Islamic Justice: girl lashed for being raped; rapist pardoned

[Commoner]

So, you want to get rid of something that's been around for thousands of years, and is ingrained within the very psyche of these people? And how do you propose to do that? Education? What if they refuse?

I'm not proposing solutions at all, that's well beyond my current argument.

Our ancestors used to have similar practices and laws here in the West. Just a few centuries ago, in fact. (Heck, for some of those laws, less than a century ago.) They got rid of them on their own. Western cultures didn't pop out of the blue with Human Rights ideals; we built those ideals upon the ruins of oppressive, sexist, racist, and unjust tyranny, and we're still building them. But it has to be done slowly. We can't do anything about the injustices of other cultures while still trying to figure out our own.

What does this have to do with my argument?

However, are we to assume that these cases where the victim gets punished are the ONLY times the assault is reported?

Why would we have to assume that and how is it in any way relevant?

 

[.lava]

You can claim it is a corruption of the true religion, and I might agree.

i would agree with this. it is not part of true religion if it is corrupted, then how is it Islamic?


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[Commoner]

i would agree with this. it is not part of true religion if it is corrupted, then how is it Islamic?


.

I'm not saying that punishing rape victims is what the Qur'an teaches - that's not for me to decide. But the people who are practicing this kind of behaviour are Muslims (not according to you or me, according to them) and they use the Qur'an as their justification. Your claim that this is a misinterpertation does not make it any less of an issue with Islam or any less of an Islamic issue.

 

[.lava]

I'm not saying that punishing rape victims is what the Qur'an teaches - that's not for me to decide. But the people who are practicing this kind of behaviour are Muslims (not according to you or me, according to them) and they use the Qur'an as their justification. Your claim that this is a misinterpertation does not make it any less of an issue with Islam or any less of an Islamic issue.

where and how do they use Qur'an for justification? i need to see it


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[Commoner]

where and how do they use Qur'an for justification? i need to see it


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Now you're just being absurd.

 

[.lava]

Now you're just being absurd.

i think not


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[Commoner]

i think not


.

I'm not going to spend my time explaning to you how Sharia is derived from the Qur'an and from the Hadith. And I will not even try and explain why certain governments (like Saudi Arabia) interpret the Islamic law as they do.

I have absolutely no need to explain to you why Saudi Arabia interprets the law as saying, for instance, that "women are not allowed in public in the company of men other than their male relatives" and use it as a justification to punish rape victims (link).

These are not a couple of elders in a remote part of a small country. These are courts of "law" interpreting (or misinterpreting) Sharia. How are they not using Sharia, the Qur'an, the Hadith as justification? Are you being serious?

 

[.lava]

I'm not going to spend my time explaning to you how Sharia is derived from the Qur'an and from the Hadith. And I will not even try and explain why certain governments (like Saudi Arabia) interpret the Islamic law as they do.

I have absolutely no need to explain to you why Saudi Arabia interprets the law as saying, for instance, that "women are not allowed in public in the company of men other than their male relatives" and use it as a justification to punish rape victims (link).

These are not a couple of elders in a remote part of a small country. These are courts of "law" interpreting (or misinterpreting) Sharia. How are they not using Sharia, the Qur'an, the Hadith as justification? Are you being serious?

Sharia is not derived from Qur'an. Qur'an is the Sharia itself. you don't need to explain to me why they do what they do but it is OK to tell what is Islamic and what is not. here i am trying to explain to you. laws are written in Qur'an. none of this injustice is from Qur'an. they mostly come from hadiths. so, if you say they use Qur'an as justification as you did in earlier posts, then of course i would be "absurd" enough to ask for verses. hadith books are different issue, they contain things that contradict with Qur'an


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[cottage]

I'll focus my energies where they can be effective, not where they are useless. I can't help that poor girl, nor can I protest about the injustice. There's literally nothing I, as an individual, can do about it.

