Muhammad's Treatment of Women
“Iqbal, an elderly Muslim lawyer told me that a man needs a fresh spouse every ten years in order to meet his sexual needs. And true to his word, he has had six wives, three of whom he has divorced. Iqbal has operated well within Quranic parameters. Never more than four wives at a time, and he has financially cared for each one.”
– Phil & Julie Parshall, Lifting the Veil, p.141
Discussing the Islamic view of women inevitably leads to a conversation about the differing roles of men and women…and when you talk about women in Islam, you’re going to have to talk about sex.
Why?
Because Muhammad himself taught prolifically on the topic of women in relation to sex...and modeled his teachings in his life. The Qur’an and Hadith contain 10,600 verses explicitly about sex (including the ‘f’ word four times from the prophet’s own mouth).
For some reason, our (usually sex-obsessed) western media has decided to ignore how Islam governs the bedroom, although even a cursory look into the teachings of Muhammad reveal that women and sex occupied a huge portion of his time (to read some of his teachings for yourself, check out this selection of Hadith, pages 36-44).
In many Islamic countries, Muslim men hold positions of nearly unmitigated control over all women in their lives – daughters, sisters, wives, mothers, and kafirs (infidels). Traditional Islam says that Allah has placed men ‘a degree above’ women, and that men are to be the ‘maintainers’ of women. According to mainstream Islamic thought (based in sacred texts), Muslim women are subservient – sexually, intellectually, financially, and spiritually – to Muslim men. And as Phil and Julie Parshall record in their book, the results are shocking.
One passage is especially heartbreaking, where Phil describes sexual norms that are prevalent in Islamic society – norms that allow men to sexually abuse their female relatives, but offer the women no way to cry for help. “My close Bangladeshi Muslim friend, Dr. Ali, told me that in Bangladesh when a rural Muslim father gets angry with his daughter, he will tell her, in a threatening voice, to do as she is told or he will have sex with her.”(page 141-142). Adultery, or zinna, is sex outside of marriage. In Islam, it is punished by death, beating, or incarceration.
I’m going to track down more recent stories, quotes, and Islamic sources that deal with what women are facing in the Islamic world. One thing I do know, that even as I pray for an end to promiscuous behavior, pornography, and abortion here in the West, I also thank God for the freedoms we do enjoy, freedoms based in a Judeao-Christian worldview.
