Well, thank you for the attempt to speak for an other member, but I think that member can speak for himself.
As for your description of me… Sorry if this disappoints you but I couldn’t care less about it.
If on the other hand you want information on the issue that was brought up in this thread: You must have overlooked the first post I made here ( and when reading it, remember that nothing prevents you from opening a thread in GD yourself).
Salaam. A.
Thank you. (I always invent new words for my New Alderbaran’s English Dictionary).
Salaam. A
Apologist is not a bad word.
Your first post here is the one I quoted from. Could you please point me in the direction of whatever first post it is that you mean?
Are you referring to Mousseawi?
kfl: *But please notice that despite the size of Muslim population in Indonesia and India, these countries do not have a Muslim theocracy leading them, which I have already said is what I see as the central problem. *
I’ve already agreed with you that Islamist theocracy is a big factor in the problem of barbaric and unjust penalization of women for sexual misconduct.
But it seems clear to me that Islamist theocracy can’t be the central or crucial factor here. Otherwise, we would not see barbaric injustices of a related kind in the penal codes of several other countries that aren’t led by Islamist theocracies and in some cases aren’t even majority-Muslim, such as Turkey, Argentina, Peru, Ecuador, and Guatemala (and till very recently, Brazil).
All those countries, among others, legally recognize some form of “honor defence”, where men who murder a female relative in punishment for adultery or other sexual misconduct are treated leniently.
I don’t see a very big difference between a legal system officially stoning adulterous wives and a legal system refusing to punish husbands for slaughtering adulterous wives. They are making fundamentally the same statement: namely, that women who transgress sexually deserve to die. (In some ways, the society that condones “honor killings” for adultery is even more barbaric than the society that officially executes adulterers, becaus the former is expecting the woman’s own husband or father or brother, whose role is supposedly to love and protect her, to act as her executioner.)
Evidently, therefore, the “women who transgress sexually deserve to die” mentality isn’t limited to Muslim societies, or even to the rule of Sharia law. It seems to me that your real question is rather, “what are the causes of this barbaric and unjust attitude, and why is it endorsed in so many Arab Islamist theocracies”? (I presume that the “Arab” element is what you’re getting at with your “people of the desert” hypothesis.) That’s a very complicated question and I don’t have any definitive answer to it, but here are some ideas about a few of the non-Islam-specific factors:
Lots of other people (i.e., non-Arabs and non-Muslims) in patriarchal societies in the region endorse it too, and have for a long time. Non-Arabs such as Turks, Kurds, and Iranians, as well as non-Muslims such as Syrian and Lebanese Christians, have entrenched traditions of “honor killings” (just as in Africa, many Christians and other non-Muslims also practice FGM). It’s a pre-Islamic cultural norm that naturally made its way into Sharia law, just as it was similarly enshrined in many other religious and civil codes.
It seems to persist in its worst and most brutal forms in the societies that have had least experience with autonomy and social justice. Sexual liberation and autonomy for women seem to develop largely out of anti-oppression ideals of liberty and equality in general. Sometimes these manifest in democracy and individual rights, as in the US and other Western nations, and sometimes in socialist or communist radical egalitarianism, as in China and the Soviet Union. Societies where repressive imperial, colonial, feudal, or monarchical regimes have lingered longer, as in much of the Middle East and North Africa, would be less likely to have embraced the concept of equality and sexual autonomy for women.
Jackmannii: ‘comment about “people of the dessert”…’
Are you referring to Mousseawi?
Or perhaps Jellobi or al-Khatummy. 
Is it just me or does anyone (I guess “anyone” to be North American-ers) think Sharia laws have any redeeming qualities? I just read http://answering-islam.org.uk/Sharia/ (I don’t know if it’s a parady or not) and a lot of the “answers” are truely scary. I can’t but help see the bias against women. HADD laws (as they are currently written) are damn scary. I support the killing of a serial murderer but taking the hand of a thief is a little much.
I remember when some Muslims were trying to have Sharia law ‘optionally’ enforced in Canada. I’m glad that seems to have been squashed!
I wouldn’t describe you as knee-jerk, but you do defend Islam pretty often on these boards, and you’re one of the, if not the, most frequent posters on the topic. I was saying that if not even you were going to show up for it, no one would. I was wrong, it turned out.
I am at work now and so don’t have time to explain the duck thing in detail, but basically, much of the defense of Islam that goes along the lines “There are millions and billions of Muslims who don’t condone stoning” is really a matter of saying you can’t make general statements about anything. If we have to annotate the state of mind and the general receptiveness/disagreement of everyone within a group before we could say anything about a groups’ general mindset or intents, we’d never be able to say anything.
I prefer a more rule of thumb approach. As I said earlier, stoning for adultery is just the bloody tip of an iceberg of sexism that pervades Islam. Beyond that there’s honor killing, and burkhas, and multiple wives, and having to be escorted everywhere by male relatives. I think Muslim culture as it exists particularly in the Middle East but also worldwide is a warm, receptive, breeding ground for sexism, the way a petri dish full of moist gunk is a great breeeding place for bacteria.
As an atheist, I think Christianity has its flaws, as do other religions, but none of them can hold a candle to Islam as it’s practiced in the Muslim world for sheer sexist pig-doggery. And sure, a lot of that has to do with the cultures that tend to have Islamic beliefs, but if you’re going to separate the abstract principles that define a religion from the way people practice it, you’re not really talking about religion, but some abstract ideal that exists only in your head.
That’s what the duck stuff is about. It’s not just the stonings, it’s the whole thing: the honor killings, the burkas, the rules that make women prisoners in their own homes, the rules that say some guys get no wives and some guys get hundreds of wives. Islam as it’s practiced just about everywhere always seems to have that ground-in sexist bullshit going. As a rule of thumb, Islamic cultures way more sexist than other cultures. I don’t see how any reasonable person could look at what’s happening around the world and think otherwise.
