Rape in Islam: Blaming the Victim

"For almost a year," observes Edward Said in this week’s edition of Cairo’s
Al-Ahram Weekly, "American politicians, regional experts, administration officials, journalists have repeated the charges that have become standard fare so far as Islam and the Arabs are concerned. . . . To today’s practically unanimous chorus has been added the authority of the United Nation’s Human Development Report on the Arab world which certified that Arabs dramatically lag behind the rest of the world in democracy, knowledge, and women’s rights."

Said has no more patience for this sort of thing than he did when he wrote Orientalism and Covering Islam, the twin towers of today’s academic Islamophilia. He acidly dismisses the criticisms as "vague re-cycled Orientalist clichés of the kind repeated by a tireless mediocrity like Bernard Lewis."

Yet just as Said’s lament appeared, the French businesswoman Touria Tiouli went to court in the United Arab Emirates. Heedlessly risking the recycling of vague Orientalist clichés, Dubai officials have turned her charge that she was raped by three men on its head and accused her of zina, sexual activity outside marriage. In Dubai, a bastion of moderate Islam, this charge isn’t punishable by stoning, as it is in more hard-line Muslim countries — it only carries an 18-month jail sentence.

Tiouli continues to fight: on Sunday she entered a not guilty plea. To the claims of her attackers that she was a willing participant and, in fact, a prostitute whom they duly paid, she replied simply, "My lawyer will prove I did not consent. If I had consented, I would not have brought the case."

Indeed, it’s hard to imagine a prostitute in Dubai going to the police willingly under any circumstances. For Sharia courts all over the Islamic world seem only too willing to reinforce the stereotypes of Islam that Said deplores, particularly where women are concerned. In Nigeria, a woman named Sufiyatu Huseini suffered through circumstances remarkably similar to Tiouli’s. She said she was raped, but the man she accused denied it, and instead Huseini was charged with adultery.

Nigeria is no moderate Dubai: Huseini faced death by stoning until the verdict was overturned under international pressure. Countless other women in similar situations have already been stoned to death or jailed. According to Sisters in Islam, a Malaysian advocacy group for Muslim women, in Pakistan "three out of four women in prison . . . are rape victims."

This blame-the-victim mentality should be the worst nightmare of American feminists, were it not for the fact that they view it through rosy multiculturalist glasses. But does it really represent the hijacking of the Religion of Peace on a grand scale?

Not quite. These cases all unfolded according to the classic directives of the Sharia.

Traditional Islamic law, which is still very much in force in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran, Sudan, most (if not all) of post-Taliban Afghanistan, and elsewhere, completely disregards the testimony of women in cases of a sexual nature. Aside from physical evidence, the only way to establish rape is by the testimony of four male witnesses (who, by the way, must be Muslims in good standing) who actually saw the act itself. Without these witnesses and a confession from the accused rapist, the victim will stand condemned by her very accusation: she wasn’t raped, so she must be guilty of zina.

Moreover, the prosecution has been careful to point out that Tiouli didn’t call for help. "According to Islamic Sharia," says the Nigerian Imam Mallam Muhammad Sani Isa, "it cannot be considered rape unless you asked for help."

According to Aliyu Abubakar Sanyinna, the attorney general of Nigeria’s Zamfara state (where Huseini went through her ordeal), this codified miscarriage of justice is "the law of Allah. By executing anybody that is convicted under Islamic law, we are just complying with the laws of Allah, so we don’t have anything to worry about."

If like minds prevail next week in Dubai when the court issues a verdict in Tiouli’s case, she should resign herself to spending the next eighteen months behind bars.

There is yet hope. International indignation resulted in the overturning of Huseini’s death sentence and the commutation of a similar ruling against an 18-year-old Christian girl in Sudan, Abok Alfa Akok, to 75 lashes. Facing another worldwide outcry, the Nigerian government promised in October to end stonings for adultery. Also bowing to internal and external pressure, even the Islamic Republic of Iran declared early this year that it too was ending the practice.

All this is good, but it isn’t enough. Rape victims in these newly enlightened nations may not have to fear stoning but they still may face lighter sentences, as does Tiouli. They will continue to receive no sympathy for their ordeal or any honest investigation of the charges they have made.

Until the Sharia itself undergoes a thoroughgoing reevaluation, this is probably the best we can hope for. Thus — however much Edward Said and his ilk may gnash their teeth — those who traffic in "vague re-cycled Orientalist clichés" about women’s rights in the Islamic world must keep up the pressure.

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2 posted on 01/21/2003 11:43:35 PM PST by Support Free Republic (Your support keeps Free Republic going strong!)

"According to Aliyu Abubakar Sanyinna, the attorney general of Nigeria’s Zamfara state (where Huseini went through her ordeal), this codified miscarriage of justice is 'the law of Allah. By executing anybody that is convicted under Islamic law, we are just complying with the laws of Allah, so we don’t have anything to worry about.'"

Using the same logic, would the KKK say that God authorizes them to murder blacks and Jews?

Not much diffeerence, to me.

As found on the "Ask the Imam" website, when a Muslim actually still in possession of a mind asked the "Imam" for an explanation of some similar Shariah nonsense of the "Religion of Peace", the answer was very direct and very simple.

The law of Shariah does not have to logical or sensible, or explainable. Since it is enough to know that it is the direct expression of the will of God, such concerns are entirely irrelevant.

The Muslim World: "Axis of Ignorance"

I can't imagine any greater giveaway of the real priorities of the Left than that they, especially their "feminist" wing, fail to condemn this sort of thing by Muslims in Islamic theocracies, but shower all manner of vituperation on America for its supposed "exploitation of women." They are not pro-woman; they are merely, and implacably, anti-America.

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The left protected Bill Clinton, why would you think that they stand for anything that is right. Talk about blaming the victims, the left have plenty of victims left in their wake. The left could care less about righting wrongs, but getting and keeping power and they will use whatever and whomever they can to obtain power.

The left in this country have no greater enemies than conservatives. The left hates the right.

The pacifists/anti-war protestors appear to be happy to sacrifice these women. They chant their mantra 'It's for the oil.' And they don't even acknowledge the atrocious attacks on human rights.

Good post - tnx!

"NOW" Attacks Pro-LifersWhy Don't They Attack Islam

11 posted on 01/23/2003 8:30:04 AM PST by Happy2BMe (It's All About You - It's All About Me - It's All About Being Free!)

Read those books and you'll see that it's a GREAT choice of words. Said in these books does as much damage to critical evaluation of Islam as Osama did to the WTC.

Unbelievable. This calls for a Ross Perot-style infiltration and rescue operation, but since it's the French the odds of that are roughly -5%.

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