Monday, August 24, 2009
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Top Ten Koranic Verses for Women
I received this "Top Ten List" from Brigette Gabriel's group, ACT for America. I was already familiar with most of these. I assure you, there's nothing about the context of these verses that makes them less oppressive towards women.
10. A husband has sex with his wife, as a plow goes into a field.
The Quran in Sura (Chapter) 2:223 says:
Your women are your fields, so go into your fields whichever way you like . . . . (MAS Abdel Haleem, The Qur’an, Oxford UP, 2004)
9. Husbands are a degree above their wives.
The Quran in Sura 2:228 says:
. . . Wives have the same rights as the husbands have on them in accordance with the generally known principles. Of course, men are a degree above them in status . . . (Sayyid Abul A’La Maududi, The Meaning of the Qur’an, vol. 1, p. 165)
8. A male gets a double share of the inheritance over that of a female.
The Quran in Sura 4:11 says:
The share of the male shall be twice that of a female . . . . (Maududi, vol. 1, p. 311)
7. A woman’s testimony counts half of a man’s testimony.
The Quran in Sura 2:282 says:
And let two men from among you bear witness to all such documents [contracts of loans without interest]. But if two men be not available, there should be one man and two women to bear witness so that if one of the women forgets (anything), the other may remind her. (Maududi, vol. 1, p. 205).
6. A wife may remarry her ex-husband if and only if she marries another man and then this second man divorces her.
The Quran in Sura 2:230 says:
And if the husband divorces his wife (for the third time), she shall not remain his lawful wife after this (absolute) divorce, unless she marries another husband and the second husband divorces her. [In that case] there is no harm if they [the first couple] remarry . . . . (Maududi, vol. 1, p. 165)
5. Slave-girls are sexual property for their male owners.
The Quran in Sura 4:24 says:
And forbidden to you are wedded wives of other people except those who have fallen in your hands [as prisoners of war] . . . (Maududi, vol. 1, p. 319).
4. A man may be polygamous with up to four wives.
The Quran in Sura 4:3 says:
And if you be apprehensive that you will not be able to do justice to the orphans, you may marry two or three or four women whom you choose. But if you apprehend that you might not be able to do justice to them, then marry only one wife, or marry those who have fallen in your possession. (Maududi, vol. 1, p. 305)
3. A husband may simply get rid of one of his undesirable wives.
The Quran in Sura 4:129 says:
It is not within your power to be perfectly equitable in your treatment with all your wives, even if you wish to be so; therefore, [in order to satisfy the dictates of Divine Law] do not lean towards one wife so as to leave the other in a state of suspense. (Maududi, vol. 1, p. 381)
2. Husbands may hit their wives even if the husbands merely fear highhandedness in their wives (quite apart from whether they actually are highhanded).
The Quran in Sura 4:34 says:
4:34 . . . If you fear highhandedness from your wives, remind them [of the teaching of God], then ignore them when you go to bed, then hit them. If they obey you, you have no right to act against them. God is most high and great. (Haleem)
1. Mature men are allowed to marry prepubescent girls.
The Quran in Sura 65:1, 4 says:
65:1 O Prophet, when you [and the believers] divorce women, divorce them for their prescribed waiting—period and count the waiting—period accurately . . . 4 And if you are in doubt about those of your women who have despaired of menstruation, (you should know that) their waiting period is three months, and the same applies to those who have not menstruated as yet. As for pregnant women, their period ends when they have delivered their burden. (Maududi, vol. 5, pp. 599 and 617).
And a great one from the Hadith: Mohammed claimed he was given a look into hell and saw that it was filled mostly with women because they were ungrateful to their husbands (Sahih Bukhari 2,18,61).
