How should a religion be judged?

“Men and women must be kept apart, or society will descend into chaos. They must cover their bodies so as not to excite uncontrollable passions. This is purdah and purdah makes women free.” – Pakistani Islamic leader, 1999

A few years ago the BBC sent correspondent Olenka Frenkiel to Pakistan to investigate allegations that each year, uncounted thousands of women die at the hands of their fathers, brothers, and husbands. Along with a camera crew, Frenkiel traveled throughout Pakistan, asking questions and recording answers, and observing lives. She was shocked—the situation was worse than she had ever imagined.

The law of “purdah” prohibits women from ever leaving their homes…for any reason. Women are slaves of their male relatives, treated worse than cattle—symbols of wealth, maintained only as long as they are silent and compliant. She encountered husbands who had cheerfully shot their wives, brothers who had willingly slaughtered their sisters, and fathers who justified murdering their daughters with words, “I am a Muslim…she dishonored me.”

Frenkiel found that the Pakistani culture and government sanctioned the murder and abuse of women, in big cities like Lahore and Karachi as well as in remote regions. About her trip to Pakistan, Frenkiel wrote,

“True Islam may not justify such treatment of women, but actual Islam, Islam as it is practiced through vast regions of the world tolerates it and even endorses it. Check through the population statistics of countries throughout the world. In Islamic countries there are almost always more men than women. In most non-Islamic countries, from richest to poorest, there are more women than men…Where are the missing women in Pakistan? How is it that so many—nearly three million—are missing from the population?”

Frenkiel is asking a question that is answered by the sacred traditions and texts of Islam, which elevate man above woman, and replace fatherhood, marriage, and fellowship with a twisted concept of honor.

I encourage you to watch Frenkiel’s documentary “Murder in Purdah,” and ask yourself, as Frenkiel had to, which is the real Islam. Is it the Islam of liberal scholars or Islam as it is practiced and preached to millions?