Qasim rubs it

How the teachings of Islam could help us prevent more sexual abuse scandals, by Qasim Rashid

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So we’re all supposed to get all worked up over this creepy Hollywood mogul screwing  starlets who knew full well what they were in for?

Look at it this way: our fake news media screams about Harvey Weinstein raping  ADULT females in Hollywood but … why are they silent when scores of  Mohammedan savages do it with KIDS HERE? 

Muslim spokesman Qasim Rashid claims Islam can “help us prevent more sexual abuse scandals”

By Robert Spencer

Ahmadi spokesman Qasim Rashid is a professional liar, a one-man cottage industry of deception and hypocrisy. He has whitewashed Muhammad’s support for torture and the reality of jihad violence and Sharia oppression; dissembled about the Qur’an’s sanction of deception of unbelievers; lied about the presence of violent passages in the Qur’an; lied about the Qur’an’s sanction of beating disobedient women; lied about the nature of Sharia; called for limitations on the freedom of speech and expression to outlaw behavior and speech some Muslims may find offensive; and lied about Muhammad’s stance toward the persecution of Christians. He has even blamed Christianity for Islam’s death penalty for blasphemy. When challenged about the “facts” he has presented, he (like virtually all other Islamic supremacists) responds with furious ad hominem contempt, but never answers the refutations of his articles on substantive grounds — because, of course, he cannot do so.

In this one, however, Qasim Rashid has outdone himself, claiming that “the teachings of Islam could help us prevent more sexual abuse scandals.” This is true in one sense: since Islam doesn’t actually recognize many varieties of sexual abuse as wrongdoing, the scandals would go away. But the abuse wouldn’t. Much more below.

“How the teachings of Islam could help us prevent more sexual abuse scandals,” by Qasim Rashid, Independent, October 15, 2017:

QUESTION: HOW IS IMITATING A SEX ADDICT MOHAMMED GOING TO STOP SEX ADDICTION?

“The prophet did not die till all women were permitted him”
– (According to Ibn Sa’ad, Kitab Al Tabaqat Al Kubra, v.8, 194).

Here’s something to explain this Islamopuffery:

Saudi investor buys significant stake in the Independent

Sultan Muhammad Abuljadayel’s deal, which sees him take a stake of between 25% and 50%, values the holding company at more than £100m

A glorified front for Soddy Barbaria and they still have the nerve to call it the @Independent.

More below the fold.

The Photographer’s Snapshots: Islam’s Rejection of Homophobia and Antisemitism? (Part 3)

Let’s remember Carlos Khalil Guzman’s claim that “Islam is against all types of oppression, literally all of it. It’s against racism, homophobia, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, you name it.” We saw in a previous article how much bigger, and how much more deadly than the Atlantic Slave Trade was that of the Arabs in Africa. We also saw how deeply racist were the Muslim Arabs, offering by way of evidence a florilegium of quotes from the most respected of Arab historians and commentators.

Now we should examine Guzman’s claim that [Islam] is “against homophobia.” Really? Has he not paid attention to the practice of throwing homosexuals off of tall buildings, as the bezonians of the Islamic State have so enjoyed doing, of late, or hanging them from cranes, as is the means of punishment the Ayatollahs in Iran favor? Is he unaware that 2,000 “Palestinian” homosexuals have chosen to live in Israel, in order to be safe from their Muslim Arab brothers? Have these widely-publicized punishments escaped him? Is he aware of all the Muslim clerics who have ferociously denounced not just homosexuality, but homosexuals? Has he noticed that in 9 of the 10 nations that consider homosexuality a crime punishable by death the people are almost entirely Muslim (and the 10th, Nigeria, likely has a Muslim majority)? All of this makes a mockery of Guzman’s claim that “Islam is against homophobia.”