10. A husband has sex with his wife, as a plow goes into a field.
The Quran in Sura (Chapter) 2:223 says:
Your women are your fields, so go into your fields whichever way you like . . . . (MAS Abdel Haleem, The Qur’an, Oxford UP, 2004)
9. Husbands are a degree above their wives.
The Quran in Sura 2:228 says:
. . . Wives have the same rights as the husbands have on them in accordance with the generally known principles. Of course, men are a degree above them in status . . . (Sayyid Abul A’La Maududi, The Meaning of the Qur’an, vol. 1, p. 165)
8. A male gets a double share of the inheritance over that of a female.
The Quran in Sura 4:11 says:
The share of the male shall be twice that of a female . . . . (Maududi, vol. 1, p. 311)
7. A woman’s testimony counts half of a man’s testimony.
The Quran in Sura 2:282 says:
And let two men from among you bear witness to all such documents [contracts of loans without interest]. But if two men be not available, there should be one man and two women to bear witness so that if one of the women forgets (anything), the other may remind her. (Maududi, vol. 1, p. 205).
6. A wife may remarry her ex-husband if and only if she marries another man and then this second man divorces her.
The Quran in Sura 2:230 says:
And if the husband divorces his wife (for the third time), she shall not remain his lawful wife after this (absolute) divorce, unless she marries another husband and the second husband divorces her. [In that case] there is no harm if they [the first couple] remarry . . . . (Maududi, vol. 1, p. 165)
5. Slave-girls are sexual property for their male owners.
The Quran in Sura 4:24 says:
And forbidden to you are wedded wives of other people except those who have fallen in your hands [as prisoners of war] . . . (Maududi, vol. 1, p. 319).
4. A man may be polygamous with up to four wives.
The Quran in Sura 4:3 says:
And if you be apprehensive that you will not be able to do justice to the orphans, you may marry two or three or four women whom you choose. But if you apprehend that you might not be able to do justice to them, then marry only one wife, or marry those who have fallen in your possession. (Maududi, vol. 1, p. 305)
3. A husband may simply get rid of one of his undesirable wives.
The Quran in Sura 4:129 says:
It is not within your power to be perfectly equitable in your treatment with all your wives, even if you wish to be so; therefore, [in order to satisfy the dictates of Divine Law] do not lean towards one wife so as to leave the other in a state of suspense. (Maududi, vol. 1, p. 381)
2. Husbands may hit their wives even if the husbands merely fear highhandedness in their wives (quite apart from whether they actually are highhanded).
The Quran in Sura 4:34 says:
4:34 . . . If you fear highhandedness from your wives, remind them [of the teaching of God], then ignore them when you go to bed, then hit them. If they obey you, you have no right to act against them. God is most high and great. (Haleem)
1. Mature men are allowed to marry prepubescent girls.
The Quran in Sura 65:1, 4 says:
65:1 O Prophet, when you [and the believers] divorce women, divorce them for their prescribed waiting—period and count the waiting—period accurately . . . 4 And if you are in doubt about those of your women who have despaired of menstruation, (you should know that) their waiting period is three months, and the same applies to those who have not menstruated as yet. As for pregnant women, their period ends when they have delivered their burden. (Maududi, vol. 5, pp. 599 and 617).
And a great one from the Hadith: Mohammed claimed he was given a look into hell and saw that it was filled mostly with women because they were ungrateful to their husbands (Sahih Bukhari 2,18,61).
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Islam's Chilling Paradise
I periodically check in on an anti-Islamic blog written by a brilliant agnostic. Hesperado's latest post is a stunning (for an agnostic) observation about Islamic and Christian conceptions of paradise. I've thought about his conclusion before, but I've never noticed this particular piece of evidence for it.
What follows is Hesperado's post, in its entirety, followed by some thoughts of my own on which also compare the two conceptions of paradise, but from a different angle:
Being an agnostic, the conclusion that lurks in today’s brief and ephemeral post does not arise with the alacrity of an epiphany born of a certain subculture of evangelical Protestantism (or, prior to the mainstream dominance of politically correct multi-culturalism, a wider variety of Christians in general).
Nevertheless, over the years, that conclusion has nagged at me, and I confess that I am at a loss to explain the genesis of Islam—and its ongoing historical career of grotesquely ghoulish behaviors from the beginning in the 7th century A.D. right up to our present—without it. It seems to make the most sense, for all other explanations seem to beggar the phenomenon—the full, malevolent, horrific dimensions of it—which they are trying to explain.
