Pakistani Judge Mian Muhammad Naeem has reportedly ruled that two Christian girls who were kidnapped and then converted to Islam cannot be returned to their family, including Saba Younas, aged 13, who was forced to marry the son of one of the kidnappers. Naeem ruled that the girls “have converted in a legitimate manner to Islam” and therefore cannot be “restored to their family of origin”.
The family says that Saba Younas, aged 13, and her sister Anila were kidnapped last June 26 in the village of Chowk Munda, in the Punjab, when they were visiting their uncle, Khalid Raheel. He filed a report that a Muslim fruit vendor named Muhammad Arif Bajwa kidnapped the girls, and then handed them gave them to a friend, Falak Sher Gill. Gill proceeded to marry off Sada to his son.
The recurrence of such child marriages continues to shock the civilized world. This is only the latest such outrage, click here.
Kidnapping of girls is a common practice in this area and both women and girls continue to be treated as virtual chattel.
“Judges” like Naeem further demonstrate the abuses that occur in the absence of a separation of church and state. Sharia is more a religious code than an form of “law.” Like the “law of the Vatican, it is a code of enforced religious values. Both Jews and Christians have followed such religious courts. However, they should be confined to the voluntary mediation or adjudication of individuals, not imposed through state authority as in many Middle Eastern nations from Saudi Arabia to Iran to Pakistan.
For the full story, click here.
Gyges; I was trying to show that simply quoting holy texts doesn’t give the whole picture of any given religion
Amen to that.
I am always amused when someone declaring themselves not religious pulling a scripture out of the Bible or Torah, or Koran, or other books and declare, “here, it says this” or “it says that”.
Scripture is a complicated thing. Sillier religions, like the Evangelicals, dumb it down and with untenable positions like infallibility, but most religions, even Catholicism, Mormonism and Judaism, admit that the scriptures are of varying degrees of fallibility and need to be read in the various contexts including language, history, surrounding event, author, subject, etc.
Well said.
I forgot to include my response
“Ted,
If you read my posts I tried to be very clear that I thought that ignoring outdated modes of thought in religions was a GOOD thing. Since I was trying to suggest that religions might all contain elements of a good thing, it follows I wasn’t going the whole “all religions are flawed” route. The most you could accuse me of was an over simplistic pantheist view of religion.
I also wasn’t defending fundamentalist Muslims, I was trying to show that simply quoting holy texts doesn’t give the whole picture of any given religion. Martha H has a history transcribing the acts of a few zealots to the whole of a religion and I was attempting to point out a flaw in her reasoning.
BTW Luther was for establishing a state religion, he just wanted it to be his own.”
Just thought I’d provide a little context, and my response to Ted.
My original post was in response to Martha H’s double posting of some passages of the Koran. She was the one attacking a religion not me. I was simply trying (yet again) a different way of explaining that not all who practice Islam have the same beliefs as the fundamentalist. Despite what Ted and Martha may think, I was not defending anyone raping a 10 year.
<>
Deuteronomy has some rape/kidnap victims married off to their perpetrator.
It’s a little less painful to read from the LOLCAT Bible. Deuteronomy 22:28-29
“If a gai put him sexxes in a ladee that haz no sexxes beefo, n teh ladee duznt want no sexxes in her n no gai haz chosn her fo putin sexxes in latr, Then the gai mus pai the ladeez dadz fiffy coin uv silfur, and teh ladee haz to staye n b himz wyf, wtf? No divors fo u fo evah.”
The fact is people like you, neocons, excuse in your own kind that which you condemn in others.
Jesus called it; pulling the mote from your neighbors eye while ignoring the beam in your own, and thats pretty much what it is.
There are close to two Billion Muslims in the world, living in civilized nations everywhere. They practice their religions, daily, without ever beating their wives, marrying underage girls or waging jihad.
But if people like you have their way, and we keep persecuting them, treating them with ugly prejudice and bigotry, then perhaps maybe one day your worst fears will come true, and they’ll all turn into wife beating baby raping jihadists, and come and kill your kids and steal your freedom.
After all, theres less than 400 million of us in this country, (and some of those muslim to) and well over a billion of them, so if they did want to rape your kid and beat your wife, while pilfering your freedoms, they’d probably be able to do it.
😐
Assuming you didn’t beat them to it.
Fact:
The leader of the FLDS church is behind bars, serving 2 5 to life sentences for marrying 4 little girls, UNDER the age of 14.
That means these girls were 13, …12..maybe even 11.
And these 4 are just the ones they know about.
Hearing you try and defend that, while simultaneously condemning the Muslims, is laughable, and removes any credibility you may have laid claim to.
He was the head of this Christian church.
😐
They’re “prophet”.
If he was doing it, then we know they were too.
The State Supreme court ruled, and justly so, that the state did not have the right to just “round up” peoples kids without evidence of a crime.
