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Koran 4:34 - Men are the managers of the affairs of women for that God has preferred in bounty one of them over another, and for that they have expended of their property. Righteous women are therefore obedient, guarding the secret for God's guarding. And those you fear may be rebellious admonish; banish them to their couches, and beat them. If they then obey you, look not for any way against them; God is All-high, All-great.

Let's hope that more Turkish men reject the violent command in the Koran to beat their disobedient wives. I can only imagine what the real rates of spousal abuse are in other Muslim countries whose citizens (and laws) are more religious than your average Turk.

(ANSAmed) - ANKARA, NOVEMBER 24 - Forty-two percent of women in Turkey become targets of physical or sexual violence, a staggering statistic which along with others will be the focus of events held on the occasion of tomorrow's International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. As Today's Zaman reports quoting data by the Directorate general on status of women, one of every four married women who are targets of violence is injured to the point of requiring medical attention. One of every three women who face violence from a husband or boyfriend attempts suicide. One in every five women, married and single, face violence from their relatives or peeple at school or the workplace. In recent years, some changes to the country's human rights laws have been made as Turkey inches along it its bid to join the European Union, but for many women who for various reasons end up in custody or behind bars, the situation is desperate. In the past 12 years, 74 women have been raped while in custody, and with allegations that have not yet been proved, this number climbs to over 300. In the past year only 15 women have complained of sexual abuse while in custody. There have been positive developments in recent years regarding this topic with sexual abuse gaining legal status as a crime, the range of the laws on rape being expanded and the sentencing deductions for "honor" killings and killings as part of tribal feuds abolished. (ANSAmed).

http://www.ansamed.info/en/news/ME03.XAM12023.html

Another country, like Egypt, which gets a lot of support from the US and also has the same problems of violence against women as the US. Strange coincidence that.

It is also a shame that they are abandoning the Islamic principles that forbid violence against others (despite the quaint views of some of our Orientalist posters).

Perhaps they are choosing to follow the misogynistic verses of the Bible - there are more of these than any thing in the Quran.

Cheers,
Shafique

I'm not sure what link there is between US aid and domestic violence.

I assume you are trying to deflect the issue rather than address the command in the Koran to beat disobedient wives which is the reason why so many Turkish women are beaten by their husbands - wife beating must not be frowned upon in Turkey just as it's completely acceptable in other Muslim societies.

It's also interesting that you believe the Muslim men are following passages from the Bible rather than the Koran. Which Biblical passage says to beat a disobedient wife again?

event horizon wrote:I'm not sure what link there is between US aid and domestic violence.

Interesting fact though. And it is actually more related to US Military aid rather than just aid.

There is certainly a link between military aid and human rights abuses, from Columbia to Turkey, from Israel to Indonesia.

Perhaps this disregard for human rights trickles down to abuse against women?

As we've established elsewhere, the abuses are taking place despite Islamic injunctions rather than because of them, and in any case, the Bible has many more harsh anti-women verses - but we don't say that is why there is so much wife beatings in the US.

Cheers,
Shafique

Let me know when you have any evidence to show that US military aid is directly related to wife beating in foreign countries. I suspect that Islam plays a greater role than you are willing to admit - the Koran says to beat wives, etc.

It's also interesting that you have not found that passage in the Bible you alluded to earlier about wife beating. Are you still googling or will you concede that only the Koran gives husbands the green light to beat their wives?

the abuses are taking place despite Islamic injunctions rather than because of them

Ah, but shafique, you said so yourself. A husband who beats his disobedient wife is not abusing her, he's disciplining her.

We've established that your 'suspicions' about Islam are not based on any statistics nor any expert opinions -but rather rely on selective quotes and wild extrapolations.

Turkey is by no means a homogenous society - it has a big secular population as well as a recently growing more conservative Muslim population, as well as having different ethnic minorities (eg the Kurds in the East).

The causes of violence in women around the world are well documented, and by far the biggest cause is drinking.

I'll let you connect the dots - but I suspect you are already trawling the net for some more juicy quotes to post to obscure the fact you've already lost the argument when it comes to backing up your prejudice with statistics (just see the thread about numbers of Muslim convert terrorists, for example)

Cheers,
Shafique

Turkey is by no means a homogenous society - it has a big secular population as well as a recently growing more conservative Muslim population, as well as having different ethnic minorities (eg the Kurds in the East).

