There is no holy rape in Islam: Column
ISIL brutality revives an Arabian culture Mohammed sought to change.
“He said that by raping me, he is drawing closer to God.”
According to The New York Times, these are the harrowing words of a 12-year-old girl who escaped the Islamic State terrorist group after months of captivity. Her story of sexual abuse is not much different than what U.S. officials have told the family of American aid worker Kayla Mueller, who was kidnapped and then forced to “marry” ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
As a Muslim woman and mother of young daughters, I shudder while reading accounts of ISIL’s brutality. Rape inflicts the deepest physical and psychological wounds on a woman. It is unquestionable that this grave human rights violation finds zero tolerance in Islamic scripture.
Thus, my revulsion when these sexual assaults are justified as spiritual acts and deemed ‘Ibadah’ (prayer). In fact, Islam guarantees women emancipation while ISIL distorts my religion to further a lustful agenda.
In parallel, ISIL is reviving the institution of slavery despite the fact that Prophet Mohammed worked tirelessly to abolish slavery. Human equality was so dear to him that even on his deathbed he remarked, “Stick fast to the prescribed prayers and to my injunctions with regard to slaves.”
What were those injunctions?
Slavery existed long before Islam. Thus, rather than simply banning an act with little hope of compliance, Prophet Mohammed implemented a system to purge slavery over time.
He first established that all humanity is equal. Next, Mohammed forbade trade in human beings. He further implored Muslims to free their most able slaves. He required Muslims who did not free their slaves to feed, clothe, house and treat them as family. Most strikingly, the Quran obliged Muslims to free a slave upon the slave’s request alone. Regarding women, the Quran declares, “It is unlawful to inherit women against their will.”
Contrast this to ISIL, which has crafted a detailed infrastructure to wage war and support its sex slave trade in defiance of Islam. ISIL’s attacks on Yazidis defy the basic principle that war in the name of Islam is only defensive.
Unlike ISIL, Prophet Mohammed’s true Islam worked to end the slave trade. Slaves were freed and treated as equals, women were increasingly educated and society dramatically improved. Under Islam, former female slaves were allowed to marry free men and become free and equal themselves. The next generation of children was born free.
I cannot recognize the religion ISIL practices, but I know with certainty it is not the true Islam that Prophet Mohammed taught. His holiness, the Khalifa of Islam Mirza Masroor Ahmad, describes ISIL as running “entirely contrary to the peaceful teachings of Islam.” With certainty, Islam condemns the terrorists’ acts, while my heart weeps for the girls suffering under their barbarism.
Mansura Bashir Minhas is a community activist in Miami and a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA. Follow her on Twitter @MansuraMinhas.
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