Today, I only offer a comparison of two verses, one from the Koran, the other from the Bible—a comparison that might never have occurred to one who has not begun to think about the darker source of Islam. Perhaps in the near future, I will develop this overall comparison further.
Here is the Koran, offering to its slavish followers the ultimate enticement of what they shall receive for their fanatical submission:
And when you behold Paradise, you will see all around you delights and a vast kingdom.
(Koran 76:20)
And here is Satan trying to seduce Jesus into submitting to him instead of God:
. . . the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
(Gospel of Matthew 4:8-9)
Some six centuries separate these two quotations—though not a signficant geographical distance: one Middle Eastern desert for another. Perhaps, it could be mused, in the terms of the Christian mythologoumena, that Satan, after the devastating blow he received—not merely when Jesus rejected his tempting offer, but also when Jesus instead submitted himself, maieutically as the “last Adam” (1 Corinthians 15:45), to the Father by fulfilling the first fruits of God’s plan of the ultimate defeat of Satan, and succeeded in generating a flourishing Church that in three centuries managed to convert the Roman Empire and showed no signs of retreating—found another way to try to entice the sons of Adam. And this way has been over ensuing centuries spectacularly successful in degrading, corrupting and possessing the souls of countless hundreds of millions, whose ongoing slavish pursuit of submission to their darker source not only leads them eventually to his abode—a mirage of paradisaic gardens camouflaging infernal damnation—; but also manages to wreak the havoc, mayhem and misery of a Hell on Earth in the long and winding meantime between the beginning and the end.
My own comments:
One of the things about "mythology", which I will define here as "human-created religion," is that it has no ability to conceptualize what goes beyond human intellect and experience. The gods of the ancient peoples are enormous and selfish children with all of the foibles of humanity, magnified by great power. The "heaven" of Islam is a very sensual place, where men (who constitute 100% of mainstream Islamic theologians) get to live out the limits of their desires for power over women by perpetually deflowering virgins over whom they have absolute control and who, presumably, worship them with the devotion that even the repression of a 7th century culture dominated by warlords could not produce.
The biblical heaven/new heaven IS a "paradise" (Lk 23:43) but it is a decidedly non-sensual one (Mt 22:30). Not only is sex after the Resurrection apparently done away with, but there is a lack of great indulgence in other carnal pleasures too. It seems people continue to eat, for example, but there is no indication of wanton feasting.
The imagery used to describe heaven/new heaven is concrete, but decidedly non-literal. When the Bible speaks of a "city of gold", Christians have always read it as non-literal - a way to describe something that goes beyond human experience or imagining. Just about everything about heaven/new heaven is like that. It's greater than one can imagine. A very odd way to describe paradise if you are making up a religion. Islam has exactly the sort of heaven a 7th warlord would make up.
The specific promise of a Christian paradise is actually not sensual at all, but spiritual. I don't mean to deny the significance of the Christian resurrection or play "spiritual" off against "physical" here; I mean "spiritual" as opposed to "sensual." The promise of paradise is the promise of a relationship with God which is unhindered by sin or human limitation. The paradise of Christianity is knowing God fully even as we are fully known now. (1 Co 13:12; Rev 22:5) The greatest pleasures of Christianity are found in knowing God, the source of all true joy.
The Christian paradise only shares terminology with the Islamic one. The content reveals the chasm between the two - and the character of the authors behind them. And perhaps the author of Hesperado is correct, it isn't actually the warlord at all, but a much more ancient adversary.
What follows is Hesperado's post, in its entirety, followed by some thoughts of my own on which also compare the two conceptions of paradise, but from a different angle:
Being an agnostic, the conclusion that lurks in today’s brief and ephemeral post does not arise with the alacrity of an epiphany born of a certain subculture of evangelical Protestantism (or, prior to the mainstream dominance of politically correct multi-culturalism, a wider variety of Christians in general).
Nevertheless, over the years, that conclusion has nagged at me, and I confess that I am at a loss to explain the genesis of Islam—and its ongoing historical career of grotesquely ghoulish behaviors from the beginning in the 7th century A.D. right up to our present—without it. It seems to make the most sense, for all other explanations seem to beggar the phenomenon—the full, malevolent, horrific dimensions of it—which they are trying to explain.
