The Role of Women in Islam

 

 The Role of Women in Islam [39:20m]: Play Now | Play in Popup

Original Air Date:
3/25/09 1:30 PM

Western Word Radio Interview with
Dr. Zudhi Jasser and Supna Zaidi

Synopsis

In this important discussion Avi Davis discusses  Islamic law and its reach with two Muslim reformers, touching on whether honor killings, genital mutilation, wife beating and the slaughter of infidels is mandated by Islamic law and  whether Islamic teachings can be assimilated with Western values and ideals.

Introduction

Avi Davis: Welcome to Western World radio where we discuss issues relevant to the advancement and protection of western ideals and values.

Since the events of September 11, 2001, our political dialogue has been convulsed by the question of how to confront and deal with the aggression from the Islamic world. Those who have spent a lot of time examining this question, from Bernard Lewis to David Pryce Jones to terrorism expert Steve Emerson, have concluded that moderation in the Muslim world, and peace, will only come when women in Muslim society have more of a role in familial, local and national decision making. But today women in Muslim countries, at least as measured by western standards, are oppressed with no political representation, bound by ancient customs which prevent their active involvement in public life, deprived of even some of the most basic rights and freedoms regarding privacy, sexual protections, custody of children and a number of other issues.

Today we are going to undertake the examination of the role of women in Islam and in order to do that, I am very pleased to welcome our guests for today, Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, President of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, Supna Zaidi, Asst. Director of the Middle East Forum’s Islamist Watch, and Nonie Darwish, author of the recently published “Cruel and Usual Punishment, The Terrifying Global Impact of the Islamic Law.” Nonie, I believe is delayed, and will be joining us shortly. Well, welcome to you all.

Shari’a Law

Avi Davis: Let’s begin by addressing Shari’a law, and the governing legal framework for Islamic society and its application to women. Now I just want to read you something taken from Nonie Darwish’s book, and it’s on page 65 of the book, and this is a quote;

“If I were to mention all of the misogynist Sharia laws, I would need far more than just one chapter, however, I would like to summarize a few. A Muslim woman who commits adultery is to be stoned to death. Unmarried girls who have sex must be flogged. Women’s testimony in court is half the value of a man’s. Women get half the inheritance of a man. There is no community property between husband and wife. If a woman is killed, her indemnity money is half the indemnity money of a man. If her family follows Shafi Law, then her clitoris must be removed at a young age. That is female castration in order for the man to make sure the sexual appetite is suppressed. She needs her guardian’s permission to marry, or else it is void. She needs her husband’s or male relative’s permission to travel. She must cover all of her body except her face and hands.”

And  there is a wide range of issues that are addressed here. And the question I have is, does Shari’an law really condone many of the things that we read and hear about, such as polygamy, honor killing, genital mutilation? Is that a function of the religious edicts of the religion, of the religious frame work of the religion, or is that a cultural phenomenon that has arisen outside of Shari’a law? And I’ll address that question to you first, Dr. Jasser.

Dr. Jasser: Thank you Avi, and thank you for having me. You know, that’s probably the most significant question in this whole issue, is that, you know, are these clear statements of fact about Sharia as they exist in the so-called Muslim world, are they part of the faith or is it part of those societies? And the bottom line is it probably doesn’t make that much of a difference, because the bottom line is that’s what Muslims are practicing, so the question is, I think the debate more boils down to which Islam and who’s Islam? I think that if you were to say that Shari’a, which translates in Arabic to English as “Islamic jurisprudence” or “the way to God’s law”, then, you know it’s no different than the word Islam itself. Islam can mean anything from submission to peace, but the bottom line is, to the Neanderthals who use Islam to abuse women, to oppress women, and violate their rights, their human rights, that is Islam. It’s their Islam, and we don’t have a clergy for me to say well, that’s not a Muslim, or that’s not the faith of Islam.

A Very Personal Faith

It’s a very personal faith, and Imam simply means teacher. And I don’t have a body of law from which to pull from, and say well, you know what, Shari’a is this, it’s not that. I certainly have the way that I was taught in my family, where my mother is equal to her father, my mother is equal to my father, I’m sorry, they’re equal as far as the relationship is concerned. The ladies in my family chose whether to wear hijab or not. Our marriage kitab is one based on American law, based on western ideas. Now does that come out of Shari’a, as it exists as a body of law based from the al Azhar University and the wahabis in Saudi Arabia? Absolutely not. I don’t have a body of law from which to pull from, so the academic response to you is that Shari’a is still stuck in the 14^th century, and has all of those problems that Nonie talks about. The realistic question is that, I think that there is a huge portion, especially the female population, that would disagree with you and say that that is not the Islam they know, and that is not the Shari’a they want to believe in. And we just need to come together to displace and marginalize the radical Imam’s, and the theologians that have taken our faith and made it into a theocratically oppressive political system.

