirth complications. 3

Why do Moslems promote a practice which is clearly so damaging? It is seen as a way of controlling sexual appetites. Since a girl who has undergone mutilation experiences no pleasure in the marital act, she has no reason to seek it; therefore, her virginity is preserved until her wedding night. In other words, Moslem men are willing to risk the lives of young girls for no other reason than to ensure the status of their young brides.

It is estimated that between 100 and 150 million women have undergone this dreadful practice, almost entirely within Moslem countries.

Western Moslems and Moslem sympathizers are quick to point out that female circumcision is not required by the Koran. That is true. However, it has long been maintained by many Islamic scholars that Mohammed himself did recommend the practice. Further, the Reliance of the Traveler, a classic manual of Islamic sacred law, states that circumcision is "obligatory for both men and women."

While the practice might ritualistically survive among tribes of other faiths, it thrives in Islamic countries. Many Islamic clerics view it as essential for women, and they tirelessly promote the procedure.

When Egyptian health authorities attempted to ban female circumcision in 1995, they met major opposition from Islamic clerics. Inter Press Service reported that Egyptian Sheikh Yussuf el-Badry, in an attempt to establish Islamic Sharia law, sued the health agency for ordering the ban. Eventually, Egyptian authorities overturned the ban and legalized the practice. El Badry saw this as a major victory for Islam.

Most Moslem women understand the danger of the practice, and it is routinely performed against their wills. Many of these women have attempted to escape before they were mutilated. The best known example of this is the case of Fauziya Kassindja, a Moslem girl from West Africa, who immigrated to the United States.4 Due to her tribulations, the United States government now grants political asylum to those women who are fleeing Islamic authorities in order to avoid mandatory mutilation.

Sentenced to Hell

Another item which makes Islam reprehensible is the protection of men who forcibly violate women. Under Islamic Law, a man cannot be convicted on a charge of rape unless it happens in the presence of four male witnesses who are willing to testify against him. In the course of my research, I have not been able to discover a single instance in which four men testified against one of their own. A Moslem man can freely rape women without worry of conviction, and this happens constantly in Islamic countries. To make matters worse, if a Moslem woman charges a man with rape and she is unable to find four male witnesses to testify against him, she is then charged with fornication. In countries under Islamic law, the punishment for fornication is death.

Further, this situation of a woman facing a fornication charge for a rape committed against her is hardly rare. As a matter of fact, it has been estimated that a whopping 75% of women in Pakistani prisons are there on trumped-up fornication charges5 —and many of them are under ten years old! Simultaneously, the real criminals, the rapists, walk free.

The term "living hell" is often overused. Yet, without an appeal to this cliche, it is difficult to summarize the predicament of young girls in Islamic countries. Had Hobbes' been referring to their lives, he would have been considered prescient with his quip that life is brutish and short. It is impossible to read about these young girls and not be moved by pity.

In many Islamic countries, other than the alleged crime of fornication, the most common crimes are insignificant or nonexistent violations of the Koran, and many of these crimes are punishable by death. A significant percentage of crimes in Islamic countries are capital crimes. Decapitation is common.

Young girls who are sentenced to death in Islamic countries present a problem for Islamic authorities. Islamic clerics and rulers, unsatisfied with a mere penalty of death for the accused, wish to ensure that these women will suffer eternity in hell as well. However, quite a number of the accused girls are virgins, and Islam teaches that virgins go to Paradise upon their deaths. As a solution this problem, in order to ensure the damnation of the accused, Islamic authorities will often order the prison guards to systematically rape female prisoners before they are killed. According to Amnesty International, this practice is widespread in Islamic countries. There is no way of knowing the exact number of such cases, but suffice it to say that under the Khomeini Revolution in Iran, twenty thousand girls and women were executed in the first three years of the Ayatollah's rule.6 And Khomeini was a strict follower of the Koran.

During Khomeini's rule, the minimum age for the death penalty for girls was nine years old, and all these girls were systematically raped before they were executed.

All this to ensure damnation. All under the sanction of law. All because of the teachings of the Koran.

What this all adds up to is a very unpleasant picture. Those girls who are in prison on fornication charges are actually victims of rape. The remaining female prisoners are raped to ensure damnation. It is no exaggeration to say that Islamic countries are nations of rape victims.

Institutionalized Pedophilia

All practicing Moslems revere Mohammed as the great prophet—the greatest man who ever lived, or who could ever live. They seek to imitate him in every conceivable way. This is bad news for women in Islamic countries, for Mohammed had a penchant for little girls. When Mohammed was little over fifty years of age, and already had at least nine wives and countless concubines, Mohammed took a new six-year-old wife named Aisha, although Moslem historians claim that he did not consummate this marriage until Aisha had achieved the ripe old age of nine.7

Of course, defenders of Mohammed and Islam will argue that it was a "long time ago," and girls used to marry younger then. Let's table that argument for a moment and fast forward to the Islamic world of today. There is an old saying: "Times change." In the case of the Islamic faith, it would be more accurate to say: "Times don't change." In imitation of the prophet Mohammed, Moslem men marry girls at the age of nine (and younger) all the time.

After the Revolution in Iran, girls as young as seven were allowed to be married, with the approval of a physician, who could testify to her sexual maturity. But even this minor stipulation was eventually dropped. Jan Goodwin reports on an interview she conducted with an Iranian physican regarding this situation:

"In villages where child marriage is most common, doctors don't even see the girl," she told me. "They just take the family's word that she is physically mature enough to marry. Consequently, we have had very young girls badly injured when they have had what amounts to forced intercourse. Infection sets in and they have died. Only with girls under seven did the Ayatollah say that sex was forbidden." 8

This problem of pedophila is not specific to Iran. Pedophilia is not an Iranian thing—it's an Islamic thing. Time magazine recently reported that in Afghanistan and Pakistan, they found that two-thirds of second grade girls "were either married or betrothed." 9

Second grade!