When, this past June, a one-room mosque opened in Berlin that permitted homosexuals and others in what is called the “LGBT community” to attend, and even officiate as imams, this became news all over the world, precisely because it was so unusual, for it went against the almost universal practice of Muslims by allowing open homosexuals to attend. The homosexual Imam Zahedi, from the only mosque in France that allows homosexuals, came to attend the opening of the Berlin mosque. We learned, too, that another such mosque was being ‘’planned” — i.e., does not yet exist — for the U.K. So in all of Europe, with 44 million Muslims (if we include European Russia), there will be perhaps three one-room mosques where homosexuals will be welcome. If we add in the number of such mosques believed to exist in the United States, Australia, and South Africa, the total comes to about ten mosques, for 1.5 billion Muslims. Or let’s double it: let’s say there are 20 such mosques, ten of which we know about. That’s still not very many for 1.5 billion worshippers. And like Seyran Ates, the lesbian imam of the Berlin mosque, who now receives round-the-clock protection because of the many credible death threats made against her, and when last heard from announced that she was getting “3,000 emails a day full of hate,” the imams of other mosques that permit homosexual worshippers have been similarly threatened, and presumably are receiving protection. All of which suggests that Islam is indeed homophobic, despite Guzman’s claim.

And where do we find the source of this homophobia? America’s first openly homosexual imam, one Daayiee Abdullah, likes to say that “nowhere in the Qur’an is homosexuality forbidden.” Apparently he has forgotten that the Qur’an contains numerous condemnations of homosexual activity, such as this: “And [We had sent] Lot when he said to his people, ‘Do you commit such immorality as no one has preceded you with from among the worlds? Indeed, you approach men with desire, instead of women. Rather, you are a transgressing people.’…And We rained upon them a rain [of stones]. Then see how was the end of the criminals.” (Qur’an 7:80-84). And in the Hadith, Muhammad specifies a punishment for the sin of the people of Lot (i.e., homosexuality): “The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said, ‘Whoever you find doing the action of the people of Lot, execute the one who does it and the one to whom it is done.’” (Sunan Abu Dawud 4462).

Will Carlos Khalil Guzman recognize these quotes from both the Qur’an and Hadith as the unambiguous denunciations of homosexuality that they are? Or will he continue to maintain, against all the evidence, that Islam is not “homophobic”? He might have said something else, after all. He might have claimed that “historically, like Christianity, Islam was homophobic but, thankfully, that is changing, with all sorts of LGBT-friendly mosques opening practically each week. So progress is being made.” It would still be false, but not quite to the degree as denying altogether that Islam is “homophobic.’

Guzman also claims that Islam “condemns…antisemitism.” Perhaps he hasn’t been studying the Qur’an as carefully as he might on this subject.

He could start with the evidence Robert Spencer has amassed of antisemitism, both in the Qur’an, with several dozen verses, and in telling quotes from Muslim theologians, both medieval and modern, who endorse that Qur’an-and-Hadith-based antisemitism.

Here is what the Qur’an has to say about the Jews:

“The Qur’an depicts the Jews as inveterately evil and bent on destroying the wellbeing of the Muslims. They are the strongest of all people in enmity toward the Muslims (5:82); as fabricating things and falsely ascribing them to Allah (2:79; 3:75, 3:181); claiming that Allah’s power is limited (5:64); loving to listen to lies (5:41); disobeying Allah and never observing his commands (5:13); disputing and quarreling (2:247); hiding the truth and misleading people (3:78); staging rebellion against the prophets and rejecting their guidance (2:55); being hypocritical (2:14, 2:44); giving preference to their own interests over the teachings of Muhammad (2:87); wishing evil for people and trying to mislead them (2:109); feeling pain when others are happy or fortunate (3:120); being arrogant about their being Allah’s beloved people (5:18); devouring people’s wealth by subterfuge (4:161); slandering the true religion and being cursed by Allah (4:46); killing the prophets (2:61); being merciless and heartless (2:74); never keeping their promises or fulfilling their words (2:100); being unrestrained in committing sins (5:79); being cowardly (59:13-14); being miserly (4:53); being transformed into apes and pigs for breaking the Sabbath (2:63-65; 5:59-60; 7:166); and more.”