And yet your energies were in abundance when it came to responding to Autodidact’s observation that not a single Muslim condemned the council’s actions! We express outrage at atrocities because we are human and because we care, even if we are unable to directly intervene or cause change to come about. You were offended not by the appalling punishment meted out to the victim or the perverse form of justice that saw the perpetrator go free, but by the fact that the matter had been raised at all. And if that wasn’t enough you then wanted to misrepresent the actual words to mean other than what they said.

Justice isn't limited to the court. I'm not talking at all about the OP itself; ONLY the thread title.

Titles need to be extremely clear to EVERYBODY, not just the most educated and people who are best at reading. Some of us are still learning how to skillfully read.

So instead of jumping in with both feet you should have asked for clarification if you were not certain of what was meant. The term 'Islamic justice' was perfectly appropriate to use because that is exactly what it was: justice dispensed in the name of Islam. You made a spurious complaint about the presentation of a title that was both accurate and factual.

People who would naturally make such assumptions, as myself and other Muslims here have, need to be taken into account.

Perhaps it would have been better to leave Islam or related words out of the title, and simply mention that a girl got raped and the rapist was pardoned: wait for the OP itself to mention that it was an Islamic court, so the situation as far as we know can be made clear quickly.[/quote]

Oh rubbish. There was nothing wrong, inappropriate or misleading in that title: ‘Islamic justice: girl lashed for being raped; rapist pardoned’. The girl was lashed, the rapist was pardoned, and it was dispensed as justice by an Islamic court. It could not be plainer. But it was an interpretation of Islamic law, a perverse one at that, and it does not represent the views of Muslims per se, and nothing in that brief title implies otherwise.

And why should we assume Muslims here would disagree? My interaction with the Muslims here has given me reason enough to assume they'd agree fully with the rest of us.

It wasn’t assumed Muslims wouldn’t agree. Some did.

I wasn't so much offended as I was pointing out an error in word choice.

You’ve said elsewhere, several times, that you were offended.

I wasn't condemning; I was correcting.

Correcting what, may I ask? And supposing it to be ‘inflammatory and offensive’ is condemnation.

I read what I saw.

And put your own spin on it?

And, there, you've demonstrated my entire point. This wasn't "Islamic Justice," but (in)justice dispensed by a court that happened to follow Islam.

For heaven’s sake, that is what I’ve been saying all along!
You made an outrageous and false statement: “It basically paints Islam in the light of an evil force in the world that needs to be wiped out.”
I replied:
“Wow! That's an over-generalisation if ever I've seen one. So now you're saying that to criticise an individual act carried out in the name of Islam, no matter how despicable, is an attack on Islam and on Muslims everywhere. Don't you think you would have made a better job of representing Islam in good light by roundly condemning what occurred and by disassociating yourself from those who advocate such vile practices? It is only individuals who are evil, not Islam.”

 

[Commoner]

Sharia is not derived from Qur'an. Qur'an is the Sharia itself. you don't need to explain to me why they do what they do but it is OK to tell what is Islamic and what is not. here i am trying to explain to you. laws are written in Qur'an. none of this injustice is from Qur'an. they mostly come from hadiths. so, if you say they use Qur'an as justification as you did in earlier posts, then of course i would be "absurd" enough to ask for verses. hadith books are different issue, they contain things that contradict with Qur'an


.

So...explain to me again, how is this not an Islamic issue? It is, isn't it?

Or are you going to argue that the Hadith is also not an Islamic issue? Give me a break.

 

[.lava]

So...explain to me again, how is this not an Islamic issue? It is, isn't it?

Or are you going to argue that the Hadith is also not an Islamic issue? Give me a break.