And they are not engaged to boys of the same age in a cute little arrangement ceremony. Typically, they are engaged or married to men four or five times their age. One ten-year-old girl in the camp was engaged to a man of sixty.10

Partially due to the fact that these girls have already undergone the sexual mutilation of female circumcision, and partially due simply to their juvenile biological makeup, these children suffer immensely when they are married. In Egypt, honeymoon centers have been built outside communities "so that the screams of the brides will not be heard." 11

There is no nice way to say it: Moslems across the world are practicing pedophiliac rape, a most vicious form of child abuse, and nothing in their behavior contradicts "true Islam." Since 9/11, we have constantly heard Moslems tell us that people such as these "are not practicing true Islam." However, the men who pedophile nine year old girls are practicing true Islam. Anyone who would argue otherwise either does not understand the Islamic faith or is lying.

Slavery

Allah likes slavery, and he doesn't discriminate between little girls and anyone else.

The Koran teaches: "Blessed are the believers who...restrain their carnal desires (except with their wives and slave-girls, for these are lawful to them)." 12 Islam teaches: "For if a man purchases a slave girl, the purchase contract includes his right to have sex with her." 13 Islamists have for centuries preached that the rape of child slaves is perfectly commendable in the eyes of Allah.



-- - (David@excite.com), August 30, 2004

Answers

Forced mulilation of little girls is the work of satan.

-- - (David@excite.com), August 30, 2004.

http://www.state.gov/g/wi/rls/rep/crfgm/10096.htmReleased by the Office of the Senior Coordinator for International Women's Issues

"Practice: The most common forms of female genital mutilation (FGM) or female genital cutting (FGC) still widely practiced throughout Egypt are Type I (commonly referred to as clitoridectomy) and Type II (commonly referred to as excision). These practices are widespread but are even more prevalent in rural than urban areas. They are common among both Muslims and Coptic Christians. Type III (commonly referred to as infibulation, but in Egypt is referred to as "Sudanese circumcision") is found only among a few ethnic groups in the southern part of the country.

Incidence: In 2000, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) funded the fourth in a series of Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) conducted in Egypt. This nationally representative survey of 15,648 ever-married women aged 15-49 found that the practice is nearly universal among women of reproductive age in Egypt. Preliminary analysis of the 2000 findings show that 97 percent of women surveyed have undergone one of these procedures, which represented no change from the 1995 DHS findings. The most severe form, Type III, is rare.

Data from the 2000 DHS shows some progress in terms of percentage of daughters (aged 11-19) of women surveyed who have undergone this procedure (78 percent in 2000 versus 83 percent in 1995) and in the intention of women surveyed to have their daughters undergo one of these procedures (31 percent in 2000 versus 38 percent in 1995).

The 1995 DHS survey (detailed data from the 2000 survey is not yet available) indicated that two-thirds of girls had the procedure when they were between the ages of seven and ten years. Fewer than five percent were under the age of five and fewer than three percent were over the age of 13.

Attitudes and Beliefs: There is no doctrinal basis for this practice in either Islam or Christianity. Although high officials in both the Muslim and Christian religious establishments have voiced opposition to the practice, it is still supported by some local religious authorities. Moreover, many Egyptians believe that this is an important part of maintaining female chastity, which is part of religious tradition.

The historical roots of the practice date back thousands of years. According to the 1995 DHS findings, the most commonly given reason (58 percent) for supporting the practice was the belief that this was a "good tradition." Almost three-quarters of Egyptian women felt that husbands would prefer their wives to undergo the procedure. More than one-third cited cleanliness as a reason, while a smaller number saw it as a way to prevent promiscuity before marriage and unfaithfulness within the marriage.

The 2000 DHS also found that the majority of women think this practice should continue, though there was some decline in support for the practice (75 percent of women surveyed in 2000 versus 82 percent in 1995). There is spreading recognition of the many potential adverse health consequences of the practice, which has resulted in increasing resort to doctors rather than traditional birth attendants (TBAs) to perform the procedure.

One of the main factors behind the persistence of the practice is its social significance for females. In communities where it is practiced, a woman achieves recognition mainly through marriage and child bearing and many families refuse to accept as a marriage partner, a woman who has not undergone the procedure."

-- (morning@dusk.com), August 30, 2004.


Mormon Fundies like little girls too. Re: "Under the Banner of Heaven".

It is a peculiar religious right.

-- Chris Coose (ccoose@maine.rr.com), August 31, 2004.


Whats up Chris? Hope all is well with your 6 year old daughter Ella, and the rest of your family.:-)

God bless you guys.

-- - (David@excite.com), September 01, 2004.


All is great David, thanks for asking. I recall I saw a note from you some time ago which contained some sad news. I apologize for not returning an answer. Ella is now 7 and we just returned from a 3 week boat trip on my little sail boat. There has been a Beluga whale hanging out in Casco Bay for the summer and he taged along with us for about 6 miles to finish our trip to the mooring. Ella and I were naturally thrilled in his company and it was a nice finale' to a magical experience Down East. Family and friends are fine, sharing great love. Our environment is blessed. My religious understandings took a long awaited shift/evolution a couple of years ago, so I did drift away from here. I hope you are well and same for all those around you.

Chris

-- Chris Coose (ccoose@maine.rr.com), September 02, 2004.



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