Today, I only offer a comparison of two verses, one from the Koran, the other from the Bible—a comparison that might never have occurred to one who has not begun to think about the darker source of Islam. Perhaps in the near future, I will develop this overall comparison further.
Here is the Koran, offering to its slavish followers the ultimate enticement of what they shall receive for their fanatical submission:
And when you behold Paradise, you will see all around you delights and a vast kingdom.
(Koran 76:20)
And here is Satan trying to seduce Jesus into submitting to him instead of God:
. . . the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
(Gospel of Matthew 4:8-9)
Some six centuries separate these two quotations—though not a signficant geographical distance: one Middle Eastern desert for another. Perhaps, it could be mused, in the terms of the Christian mythologoumena, that Satan, after the devastating blow he received—not merely when Jesus rejected his tempting offer, but also when Jesus instead submitted himself, maieutically as the “last Adam” (1 Corinthians 15:45), to the Father by fulfilling the first fruits of God’s plan of the ultimate defeat of Satan, and succeeded in generating a flourishing Church that in three centuries managed to convert the Roman Empire and showed no signs of retreating—found another way to try to entice the sons of Adam. And this way has been over ensuing centuries spectacularly successful in degrading, corrupting and possessing the souls of countless hundreds of millions, whose ongoing slavish pursuit of submission to their darker source not only leads them eventually to his abode—a mirage of paradisaic gardens camouflaging infernal damnation—; but also manages to wreak the havoc, mayhem and misery of a Hell on Earth in the long and winding meantime between the beginning and the end.
My own comments:
One of the things about "mythology", which I will define here as "human-created religion," is that it has no ability to conceptualize what goes beyond human intellect and experience. The gods of the ancient peoples are enormous and selfish children with all of the foibles of humanity, magnified by great power. The "heaven" of Islam is a very sensual place, where men (who constitute 100% of mainstream Islamic theologians) get to live out the limits of their desires for power over women by perpetually deflowering virgins over whom they have absolute control and who, presumably, worship them with the devotion that even the repression of a 7th century culture dominated by warlords could not produce.
The biblical heaven/new heaven IS a "paradise" (Lk 23:43) but it is a decidedly non-sensual one (Mt 22:30). Not only is sex after the Resurrection apparently done away with, but there is a lack of great indulgence in other carnal pleasures too. It seems people continue to eat, for example, but there is no indication of wanton feasting.
The imagery used to describe heaven/new heaven is concrete, but decidedly non-literal. When the Bible speaks of a "city of gold", Christians have always read it as non-literal - a way to describe something that goes beyond human experience or imagining. Just about everything about heaven/new heaven is like that. It's greater than one can imagine. A very odd way to describe paradise if you are making up a religion. Islam has exactly the sort of heaven a 7th warlord would make up.
The specific promise of a Christian paradise is actually not sensual at all, but spiritual. I don't mean to deny the significance of the Christian resurrection or play "spiritual" off against "physical" here; I mean "spiritual" as opposed to "sensual." The promise of paradise is the promise of a relationship with God which is unhindered by sin or human limitation. The paradise of Christianity is knowing God fully even as we are fully known now. (1 Co 13:12; Rev 22:5) The greatest pleasures of Christianity are found in knowing God, the source of all true joy.
The Christian paradise only shares terminology with the Islamic one. The content reveals the chasm between the two - and the character of the authors behind them. And perhaps the author of Hesperado is correct, it isn't actually the warlord at all, but a much more ancient adversary.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Thank you for saving our bacon, Chuck...
A deep thanks to Charles Martel ("The Hammer") who saved our civilization from the Mohammadan horde on yesterday's date, 711. The Religion of Peace crossed the strait of Gibraltar and poured into Europe with the goal of world domination. In Islam, "peace," the goal of Islam, comes when Islamic law is established over the whole world. It's kind of like the "Peace of Rome," except in Rome, when a woman was raped, they executed the rapist, not the victim...