Err, exactly. One wonders how much higher rates of domestic abuse would be in Turkey if the population was more religious, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

(ANSAmed) - BEIRUT, NOVEMBER 25 - At least 90% of women in Lebanon are, or have been in the past, victim of physical or psychological abuse. This statement was made on the occasion of the tenth international day for the elimination of violence against women, by the Lebanese Council to Resist Violence Against Women (LCRVAW). "Only very few of these crimes are reported, because in Lebanon it is considered normal that a woman is beaten by her husband or a relative; therefore judges and policemen often underestimate the problem" said to ANSA Raghida Ghamlush, head of the LCRVAW office in Beirut. Despite the election of a woman as finance minister, "the situation in Lebanon" Ghamlush continued "is not good: the crime of domestic violence is not provided for in the penal code". For the Lebanese law, cases of maltreatment and abuse are part of family law, and are therefore handled directly by the confessional communities. "Only if injuries are reported by a doctor" the NGO leader said, "they can take legal action, but the chances of success are slim". Even worse, according to Dalal Chehade, head of the Lebanese NGO Najdeh, is the situation of women in the Lebanese refugee camps. "They are discriminated twice as much because they are refugees and because they are women", he told ANSA. Considered foreigners by the Lebanese Sate, "in case of abuse, before reporting their aggressor they must turn to the peoplés committee that handles these reports with the Lebanese authorities. This obstacle is sufficiently high for most crimes to remain unpunished", he concluded. (ANSAmed).

And Lebanon is more secular than the rest of the Arab world...

http://www.ansamed.info/en/news/ME03.XAM14302.html

See my previous comment about abuse of women and consumption of alcohol - as I said, you can connect the dots.

It would be interesting to see what the stats in Lebanon are between the various confessional groups - but any counting of population is a hot potato in that country.

It would be interesting for you to compare the rates of women abuse between countries - I think the rate of women being raped or sexually assaulted was running at around 600 a day a few years ago, IIRC - you may want to look up the updated stats (and add the non-rape violence in) and then look at the female population to work out a ratio. You can then compare this with the stats in the articles above.

Cheers,
Shafique

I guess this is what happens when you mix alcohol with a society that believes wife beating is acceptable due to the misogynist passage in the Koran giving husbands the green light to strike their disobedient wives.

It almost creates a perfect storm of violence against women. But I suspect wife beating is more common/severe in other Arab countries, such as Jordan, Palestine and Egypt - and alcohol is not a big factor there.

Yes, I agree - mix alcohol consumption with a misogynistic view of women garnered from scripture and you'll get horrible statistics of women beatings.

Perhaps this is an explanation for the stats in the US and Europe as well as Turkey.

It also shows the wisdom in the Islamic injunction which forbids alcohol.

Cheers,
Shafique

And yet the statistics in Muslim majority countries (even secular ones such as Turkey and Lebanon where alcohol is probably allowed but not consumed nearly as much as in Europe) still shows that a very high percentage of women are battered in these countries.

So, it almost seems like the Koran and Islam is not helping the plight of women in Muslim majority nations. Indeed, women are just as likely or more likely to be beaten in Lebanon than in other parts of the world. And even as backwards as Lebanon is culturally, they are probably light years ahead of other Muslim majority nations, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

As I said, if alcohol really does factor into wife beating, then it is a good thing (for wives) that alcohol is not heavily consumed in most Muslim countries.

event horizon wrote:And yet the statistics in Muslim majority countries (even secular ones such as Turkey and Lebanon where alcohol is probably allowed but not consumed nearly as much as in Europe) still shows that a very high percentage of women are battered in these countries.

The statistics I've seen show that women are battered more in Christian majority countries - perhaps you've got some updated stats that I'm not aware of. Even allowing for under-reporting of rapes etc in Muslim countries, the (comparable) figures for the USA and Europe are not small - so it would be interesting to refer to the statistics you are referring to from Muslim majority countries.

Also, the studies I've seen all point to alcohol consumption being a major underlying cause - but again, perhaps you have some other information that corroborates/contradicts this? In Muslim countries where men drink - it is often these men who batter their women, rather than the men who choose to be religious (be it Christian or Muslim).

One woman being battered is one woman too many - so I deplore and condemn any man who has to stoop to this, and I doubly condemn them if they try and use the Bible or Quran to justify the cowardly act.

I look forward to the references to the stats you mention.

Cheers,
Shafique

90% of women in Lebanon who were surveyed and claimed they were victims of abuse seems pretty high to me. Also, the 42% of Turkish women (those who acknowledged abuse, that is) who were victims of physical or sexual abuse also seems high, as well.

Unfortunately, the articles did not provide statistics for the number of women who only experienced physical violence from their husbands (the Koran says to beat a disobedient wife), so it would be difficult to determine the actual percentage of women who face physical abuse.

