Thursday, June 9, 2011

"Feminism": Was Something Lost in Translation?

Middle East Forum reports on a Kuwaiti political candidate arguing in favor of restoring sex slavery, and points to a news account from the June 4, 2011 Kuwait Times:
KUWAIT: A female political activist and former parliamentary candidate has recommended the introduction of legislation to legalize the provision of enslaved female concubines for Muslim men in Kuwait in a bid, she says, to protect those men from committing adultery or corruption.

The activist, Salwa Al-Mutairi, suggested apparently seriously in a video broadcast online that she had been informed by some clerics that affluent Muslim men who fear being seduced or tempted into immoral behavior by the beauty of their female servants, or even of those servants 'casting spells' on them, would be better to purchase women from an 'enslaved maid' agency for sexual purposes.
 And where would those slaves come from? She explained:
these maids could be brought as prisoners of war in war-stricken nations like Chechnya to be sold on later to devout merchants.
 She isn't the only fairly mainstream Muslim making this argument, and pointing out that it is in accordance with the Koran. I've looked up the verses and some of the commentaries on those verses, and they are both completely correct: Muslim men are prohibited from having sex with women other than wives, except for spoils of war (which means women who have been taken prisoner as a result of defeating non-Muslim nations). 

Let's be very clear on this: this is not a bizarre modern interpretation of the Koran, or a view held only by a few terrorists.  This is in the mainstream of Islam, and is the reason that Islamic nations have been the last to abolish slavery (and often more in name than in practice).

I can see why so much of the left puts so much energy into promoting the idea that Islam is a religion that deserves the West's respect: too many of them are like that IMF official accused of raping the hotel chambermaid.  (Cynics would suggest that he merely mistook her for a Third World country.)

No comments:

Post a Comment