To these excerpts from the Qur’an Spencer adds what the most respected Muslim scholars of the past have to say on the subject of the Jews:

The classic Qur’anic commentators do not mitigate the Qur’an’s words against Jews, but only add fuel to the fire. Ibn Kathir explained Qur’an 2:61 (“They were covered with humiliation and misery; they drew on themselves the wrath of Allah”) this way: “This Ayah [verse] indicates that the Children of Israel were plagued with humiliation, and that this will continue, meaning that it will never cease. They will continue to suffer humiliation at the hands of all who interact with them, along with the disgrace that they feel inwardly.” Another Middle Ages commentator of lingering influence, Abdallah ibn Umar al-Baidawi, explains the same verse this way: “The Jews are mostly humiliated and wretched either of their own accord, or out of coercion of the fear of having their jizya [punitive tax] doubled.”

Ibn Kathir notes Islamic traditions that predict that at the end of the world, “the Jews will support the Dajjal (False Messiah), and the Muslims, along with ‘Isa [Jesus], son of Mary, will kill the Jews.” The idea in Islam that the end times will be marked by Muslims killing Jews comes from the prophet Muhammad himself, who said, “The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. ‘O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him.’” This is, not unexpectedly, a favorite motif among contemporary jihadists.”

And contemporary Islamic scholars continue to hammer on the anti-Jewish theme:

Not just contemporary jihadists, but modern-day mainstream Islamic authorities take these passages seriously. The former Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar, Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, who was the most respected cleric in the world among Sunni Muslims, called Jews “the enemies of Allah, descendants of apes and pigs.” The late Saudi sheikh Abd al-Rahman al-Sudayyis, imam of the principal mosque in the holiest city in Islam, Mecca, said in a sermon that Jews are “the scum of the human race, the rats of the world, the violators of pacts and agreements, the murderers of the prophets, and the offspring of apes and pigs.”

Another Saudi sheikh, Ba’d bin Abdallah al-Ajameh al-Ghamidi, made the connection explicit: “The current behavior of the brothers of apes and pigs, their treachery, violation of agreements, and defiling of holy places … is connected with the deeds of their forefathers during the early period of Islam–which proves the great similarity between all the Jews living today and the Jews who lived at the dawn of Islam.”

With this kind of overwhelming evidence, how can Guzman with a straight face make his claims for a “tolerant, charitable, compassionate” Islam that condemns “racism, homophobia, antisemitism”? Can it possibly be that he’s overlooked all this? Or is he merely engaging in Taqiyya? Whether he is truly this ignorant, or is being deliberately misleading, about Islam, he is not a guide whom anyone can sensibly trust.

Guzman’s own favorite verse from the Quran is about how Islam guides everyone to connect with their humanity.

“The line, taken from chapter 29, verse 2, reads, “Do the people think that they will be left alone on saying, We believe, and not be tried?”

?[The verse] is meaningful to me [Guzman] because it is a constant reminder that God never does anything to punish us, rather every experience good or bad is God’s way of keeping us and guiding us toward the right path, one of compassion, understanding, justice, knowledge and love,” Guzman told HuffPost. “Islam is a guide to help everyone connect with their humanity regardless of ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or political view.”

Let’s take these claims of Guzman in turn.

1. “God never does anything to punish us” — the Qur’an is full of commands that if we don’t fulfill, punishment of all kinds follow. Allah may choose to postpone some punishments for the afterlife, but that is his choice. Throughout the Qur’an, there is mention of Allah punishing his enemies not directly, but through humans fulfilling his commands. For example, one of the Jihad verses reads “Fight them; Allah will punish them by your hands” (9:14)