It should also be remembered that many women in Muslim countries, just as shafique has argued on this very forum, believe that physical violence against wives, such a slap etc, because the wife was disobedient, is not seen as abuse but, rather, is viewed as a form of 'discipline' (Caliph Umar was also known to discipline his wives...with a whip). For these reasons, and others, the real percentages of women who have experienced physical abuse in Muslim majority nations is actually higher.

Additionally, it should speak volumes that only Muslim majority countries that provide 'reliable' figures for these types of statistics also are the more liberal/secular ones. Either less religious societies, such as North America, Western Europe, Turkey and Lebanon, are more violent towards women or they're simply more open to these types of studies and respondents are more inclined to faithfully report incidences of abuse.

As I've said, the statistics I've seen show that the incidence of abuse against women is higher in the States and Europe, even allowing for under-disclosures of rape etc in Muslim majority countries.

As I stated above, even one woman being raped/abused is one woman too many and is condemned by all religious people, be they Muslim or Christian.

I see that eh has to fall back on pre-conceived notions about Islam to disguise the fact he can't back up his claims and actually compare statistics (other than headlines). 'All mouth, no trousers' indeed.

Cheers,
Shafique

The statistics don't look encouraging. Shafique argues that alcohol and religiosity both are elements for domestic violence. However, once someone moves beyond the talking points and looks at the stats, it doesn't appear that shafique's beliefs are supported by actual facts:

Percent of women surveyed (national surveys) who were ever physically assaulted by an intimate partner: Barbados (30%), Canada (29%), Egypt (34%), New Zealand (35%), Switzerland (21%), United States (25%).[30] Some surveys in specific places report figures as high as 50-70% of women surveyed who were ever physically assaulted by an intimate partner.[30] Others, including surveys in the Philippines and Paraguay, report figures as low as 10%.[30]

South Africa is said to have the highest statistics of gender-based violence in the world and this includes rape and domestic violence (Foster 1999; The Integrated Regional Network [IRIN], Johannesburg, South Africa, 25 May 2002).[31] 80% of women surveyed in rural Egypt said that beatings were common and often justified, particularly if the woman refused to have sex with her husband.[32] In India, around 70% of women are victims of domestic violence.[33] The Human Rights Watch found that up to 90% of women in Pakistan were subject to verbal, sexual, emotional or physical abuse, within their own homes.[34]

Levels of domestic violence appears to be as high in Muslim countries as it does in the West. Unfortunately, shafique's theories of alcohol and levels of religiosity do not explain the high(er) rates of domestic violence in the Muslim nations reported in this quote and in this thread - in Muslim societies, Muslims are more religious and conservative than their Western counterparts and alcohol consumption is much lower in the Muslim world than in the West.

One must, therefore, reject shafique's view that lower religiosity is a primary cause of domestic violence (although I agree that alcohol can play a factor in this). The rates of domestic violence clearly show that Muslim men, who are more religious on average than Westerners and consume far less alcohol, are more than capable of abusing/disciplining their wives.

I suspect there is another reason for the high rates of domestic violence in the Muslim world (including in the not so backwards nation of Egypt, as opposed to primitive Pakistan) and it ties in directly with what shafique had written previously - there is a direct correlation between devout Muslim men and the proportion of wives who are beaten, except the correlation shows that higher rates of religiosity leads to higher rates of wife beating in Muslim nations.

Currently, I am unaware of where this misogyny could possibly stem from but I suspect this is a religious rather than merely a local, cultural issue limited to certain geographic regions, such as the Arab world......

Men are the managers of the affairs of women for that God has preferred in bounty one of them over another, and for that they have expended of their property. Righteous women are therefore obedient, guarding the secret for God's guarding. And those you fear may be rebellious admonish; banish them to their couches, and beat them. If they then obey you, look not for any way against them; God is All-high, All-great.

Righteous women are obedient to their husbands

Currently, I am unaware of where this misogyny could possibly stem from but I suspect this is a religious rather than merely a local, cultural issue limited to certain geographic regions, such as the Arab world......

Have you now deceided to take up the role of God and tell us what is right and what is wrong? if so..Keep it to yourself we don't need it.. You have the choise to take the message or leave it?
God has chosen men to resort deterrent ways to keep family unity rather than keep silent at all times and opt for a quick divorce,.. which in the end leaves women and children astray, fighting over their livelihood and trying to cope with difficulites and dilemma of life all along without the support of fathers, which initially was meant to be the very basic moral formation of society called family...
This whole topic was discussed on "wife beating" thread...So I guess you suffer from short memory but nevermind I remind you what the verse meant to be in the following...
http://www.islamicstudies.info/tafheem. ... e=34&to=42

Berrin, thanks for pointing out that Muslim men need to physically discipline their wives in order to keep them in line. Shafique pointed this out before and many other Muslims also do not see physical violence in a relationship as abuse but corrective measures to keep the wife obedient to her husband and, thus, a good Muslim as well.

