Australia: Muslim Misogyny And Its Sources in Islamic Scripture Begin To Be Discussed Critically, In Public

Just this month two noteworthy articles on Islamic misogyny, and specifically the Quranic instruction to beat disobedient or deemed-potentially-insubordinate wives, have appeared in our Aussie media.

One appeared in “The Telegraph” and subsequently in sister publications such as the ‘Brisbane Times’ and ‘Gold Coast Times’.  The author is Mark Latham, a native Sydneysider, who from December 2003 was leader of the Australian Labor Party and Leader of the Opposition, until his resignation and departure from politics in January 2005.

The other – under the uncompromising title “Praise Allah and Pass the Cudgel” – appeared in the conservative journal “Quadrant”; the author is one Peter Smith, of whom I know little; his article is, however, spot on.  

We shall begin with Mr Latham’s piece and then proceed to Mr Smith’s.  One of the more interesting aspects of Mr Latham’s article is that he sees right through the Islamic PR machine which has been in overdrive Down Under.

http://www.goldcoastbulletin.com.au/news/national/mark-latham-user-friendly-muslims-cant-hide-their-outdated-message/news-story/826ac2b5653656cd83df78b2a1beb607

“User-Friendly Muslims Can’t Hide Their Outdated Message”.

‘In recent years the ABC, SBS, Fairfax and Channel 10 have promoted Waleed Aly and Yassmin Abdel-Magied as celebrity Muslims, supposedly giving the public a soothing, reasoned understanding of their religion.

‘But yet again – this time following the release of the Hizb-ut-Tahrir video justifying domestic violence (or, to be blunt, justifying Muslim men hitting their wives – CM) Aly and Abdel-Magied have been caught short.

‘Instead of calling for the reform of Islam (abandoning fundamentalist parts of the Koran) (or, rather, “instead of denouncing the wife-beating verse in the Koran as something to be condemned and abandoned” – CM) both have tried to depict the video as an aberration.

‘Last week they directed their audiences to an old YouTube video fo Muslim clerics opposing domestic assault and advising women to seek help.

‘Neither Aly nor Abdel-Magied has criticised the teachings of the Koran or called for any recasting of its text.

This is the core problem with Islam in Australia.

And it is the core problem with Islam everywhere else. – CM

“While other religions relying on ancient holy books have modernised to suit our open, pluralistic 21st century society (and in any case, their books as historically read and lived are far less inherently violent than the Islamic trilogy – Quran, Sira and hadiths; for more, one may look up the pioneering work of Danish scholar Tina Magaard who examined the quantity and nature of violence and calls for violence in the texts of the world’s major religions, and concluded that Islam was unique in terms of how much violence there was in its founding texts, and of what kind.– CM) radical Muslims (nah, just “Muslims”; the qualifier ‘radical’ is redundant – CM) are locked to a literal reading of the Koran.

And of the Sira and the Hadiths, also. – CM

‘This has given them a dated, fundamentalist view of society, particularly concerning women, gays, and acts of terrorism.

Translation: “This means that they view themselves as commanded and entitled to engage in violence against women, gays, and all varieties of non-Muslim.” – CM

‘The problem with the Hizb-ut-Tahrir video was not the motivation or accuracy of the two women in it.

‘They simply offered a valid interpretation of the holy book guiding their beliefs. The problem is the Koran itself.

And the Sira, and the Hadiths; the ‘sunnah’ of the so-called ‘prophet’ Muhammad. – CM

‘At verse 4.34 it teaches its followers that “men are in charge of women” and “good women are therefore obedient”.  For women who might disobey, it is recommended to “admonish them, leave them alone in their sleeping-places, and beat them”.

‘There’s not much doubt as to what that means.

Bravo, Mr Latham.  In a mainstream publication you have now uttered those momentous words – “The problem is the Koran itself” – and you have also cited, verbatim, a glaring example of a problematic portion of the Quran, particularly glaring because, over recent years in Australia, there has been a long and loud public discussion – and denunciation – of domestic violence, in particular, male violence against wives, de facto partners, girlfriends, or exes.  If we are serious, in Austraila, about denouncing, preventing and punishing violence of that sort… what do we do about the fact that there are, in our society, some 500 000 active adherents of a cult whose founding text states flatly, “… and beat them”? – CM

‘The Koran doubles up as a domestic violence instruction manual.

Nicely put, Mr Latham. – CM

‘Last week’s video was not an aberration.

‘In a television interview in February the prominent Islamic leader Keysar Trad outlined the steps Muslim men should take in dealing with domestic disputes.

‘First they should try relationship counselling.  Then, perhaps, bringing home a bunch of flowers or a box of chocolates.  If these two steps fail, according to Trad’s reading of the Koran, men can get physical in sorting things out as a last resort.

‘Scores of Islamci clerics and TV stars can appear in staged video clips and say they feel sorry for the beaten women, but this doesn’t address the underlying issue.

‘The text on which Mulsims have based their religion is wrong.  It encourages intolerance (sic: ‘intolerance’ is too mild a term; one might say, rather, using words from the Koran itself, “enmity and hatred” – CM) and violence.  It’s incompatible with the values of modern Western society. 