2. Allah is “keeping us and guiding us toward the right path, one of compassion, understanding, justice, knowledge and love.” There is precious little “compassion” toward Unbelievers in either the Qur’an or Hadith. Believers are commanded not to love, but to hate the Unbelievers, not to take them as friends, and to be guided by the principle of Al Wala Wal Bara — that is, “loving and disavowal” for the sake of Allah. One must love all that has to do with Allah, including those who share the deep, that is fellow Muslims and, at the same time, hate the Unbelievers for the sake of Allah. It would be fascinating to find out from Carlos Khalil Guzman what he thinks of this doctrine. As for this supposed right path of the Believer, “one of compassion, understanding, justice, knowledge, and love” — these are merely so much feel-good boilerplate, that have nothing do with the harsh reality of Islam, that uncompromisingly divides the world between Muslim and Infidel, and divides the terrestrial globe between Dar al-Islam, the lands where Islam dominates, and Dar al-Harb, the lands where non-Muslims still prevail. Between the two camps there must exist a state of permanent war, until Islam everywhere dominates, and Muslims rule, everywhere.

Guzman’s hope is that the series will serve as an educational tool for people who have been fed false narratives about Islam. He hopes it also demonstrates how Muslims were an integral part of the United States’ history and culture ever since the first Muslims arrived in the Americas as African slaves.

“Fed false narratives?” Which false narratives are those? That Muslims are taught the duty, incumbent upon them, of waging jihad warfare against the Infidels, until Islam, dominates, and Muslims, rule everywhere? That Muslims have a right to demand of non-Muslims that they pay a tax, the Jizyah, if they want to continue to practice their religion? That Muslims must not abandon Islam for another religion, on pain of death? Or that mockery of Muhammad must be punished by death? Or that there are several Qur’anic verses telling Muslims to strike terror in the hearts of the Infidels, and that then expand upon the various ways this can be done? Or that Muslims are told not to take Christians and Jews as friends “for they are friends only with each other”(5:51)? Are those the “false narratives” that we are all being fed? We need Carlos Khalil Guzman to tell us just what he has in mind.

“There’s always been a Muslim presence in the country. The values that our Constitution upholds are part of Islam, if people only took the time to learn about Islam,” Guzman said. “Islam is all about justice.”

This nunc-pro-tunc backdating of a Muslim presence in America is a staple of Islamic propaganda. The most comical example of this was when a State Department spokesman asserted — repeating a bizarre Muslim claim–that Muslims accompanied Columbus on his first voyage. This story arose, apparently, from the fact that Columbus took with him, as navigator and potential interpreter (Columbus thought he might run into Hebrew-speaking peoples) Luis de Torres, a converso (a Jew who converted to Christianity) who also knew some Arabic. It was assumed, in the retelling by Muslims, that because of that, Torres must have been an Arab and a Muslim. As for this “Muslim presence that ‘has always been…in the country,” the fact that some slaves brought from Africa were Muslims means a lot less than Guzman seems to think. How many of the slaves were Muslims? Figures from 5% to 30% are invoked, but no one has yet provided convincing data for any of them; these figures seem plucked out of the ether. One thing is clear: none of the slaveowners seemed aware of Muslims among their slaves, nor did the non-Muslim slaves leave testimony about fellow slaves who were Muslim. If they attracted no comment, perhaps that is because there were very few of them. There undoubtedly were some Muslims, but how many? And how long did Islam last in those early days? Without any mosques or madrasas, above all without any Qur’ans, and certainly no copies of the Hadith or Sira, Islam could not have been passed on to a second generation. Wherever it might have been found, it would have quickly disappeared. And in an environment where slaves were encouraged to convert to Christianity, that would make clinging to Islam even more unlikely.

As for Guzman’s claim that “the values that our Constitution upholds are part of Islam, if people only took the time to learn about Islam,” he has it exactly backwards. For anyone who “takes the time” to learn about Islam will quickly understand how Islam flatly contradicts the “values” of our Constitution. In the first place, we have a government which owes its legitimacy to how well it expresses the will of the people, through representative democracy. In Islam, the government owes its legitimacy to how well it expresses the will of Allah, as set down in the Qur’an. A despot may rule, provided he is a good Muslim. Most Muslim states are run by despots; only a very few can claim, and that only intermittently, and for very short periods — usually ending with a bullet or a bomb — to be even semi-democracies. See the fates of Anwar Sadat in Egypt, and of, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and his daughter Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan.

