Islamophobes Blame Islam but Violence against Women Also Persists In Western Societies
By Dr. Ahmed Al-Qadidi, New Age Islam
Translated from Arabic by Ghulam Ghaus Siddiqi, New Age Islam
European Islamophobia Fanatics Regularly Utilize The
Catchphrases "Oppressed Women In Muslim Countries!!" And "Save
Muslim Women From Muslim Masculinity!”
Main Points:
1.
European
Islamophobia fanatics mislead Western public opinion by claiming violence
against Muslim women is commanded in the Qur'an.
2.
The
racist right in the West uses deceptive slogans to falsely portray Islam as
condoning violence against women.
3.
Women
were traditionally treated as property until the Qur'an declared them equal to
males, giving them more rights than their male counterparts.
4.
Violence
against women is a global issue, not limited to Muslim society.
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European Islamophobia fanatics regularly utilize the
catchphrases "oppressed women in Muslim countries!!" and "Save
Muslim women from Muslim masculinity!” However, they bring up the matter of
violence against some women in Muslim communities on purpose to mislead Western
public opinion, giving the impression that it is a systematic and even ordered
form of violence that has been commanded in the Qur'an and is the fate of
Muslim women everywhere!
It serves no purpose to reiterate that, in contrast to other
religions, Islam is the only one that acknowledges the rights of women that men
have. Women were typically considered the sole property of the father and
husband with no rights other than to procreate. This persisted until the Qur'an
declared women to be of equal standing with males in all areas, giving them in
some cases more rights than their male counterparts. Islam honoured women in
this way; any individual who deviates from this divine status does so
independently of the religion.
Official figures are occasionally released by the interior or
justice ministries of European nations to reassure the public that violence
against women is a universal problem that has affected every culture. The
numbers in European nations that release official statistics for the year 2021,
whether official or released by associations, unmistakably show this trend.
These nations include Spain, where a woman has been murdered by her
husband, ex-husband, or boyfriend every three days since the state of health
emergency was lifted in May, as opposed to an average of one woman per week. In
Belgium, 12 women were murdered by the end of April, as opposed to 24 for the
entire year 2020.
According to the organization "Women's Murder by Their Partners
or Former Partners", 56 women have been killed in France to date, as
opposed to 46 during the same time period in 2020. Victoria Rozelle, leader of
the Spanish government's anti-male violence team, asserts that when women
achieve independence, the aggressors feel as though they have lost power, and
as a result, they retaliate more violently, as evidenced by the recent uptick
in female fatalities.
"When we opened the door to restrictions, we also opened the
door to another epidemic, the male-pattern epidemic, which was concealing
behind it," she added. Spain was the first nation in Europe to enact
legislation in 2004 making the victim's gender an aggravating factor in cases
of assault in an effort to "finally" halt this "scourge."
According to what the Socialist Prime Minister (Pedro Sanchez) said,
monitoring domestic violence has become more challenging as a result of the
recent rise in these crimes and the imposition of house quarantine across
Europe. The victims who are obliged to stay in their homes have been forced to
coexist with the executioner. They no longer have any options for seeking help
except in a highly concealed way. During the quarantine, which
lasted from mid-March to mid-June 2020, help requests increased in Spain by 58%
when compared to the same time period in 2019. The Ministry for Equality
reported a substantial increase in online queries for these "silent"
requests, reaching +458%. As Victoria Rozelle remarked, "This reflects the
situation of women who could not even make a phone call from their homes."
The same trend was seen in Germany and Italy, where there was a
dramatic rise in domestic violence-related emergency calls in April and May
2020. Between the spring of 2020 and February of 2021, the "Refuge" organisation
in the UK, which aids victims of domestic and familial violence, got twice as
many calls as usual.
The fact is that while they were imprisoned in their houses with
their spouses or partners under continual strict observation, European women
were victims of violence during the quarantine period. How then, can they in
this situation seek assistance?
The police in Italy provided women with an emergency number they
could phone and say, "I would like to order a Margherita
pizza," which is a hint that they are experiencing or fear experiencing
violence. The police would then dispatch a patrol to assist them.
I chose to use this example, among many others, to draw attention to
a covert aspect of Islamophobia on the part of the racist right in the
West. This group is adept at persuading the general public that Islam condones
violence against women by highlighting a few isolated incidents that might
occur in any society, whether Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, or secular. They
accomplish this by hiding behind deceptive slogans. Islam or any other religion
has nothing to do with the social problems that arise between spouses because
the male is always a man and the woman is always a woman, regardless of faith
or culture.
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Dr. Ahmed Al-Qadidi is a Tunisian politician, professor, former
ambassador of Tunisia to Qatar, advisor to the outgoing Emir of Qatar, Hamad
bin Jassim Al Thani, and vice president of the Free Patriotic Union Party. He
can be reached at alqadidi@hotmail.com.
Arabic Article: المجتمعات
الغربية فيها أيضا عنف ضد النساء!
URL: https://newageislam.com/muslims-islamophobia/islamophobes-violence-women-western-societies/d/129717
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