OK. i'll try to explain.

hadiths are sayings of Mohammad PBUH. they are not Sharia, they are either sunnah or explanations of practices like salaat, ablution. sunnah is something that you can do because Prophet himself did it. that is what sunnah is. you do it, fine; you don't do it, no problem. in other words, hadiths are not supposed to contain "laws". laws are written in Qur'an. therefor Sharia is written in Qur'an. if a hadith contains a law, then it has to match with Qur'an. for that matter hadith books are not more important than what Qur'an says. but today, it is other way around. so, you see practice of certain hadiths as Islamic law. i say they are not Islamic law because they are not in Qur'an, they don't match with Qur'ana nd they contradict it. naturally, as a Muslim i learn my religion from its main source and i would refuse any practice that contradicts it. you can call it anything you want but Islamic. because according to laws written in Qur'an; oppression, cruelty, hypocracy, injustice..are all against Islam. they are all condemned.

if i may summarize; there is a Sharia practice in a nation. laws they apply contradicts with Qur'an. non-Muslims learn it as Islamic law because it is practiced by Muslim in Islamic nation. mainly because it is called Sharia. now, if you talk to one of your friends and ask him what he thinks about Islamic law, he would answer according to this fact. he would not know or imagine that that Sharia is not supported by Qur'an, right? that's the problem here. when you call it Islamic, that name on its own contains everything related including Qur'an. so you woud be generalizing two contradicting things as if they were one and same. i am saying they are not one and same. what's applied is injustice, it is cruel and hypocritical which Qur'an condemns. according to your knowledge, Qur'an is not Islamic which i may find very absurd thing to say



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[David69]

Never mind the Muslims.
AS HUMAN BEINGS:

is it right to kill a woman because she has been raped?
Is it right to keep a woman hidden away and denyed equal rights like some caged animal?
is it right to molest and rape a child and even protect the beast that done the deed?

Well I tell you what... when I Rule the world, all that will change!!! there will be none of that under my roof!

 

[Commoner]

OK. i'll try to explain.

hadiths are sayings of Mohammad PBUH. they are not Sharia, they are either sunnah or explanations of practices like salaat, ablution. sunnah is something that you can do because Prophet himself did it. that is what sunnah is. you do it, fine; you don't do it, no problem. in other words, hadiths are not supposed to contain "laws". laws are written in Qur'an. therefor Sharia is written in Qur'an. if a hadith contains a law, then it has to match with Qur'an. for that matter hadith books are not more important than what Qur'an says. but today, it is other way around. so, you see practice of certain hadiths as Islamic law. i say they are not Islamic law because they are not in Qur'an, they don't match with Qur'ana nd they contradict it. naturally, as a Muslim i learn my religion from its main source and i would refuse any practice that contradicts it. you can call it anything you want but Islamic. because according to laws written in Qur'an; oppression, cruelty, hypocracy, injustice..are all against Islam. they are all condemned.

if i may summarize; there is a Sharia practice in a nation. laws they apply contradicts with Qur'an. non-Muslims learn it as Islamic law because it is practiced by Muslim in Islamic nation. mainly because it is called Sharia. now, if you talk to one of your friends and ask him what he thinks about Islamic law, he would answer according to this fact. he would not know or imagine that that Sharia is not supported by Qur'an, right? that's the problem here. when you call it Islamic, that name on its own contains everything related including Qur'an. so you woud be generalizing two contradicting things as if they were one and same. i am saying they are not one and same. what's applied is injustice, it is cruel and hypocritical which Qur'an condemns. according to your knowledge, Qur'an is not Islamic which i may find very absurd thing to say

Look, .lava, you're still arguing the point of interpretation. I've already conceded that this kind of behaviour might very well be a corruption of what Islam is or is supposed to have been. It is not what you believe as a Muslim and it is not what you think Islam is, right?

But this is true of any group of people doing anything, anywhere, at any time. You could argue, for instance, that Sarah Palin isn't really a Republican problem, since she is not a "true Republican", that paedophilia within the Church is not a Christian issue - those can't be "true Christians" and there is nothing in the Bible that says you should molest children, etc...

Plus, when I have a Muslim telling me that those who follow the Hadith are wrong on one side and another Muslim telling me those who reject the Hadith are not true Muslims on the other, I can't really do much about it. What I can say, whatever the truth of the matter might be, it is a muslim problem. Both sides claim to be the true representatives of Islam. Both justify their actions on what they claim is the correct interpretation of their religious texts.