Why should muslim women feel that minor physical discipline resorted as a last measure is a psysical violence?… when women internally could also admit that they may also be themselves guilty of driving men at the end of their tether, and when women too should be aware that it is also their duty to be reasonable and possess manners that would help to keep family unity and protect the rights of each individual within family life..

Otherwise any unjustified harsh physical violence against woman is granted as divorce, in favour of woman in islam..

I wonder if dee7o will comment on shafique's belief that religious Muslim men are less likely to physically punish their wives than less religious Muslim men and husbands of other faiths (with varying degrees of religiosity) or husbands of no faith at all.....

It should speak volumes that shafique has not commented on the stats posted in my previous quote.....

I feel that before you ask this question to shafique or dee you have to outline or verify what you understand from someone who is religious and less religious … and also you should be able to say why e.g. two non-pious men(one of them being the highly educated and the other undereducated) would resort to wife punishment wherever in the world.

It should speak volumes that shafique has not commented on the stats posted in my previous quote

Ohh we do know you have this passion about shafique and I bet, you don't spare a minute without day and night dreaming about him

Shafique's really missing out on this thread. I've provided stats and everything.

Percent of women surveyed (national surveys) who were ever physically assaulted by an intimate partner: Barbados (30%), Canada (29%), Egypt (34%), New Zealand (35%), Switzerland (21%), United States (25%).[30] Some surveys in specific places report figures as high as 50-70% of women surveyed who were ever physically assaulted by an intimate partner.[30] Others, including surveys in the Philippines and Paraguay, report figures as low as 10%.[30]

South Africa is said to have the highest statistics of gender-based violence in the world and this includes rape and domestic violence (Foster 1999; The Integrated Regional Network [IRIN], Johannesburg, South Africa, 25 May 2002).[31] 80% of women surveyed in rural Egypt said that beatings were common and often justified, particularly if the woman refused to have love with her husband.[32] In India, around 70% of women are victims of domestic violence.[33] The Human Rights Watch found that up to 90% of women in Pakistan were subject to verbal, sexual, emotional or physical abuse, within their own homes.[34]

Says it all......

AMMAN, Jordan, Mar 14, 2004 (United Press International via COMTEX)

A U.N. report says nearly half of Jordanian women suffer physical abuse in the home, the BBC reported Monday.

The report is the first effort to statistically analyze violence against women in Jordan, U.N. officials said.

The U.N. study found that 42 percent of Jordanian women have been victims of physical violence, and even higher numbers endure sexual and verbal abuse at home.

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-114228713.html

What's also interesting, is that I read that most Jordanian women believe the beatings are justified. At least we know that there are many good Muslimahs in Jordan who correctly believe that they need to be disciplined if they 'step out of line'.

Mixing belief with statistics again eh - will you ever learn?

Cheers,
Shafique

shafique wrote:Mixing belief with statistics again eh - will you ever learn?

Cheers,
Shafique

Speaking of odd-ball beliefs.....

shafique wrote:In Muslim countries where men drink - it is often these men who batter their women, rather than the men who choose to be religious

So you disagree with all the studies and statistics that say alcohol is a major factor when women in Europe and America are battered?

Now what did I say about mixing your beliefs with statistics??

Cheers,
Shafique

shafique wrote:So you disagree with all the studies and statistics that say alcohol is a major factor when women in Europe and America are battered?

Now what did I say about mixing your beliefs with statistics??

Cheers,
Shafique

I don't know, which studies say that religious Muslims beat their wives less often than secular Muslims?

Could you please post these studies ????

Nice try.

If you want to believe religious Muslims batter their wives because Islam teaches them it is ok, that is up to you. I have no inclination to dig out reports or statistics that you wont read.

It is interesting that instead of answering when I asked you a specific question about whether you didn't believe the statistics showing the link between alcohol and violence against women, you avoid the question. Was that question difficult?

Cheers,
Shafique

In other words, you have no evidence for your quaint belief that devout Muslims beat their wives less than other groups of people.

'nuff said.

You could have just said that you won't answer my question (again)!

I see that you are trying your hand at irony again. Good attempt.



Cheers,
Shafique