The most important part of our Constitution are the rights contained in the First Amendment. These include the right to free speech. In Islam, there is no free speech when it comes to Islam itself. Criticism or mockery of Muhammad can be, and in many Muslim countries is, punishable by death, just as they were in Muhammad’s time. See Asma bint Marwan, Abu ‘Afak, Ka’b ibn al-Ashraf. The mere charge against someone who, it is claimed, said something critical of Islam or of Muhammad, can lead not just to official punishment, but to a vigilante justice enforced by Muslims who are enraged at what they deem to be unacceptable blasphemy (often the slimmest rumor will set off Muslim mobs). Ordinarily, these vigilantes then go unpunished. A few years ago a raging mob of 1,000 Muslims tortured and then burned to death a young Christian couple, supposedly for desecrating a Qur’an. No one was punished. At the moment two Christians have been sentenced to death in Pakistan for blasphemy. One, Asia Bibi, was convicted on the basis of the testimony of a Muslim woman with whom she had been collecting fruit; they had quarreled over something; the Muslim woman then claimed that the Christian girl had said something negative about the Prophet Muhammad, which Bibi denied. Given the prior quarrel with her accuser, and the fact that Bibi certainly knew the penalty for maligning the Prophet, how plausible is it that she is guilty as charged? The second case is even more absurd, for the Christian who is said to have forwarded some pejorative message about Muhammad he had received could not possibly have understood what he had done — if indeed he had done it — because, it turn outs, he is illiterate.

Muslims in the West, of course, have chosen to punish blasphemers with death as well. Think of the repeated attempts to kill the Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks, the riots by Muslims around the globe over the Danish paper, Jyllands-Posten, the murder of Theo van Gogh for his movie about the mistreatment of women in Islam, Submission, and most horrible of all, the murder of the dozen members of the staff of the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, for daring to mock Muhammad.

As for freedom of religion, which the First Amendment guarantees, that, too, is absent in Islamic societies. It does not exist for Muslims: apostasy from Islam can be punished by death. It does not exist for non-Muslims, either. They may, as dhimmis, be allowed to practice their own faiths, but according to the Sharia they are to be subject to various onerous duties, the most important of which is the required payment of a capitation tax, or Jizyah, to the Muslim state. In fact, calling it a tax is a misnomer; it is in truth “protection money’” paid to Muslims, a kind of extortion to ensure that Muslims do not attack those who pay. No wonder that over time many non-Muslims converted to Islam to avoid having to pay the Jizyah, and also having to endure, as despised Infidels, many other humiliations. They could not, for example, build or repair their houses of worship; they were forbidden to ride horses; they had to move aside for Muslims on pathways; in some places, both Christians and Jews had to wear identifying signs on their clothing and on their dwellings (the yellow star for Jews was first imposed in Baghdad). All of this made conversion to Islam more attractive.

Can it really be that Carlos Khalil Guzman is unaware of the limits on religious freedom in Muslim societies? He could have simply avoided the issue, not mentioned the Constitution at all. But something made him think he could get away with asserting, without more, that Islam and the Constitution of the United States uphold the same values. They do not. Guzman ought to be asked to supply a list of the “same values” upheld by Islam and the Constitution of the United States. Freedom of speech and freedom of religion? Where are either of these to be found guaranteed in Muslim lands? In what Muslim country can one speak pejoratively of Islam or of Muhammad without incurring severe punishment, including, in some cases, death? In what Muslim country are all religions, and their adherents, treated equally? As for equal protection of the laws, to be found guaranteed as against the states by the Fourteenth Amendment (and against the Federal government by the “due process” clause of the Fifth Amendment, which is held to incorporate the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection), that is, the guarantee of non-discrimination, whether by sex, race, or religion, in what Muslim lands are such rights guaranteed? Where in Dar al-Islam are non-Muslims equal to Muslims, or women to men? How could non-Muslims be treated as equal to Muslims when they are described in the Qur’an as “the most vile of creatures” while Muslims are, according to that same Qur’an, the “best of peoples”? Does Carlos Guzman know those verses? Does Carlos Guzman even understand the rights guaranteed by the First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments, and why they are not, and never can be, guaranteed under the Sharia, which legally enshrines Muslim supremacism? His resultant confusion should prove instructive. For our Constitution flatly contradicts, in both its general principles, and in its specific provisions concerning the equal rights of individuals, what Islam, in its Holy Law or Sharia, wishes always to defend.

