Sunday, March 25, 2007
You never know what comes with the pointers I get in email. In this case, the emailer's story turned out to be more interesting than the link they were sending me. Read on.
First, related to this entry, Slip, slip, slip goes the West..., about a German judge who used Koranic reasoning to excuse a Muslim husband's violence toward his wife, my emailer sent along a link to this story: Husband rips wife's eyes out after she refuses sex:
Mohamed Hadfi, 31, tore out his 23-year-old wife Samira Bari's eyes following a heated argument in their apartment in the southern French city of Nimes in July 2003 after she refused to have sex with him.
Ms Bari, who had demanded a divorce before the attack, was permanently blinded.
Hadfi, a Moroccan, initially fled to Germany. He was finally arrested and sent back to France, where he was indicted for "acts of torture and barbarity leading to a permanent disability".
Prosecutor Dominique Tourette demanded that Hadfi be sentenced to 30 years in prison, two thirds of which must be served in full, calling the defendant a "diabolic torturer".
Once his sentence is served, Hadfi will be deported and barred from ever returning to France.
His lawyer Jean-Pierre Cabanes meanwhile insisted there were extenuating circumstances.
"This is the result of a marriage that was arranged, not chosen," he said, pointing to the gulf separating his client, who came from southern Morocco, and his young wife, who had grown up in France.
Mr Cabanes begged the jury for leniency, claiming his client's action "appeared to stem from a mental illness."
A disturbing story, but to be fair, the Muslim violence connection seems to me to be less strong than the "dangers of carelessly arranged marriages" angle. In our exchange, it turns out my interlocutor had his own reason for noticing the story, and his own interesting story emerged. I'll let him tell it, assembled from a couple of emails:
Maybe I would have seen that myself, but the French story especially hit home for me, since last year I was in love with a woman born in Pakistan, who was blind since birth.
But even though she hates Islam, and was raised in the USA, she was afraid to be seen in a Chucky Cheese, in New Jersey, with me and my 7 year old son! (Her Father is devout Muslim, and even dating a non-Muslim is forbidden for women...)
The last time I saw her, she said she could not marry me, even though she had said she wanted to, and that "they are watching me more closely than ever".
I was reading Spencer and LGF for years prior to that, but was shocked to see it up close and personal.
Since then, I started going to a local Mosque (run by a prominent member of a well-known "mainstream" Muslim group)...
The Imam's own assistant told me, that he already has women he wants to introduce me to, after I finish "reverting".
Women who are intelligent, and very obedient... (I am not even exaggerating. He was really trying to sell Islam to me in this way, because the Koran commands women to be obedient to the husband!)
When I expressed concern for the soul of the blind girl (who is not helpless - she has a Master's
Degree), the Imam's assistant told me - bluntly - that in cases like that, the woman is introduced to someone who tells her he is not really religious.
It is like in your article:
Who's vision of Islam is dominating the Boston Muslim Community?...at the Islamic Center of Burlington:
"Tired of the lack of unity among Boston’s Muslims? Finding it hard to get married? Feeling lost and think no one else cares? Teen Troubles?"
"Your local leaders tacke the hot topics facing your community."
Miss Kelly wrote:
One wonders how much this leadership and ideology reflects "ordinary" Muslims in Massachusetts. Or are they self-appointed leaders who simply saw the opportunity to take over and implement their conservative brand of Islamic thinking? Pious or power-hungry?
...Well, at a mosque here in the USA, I am learning how easy it is to get married, if you are a Muslim... and how close we are to the Pakistan and Egypt we read about in news stories...
...these are quotes from her emails - a prisoner of Islam, who grew up in it, in our USA:
..."I repeat, I do not believe in the teachings of Islam and never will. But I can't change the family into which I was born and I can't change my background."
"I need a good cry but I can't because I'm at work. I just wish I could run away with you like so many people do. But that's not so easy in the real world, right? I wish God would just give us the wisdom to fix this so we could spend our life together."
Lots of implications here. Reading this, one begins to understand how it is that there are Muslims in the Boston area, not at all happy with the goings-on with the "Immigration Imams," or the MAS and ISB...who are too afraid to step forward publicly for reasons other than the Islamic Society of Boston's abuse of the courts.
