Beating her softly with his love...

This is ghastly, and so much a part of Islam that it should make people shudder enough to make sure it never comes to the US, in the form of sharia law.  Remember this Egyptian cleric every time you hear someone mention how Islam honors women.

Read it all and decide for yourself if this is acceptable.

“When did you stop beating your wife” is one of those questions where there is no right answer, a question steeped in traps in which no one can escape innocent.  Just by answering you will automatically be branded a wife-beater and many hours of apologies and explanations will have to be put forth.  We tolerate the beating of no one, especially one we claim to love and cherish.  Yet there is one culture, one belief system which not only sanctions the beating of the wife but literally demands physical punishment from the husband against the wife.  It is Islam.

   Al-Azhar University in Egypt is the seat of Sunni jurisprudence.  They define Islam and sharia regarding Sunnis and dictate, similar to the Pope with Catholics, the behavior, attitudes and rules on how Muslims act.  Just as not all Catholics follow the Pope, not all Sunni Muslims follow the edicts of Al-Azhar or the clerics at the University.  Yet if we heard the Pope say, using biblical quotes that women are required to be beaten if they refuse sex with their husbands, the uproar would eclipse the little boy scandal now occupying the media.  No one seems to mind that a prominent cleric in Egypt, Sa’d Arafat has recently upheld the Qur’anic injunction of wife-beating and he explains it all for us.

   Here are a few excerpts from an interview, which aired on Al-Nas TV (Egypt) on February 4, 2010:

Interviewer: "Wife beating is a serious accusation [leveled against Islam]. Let us examine this matter bit by bit."

Sa'd Arafat: "Allah honored wives by instating the punishment of beatings."

Interviewer: "Honored them with beatings? How is this possible?!"

Sa'd Arafat: "The prophet Muhammad said: 'Don't beat her in the face, and do not make her ugly.' See how she is honored. If the husband beats his wife, he must not beat her in the face. Even when he beats her, he must not curse her. He beats her in order to discipline her.  In addition, there must not be more than ten beatings, and he must not break her bones, injure her, break her teeth, or poke her in the eye. There is a beating etiquette. If he beats to discipline her, he must not raise his hand high. He must beat her from chest level. All these things honor the woman. She is in need of discipline. How should the husband discipline her? Through admonishment. If she is not repentant, he should beat her, but there are rules to the beating. It is forbidden to beat her in the face or make her ugly. When you beat her, you must not curse her. Islam forbids this."

Interviewer: "With what should be beat her? With his bare hand? With a rod?"

Sa'd Arafat: "If he beats her, the beatings should not be hard, so that they do not leave a mark. He can beat her with a short rod. (…)the honoring of the wife in Islam is also evident in the fact that the punishment of beating is permissible in one case only: when she refuses to sleep with him."

Interviewer: "When she refuses to sleep with him?"

Sa'd Arafat: "Yes, because where else could the husband go? He wants her, but she refuses. He should begin with admonishment and threats..."

   When a non-Muslim says the Qur’an sanctions wife-beating they are called Islamophobe, racist (what race is Islam again?), bigot, anti-Muslim, hate-monger and other schoolyard names.  When a top Egyptian cleric says the Qur’an sanctions wife-beating(sura4,verse34), and explains that this must be done if the wife refuses sex he is called a scholar.  Whether or not Muslims practice this inhumane act is irrelevant, it has been upheld as the right behavior for Muslims by the seat of Sunni power, thus having the same influence as a papal edict.

   Muhammad beat his wives if they refused sex, Muslim requirements today demand the same treatment.  Islam has been practicing institutionalized abuse since 622AD.  It must stop if Islam expects to be the “religion of peace” so ardently claimed.