A Modest Proposal: A Day Under Islam

Most school children in the western world have little direct knowledge of what a life under Islam would be like. Since it is impractical to send western school children to an Islamic country such as Saudi Arabia or Iran, to experience living under Islam directly, I submit that it would be highly beneficial to these children to enact "A Day Under Islam."

Saudi Arabia and Iran are the appropriate models for Islam, being both the leading proponents for the particular sect of Islam each is known for, and also being the two nations that spend the most money to propagate their own brands of expansive Islam to other parts of the world.

Here is how "A Day Under Islam" would work:

1. Girls and boys would be separated, with a partition erected between the girls' and boys' sections of the classroom.

2. Girls would be appropriately dressed, with hijab, and instructed on proper modest behaviour expected from females under Islam. Instruction in math and sciences, as well as any instruction about the outer world, would be curtailed in favour of religious instruction into the proper behaviour of girls and young women.

3. Boys would likewise be instructed on proper allegiance to Islam above all other factors. Instruction in math and science would be curtailed, and all instruction dealing with history, social science, and other subjects, would be taught through the prism of Islamic rules and teachings.

4. Girls would be instructed that their highest goal is to submit to their husbands in everything. They would be taught to expect spousal beatings as a normal part of marriage, and not to complain.

5. Boys would be instructed in their stewardship over women and children, and the need for their families--particularly the women--to submit to them.

6. Boys would be taught that martyrdom is the ultimate service to Allah, and to Islam. The beauty of martyrdom is emphasised together with the rewards that come to the shahid (martyr).

7. Girls will be taught not to talk to boys who are not members of their close family. The penalty for fraternisation with outside males is severe, and may include death by the hand of family members.

8. Boys are taught that homosexuals should be killed, and women and girls who bring dishonour to their families should be killed.

9. Boys will be taught that the laws of civil society are not to be obeyed unless there is no conflict with the extended rules and laws of Sharia, and other customs of Islam and arab/Iranian tribal custom.

10. Girls are taught to submit to their fathers in all things, and not to speak of what their fathers or brothers may do to them, except to their father or mother--and that at the risk of bringing dishonour to their family--insuring their own deaths.

Below is a list of rules that restrict a woman's behaviour in Islam:

1- Complete ban on women's work outside the home, which also applies to female teachers, engineers and most professionals. Only a few female doctors and nurses are allowed to work in some hospitals in Kabul.

2- Complete ban on women's activity outside the home unless accompanied by a mahram (close male relative such as a father, brother or husband).

3- Ban on women dealing with male shopkeepers.

4- Ban on women being treated by male doctors.

5- Ban on women studying at schools, universities or any other educational institution. (Taliban have converted girls' schools into religious seminaries.)

6- Requirement that women wear a long veil (Burqa), which covers them from head to toe.

7- Whipping, beating and verbal abuse of women not clothed in accordance with Taliban rules, or of women unaccompanied by a mahram.

8- Whipping of women in public for having non-covered ankles.

9- Public stoning of women accused of having sex outside marriage. (A number of lovers are stoned to death under this rule).

10- Ban on the use of cosmetics. (Many women with painted nails have had fingers cut off).

11- Ban on women talking or shaking hands with non-mahram males.

12- Ban on women laughing loudly. (No stranger should hear a woman's voice).

13- Ban on women wearing high heel shoes, which would produce sound while walking. (A man must not hear a woman's footsteps.)

14- Ban on women riding in a taxi without a mahram.

15- Ban on women's presence in radio, television or public gatherings of any kind.

16- Ban on women playing sports or entering a sport center or club.

17- Ban on women riding bicycles or motorcycles, even with their mahrams.

18- Ban on women's wearing brightly colored clothes. In Taliban terms, these are "sexually attracting colors."

19- Ban on women gathering for festive occasions such as the Eids, or for any recreational purpose.

20- Ban on women washing clothes next to rivers or in a public place.

21- Modification of all place names including the word "women." For example, "women's garden" has been renamed "spring garden".

22- Ban on women appearing on the balconies of their apartments or houses.

23- Compulsory painting of all windows, so women can not be seen from outside their homes.

24- Ban on male tailors taking women's measurements or sewing women's clothes.

25- Ban on female public baths.

26- Ban on males and females traveling on the same bus. Public buses have now been designated "males only" (or "females only").

27- Ban on flared (wide) pant-legs, even under a burqa.

28- Ban on the photographing or filming of women.

29- Ban on women's pictures printed in newspapers and books, or hung on the walls of houses and shops.

Source.

Here are some divorce rules:

* The husband can divorce his wife whenever he wants, if the marriage is consumed, the divorced woman has to stay three months at the man's house before having the authorization to leave. The man has the ability to retract by having sex within these three months.
* The woman who desires to be divorced needs the consent of her husband, if he consents she has to pay back the dowry.
* Under certain circumstances (abused...), the wife may ask the judge to separate the couple.
* If a man divorces his wife three times, he can no longer marry her again unless she marries with another man and then divorces.

Source.

Here is some further information on the raising of girls within Islam:

Girls in Islamic communities are brought up in a way that they would clearly know their place in the family and in society. They must be taught from the very young age that they are inferior; that they must obey their male guardians and that they must keep their beauties hidden behind the veil until a man buys the license to use them. The most effective and visual way of doing this is by forcing young girls to wear the Islamic Hijab (veil) which is not only conveying the required message, but also hinders physical movements and naturally calms the young girl down and teaches them to behave like proper Muslim women.