But that doesn’t mean they’re all innocent.
martha h
1, July 19, 2008 at 9:20 pm
bartlebee the J.A. hasn’t kept up with the news. The FDS children were RETURNED to their parents because there was no evidence of wrongdoing
No, Martha the Mental hasn’t kept up with the news.
Or did you not know that it is an “ongoing” investigation? Its certainly not over.
Or that their leader, Warren Jeffs, was sentenced to 2 consecutive 5 to life sentences for marrying 4 little girls under the age of 14?
😀
Forget about those facts, did we?
bartlebee the J.A. hasn’t kept up with the news. The FDS children were RETURNED to their parents because there was no evidence of wrongdoing. Four pregnant teens out of three hundred is not exactly indicative of a problem is it?
Go do some research jerk before you post your ignorant statements here.
And in case you didn’t notice, it wasn’t in some far off country where recently a case of organized religion forcing underage girls to marry grown men took place.
Nor was it a Muslim group doing it.
In fact, it was in the state our President calls home, Texas. And it was a Christian church.
So your sad, tired attempts at trying to rally the hate cry against Islam, is as impotent as your argument.
martha h
1, July 19, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Uh, Batblebee: Aishas SIX YEARS OLD when Muhammed took her as his wife
Well, if you believe that I’ve got some land for sale for you. Thats a story. Like “Noah’s Ark”.
And as I pointed out, most radical relgious beliefs tend to moderate as societies grow and conditions improve. Just like it did for the Jews, the Christians, and the Muslims in most developed countries. But in inhibited socioeconomic environments, religious fanaticism tends to flourish.
But if you’re honestly trying to paint Islam, as a relgion guilty of more crimes than Christianity, then all I can say is “bring it on”.
😀
Because Christianity, has as an instution, maimed, raped, tortured and killed, more human beings, than any organized belief system on earth.
It is sure nice to know that Christians are so far advanced. Have you forgotten the Cardinals and Bishops trying to hide the Catholic priest sex scandals? How about Northern Ireland? That was two different Christian religions squaring off against each other for years. How about the Christian religous right in this country advocating the bombing of Iran? How quickly we forget the evil doings of our own kind.
bartlebee the moron writes: Jews used to marry at 12 and 13 too.
Uh, Batblebee: Aishas SIX YEARS OLD when Muhammed took her as his wife.
martha h:
“Good earlier debate about this: Ted Nugent really hit a home run:”
******************
Wow, advice on theology from Ted Nugent! Where do you get your advice on music? Pope Benedict?
Maybe all you and Ted Nugent really need is a good compass.
Now if you want a “good excuse” for going into Pakistan, how about to get the guy they’ve been protecting since 911?
You know…Osama Bin ondalamba?
He slipped over the mountains into Kashmir back in 03, when George Bush was announcing to the world exactly when, and where we’d be coming to get him.
Of course, in Kashmir its dangerous, and there are real armies on each side, with real guns and stuff.. keeping us out.
So. instead of going into Pakistan, and rooting Bin Laden out like the rat that he is, you great war heroes decided to look for him in Baghdad.
😐
Where the light was better.
Its one thing for a UN effort that includes the United States, even in a leading role, to go into a region like Darfur, where genocide is occuring.
Course, we never worry about that….cause they’re black and all.
😐
Instead we worry about marrying customs that have been handed down for thousands of years, (Jews used to marry at 12 and 13 too) like thats a reason to invade the country, and compel our western culture and practices on them by force.
Believe it or not, there are ways to influence people without pointing guns at them.
“Verbis melius quam verberibus res agenda est”
(in this matter, better to employ words, than blows)
-Lactantius
Martha H said…
good liberals in the West like Gyges, who do their best to excuse the evil, backward, caveman-culture that even NEEDS to debate the possibility of grown men marrying little girls
Yea?
Tell you what Annie Oakley. How about you go git yer shootin iron…. and you and Ted Nugent head off to the middle east to give them terrerrists a peice of your mind.
😀
Meanwhile, the rest of us will allow developing nations to develop on their own, and not interfere by force with their cultures, belief systems, or in the way THEY choose to live their lives.
Freedom works two ways. It means not only getting to do what YOU want to do, but letting others do likewise.
And when these women have had enough, and a few good men have had enough, they’ll do like all devloping nations, and throw off the oppressors that THEY allow to exist.
People will live under the yokes they’re willing to live under, until they’re not willing to live under them any longer.
And those of you trying to force your will on the entire world, at gunpoint, are no better than the taskmasters who they now toil under.
😐
A lesson sadly demonstrated by our illegal invasion and occupation of the Soverign nation of Iraq.
