The laws of Arab Muslim countries can be terribly barbaric! Women get whipped for their crime of being raped. I thought Dubai would be different. Foreigners are more in number than native Arabs. But the land’s barbaric laws are still used for everyone including foreigners come from civilized countries. A Norwegian girl raped by a man in Dubai, was sentenced to 16 months in prison and the rapist was sentenced to 13 months in prison. Under barbaric laws people get punished for having sex outside marriage, and more shocking thing is victims get punished for being tortured, abused and raped.

It seems there is no such thing called rape or sex with or without consent in Islamic dictionary. It seems for the ancient Arab tribes, the consent was not at all necessary for sex. What was necessary was to have sex within marriage. If sex occurs outside marriage, no matter whether it is because of rape or relationships, punishment would be the same..

Rape cases are impossible to prove in the Islamic court. Because the court needs four male witnesses to prove a rape case. It is highly unlikely that a rapist would rape in front of four male witnesses who could give testimony against him later in the court. Arab countries still punish people for having consensual sex outside marriage. Rape is considered nothing but adultery or ‘sex outside marriage’. Raped girls get punished as well as rapists for having ‘sex outside marriage’. The Islamic courts can not treat a rape as a rape. The law could be different if there was no scandal involving Aisha, Muhammad’s youngest wife, some 1400 years ago.

The scandal was documented in the Hadith (Sahih Muslim, Book 37, Number 6673; Sahih Bukhari, Volume 3, Book 48, Number 829).

Aisha was once travelling with a group of Muslims, and she was one day left behind. She was found later and taken to her caravan. Muslims started talking about Aisha that she was having sex with a man, and that was the reason she was left behind. Aisha strongly denied this accusation. But people continued accusing Aisha of having adultery. Muhammad then came to defend Aisha. She was not just an ordinary woman. After all she was one of the wives of the prophet of Islam. The Quranic revelations were then revealed in which Aisha was declared innocent.

Quran 24: 13-16
Why did they not bring four witnesses of it? But as they have not brought witnesses they are liars before Allah. And were it not for Allah’s grace upon you and His mercy in this world and the hereafter, a grievous chastisement would certainly have touched you on account of the discourse which you entered into. When you received it with your tongues and spoke with your mouths what you had no knowledge of, and you deemed it an easy matter while with Allah it was grievous. And why did you not, when you heard it, say: It does not beseem us that we should talk of it; glory be to Thee! this is a great calumny?

Quran 24:4
And those who accuse chaste women and then do not produce four witnesses – lash them with eighty lashes and do not accept from them testimony ever after. And those are the defiantly disobedient.

In order to prove adultery or similar types of sexual misconduct, four male witnesses should be produced. Male witnesses are necessary, not female witnesses. Because the Quran says, the testimony of a female is at most worth half that of a man’s. (Quran 2:282).

The rule of four witnesses was intended to protect Muslim women from being falsely labeled as having had forbidden intercourse. Unfortunately the same rule was applied to the rule of rape. If a woman makes complaints of rape will need to produce four male witnesses to prove her case against her rapist. If she cannot produce four witnesses, her case turns into a adultery crime and is thus punished accordingly.

A former member of Muslim association that was approved by Muslim brotherhood expressed his opinion on rape issue:

There’s also an impression, among a large number of Muslim followers, that if a woman is raped, it’s usually her fault; that her mere presence in the street without a veil, for example, has ‘tempted’ the poor man to rape her. A notorious example of this mentality among Western Muslims is a 7th century misogynistic Australian barbarian called Taj El-Din Al-Hilali, who said in a Friday sermon that if a woman gets raped, it is mostly the woman’s fault because she wasn’t in her home. He also said:

“If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it … whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat? The uncovered meat is the problem.”

Bigots come and go, but what’s disturbing in his case is that he is a leading Muslim figure in Australia, and that the Friday after his remarks were publicized, 5000 Muslims in Australia actually cheered in support of his remarks. Other Muslim leaders supported him, too (example).

I will need to make it clear and obvious that raping Muslim women is absolutely forbidden in Islam. However, there are some Muslims who go on raping rampages on non-Muslim women in Western countries, and they find justification for it, partly because “it’s the woman’s fault for going out without the veil”, and partly because of verses like Quran 4:24 and Quran 23:6, which permit a Muslim male to take non-Muslim women after a battle and keep them as war booty and as slaves.

All countries change their laws, make them better and modern. But Islamic laws remain stagnant in many Muslim countries. Because these laws are believed as divine laws, made by Allah. Changing laws mean challenging Allah.

Aren’t we supposed to become more civilized, more equal, more rational than before? How many more years will we allow religion to stop our thinking mind and to abuse humanity?