The More I Learn . . .

. . . About Islam, the more I see its evils.

My first real experiences with Muslims came in Iraq. I’d met and interacted with Muslims in Tunisia and Kuwait prior to my time in Iraq; but, those experiences merely brushed the surface, whereas, in Iraq, I was out and amongst followers of Islam on a daily basis. Iraqis, like people everywhere, have among their multitudes those who are ardent in following the strictures of their faith, those who pay convenient obeisance, and those who disregard their religion wholly. Though Islam forbids homosexuality, I met many young men who told me that women are for procreation while men are for pleasure. I met a great many men who drank alcohol regularly, which Islam also forbids. Then again, there are the male shepherds who are famous for relieving themselves on the ewes in the flock. I’ve never learned whether bestiality is also forbidden but I can only imagine that it is. On the other side of the coin, I also had a run-in with a Wahabi – even his relatively moderate fellow trainees in the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps were afraid of what he may have done. They were so afraid and in such an uproar, in fact, that we trainers thought that we might have been under some sort of attack.

After my time in the military and my fifteen months in Iraq, I found myself in a world history class in college. As expected, the professor did his best to portray Islam and Islamic peoples as peace-loving and noble. In many examples, he was quite correct. Still, I couldn’t help but see the correlation between the founding of Islam and the Prophet Mohammed’s desire to conquer Mecca. To me, it was all too obvious that Mohammed likely understood that religion is a sure way to control the masses and so invoked the name of God to fuel the machine that would help him in his quest. Being a mere merchant, he had no royal birthright; instead he was blessed by conversations with and dreams of the Almighty. At any rate, his dream of conquest was realized and his religion has grown exponentially and into every corner of the globe.

Setting aside the tenets of Islam that demand the slaughter of infidels and glorify martyrdom via mass murder, another particular horror of Sharia is the role and treatment given to women. It may be generous even to say that women are only slightly more valuable than the family mule or water bucket. After all, they provide sons to the all-important Muslim men and can actually put the mule and water bucket to use. In Tunisia, my first images were of women, old and bent and dressed from head to toe in black garb, laboring in fields. Many of these same women carried bundles of wood literally the size of small passenger cars on their backs to some place or other. The men? They sat under shade trees and drank cold water and tea in surprisingly fine attire. The scene was repeated for me in Kuwait; the difference being that the women didn’t labor over rolling green hills but across the sands of a desert. Of course, those women who were fortunate to live in the developed areas weren’t so bad off as to be hauling water in more than one-hundred and thirty degree heat; yet, they obediently walked at a distance behind their husbands, dressed head to toe in the same black garb, and could not even drive a car.

Iraq was different. Many of the Iraqis I met spoke of Saddam Hussein as being rather liberal, socially. It seemed that they appreciated his liberalism so much that they were willing to overlook – to a degree - his and his sons’ tendencies to randomly capture and torture citizens so to further his ability to rule through fear. One of his sons had an actual torture chamber in his palace and kept tigers which were rumored to have been regularly fed live people. Yet, women in Baghdad were able to have jobs, wear skirts, go to schools, and put on make-up.

Still, amidst this comparatively liberal Muslim society, I came to meet a woman, Fathiya, whose husband of many years decided he wanted a younger wife. The husband was an old member of the Ba’ath party and quite wealthy. Fathiya, her three sons, and two daughters were summarily dismissed from their home and found the only refuge left to them – three standing walls of mud-brick in a long abandoned military complex. The complex was home to some of Baghdad’s poorest. Fathiya spoke some English and was quick to welcome us into her home on many occasions. She somehow kept a bright smile on her leathery face, though she was just forty-nine years old, and always served Chai on her finest saucers. The mother and children survived on what money the two eldest sons could earn by selling scrap metal. As often as we could, we brought bottled water, food, and clothing to Fathiya. Ultimately, I think, she gave most away to her neighbors.

I met her husband once. He stopped by to visit her in her barely-standing home. In what was explained to me by my interpreter as a very major slight to his honor, she made him wait outside her gate until my visit with her was finished. He wanted to shake my hand as I was climbing back inside my Humvee. He, like all the old Ba’ath tyrants, wanted to appear meek, humble, and willing to be of service to the new power in town. I couldn’t help but notice the fine cut of his suit. Certainly more than I could afford, then and now. Later, I discovered where he lived. A house just shy of being a mansion. He had a sodded lawn.

The impetus behind this article and the remembering of Fathiya must be my recent viewing of The Stoning of Soraya M. The film is based on true events which took place in rural Iran some twenty-plus years ago. Soraya, the wife of a man wanting a younger wife, much like Fathiya, accused her of adultery. Soraya was convicted and, under Sharia, was sentenced to death by stoning. If you haven’t yet, you ought to watch the film as much for its quality as for its insight into Islam. Imagine: an innocent woman, buried to her waist and arms bound, pelted by stones thrown by her husband, father, religious leader, lifelong friends, neighbors, and, yes, her own sons until she dies – while the crowd shouts “God is great.” The film is shocking to watch. Yet, this story would never have come to light had not a journalist had car trouble long enough to listen while passing through. How many other hundreds or thousands of such atrocities have occurred under Sharia of which you and I have and will never learn?

At least one woman has been similarly stoned of late in Somalia. Islamic honor killings are even happening here, in the United States. Sharia Law has all but superseded English Law for Muslims in the United Kingdom. How long until honor killings are a regularity there? In England?

Certainly, as I mentioned above, there are a great many Muslims who do not actively seek the deaths of all who deny Islam as the one and only religion. My Italian professor was Somali and he certainly was a man of reason and learning. I’m happy to call him a friend. He, though, does not follow the Quran letter by letter and admittedly so. He always spoke highly of his wife. He even cheered for Hillary Clinton to win the White House. Many Muslims, like my professor, I believe, glean the goodness from the religion and on these they focus. So many others, we now know, do not.

I proudly am able to lay no claim through lineage, allegiance, or empathy to the often disgusting mindlessness of Islam; thus, my regard of it is appropriately detached. But what of the missing outrage of my own people? My people, Americans, seem as often to count believers of Islam as part of yet another victim group and needy of compassion. Unlike Mohammed, I do not seek or even wish for the annihilation of a people or even their religion. But influence and pressure for change is another thing entirely.

So, as women around the world are now, as you read this, equated with donkeys and water pails and treated accordingly, ask yourself this one question: Where in the hell is the great Feminist Movement?