First published in Jihad Watch.

Qasim Rashid, continued:

“How the teachings of Islam could help us prevent more sexual abuse scandals,” by Qasim Rashid, Independent, October 15, 2017:

If the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse revelations shocked you, then you’re dangerously ignorant to reality. According to RAINN, an American is assaulted every 98 seconds, one out of every six women will deal with rape or attempted rape in her lifetime, and 90 per cent of rape victims are women.

I’m a Muslim, and a civil rights lawyer with a special interest in advocating for women’s rights. My advocacy is informed not just by the law, but by strategies detailed in Islamic teachings and Prophet Muhammad’s example to pre-empt sexual abuse. Yes, the cancer of sexual abuse against women that we see in Christian majority America is just as prevalent in Muslim majority Pakistan, but also in Hindu majority India and state atheist China. This proves that men worldwide are failing in our responsibility to end sexual abuse and gender based violence….

Rashid contradicts himself here. He says that “the cancer of sexual abuse against women that we see in Christian majority America is just as prevalent in Muslim majority Pakistan,” yet claims below that “rather than preach empty dogmatic theories, Islam instead prescribes a proven secular model.” Proven where? In which Islamic country has sexual abuse been eradicated or even lessened by people following Islamic teachings? If not in Islam-besotted Pakistan, then where?

This is where Islamic teachings and Prophet Muhammad’s example provide a solution that no state truly can. And while there are people who don’t believe that sexual abuse is even a problem, some on the left will disagree that accountability to a higher power is a solution.

This is a reasonable argument, in part, due to the hypocrisy of allegedly religious men like Congressman Tim Murphy, who condemns abortion and infidelity, yet was caught encouraging his mistress to have one, or former Indiana GOP chair Rick Halvorsen who was convicted of incest. Yes, Islam implores accountability to the creator, but rather than preach empty dogmatic theories, Islam instead prescribes a proven secular model.

In a recent internationally broadcast lecture given live before roughly 6,000 Muslim women, the Khalifa of Islam said, “Chapter four, verse two of the Holy Quran…clarifies that women were not created out of the body of a man or from his rib. Rather, the Quran testifies to the fact that men and women were created from a single soul and are of the same kind and species.”

Thus, the Quran 4:2 first establishes men and women as equal beings. Chapter 4:20 then forbids men from forcing a woman to act against her will, thereby ensuring women maintain autonomy and self-determination.

Rashid’s Qur’an is one verse off from the standard edition. It’s 4:1 that says “O mankind, fear your Lord, who created you from one soul and created from it its mate and dispersed from both of them many men and women,” and it’s 4:19 that says, “O you who have believed, it is not lawful for you to inherit women by compulsion.” That is not exactly the same thing as forbidding men from forcing women to act against their will; it refers only to forcing them to be given in inheritance. As always, Rashid’s pieces are notable more for what they leave out than what they put in: Rashid doesn’t mention that the same chapter of the Qur’an says that a man can have sexual relations with “those your right hands possess” (4:3, 4:24), i.e., slave girls whose consent is neither required nor sought.

This verse also commands men to consort with women in kindness, forbidding men from so much as thinking ill of their wives. This preempts emotional and mental abuse. Chapter 4:35 furthermore prevents violence against women by forcing men to control themselves and never resort to physically harming women – preempting physical abuse.