What you're trying to say, I think, is that this kind of thing has nothing to do with your belief system (which is completely clear and the only position a rational person like you can have on the issue). You want to have the "trademark" of "Islam" and not allow others to use it. I can assure you, those who follow the Hadith and claim to be Muslims are just as sure that it does not contradict the Qur'an as you are that it does. This is a problem that all ideologies that try to base their lifes on the "correct" interpretation of texts they believe are authored by a divine authority have. There is no "correct interpretation" anymore than there is a correct interpretation of The Lord of The Rings. You can get as close to knowing what the author meant to say as humany possible, but you'll still be as far from it having any actual value as regards to the real world as you were before. And I won't be able to tell who the "true" Tolkien fan is. As long as there are some Tolkien fans around that keep waving their Lord of The Rings books and trying to bite people's ring fingers off, this is going to stay a Tolkien issue, no matter what the original intent of the author was.

 

[Autodidact]

Then pick a country and debate its legal system. Thats the problem with debating sharia --you know the one that some countries are actually using? is that most muslims will say its not sharia but a local interpretation of it. The answers is going to be no because theres is no sharia. welcome to the vortex.

I take that as a no?

 

[.lava]

Look, .lava, you're still arguing the point of interpretation. I've already conceded that this kind of behaviour might very well be a corruption of what Islam is or is supposed to have been. It is not what you believe as a Muslim and it is not what you think Islam is, right?

But this is true of any group of people doing anything, anywhere, at any time. You could argue, for instance, that Sarah Palin isn't really a Republican problem, since she is not a "true Republican", that paedophilia within the Church is not a Christian issue - those can't be "true Christians" and there is nothing in the Bible that says you should molest children, etc...

Plus, when I have a Muslim telling me that those who follow the Hadith are wrong on one side and another Muslim telling me those who reject the Hadith are not true Muslims on the other, I can't really do much about it. What I can say, whatever the truth of the matter might be, it is a muslim problem. Both sides claim to be the true representatives of Islam. Both justify their actions on what they claim is the correct interpretation of their religious texts.

What you're trying to say, I think, is that this kind of thing has nothing to do with your belief system (which is completely clear and the only position a rational person like you can have on the issue). You want to have the "trademark" of "Islam" and not allow others to use it. I can assure you, those who follow the Hadith and claim to be Muslims are just as sure that it does not contradict the Qur'an as you are that it does. This is a problem that all ideologies that try to base their lifes on the "correct" interpretation of texts they believe are authored by a divine authority have. There is no "correct interpretation" anymore than there is a correct interpretation of The Lord of The Rings. You can get as close to knowing what the author meant to say as humany possible, but you'll still be as far from it having any actual value as regards to the real world as you were before. And I won't be able to tell who the "true" Tolkien fan is. As long as there are some Tolkien fans around that keep waving their Lord of The Rings books and trying to bite people's ring fingers off, this is going to stay a Tolkien issue, no matter what the original intent of the author was.

i feel like i should mention it again; i am not saying people who follow hadiths (fabricated or not) are not Muslims. they are Muslims who follow religious leaders and authorities. and i get what you're saying. i do. it is an issue that concerns Muslims. but still...it is a generalization that ignores part of Muslim population and it gives people the wrong idea as if all Muslims are the same, as if we all agree on hadith issue. so what would you call our practice? our practice certainly contradicts what you call Islamic. so what are we? how are you going to add our existence to your generalization? OR shall we just disappear and leave you alone with Islamic justice as you name it?


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[Commoner]

i feel like i should mention it again; i am not saying people who follow hadiths (fabricated or not) are not Muslims. they are Muslims who follow religious leaders and authorities. and i get what you're saying. i do. it is an issue that concerns Muslims. but still...it is a generalization that ignores part of Muslim population and it gives people the wrong idea as if all Muslims are the same, as if we all agree on hadith issue. so what would you call our practice? our practice certainly contradicts what you call Islamic. so what are we? how are you going to add our existence to your generalization? OR shall we just disappear and leave you alone with Islamic justice as you name it?