Good earlier debate about this: Ted Nugent really hit a home run:
8 Gyges
1, July 17, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Martha,
Not to beat a dead horse, prophet, or king but…
Didn’t King David send one of his most loyal soldiers to the front lines so that he would be killed and David could marry his wife?
Wasn’t the Prophet Elisha supposed to have had two teenagers mauled to death by bears for making fun of his baldness?
A bit more on point: Mary would probably have been around 13-14 when she had Jesus. Which means there’s a possibility that she and Joseph married when she was 12.
Most religions that I know of have parts of their scriptures that they tend to sweep under the rug. I actually think that this is a good thing. It means that most people aren’t dogmatic and inflexible. I think most people will agree that it’s the dogmatic (or fundamentalist) elements are the most likely to use religion as an excuse for violence.
9 Sad, but True
1, July 17, 2008 at 4:17 pm
I’m sure the moderate Muslims will very soon react to this with the same vigor that the radicals protested those Danish cartoons a while back. /snark
10 Cindy
1, July 18, 2008 at 11:50 am
Gyges, King David’s action was viewed not as exemplary, but as sin for which he suffered great judgment; Elisha only called forth for God (not humans) to deal w/the youth (I think 42 not 2 of them).
In any case, in Islam past and present, it is required to follow the example of Muhammad (i.e., the “Sunnah”), so his sex girls is officially sanctioned. Most of his other marriages were also disturbing for other reasons, particularly the one where he married a captive after forcing her to watch her husband and father tortured and killed. This is one problem presented by Shariah law — it cannot be separated from the Sunnah, and the Sunnah is ugly, very ugly.
11 Gyges
1, July 18, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Cindy,
I stand corrected, I got lazy and didn’t do my research. Thank you for pointing out my errors. I also probably could have used better examples (the David one in particular doesn’t really fit). However my point wasn’t about airing the Bible’s dirty laundry. If I had more then a passing knowledge of them I would have pointed out examples from the Hindu and Buddhist holy writings. I was simply pointing out that there are parts of the Bible that don’t get mentioned that much because they’re of an unsavory character, or don’t match up with modern views.
If the majority of Christians can ignore parts of their holy texts why can’t the majority of Muslims? I’m not saying they do I’m just saying that you should be open to the possibility that a large group of people in a religions might not obey every precept of their faith.
12 Ted Nuggent
1, July 19, 2008 at 12:39 am
GYGES: If the majority of Christians can ignore parts of their holy texts why can’t the majority of Muslims?
Ted: Or more to the point, SINCE Christians DO ignore parts of their holy texts, why DON’T the majority of Muslims?
What Gyges did above (way above) is a classic example of trying to show all religions as “equally bad” and “equally flawed”. But there is no comparing Islam to ANY other religious group today; the only way to compare the “crimes of Christianity” (or any other religion) to “the crimes of Islam” is to rewind for several centuries.
No, our Muslim friends down the street in the US of A aren’t letting lecherous fifty-somethings marry their teenage daughters. But they do it in Iran, and Iraq, and Saudi, and Oman, and Jordan, and Egypt, and Bangladesh, and Pakistan, and Afghanistan. THEIR “PROPHET” did it, and he is held up and the perfect example for all people, in all places, for all times. Meanwhile, the practice has been outlawed in “Christian” nations.
Here is why “Christian Civilization” has prospered, and progressed to the point that everywhere it has laid down roots, the results are freedom, democracy, and secular liberalism: because men like Martin Luther, Voltaire, Robspierre, Benjamin Franklin, Abe Lincoln, etc. etc. MADE it better by standing up against the church-state and helping the cause of freedom.
THe reason why there’s no Reformation afoot in Islam is because of the violent and swift response to would-be social reformers in Muslim nations.
… and, of course, good liberals in the West like Gyges, who do their best to excuse the evil, backward, caveman-culture that even NEEDS to debate the possibility of grown men marrying little girls.
When the “prophet” of Islam itself set the rules, why would anyone swallowed up in the religion do anything different:
It is difficult to accept that the “Holy Prophet” Mohammed married Aisha when she was 6-years-old and consummated his marriage with her when she was 9. He was then, 54 years old.
Sahih Muslim Book 008, Number 3310:
‘A’isha (Allah be pleased with her) reported: Allah’s Apostle (may peace be upon him) married me when I was six years old, and I was admitted to his house when I was nine years old.
Sahih Bukhari Volume 7, Book 62, Number 64
Narrated ‘Aisha:
that the Prophet married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old, and then she remained with him for nine years (i.e., till his death).
Sahih Bukhari Volume 7, Book 62, Number 65
Narrated ‘Aisha:
that the Prophet married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old. Hisham said: I have been informed that ‘Aisha remained with the Prophet for nine years (i.e. till his death).” what you know of the Quran (by heart)’
Sahih Bukhari Volume 7, Book 62, Number 88
Narrated ‘Ursa:
The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with ‘Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death).