One of the few positive developments following the rise of the Islamists during the “Arab Spring” is that today many average and/or nominal Muslims are seeing the true face of Islam and its teachings. And many—as evinced by the June 30 Revolution of Egypt, which saw the ousting of the Muslim Brotherhood—don’t want to deal with it.
For example, during a recent episode of “With Dr. Islam Buhira” on Al Qahira Wa Al Nass TV station, Buhira explained how he had attended “a conference in Morocco on the status of women in society post Arab Spring,” and how at the conference, the following interpretation of the Koran by renowned Islamic exegete, al-Qurtubi (d.1273), was read: “Women are like cows, horses, and camels, for all are ridden.”
After quoting al-Qurtubi’s words, Dr. Buhira continued, in a disappointed tone: “This is how al-Qurtubi speaks about women, who include his mother, his daughters—basically all Muslim women. He says they are ‘all ridden.’ This is what makes them similar to animals.”
Hard to believe or not, the idea that “Women are like cows, horses, and camels, for all are ridden,” is in fact recorded in Tafsir al-Qurtubi (see vol. 17, p. 172), one of the Islamic world’s most authoritative exegeses, or commentary on the teachings of the Koran.
In fact, comparing women to beasts is not uncommon in Islam and traces back to Prophet Muhammad himself, who is recorded saying, “Women, dogs, and donkeys annul a man’s prayer” (Musnad Ibn Hanbal, vol. 2, p. 2992).
I first translated and discussed these texts likening women to animals in 2008, in the context of how female concubines in Islam are not deemed human, as the Arabic relative pronoun used in the Koran to indicate captive sex-slaves is “it”—as in an animal—not “she” (e.g., Koran 4:3).
Even so, many Muslims, including women, are only now learning about these texts and teachings. The fact is many Muslims really don’t know much about Islam beyond the Five Pillars. But they have been conditioned to believe that, whatever Sharia says must be laudable and judicious—Sharia being the law of their god as delivered by their beloved prophet. Moreover, in the last couple decades the slogan “Islam is the solution” became popular as a panacea to all of society’s ill.
That is, until it went from being theory to reality.
Put differently, now that the Arab Spring has brought Islamists to power—in Tunisia, in Egypt, in Libya, and currently trying (at the tip of the jihadi sword) in Syria—nominal and nonobservant “cultural” Muslims, and they are not a few, who for decades were ruled by Westernized autocrats and media, are finally seeing the true face of Islam and its teachings, in all their minutia, up close and personal. This new acquaintance with the truth is setting some of them free—even as it further enslaves those who like what they see.
Thanks, Raymond! Most of my priestly colleagues do not know the ‘Real Islam’ and you cannot bring the topic but to be rebuffed as exaggerating or not knowing what one is talking about. The tentacles of Islam are now alarmingly entrenched in Canada and especially America. Both Saudi Arabia & Iran are slowly tightening the ‘net’!
Does the First Amendment have any place where it allows for a cult of defilement and death to be given the same grace as Christianity ?
Even with the slaughter made by muslims worldwide , why do the progressives still support islamists , to the extent of arming them ? The philosophies are not at all compatible , and as islam is being used as a weapon not only against Christians and Hebrews , the end result is the destruction of civilization .
One thing we can do – March on Washington come Labor Day , sit down in the streets surrounding the White House and Congress , and stay there , until we can have the evil in our own government driven out . Replace that with servants of the nation and Constitution . A few million citizens ought to have enough weight to accomplish that .
“But, I have muslim friends. They are wonderful loving people. They are good friends.” This mantra of ignorance by people who will easily be snuck up on in the dark! They don’t realize that when muslims come to America, they come not as Immigrants, but as settlers, and when their numbers overwhelm us they would become our masters.
Islam badly needs a reformation. It must reform or die. The second possibility is at least as likely as the first, or more so.
It seems they have a third option. They don’t reform, and we die.
Are you advocating indiscriminate violence?
Here, I will never advocate violence! But I will advocate common sense. Whatever language they understand, we must learn, master, become fluent in it and converse with them as much as possible!
Aye – we should’ be ridden’ of them!
The Islamic faith has adopted much from the North American culture and thus has transformed it. Wait until Muslims from other very traditional cultures try to force the Koran on American Muslims, yikes!
If women annul the prayer, what’s the point they are told to pray, too?