"This is the broader significance of the new Taliban video:
it demonstrates the central failure of Islamism, revealed clearly even to those in the Muslim world. The Islamic theocrats offer their supporters one central promise: to establish the rule of virtue on earth. But they always provide the exact opposite: the rule of brute force and the doctrine of "might makes right." Their code actually banishes morality from public life, subordinating it to force. The routine brutalization of women and girls under the rule of Islam is a constant and vivid reminder of this fact."
RealClearPolitics - Articles - Women's Rights as a Measure of Civilization
Here, let's see how all this bad stuff being said about Islam is just people getting hysterical over a few pockets of extremists who, darn it, are making all Muslims look bad:
"Egypt was once the pioneer in the liberation of women in the Arab world. “The Liberation of Women”, the first Arab feminist manifesto was published in Cairo as early as in 1899. And by 1920s, women were dropping veils; by 1960, the country had more female doctors than many in the West. They won the right to vote and entered politics in 1956 and even secured a ban on the horrible practice of female circumcision. At that time, a new bill called the “Personal Status Bill”, that sought to establish absolute equality between men and women was in the pipeline. Unfortunately, then came the war with Israel and the move died.
In those days of political turmoil, a conservative tide, spearheaded by Islamic fundamentalists, snatched away most of the rights women had won so far. Under a constitutional amendment
in 1980, Islamic law was enshrined. As a result, women were reduced to the status no better than that of pet animals of males. For example, the practice of female circumcision was reintroduced. In medical term, it is nothing but a surgical operation that removes a part called clitoris of the female genital. At present, hundreds of Egyptian girls die every year due to excessive bleeding from the traumatic operation. In 1994, CNN telecast such an operation worldwide and sparked a heated debate in the Egyptian parliament. Egyptian Mufti, topmost religious authority in the country, appealed to members of the parliament for banning the practice.
But the fanatic Islamist leader of the Al-Azhar University, Gad al-Haq Ali Gad al-Haq, promulgated a fatwa directing the Egyptians to continue the practice and the parliament also honoured his edict.
As a result of these discouraging developments, women’s rights movement in Egypt has lost steam.
With the Quran and Sunnah on their side, Egyptian men now divorce their wives with simple oath or the "triple talaq", while women have to seek a divorce in the court of law, a cumbersome process that generally takes several years. At present, a third of the Egyptian women are reported to be beaten by their husbands. In such a state of affairs, delay in getting a decree of divorce from a cruel husband amounts to nothing but punitive torture. Furthermore, a divorced mother, according to Islamic law, enjoys the right of custody up to the age of 12 years for the girls and 10 years for boys, after which the child must be surrendered to their father, even if he is a brute and a sadist."
Islam Watch - "Arab Women: Victims of Islamic Gender Discrimination, Part II" by Dr Radhasyam Brahmachari
Muslims widely publicize that the Koranic law protects women’s right to property. But, in fact, it is also discriminatory, and allots them only half of the share of what a male relation gets in inheritance. They are victims of discrimination even in the court of law, where their testimony weighs only half of men’s.
Islamic criminal law is also discriminatory towards women. For example, a man who catches his wife in an act of adultery and murders her can expect a maximum jail term for 3 years, while his wife would face a life sentence for the same crime. Furthermore, according to the Islamic law in Egypt, a woman does not have the right to pass on her nationality; only the men can. As a result, nearly 80,000 Egyptian children, mostly products of temporary or mutah marriage to Arabs from the oil-rich Gulf countries, have no nationality. In fact, according to W. Muir, the most renowned Western biographer of Prophet Muhammad, this mutah or temporary marriage—sanctioned by the Koran and Sunnah—is nothing but prostitution. It may be mentioned here that in India, especially in Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh, aged rich Arab Shaikhs come to marry (mutah) young Muslim girls by paying lucrative mehr (a kind of dowry paid by grooms) to their guardians or parents. Last year, Andra police arrested a 73-year-old Arab, Mohammad Jafer Yaqub Hassan al Jorani, for marrying three teenage Muslim girls within 7th to 24th May, 2005."
Islam Watch - "Arab Women: Victims of Islamic Gender Discrimination, Part II" by Dr Radhasyam Brahmachari