From Jihad Watch:
"Precisely 100 years of Islamic conquests after Muhammad's death (632), the Muslims, starting from Arabia, found themselves in Gaul, modern day France, confronting a hitherto little known people—the Christian Franks. There, on October 11th, 732, one of the most decisive battles between Christendom and Islam took place, demarcating the extent of the latter’s conquests, and ensuring the survival of the former.
Prior to this, the Islamic conquerors, drunk with power and plunder, had, for one century been subjugating all peoples and territories standing in their western march—from Arabia to Morocco (al-Maghreb, the “furthest west”). In 711, the Muslims made their fateful crossing of the straits of Gibraltar, landing for the first time on European ground. Upon touching terra firma, the leader of the Muslims, Tariq bin Zayid, ordered all the boats used for the crossing burned, asserting “We have not come here to return. Either we conquer and establish ourselves here, or we perish.” Islam was there to stay."
Full text here. It's under October 11, 2008.
From Jihad Watch:
"Precisely 100 years of Islamic conquests after Muhammad's death (632), the Muslims, starting from Arabia, found themselves in Gaul, modern day France, confronting a hitherto little known people—the Christian Franks. There, on October 11th, 732, one of the most decisive battles between Christendom and Islam took place, demarcating the extent of the latter’s conquests, and ensuring the survival of the former.
Prior to this, the Islamic conquerors, drunk with power and plunder, had, for one century been subjugating all peoples and territories standing in their western march—from Arabia to Morocco (al-Maghreb, the “furthest west”). In 711, the Muslims made their fateful crossing of the straits of Gibraltar, landing for the first time on European ground. Upon touching terra firma, the leader of the Muslims, Tariq bin Zayid, ordered all the boats used for the crossing burned, asserting “We have not come here to return. Either we conquer and establish ourselves here, or we perish.” Islam was there to stay."
Full text here. It's under October 11, 2008.
Friday, October 10, 2008
SNL Reveals the REAL Culprits Behind the Sub-Prime Crisis
While the Democrats are being amazingly successful at smearing the George Bush and the minority Republicans with the sub-prime lending implosion, Saturday Nite Live (of all shows!) decided to tell us that the Emperor Pelosi-Frank isn't wearing any clothes. Obama is claiming to have "warned" the country about this crisis two years ago (a claim noone has been able to substantiate), but John McCain, who is somehow taking the blame, was the one who's been beating this drum for years and has introduced reform legislation that the Democrats defeated.
At issue here, among some other things, is the Community Re-Development Act, a Democratic bit of do-goodery which forced banks to make loans in economically depressed areas. The CRDA was used and leverage by COMMUNITY ORGANIZERS (Obama, Obama, Obama) to force banks to make risky loans or face charges of racism. Barney Frank is now accusing the Republicans of racism for bringing this up, claiming that Republicans are trying to blame the financial crisis on "poor blacks."
Poor blacks (or poor anybodies) are not to blame here, liberal government intervention is. The poor are the victims of a liberal plan to curry favor with poor voters by giving them something that was bad for them. Not everybody is ready to care for a home and meet mortgage payments. We get people into homes by teaching them to save and pay their bills and count the cost of caring for the asset, not by giving them mortgages they can't pay. The CRDA is abuse masquerading as kindness. It is just a spoke in the wheel of the vast machinery which makes money off of the poor. "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."
Thanks to my new friend Sherzo at for the video.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Goodbye Rod, Rest in Christ
Last Friday, the Lord took Rod Jackson, a former deacon at our church, children's ministry powerhouse, father of five and friend to many, home to be with his savior. I posted this memory on a blog dedicated to Rod.
I remember Rod coming down the concourse with my son in his arms. It gave him a tremendous amount of joy to hand him to us. "Look at his feet! They're huge! He's going to be a hulk!" He said it like he was handing us a Grade-A son. And he was right. After he said it, he laughed and laughed. I loved his laugh.
I'm sure that my son and his two youngest kids were the hardest adoptions he ever did. I lost count of the amount of times he had to fly out of state to tend to something or the other, pushing things through. There was some case manager involved who was grossly incompetent and negligent. Rod fought and fought until they did things right.