It’s incompatible with every non-Muslim society. – CM

‘Abdel-Magied’s position is particularly interesting.  Two months ago she gained notoriety by declaring on ABC Television that “Islam is (the world’s) most feminist religion”.

‘Amid public dismay ( I would say, ‘Amid public dismay and derision’ – CM) about the absurdity of her statement, Abdel-Magied had a Facebook exchange with Wassim Doureihi, a spokesman for Hizb-ut-Tahrir.

‘She told him, “I am young and willing to learn”. And then asked, “How can I do better in the future?”

‘Two months later, Hizb-ut-Tahrir produced its pro-violence video.

‘If Abdel-Magied is learning from people like Doureihi, she has lost all credibility in the domestic violence debate.

‘Even more worryingly, the Turnbull government has promoted Abdel-Magied into several important public positions.

‘Last year, the Department of Foreign Affairs sponsored her on a tour fo the Middle East, as a roving ambassador for Australian Islam.

Yet the DFA seems to have seen no need whatsoever for a comparable roving ambassador for Australian Judaism, or Australian Christianity, or Australian Buddhism, or Australian Hinduism, or Australian Sikhism, or Australian Taoism.. I wonder why?  And thinking about the fact that we do not have such ‘ambassadors’ should expose just how very peculiar it is that we should appoint ‘a roving ambassador for Australian Islam’. – CM

‘She was also appointed to the board of “Our Watch”, a government agency created by Julia Gillard to stop domestic violence.

‘Figure this out: Our Watch, funded by the taxpayer to stop domestic violence, has a board member who has publicly sought advice and instruction from a radical, pro-domestic violence Islamic outfit.

An Islamic outfit that is also, basically, fomenting jihad and pushing sharia. – CM

‘Abdel-Magied is anything but moderate.  Sure, she’s young, brash, and flamboyant, but her vivacious appearance shouldn’t be the basis by which politicians judge her views.

Astutely observed, Mr Latham.  One hopes your BS detectors, that are allowing you to ‘see through’ Ms Abdel-Magied, are similarly tuned to see through the slithery likes of Tariq Ramadan. – CM

‘In promoting her Twitter account, for instance, Abdel-Magied claims to be replicating “the pinpoint accuracy and controL” of Malcolm X, the 1960s black Muslim leader.

‘Malcolm X was not only an advocate of violence, as part of his “by any means necessary” doctrine.  He also believed in black supreamcy, urging the racial separation of white and black America.  He depicted white people as “devils”.  Politically, this is as extreme as it gets.

‘At September’s Brisbane Writers’ Festival (ie. September 2016 – CM), Abdel-Magied advocated her own form of separatism, arguing that white novelists should not write about black people and white students should not study indigenous affairs.

‘This is a new left doctrine of ‘cultural appropriation’.

‘Just when we thought Malcolm Turnbull couldn’t be any more spineless in accommodating radical leftists (or, for that matter, Muslims – CM), his government has declared Abdel-Magied to be the Australian female face of moderate Islam.

This is dangerous stuff.

Yes, indeed. – CM

‘As the international scholar Ayaan Hirsi Ali has pointed out, Western nations have been incredibly naive in their promotion of Islamic spokespeople.

‘They have picked out ‘moderates’, based on their flashy smile and glamorous style, only to find out later that extreme views (or, rather, ‘strictly orthodox views’ – CM) are being propagated.

‘Most likely, Turnbull is so far to the left that he quite likes Abdel-Magied and her ideological inspiration, the other Malcolm (X).

‘As Waleed Aly told Fairfax’s Financial Review, in a puff-piece profile on Thursday, we should reject the term “moderate Islam”, because “it doesn’t mean anything”.

(Hmm. Now that is an interesting admission, to say the least, from our Muslim propagandist extraordinaire, Mr Aly. Because he’s right – it doesn’t.  – CM)

‘In Malcolm T’s Australia, that’s at least one thing we can all agree on.”

And so to our second commenter, Mr Peter Smith, in Quadrant, on April 18, just last week.

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2017/04/praise-allah-pass-cudgel/

“Praise Allah and Pass the Cudgel”.

‘The face of Islam is two Muslim women in Australia openly excusing wife-beating (in a Hizb ut Tahrir video that – embarrassingly for the Ummah colony in Australia – somehow came to the notice of some of the surrounding Infidels, and then – even more embarrasingly – ended up getting publicised in our Press, which brought it to the attention of even more of the aforesaid Infidels. – CM).  

“It is Sheikh Farrokh Sekaleshfar openly proclaiming at an Orlando mosque, not long before the slaughter at a gay night club in the same city, that “death is the sentence” for homosexuals.

‘What’s all this rubbish about Muslim men not being allowed to beat their wives?  All that brouhaha about those two pleasant-looking Muslim ladies explaining sweetly that husbands indeed had a right to deal out a bit of marital biff when warranted.  Hear! Hear!  Or, if you like, Allahu-Akbar!