.

But that's exactly my point - I don't define what is or isn't Islamic, Muslims do. And not just those that agree with you, but all Muslims, each Muslim.

To an outside observer, both sides are Islam, even if there is a contradiction.

Or if I continue with my analogy - the Tolkien fan that thinks he has to bite off your finger and the moderate Tolkien fan who thinks that's absurd are both Tolkien fans even if they don't consider each other to be correct in their interpretations.

And at this point in time, there seems to be a lot of finger biting going on. That's a real problem and it implies that Tolkien's works and the associated "fan clubs" are not doing a very good job at the moment, regardless of the original intent. If only we could manage to convince people Lord of The Rings was just a novel.

 

[Commoner]

i feel like i should mention it again; i am not saying people who follow hadiths (fabricated or not) are not Muslims. they are Muslims who follow religious leaders and authorities.

But you do seem to be saying that one has nothing to do with the other - that following hadiths has nothing to do with being muslim, nothing to do with the culture and tradition of Islam. And I think that's completely false - it is not possible to do one without the other.

 

[Autodidact]

i feel like i should mention it again; i am not saying people who follow hadiths (fabricated or not) are not Muslims. they are Muslims who follow religious leaders and authorities. and i get what you're saying. i do. it is an issue that concerns Muslims. but still...it is a generalization that ignores part of Muslim population and it gives people the wrong idea as if all Muslims are the same, as if we all agree on hadith issue. so what would you call our practice? our practice certainly contradicts what you call Islamic. so what are we? how are you going to add our existence to your generalization? OR shall we just disappear and leave you alone with Islamic justice as you name it?


.

I'm so glad you participated in this thread and provided this helpful perspective. I do go back to wondering what Muslims can/should/will do about the problem--the general problem of sexism in Islam-as-practised?

It seems to me that one of the problems this sort of thing creates is that it gives Islam a bad name. I don't think it's the fault of me or other non-Muslims--the problem is what's actually going on. To the world, this is Islamic Justice. It does happen, and it is called, done in the name of, portrayed as, done under the auspices of--Islamic Justice.

 

[.lava]

But that's exactly my point - I don't define what is or isn't Islamic, Muslims do. And not just those that agree with you, but all Muslims, each Muslim.

To an outside observer, both sides are Islam, even if there is a contradiction.

Or if I continue with my analogy - the Tolkien fan that thinks he has to bite off your finger and the moderate Tolkien fan who thinks that's absurd are both Tolkien fans even if they don't consider each other to be correct in their interpretations.

And at this point in time, there seems to be a lot of finger biting going on. That's a real problem and it implies that Tolkien's works and the associated "fan clubs" are not doing a very good job at the moment, regardless of the original intent. If only we could manage to convince people Lord of The Rings was just a novel.

hmm..it's just a novel huh? well...i am chosing to pretend not getting it, nothing personal, as you may know Jack Sparrow is a good man and a pirate.

let's say someone wants to learn Islam. what would he do? i am asking this because of your sentence;

To an outside observer, both sides are Islam, even if there is a contradiction.

is it smart to learn religion from actions of religious?


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[YmirGF]

It seems to me that one of the problems this sort of thing creates is that it gives Islam a bad name. I don't think it's the fault of me or other non-Muslims--the problem is what's actually going on. To the world, this is Islamic Justice. It does happen, and it is called, done in the name of, portrayed as, done under the auspices of--Islamic Justice.

And that is the 800 pound gorilla that .lava is trying to get on a diet. Perhaps if we look at that 800 pound gorilla in a "Fun house" with the distorting mirrors it won't look quite so fat and ugly.

The point is that no one person, or group, speaks for Islam and so all we have is interpretations. Hopefully .lava's group will win out, but so far things don't look especially promising.