"Just curious, are you saying that you believe that women in Muslim countries such as Afghanistan should be empowered, should have a share in the control over the countries' affairs?
I've met a few WWII relics but you are the first Neanderthal.
Women, the Lowest Caste
Islam considers women to be inferior creatures. Muhammad himself once said that he would "never touch the hand of women" because women were viewed as unclean temptresses. In addition to the humiliating dress code, women are thought to be half-human and in need of guidance:
4.34.: "Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those [women] from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart; and scourge [beat] them. Then, if they obey you, seek not a way against them. Lo! Allah is ever High Exalted, Great."
The sayings of caliphs, leaders of Islam, were like proclamations of Catholic popes, and their words became the foundation for later Islamic traditions and law. Their misogyny has profoundly influenced Islamic culture. For instance, the second caliph Omar said, "Prevent the women from learning to write! Say no to their capricious ways." He also remarked, "Adopt positions opposite those of women. There is great merit in such opposition."
Ali, Mohammed's cousin and the fourth caliph, said that "The entire woman is evil and what is worse is that it is a necessary evil! ... You should never ask a woman her advice because her advice is worthless. Hide them so that they cannot see other men! ... Do not spend too much time in their company for they will lead you to your downfall! ... Men, never ever obey your women. Never let them advise you on any matter concerning your daily life ... They have three qualities worthy of an unbeliever: they complain of being oppressed when in fact it is they who oppress; they take solemn oaths and at the same time lie; they make a show of refusing the advances of men when in fact they long for them ardently. Let us implore God's help to escape their sorcery."
The Muslim scholar al-Ghazali, living in the eleventh century, wrote that the Muslim woman should
stay at home and get on with her spinning, she should not go out often, she must not be well-informed, nor must she be communicative with her neighbours and only visit them when absolutely necessary ... her sole worry should be her virtue, her home as well as her prayers and her fast ... she should be clean and ready to satisfy her husband's sexual needs at any moment.
al-Ghazali goes on to say that Allah has punished women in eighteen separate ways, including:
menstruation
pregnancy
childbirth
lesser share in inheritances
liability for divorce but inability to initiate divorce
seclusion
exclusion from many religious rituals and ceremonies
disqualification for positions as rulers and judges
In addition, the testimony of one woman in an Islamic court is only worth half of the testimony of a man. Some modern Muslim scholars give weight to discredited theories allegedly showing that female cranial capacity is far below that of males. Since the primary function of marriage in Islam is procreation (for the woman) and pleasure (for the man), Muslim women cannot ask for divorce unless their husbands' penises have literally withered away. The Heaven of Islam is full of wide-eyed female virgins ready to fulfill the sexual needs of dead, pious, Muslim men. There are no equivalent male servants for devout Muslim women who have passed on to the next world.
Here are some interesting examples of the treatment of women under Muslim law as reported by Ibn Warraq. In the Pakistan of the late seventies, martial law was imposed and holy days like Ramadan were enforced by armed soldiers. Women were forbidden to compete in sporting events and the zina laws were introduced. "Zina" is a word for illicit sex that includes adultery, fornication, rape, and prostitution, and the zina laws recommended amputation of hands and executions for violators. What this meant in practive was that rape victims were often charged with violating the zina laws.
For instance, a Muslim in Pakistan kidnapped and raped his friend's daughter. Her father brought charges against the rapist but his daughter was thrown in prison for committing zina. Her father successfully bribed the police to release her and when she returned home she was severely beaten for dishonoring her family. In another case, a sixteen-year-old domestic worker named Safia Bibi was raped and impregnated by her landlord and his son. Bibi's father had the two men charged in court, but since the testimony of even one man automatically outweighs the word of one woman, they were not convicted. However, Bibi's pregnancy was evidence of adultery (it is thought that pregnancy can only result from consensual sex) and therefore she was sentenced to three years in prison, fifteen lashes, and a fine of 15,000 rupees. Human rights groups in Pakistan report that a rape occurs every three hours in Pakistan, half of all rape victims are juveniles, and 72 percent of all women in police custody are physically and sexually abused. Most of those women are in prison on charges of violating the zina laws.
Speaking of Pakistan, many people cite the 1988 election of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto as an example of a more liberal Islam, since under traditional Islamic law, women cannot act as heads of a Muslim state. However, her government lasted almost two years, at which point she was forced out of office on charges of "corruption" and her husband imprisoned. In a hopeless attempt to cling to power, Bhutto frequently gave in to the demands of the Muslim clerics and theologians and refused to acknowledge the rights of women, whose lot was no better when Bhutto left office. Bhutto has since won and lost national office yet again.
To enlighten you, if such a thing is possible.
Ayn Rand Quotes
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There is nothing to take a man's freedom away from him, save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers.
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Volumes can be and have been written about the issue of freedom versus dictatorship, but, in essence, it comes down to a single question: do you consider it moral to treat men as sacrificial animals and to rule them by physical force?
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The basic need of the creator is independence. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot be curbed, sacrificed or subordinated to any consideration whatsoever. It demands total independence in function and in motive. To a creator, all relations with men are secondary.
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If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose- because it contains all the others- the fact that they were the people who created the phrase "to make money." No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity- to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created.
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To know one's own desires, their meaning and their costs requires the highest human virtue: rationality.
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Thinking men cannot be ruled.
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Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law.
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There can be no such thing, in law or in morality, as actions forbidden to an individual, but permitted to a mob.
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The action required to sustain human life is primarily intellectual: everything man needs has to be discovered by his mind and produced by his effort.
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The moral cannibalism of all hedonist and altruist doctrines lies in the premise that the happiness of one man necessitates the injury of another.
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Unjust laws have to be fought ideologically; they cannot be fought or corrected by means of mere disobedience and futile martyrdom.
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The right to agree with others is not a problem in any society; it is the right to disagree that is crucial. It is the institution of private property that protects and implements the right to disagree...
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When personal judgement is inoperative (or forbidden), men's first concern is not how to choose, but how to justify their choice.
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The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights, cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.
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A crime is the violation of the right(s) of other men by force (or fraud). It is only the initiation of physical force against others- i.e., the recourse to violence- that can be classified as a crime in a free society (as distinguished from a civil wrong). Ideas, in a free society, are not a crime- and neither can they serve as the justification of a crime.
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Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).
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To deal with men by force is as impractical as to deal with nature by persuasion.
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Businessmen are the one group that distinguishes capitalism and the American way of life from the totalitarian statism that is swallowing the rest of the world. All the other social groups- workers, farmers, professional men, scientists, soldiers- exist under dictatorships, even though they exist in chains, in terror, in misery, and in progressive self-destruction. But there is no such group as businessmen under a dictatorship. Their place is taken by armed thugs: by bureaucrats and commissars. Businessmen are the symbol of a free society- the symbol of America.
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No concept man forms is valid unless he integrates it without contradiction into the sum of his knowledge.
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To arrive at a contradiction is to confess an error in one's thinking; to maintain a contradiction is to abdicate one's mind and to evict oneself from the realm of reality.
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There are only two means by which men can deal with one another: guns or logic. Force or persuasion. Those who know that they cannot win by means of logic, have always resorted to guns.
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There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. When there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.
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Power-lust is a weed that grows only in the vacant lot of an empty mind.
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Man's character is the product of his premises.
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To fear to face an issue is to believe the worst is true.
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Even if smog were a risk to human life, we must remember that life in nature, without technology, is wholesale death.
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Aristotle may be regarded as the cultural barometer of Western history. Whenever his influence dominated the scene, it paved the way for one of history's brilliant eras; whenever it fell, so did mankind. |