I know there are a lot of Muslims who absolutely hate and abjure the worst excesses of their brethren, but I wonder if even they would seem reasonably tolerant and enlightened by Western standards if we know of the real relationships that went on in their families. It’s not that they’re evil, it’s just they’ve got that nasty Muslim sexism ingrained in their belief systems. Get rid of that, maybe Islam will get somewhere. But so long as so many Muslims cling so desperately to their sexist ways, Islamic culture is always gonna be a third-rate culture.
In the context and meaning you used it, it surely is. It is not because I have no background in this language that I can’t discern a negative where it is intended to be expressed.
If your quote came from my first post - which is possible if the reply button on that window was touched before the reply button on the other window - then you could read my comment in the post right after it. Maybe it showed up on an other page on your PC screen?
Salaam. A
Apologist is value neutral: A person who argues in defense or justification of something, such as a doctrine, policy, or institution. I should not have included the phrase knee-jerk perhaps; how about “… as the foremost apologist for Islam on the board …” That better?
Ah, I see. You won’t answer except in GD (if there). I’m here, you’re here, the thread is here.
And I notice that Evil Captor has quite nicely spoken for himself now.
Evil Captor,
I only entered this thread to make the comments I made, which was in fact at your invatation since you brought my membername up in a rather confusing manner.
My membership of this message board is not intended to be acting as “The Defender Of Islam”. Of course I may choose to enter discussions where Islam seems to be an issue or where Islam is at the focus of in the OP. However this has less to do with myself being Muslim then with the coincidence that Islam, its history and related issues make part of my fields of study.
In addition: There are not many Muslim members on this message board (I believe that besides me there are only two, one Sunni and one Shia, but I can be wrong).
Regarding for your comments: I don’t feel for it to write explanations or comments on issues that touch my studyfield (and when looking at you comments also my own culture and even my own private interactions) in a language I don’t master, if it is not worth the effort.
Not being worth that effort are threads like this on a forum like this, which is not intended for seriuos discussion but only intented for inviting people to use vulgar language and to rant about anything they want to start ranting about.
Probably worth the effort for me are serious threads inviting to serious discussion on a forum like GD.
Salaam. A
You are still wrong. I do not “defend” nor “justify”.
Do you think that whenever you followed a class on an issue, the one who gave the class was “defending” or “justifying” the subject of the lesson or course?
Salaam. A
EC: […] much of the defense of Islam that goes along the lines “There are millions and billions of Muslims who don’t condone stoning” is really a matter of saying you can’t make general statements about anything. If we have to annotate the state of mind and the general receptiveness/disagreement of everyone within a group before we could say anything about a groups’ general mindset or intents, we’d never be able to say anything.
Exactly!!! The whole point is that in fact, you can’t say anything meaningful about the “general mindset or intents” of a “group” **that contains over a billion people spread all over the globe, who represent a huge spectrum of cultures, ethnicities, social structures, and attitudes towards women. **
*I prefer a more rule of thumb approach. *
Otherwise known as laziness, ignorance, and prejudice.
The issue of why many modern Muslim societies are definitely more institutionally sexist than many other modern societies is indeed vitally important, and well worth investigating. Attempts to reduce that issue to the blanket generalization “Islam is sexist”, however, are useless, uninformative, and counterproductive.
I know there are a lot of Muslims who absolutely hate and abjure the worst excesses of their brethren, but I wonder if even they would seem reasonably tolerant and enlightened by Western standards if we know of the real relationships that went on in their families. It’s not that they’re evil, it’s just they’ve got that nasty Muslim sexism ingrained in their belief systems.
Oh, swell. That’s right, smear even the people whose statements openly contradict your blanket generalization by insinuating that they must be secretly practicing that “nasty Muslim sexism” too! :rolleyes:
Actually, yeah.
And btw, my “people of the desert” comment was a reference to the fact that many people argue that the misogyny that occurs in Sharia ruled societies is not because of principles enshrined in Islam, but because of “desert culture”, which occurs simultaneously with Islam, but is not synonymous.
I thought you’d be grateful that I was giving Islam the benefit of the doubt.
As this columnist writes, there’s very little we can do about this.
Besides mailing Amnesty, I wrote to the ‘Vanguard’. According to the BBC, a well read newspaper, not under governmental influence.
vanguard@linkserve.com.ng
I have no idea whether it helps. 
Today I got this follow-up email from Amnesty, in response to the request I sent them at the start of this thread. I paste it here in its entirety:
That’s nice. But even better news would be the abolishment of every law like this. Their very existence is an insult to all humanity.
Indeed.
No news on Hajieh Esmailvand, I’m afraid. Mark the date of the update.
This page was last updated on 10th January 2005
Amnesty International fears that Hajieh Esmailvand is at risk of imminent execution after her death sentence for adultery was upheld by the Supreme Court in November. She could allegedly be stoned to death as early as 21 December. Her unnamed co-defendant is at risk of imminent execution by hanging.
This is what a stoning looks like:
Warning: Shocking.
http://images.fok.nl/upload/041222_…_steniging4.jpg
gum, the word “shocking” has been trivialized by overuse, but the pictures in your link are, indeed, shocking.
It makes me wish I can do more. But it’s not like these countries even export something I can boycot.
::feels powerless::
100 years ago, a 29 year old woman in this country needed a guardian and had no control over her own money. That’s one of the things which led to Prohibition. Just because things are this good now doesn’t mean they’ve always been this good.
As for the OP, I don’t have the energy to be shocked or even dismayed.
CJ