In reality, 4:34 says just the opposite. It doesn’t forbid men to harm women physically. Instead, it says to beat women from whom a man “fears disobedience”: “Men have authority over women because Allah has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because Allah has guarded them. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them.”

In case anyone is skeptical that Rashid’s verse citations are one verse off from the standard Qur’anic verse divisions, here is 4:35: “And if you fear dissension between the two, send an arbitrator from his people and an arbitrator from her people. If they both desire reconciliation, Allah will cause it between them. Indeed, Allah is ever Knowing and Acquainted.” Nothing in that verse says anything about not physically harming women.

The Quran further obliges men to provide for a woman’s every financial need, while holding that anything a woman earns is hers alone – preempting financial abuse. And when it comes to the Islamic concept of Hijab, it is men who are first commanded to never gawk at women, and instead guard their private parts and chastity, regardless of how women choose to dress – pre-empting sexual abuse.

In reality, the Qur’an says: “O Prophet, tell your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers to bring down over themselves of their outer garments. That is more suitable that they will be known and not be abused. And ever is Allah Forgiving and Merciful.” (33:59) The implication there is that if women do not cover themselves adequately with their outer garments, they may be abused, and that such abuse would be justified. And indeed, the assumption behind the hijab is not that a man must not gawk at women, but that women are responsible for making sure that they don’t. And if men gawk anyway, the woman he is gawking at could end up being punished.

Prophet Muhammad himself illustrated this point. In a famous incident, a woman described as strikingly beautiful approached the Prophet to seek his guidance on some religious matters. The Prophet’s companion, Al Fadl, began to stare at her because of her beauty. Noting this, the Prophet Muhammad did not scold the woman for her attire, but instead, he “reached his hand backwards, catching Al Fadl’s chin, and turned his face to the other side so that he would not gaze at her”.

Accordingly, the Prophet Muhammad by example demonstrated that the burden of modesty, respect, and combating abuse of women rests on men. Indeed, men must take the lead in stopping such sexual abuse. After all, while the Quran obliges women to dress modestly as a covenant with God, Islam prescribes no punishment whatsoever for women who choose to dress otherwise.

On the contrary, on numerous occasions Prophet Muhammad punished an accused rapist on the testimony of the rape survivor alone. In this environment of gender equity, women in Islam rise to the rank of legal scholars, warriors, entrepreneurs, and philanthropists while lovingly embracing identities as mothers and housewives.

In reality, Muhammad condoned the rape of captive Infidel women: “The Apostle of Allah (may peace be upon him) sent a military expedition to Awtas on the occasion of the battle of Hunain. They met their enemy and fought with them. They defeated them and took them captives. Some of the Companions of the Apostle of Allah (may peace be upon him) were reluctant to have intercourse with the female captives in the presence of their husbands who were unbelievers. So Allah, the Exalted, sent down the Qur’anic verse: (Sura 4:24) ‘And all married women (are forbidden) unto you save those (captives) whom your right hands possess.’” (Sunan Abu Dawud 2150; see also Sahih Muslim 3433) “O Allah’s Apostle! We get female captives as our share of booty, and we are interested in their prices, what is your opinion about coitus interruptus?” The Prophet said, “Do you really do that? It is better for you not to do it. No soul that which Allah has destined to exist, but will surely come into existence.” (Sahih Bukhari 34:432) “I drove them along until I brought them to Abu Bakr who bestowed that girl upon me as a prize. So we arrived in Medina. I had not yet disrobed her when the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) met me in the street and said: ‘Give me that girl.’” (Sahih Muslim 4345)

So not only does Muhammad allow the rape, cautioning only against coitus interruptus, but he seizes one of the slave girls for himself.

Qasim Rashid undoubtedly knows the material I am quoting here. He is being deliberately deceptive, to hoodwink people into ignorance and complacency regarding the sexual abuse that is rampant and taken for granted in Muslim countries. In the final analysis, he is on Harvey Weinstein’s side.