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Islamic Fatwa:
Husbands Should Abandon Wives to Rapists in Self-Interest
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friends to like this.
Islam permits Muslim husbands to abandon their wives to rapists in order
to save their own lives—so says Dr. Yassir al-Burhami, vice president of
Egypt's Salafi party, the nation's premiere Islamist party since the Muslim
Brotherhood was banned.
Burhami's fatwa, or Islamic decree, is not altogether surprising.
Earlier the Salafi sheikh said that, although a Muslim man may marry
non-Muslim women, specifically Christians and Jews, he
must hate them—and show them that he hates them—because they are
"infidels" (even as he enjoys them sexually).
Indeed, the many fatwas of Dr. Burhami, a pediatrician by training,
include banning Muslim cab and bus drivers from transporting Coptic
Christian priests to their churches, which he depicted as "more
forbidden than taking someone to a liquor bar";permitting
marriage to minor girls;banning
Mother's Day—"even if it saddens your mother"—as a Western
innovation; and insisting that Muslims
cannot apostatize from Islam—a phenomenon
often in the news.
Now in his most recent fatwa—that husbands are permitted to forsake
their sexually-assaulted wives in self-interest—Burhami relies on qiyas,
or analogy, based on the rulings of a prominent twelfth century jurist:
according to Imam 'Azz bin Abdul Salaam, a Muslim should abandon his
possessions to robbers if so doing would safeguard his life.
Based on this logic, Burhami analogizes that the Muslim husband should
abandon his wife if defending her jeopardizes his life—as she is just
another possession that can easily be replaced.
In the words of a critical Arabic op-ed titled "Manhood
according to Burhami!" and written by one Amani Majed, a Muslim
woman:
So that which applies to abandoning one's possessions to thieves and
fleeing in fear of one's life, applies—in Burhami's view, sorry to say—to
one's wife and daughter. So if the wife is ever exposed to rape, she is
seen as a possession. The husband is to abandon her to the rapists and
escape with his life. And why not? For if he loses his possessions, he will
replace them; and if his wife is raped, he will marry another, even if she
remains alive!
The op-ed goes on to consider the ramifications of Burhami's logic
should every Muslim man follow it: if a policeman patrolling the streets
sees a woman—a stranger, not his wife or daughter—being gang-raped, should
he intervene, as his job entails, and risk his own person, or should he
think only of himself and flee? Should the Egyptian soldier stand his
ground and defend his nation against invaders, or should he flee to
preserve his own life?
Three observations:
First: Salafis like Burhami, who try to pattern their lives as
literally as possible after Islam's prophet Muhammad and his original
companions—hence the ubiquitous beards and white robes—deserve attention
for they are a treasure
trove of information on literal Islam. It's always the Salafi-minded
Muslims who evoke and uphold any number of things deemed absurd or evil in
a Western context—from trying to enforce a canonical hadith that compels
women to breastfeed adult men (ironically, to protect their
"chastity"), to drinking
camel urine for good health, to calling for the
destruction of all churches.
Of course, even this honesty is contingent on Muslim capability and
advantage. Thus Dr. Burhami himself once said that peace treaties with
Israel and other infidels should be respected—that is, until
Muslims are capable of reneging and going on a successful offensive.
Still, Salafis are much more frank and honest than other, less overt
Islamists, namely the two-faced Muslim Brotherhood, which, now that it has
been overthrown in Egypt, has shown its true face—terrorism—causing it once
again to be banned in Egypt.
Second: To be sure, many Muslims—perhaps the majority—reject
Burhami's latest "cowardly husband" fatwa, in agreement with the
aforementioned op-ed. The problem, however, and as usual, is that while
they agree that such behavior is unbecoming of a husband, in the realm of
Islamic jurisprudence, it is difficult to argue with the Salafi cleric's
logic. He used qiyas, a legitimate tool of jurisprudence; and the
imam whose logic he analogized is widely recognized as an authority in
Sunni Islam.
Moreover and despite the sneering tone of the op-ed, women are, in fact,
often depicted as little more than chattel
for men in Islamic scriptures.
This is the fundamental problem facing all moderate Muslims: despite
what they like to believe and due to a variety of historical and
epistemological factors, they are heavily influenced by Western
thinking—protecting women and the weak in general, or chivalry, is a
Christian "innovation"—so whenever they come up against Islamic
teachings they cannot fathom, they collectively behave as if such teachings
don't really mean what they mean.
Yet the Salafis know exactly what they mean.
Third: This latest fatwa exemplifies the lure of Salafism. This
brand of literal Islam does not offer anything profound or spiritually
satisfying, but it does offer divine sanctioning for unabashed egoism—in
this case, forsaking one's wife to rape in self-interest.
Justifying egoism is not limited to preserving the self but also
gratifying it—especially in the context of jihad. One can go on and on
about the other Salafi fatwas permitting rape,incest,
and prostitution
for those fighting to empower Islam. Even renowned heroes like Khalid bin
al-Walid—the "Sword of Allah"—celebrated in the Muslim world for
his jihadi conquests, was, from a less hagiographic perspective, little
more than a mass
murdering, sadistic rapist.
More generally, Salafi-minded Muslims believe that all non-Muslims can be
deceived, cheated, robbed, exploited, enslaved and/or killed—all in the
self-interest of the Muslim, seen as one with the self-interest of Islam.
Why do they believe this? Because from a Salafi point of view, all free
non-Muslim "infidels" who do not submit to Islamic law, or
Sharia—Americans and Europeans for example—are natural born enemies, or harbis,
and thus free game.
Raymond Ibrahim, author of Crucified Again:
Exposing Islam's New War on Christians (Regnery, April, 2013) is a
Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate
Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
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