Małgorzata has sent me another gem – a lecture on tv by an Egyptian cleric explaining why men have to beat up women.
Abd Al-Rahman Mansour: Islam instructs a man to beat his wife as a last resort before divorce, so that she will mend her ways, treat him with kindness and respect, and know that her husband has a higher status than her.
That’s usefully blunt. We know where we are. We’re among stupid unreflective people who have not managed to figure out that stronger does not equal better or higher, and that the mere fact that person X is able to beat up person Y does not mean that person X is better than person Y. It’s the morality of street thugs. What do you do if you’re a street thug? You look for people you can take, as opposed to people who can take you. That’s not morality, it’s just engineering.
When ‘Aisha thought ill of the Prophet Muhammad, believing that he did not treat her the same as his other wives, and that when he left her room, he would go to another wife, she followed him and spied on him. ‘Aisha said that when the Prophet found out about this, “He gave me a shove that was painful.”
This was done in order to discipline her, not because the Prophet enjoyed beating or inflicting bodily harm. The Prophet did this in order to discipline this woman.
“Discipline” nothing. He did it to make her knuckle under and let him fuck around the house as much as he liked. She wasn’t as keen on polygamy as he was, so he punched her to force her to do what he wanted.
A good woman, even if beaten by her husband, puts her hand in his and says: “I will not rest until you are pleased with me.” This is how the Prophet Muhammad taught his women to be.
Well of course he did, because it make things so pleasant for him. It’s been making things pleasant for Muslim men ever since.
Sura 4 verse 34.
For example:
KHALIFA: The men are made responsible for the women, and GOD has endowed them with certain qualities, and made them the bread earners. The righteous women will cheerfully accept this arrangement, since it is GOD’s commandment, and honor their husbands during their absence. If you experience rebellion from the women, you shall first talk to them, then (you may use negative incentives like) deserting them in bed, then you may (as a last alternative) beat them. If they obey you, you are not permitted to transgress against them. GOD is Most High, Supreme.
“…We’re among stupid unreflective people who have not managed to figure out that stronger does not equal better or higher”
There is nothing to figure out. Allah(PBUH) dictated to Mohammed (PBUH) via the angel Gabriel (PBUH) how it was to be and that is that! Settled forever fourteen hundred years ago. So how dare women in the twenty-first century question it?
Well I know (of course), but it’s time for them to get past that. As Tarek Fatah and Irshad Manji (to name just two) keep telling them.
And of course, Teh Prohpet (PHUB) must have been an most excellent engineer of the 7thC, computing that it is so much easier to moldest a 9-year old wife than a 19-year old into the shape and form of submission. And that, boys and girls, concludes today’s lesson. (Some words may be spelt rong, sry) (BUT, all teh thoughts are compleatle korktk)
Ugh, I actually threw up a little bit in my throat reading that.
So what does the woman do to discipline the husband when the husband needs to mend his ways, hmmm? Oh, right, The Profit (BLUH) can do no wrong, and he was a muslim man, so muslim men can do no wrong, amirite?
The patriarchy using religion to justify itself.
@Ophelia: I guess that since it is written in the great big book of muslimism it cannot be changed. No sense asking. The faithful are not going to flout the wishes of the ‘prophet’ (PBUH) no matter how distasteful they find it to beat their women – it’s a sacred duty. It’s going to take a lot more than asking to drag these barbarians kicking and screaming (and how good they are at that) across fourteen centuries or so. I’m reminded that, after all, it isn’t all that long ago in the West that wifebeating was just fine….