Community Commentary: Shadia veils the truth on Islam

As a longtime reader of the Huntington Beach Independent, I am growing tired of Mona Shadia’s weekly articles about Islam and Muslims. I am not against any religion, but why does she feel the need to try to promote her religion, and especially as a peaceful one, when it is arguably one of the most violent religions? Why aren’t there any other reporters writing their news pieces about Christianity or Judaism at the Independent? Why don’t you just report the news?

As for Shadia’s article “In Islam, men, woman are treated as equals” (Jan. 26), why bother to sugarcoat the fact that Islam is the most repressive religion when it comes to women’s rights? Why does she feel compelled to mislead? In her own country of Egypt, why have more than 80% of all women had to undergo a clitorectomy? Isn’t that one fact alone dispelling any question that women are oppressed in her religion?

For infidel readers like me, the Koran says women are inferior to men and must be ruled by them: “men have authority over women because God has made the one superior to the other” (Koran 4:34). The Koran declares that a woman’s testimony is worth half that of a man: “get two witnesses, so that if one of them errs, the other can remind her” (2:282). It allows men to marry up to four wives and have sex with slave girls also (4:3). It rules that a son’s inheritance should be twice the size of that of a daughter’s (4:11). It tells husbands to beat their disobedient wives (4:34).

Aisha, the most beloved of Muhammad’s many wives, admonished women in no uncertain terms: “O womenfolk, if you know the rights that your husbands have over you, every one of you would wipe the dust from her husband’s feet with her face.”

Blasphemy in many Muslim countries is punishable by death, and in Pakistan, 80% of the women are regularly beaten by their husbands. Around the area of Karachi, a women is murdered every day. Not to mention the “honor killings” and regular “stoning of unfaithful women.”

Human rights and women’s rights don’t apply if they conflict with Sharia law (Muslim law found in the Koran). Pubescent women are married off to middle-aged men, just like Muhammad did. Women in Saudi Arabia cannot legally drive, and they impose crippling repression of women in the name of Islam.

People who have taken the time to read about Islam understand that Islam is a suffocating religion, especially for women. Enough about it already. Why don’t you stick to reporting the news?

JEFF HUBBARD is a Huntington Beach resident.