‘I note that Muslim labor federal member Ed Husic (who represents a heavily-Islamised electorate in western Sydney – CM) unaccountably eschews the beating option.  “It’s not acceptable in any form to strike anyone, either between husband and wife or anywhere”, he reportedly said.  Bad syntax apart, the sentiment is both clear and terribly heretical, in my view.  Isn’t he the same chap who used the Koran when sworn in as a minister in 2013?  What is he thinking about?

‘That’s the question that springs to my mind.

‘Allah is clear in verse 4.34, unless Mr Husic thinks that Mohammed got that bit wrong from the Archangel Gabriel, or perhaps Gabriel misunderstood Allah, or maybe the mistake is as prosaic as the equivalent of a typing error back in the 600s.  Who knows? – but I can only assume that Husic takes a selective view of the Koran.  Or maybe he is a ninny with no stomach for smiting necks and fingertips as Allah instructed in 8:12.

Or he is a deceiver, blandly using Islamic doublespeak. – CM

 ‘Allah forbid, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Husic also takes friends from among unbelievers, a direct violation of 4.89.  

And of many another passage in the Islamic trilogy that forbids taking unbelievers as friends or as allies, and the passages that directly enjoin enmity, hatred, contempt and active physical aggression toward them.  However, it’s possible Mr Husic is acting in accord with another Quranic verse that allows for a feigned friendship strategically deployed when Muslims are too weak, and the surrounding Infidels too strong, for open aggression to be politic. – CM

‘Mark Durie (The Third Choice) lists sixteen verses of the Koran which set Mohammed on a pedestal as a model to follow.  Very convenient, you might think cynically, if you are a mere amanuensis, to have the guy in the sky repeatedly anoint you as a positive pillar of virtue.  And virtue, it seems, is in the eye of the holy beholder.

‘Among other things, the very model of a man to emulate led raids, killed, enslaved, married a six-year-old, acquiesced to the killing of those who didn’t like him, and rejoiced in Allah condemning his poor old Uncle Lahab (and his wife) to grisly everlasting fates (111: 1-5), for rejecting his message in Mecca.  Mahatma Gandhi-like he wasn’t.

‘Islam is beyond parody.  The likes of John Wesley, Alexis de Tocqueville, John Quincy Adams, Bertrand Russell and Winston Churchill called it out long ago.

‘Unfortunately there are no giants these days with the gumption to tell the unvarnished truth.  Or, perhaps, even more depressingly, overwhelmingly crippled and compromised by political correctness, there are now none who are able to discern the truth.

‘Religion, unlike race, is a choice.  It is not legitimate to choose, or fail to abandon, a religion which preaches intolerance and violence.  

‘An excuse often made is that the Bible is violent too.  This is sophistry.  The violence is predominantly historical.  Where it isn’t, it is dead language.  No-one inspired by the Bible preaches stoning for adultery.  Advocacy of such punishment is dead and buried.

‘In contrast the intolerance and violence preached in the Koran is both doctrinal (as distinct from historical) and alive and well.

‘There are literally thousands upon thousands of Islamic clerics who are originalists, who take their riding instructions from the Koran and the Sunna (the doings and sayings of the model man, Mohammed).

‘Is there anybody out there who is even remotely unaware that it is a piece of cake to find any number of imams favouring death for apostasy or for homosexuality, or who acknowledge (and, indeed, loudly and actively teach – CM) the right of a husband to discipline (sic: beat, or thrash – CM) his wife?

‘Swanning about, pretending that they don’t know what’s in their scriptures or that its malign parts don’t count, is the playbook of ‘moderate Muslims’.  This is unacceptable.

‘Islam has form in oppressing women, girls, Christians, Jews, and anyone who doesn’t buy its supremacist bill of goods.

‘And now we have rampant terrorism in the brew.

It always was in the brew. – CM

‘None of this is hidden.  It is transparent.

‘The face of Islam is two Muslim women in Australia, openly excusing wife beating.  It is Islamic scholar Sheikh Farrokh Sekaleshfar openly proclaiming at an Orlando mosque, not long before Islamic terrorism took many lives at a gay nightclub in the same city, that “death is the sentence” fo rhomosexuals.  “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about… Out of compassion, let’s get rid of them now”. 

‘There are countless similar examples of barbaric values brushed aside as inconsequential by organized Muslim pacifiers (that is: spin-doctors – CM) and dismissed as aberrant by Western glitterati.

‘They are not inconsequential or aberrant.

‘They form part of Islamic scripture.

‘The two ladies and the Sheik are simply following the script.

‘The real question is what religion apologists for Islam have in mind – because it sure ain’t written-down Islam.”

The Comments to this article – Quadrant online permitted Comments – are interesting.

The very first comment up, read as follows.  One Ian MacDougall observed, on April 18 2017, that – “According to a survey cited at Gatestone, “The 615 page survey found that more than 100,000 British Muslims sympathize with suicide bombers and people who commit other terrorist acts.  Moreover, only one in three British Muslims (34 percent) would contact the police if they believed that somebody close to them had become involved with jihadists”. Which figures probably translate to Australia…”.