....The long dresses and scarves deprive the skin and hair from the sun and air and will cause skin problems and hair damage. Alopecia and skull itch is very common among women and girls who have to wear veil for long hours. Wearing scarf is particularly uncomfortable for young girls as the scarf pulls the hair with each movement of the head and irritates the child. In the hot summer days wearing a scarf means loads of sweating and uneasiness. Children will loose their interest in playing after a wile as it is not fun running around in heavy long clothing and sweating under a scarf. Grown women under the pressure of being caged inside a moving prison day after day, will grow depressed and unnerved. In addition to the above is the fact that the Islamic teaching discourages girls and women to laugh loudly and to dance in public and listen to music and to sing. A girls giggle or laugh may arouse a man and make him commit a sin. So a proper Muslim girl is taught to laugh covering her mouth and trying hard not to be heard. Laughing and playing and music and dancing are all the elements of a happy, cheerful life and without them or with such restrictions for having them, life would be a dull,
depressing and gloomy thing. Depression is a deniable fact in the lives of many young girls, who live under such restrictions. In Iran the percentage of suicides among young girls is very high. Many teenage girls, who don’t see a way out of their prison, are burning themselves every year.

....A young girl is brought up dreading sex. They put veil on her to (in their own view) save her from rape and sexual harassment. They tell her to be careful, to cover herself and not to do anything to attract men’s attention. Sex is considered a sin and women are usually taken responsible in rape cases, if a woman dares to speak out against it. Women’s feelings in this respect are completely ignored, they are not allowed to talk about their feelings, and they are not asked if they want to have sex or not, they are not told in many cases what is sex and how a human’s sexual system works. Purity and modesty discourages young women to talk about it.

According to Islamic culture man is the one who seeks and gets pleasure from sex. Women are told by Qoran and the Islamic Hadith to obey their husbands and go to him whenever he wishes so. There are several verses in Qoran about women being only a filed for men and that they will go to hell if they did not fulfil their husband’s sexual needs. Young women, who have hardly experienced any pleasure from their sexual intercourse, do grow weary, disappointed, bitter and unhappy about it. They get frequent lower abdomen pain after none pleasurable sexual intercourse, and develop constant back problems. They will soon loos any interest in sex and try to retire from a very young age. They find excuses like, children and house work to get away with sex. One of the main reasons given by the Islamic writers in favour of men polygamy in Islam is that women grow old much sooner than men and they loose their sexual interest because of child rearing, and will not be able to provide for their husbands sexual needs.

Source.

Here is another look at the alien world behind the veil:

Of course, in a cultural environment where women are undermined, not to say considered as second rate citizens or even dangerous to the dominant male, the temptation to rape as a result to “ provocation “ is great. Female “provocation” in the Muslim society is usually a definition for the mildest behavior. Smiling, singing, talking, being alone for one minute in the same room as the rapist, having answered a question in an inappropriate way, wearing clothes which are not strictly in obedience with what is locally considered as the Muslim rules, all of these innocent behaviors are seen as a misconduct authorizing “revenge.”

In a society where sex is absolutely forbidden, taboo, and where separation between males and females is absolute, where in most cases marriages are not the result of love but of a financial arrangement between two families, the sensual or erotic aspect of any relationship between genders is, de-facto, suspicious, considered evil, and therefore an act of aggression. Sexual “revenge”, containing violence, can be naturally considered as the automatic answer to the “ provocations “ described above, and this for two reasons.

In Muslim society the male is dominant and almighty since he is made after God, when women have been created as a necessary evil to tempt males. In other words, the female body is the closest thing to the Devil, something which has to be dominated as a proof a faith. We go back to the sacrifice of Eros to Thanatos, as one of the basic sacrifices of all monotheisms, where, since the origins of the Bible, first inspiration to the Koran, women have been the carriers of the original sin.

In such a pattern, a male will not only consider any suspect behavior, including the mildest one, as an evil temptation, but he might look forward to experiencing one, as a religious challenge. Whatever will happen then won’t be the result of his own will, but he believes in having received absolution in advance for an act that, he knows, is against his own religion. During these minutes of deception and absolute power, he is not abusing a woman but fighting the Devil inside.

Of course, primitive chauvinism is the second reason. Again, since males in chauvinist societies are deprived of all natural pleasures resulting from what we consider a normal relationship between men and women, beside sexual ones, the level of frustration is very high and the fear of impotency even higher. A male tempted must react. The automatic result to frustration and fear is usually violence. In this case, sexual violence.

Source.

It should not be too difficult for educators to develop the enactment of "A Day Under Islam," using the information above. Experiencing such an alien viewpoint firsthand should be of immense benefit to both girls and boys. Too many western girls, in particular, have married muslim men--not knowing what to expect--and ended with bitter custody battles, with children kidnapped and removed to Saudi Arabia or other muslim countries under Sharia, out of reach of modern law.

If one young woman can learn the amazing reality of the treatment of females under Islam, and avoid making a foolish mistake, the entire exercise would have been well worth the time and effort.