I was a little astonished that Rod went on to found an adoption agency. I figured that the first experience was so difficult that only a crazy person would want to repeat it. But Rod was a fighter. There were a few times where it got the better of him, but many, many times where he did something good because he stuck with it long after anyone else would have quit. If Rod was on your side, you had an army.
I've never known anyone who could keep the attention of so many kids for so long with sheer energy and love. One year our VBS was rained out and all we had was one big room with over a 100 kids. Rod kept them entertained so that others (and Rod) could share about Jesus with them. The high point for me was Rod singing "One in a Million" while we rolled on the floor.
Another memory. During our adoption we did something really stupid, considering our weird adoption situation (which I WON'T confess here). I went to Rod to tell him and expected him to confirm my worst fears. Instead he laughed and laughed. When he finished laughing I wasn't afraid any more.
I remember Rod coming down the concourse with my son in his arms. It gave him a tremendous amount of joy to hand him to us. "Look at his feet! They're huge! He's going to be a hulk!" He said it like he was handing us a Grade-A son. And he was right. After he said it, he laughed and laughed. I loved his laugh.
I'm sure that my son and his two youngest kids were the hardest adoptions he ever did. I lost count of the amount of times he had to fly out of state to tend to something or the other, pushing things through. There was some case manager involved who was grossly incompetent and negligent. Rod fought and fought until they did things right.
I was a little astonished that Rod went on to found an adoption agency. I figured that the first experience was so difficult that only a crazy person would want to repeat it. But Rod was a fighter. There were a few times where it got the better of him, but many, many times where he did something good because he stuck with it long after anyone else would have quit. If Rod was on your side, you had an army.
I've never known anyone who could keep the attention of so many kids for so long with sheer energy and love. One year our VBS was rained out and all we had was one big room with over a 100 kids. Rod kept them entertained so that others (and Rod) could share about Jesus with them. The high point for me was Rod singing "One in a Million" while we rolled on the floor.
Another memory. During our adoption we did something really stupid, considering our weird adoption situation (which I WON'T confess here). I went to Rod to tell him and expected him to confirm my worst fears. Instead he laughed and laughed. When he finished laughing I wasn't afraid any more.
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
You Will Never View Islam the Same Again
Is Islam a "religion of peace"? Does "jihad" mean "inner struggle"? Would Islamic terrorists be a concern for the West if we stayed out of the Middle East? Are all "fundamentalists" violent?
Jihad Watch will answer your questions and keep you up to date. Robert Spencer, one of the most prominent scholars of Islam (in the critical camp) in the United States, is one of the contributors to this site. The site tracks news on the subject of Islam and global jihad. Two recent stories: The hammer-wielding subway attacker who chanted "Allah" repeatedly (this tidbit ignored by the media) and the Somali workers at the Swift food processor in the US demanding accomodations during Ramadan who rioted when the plant wouldn't change their break time to the detriment of the other workers (violence unreported with the story in the media).
Mr. Spencer also has a chapter-by-chapter Koran study he's publishing weekly. It really illuminates the Koran.
And to answer the question in advance, Mr. Spencer is a Maronite Catholic Christian. Feel free to guess what a Maronite is in the comment section below. Hint: A Maronite Christian was one of the most popular inspirational authors and poets of the 60's in the United States.
Jihad Watch will answer your questions and keep you up to date. Robert Spencer, one of the most prominent scholars of Islam (in the critical camp) in the United States, is one of the contributors to this site. The site tracks news on the subject of Islam and global jihad. Two recent stories: The hammer-wielding subway attacker who chanted "Allah" repeatedly (this tidbit ignored by the media) and the Somali workers at the Swift food processor in the US demanding accomodations during Ramadan who rioted when the plant wouldn't change their break time to the detriment of the other workers (violence unreported with the story in the media).
Mr. Spencer also has a chapter-by-chapter Koran study he's publishing weekly. It really illuminates the Koran.
And to answer the question in advance, Mr. Spencer is a Maronite Catholic Christian. Feel free to guess what a Maronite is in the comment section below. Hint: A Maronite Christian was one of the most popular inspirational authors and poets of the 60's in the United States.
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