Avi Davis: Well, Nonie does address that very question in her book. She spends an entire section on women whom she regards as a center of oppression. And she says that there are three tasks of women, and I’m going to leave to it her to describe those three tasks, and one of the things she points to, is that women are not unified on these issues, and therefore will never form, or in the foreseeable future, will never form a political force capable of wreaking change in Muslim society. In addition to which, she says that there are many Muslim women who would fight to the death for the imposition of Sharia law, because Muslim society is a shame society, and they would be shamed if they took any action against it. So, how do you respond to that?

Independent Muslim Women

Dr. Jasser: You know, I am of the belief that every individual wants to be free, wants to not live under oppression or control. And I think that with education, with, I mean for example, there’s micro loan programs that have begun to be given to women in the Muslim world, and Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Iran, where they find women that want to run their own business, be their own CEO’s, they have ideas of ways to make themselves economically independent, and not dependent upon men or the other oppressors in society, and basically it has been successful.

And, I think that there are many women that want to break out of it, and I wouldn’t be so pessimistic to say that they don’t want to separate themselves from the Islamists that are in control. And I think many want to do so, and maintain a relationship with God, and do so still personally being practicing Muslims. And, I think that ultimately to say that they can’t do that within some form of Islam, I don’t think is the way the I’ve seen it in the relationships that I’ve had, and the communities that I’ve seen in women, not only in America but across the world. And that, actually, they don’t have any dreams any different than the feminists in America or over in Europe.

The problem is, for example, there was a website in Saudi Arabia called SaudiDebate.com, where you had Saudi women that were dissidents that were writing and debating these issues. Surely, within a year or two the Saudi government took that down, but the bottom line is, that was populated with Saudi women that wanted independence, so I think they exist but we just  need to help them and augment their voices and be more hopeful about it.

Avi Davis: Supna Zaidi, let me bring you in now, and get your response to that. Would you agree with Dr. Jasser?

Supna Zaidi: I would agree, and I do not believe the majority of Muslim women, especially in the west, live lives that are as oppressive as the western media would like to portray them to be, but at the same time, that doesn’t mean we can ignore the role that

Shari’a law does play in the lives of Muslims in Muslim society apart from western countries. We have the luxury in the West to, in a way, pick and choose the part of our heritage that works for us, and what doesn’t work for us, we kind of marginalize to a side.

And in many Muslim societies, the degree of Shari’a that is actually practiced varies greatly from country to country. Countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia are, by their own words, living completely, under the law of God, whereas countries like Pakistan will only have certain aspects of Shari’a that are actually practiced in societies because they have evolved with their post-colonial English civil laws that have, in a way, brought what is considered western or universal human rights as an idea, at least, onto the table.

So, for me the issue is more what do we do as a short term policy, and do we do as a long term goal. The short term is more about engaging Muslims as Muslims, and asking what do you want your community to look like, what kind of behavior do we consider acceptable, and what do we consider unacceptable. So that short term goal is about activism, and cannot be engaged in the world of shari’a and literalism, because that is a theoretical, academic debate that will take decades for it to evolve to a level that will actually put people in the position to say, “Oh, Shari’a is progressive”. That’s not happening in the next five years. But at the same time, we can’t ignore the sign that Shair’a , for it to be a meaningful part of Muslims lives, we cannot expect that to stay as static as it’s been, so there has to be a legal movement eventually, to bring it forward as well.

The one example I would give you, because I do agree with Dr. Jasser, that Muslims, women and men, want to be good Muslims in their own eyes, not just in the eyes of the community. So, when there are feminists, when they believe in universal human rights, they need to be engaged in a way where they are not put in the position where they somehow feel that they have to choose between western norms, or a so-called “Islamic” lifestyle.

There is one organization called the “Sisters-In-Islam-Malaysia”, that I would recommend listeners to go to.  These are feminist Malaysian women who have put it upon themselves to basically engage in the legal system in Malaysia, and fight laws, like Avi, you mentioned before, where women don’t have the custody rights under traditional Shari’a, or their evidentiary laws give them less credit than men. Or, the inheritance laws give them less than their male peers and their family. And it’s a battle that they win or lose, on a case by case instance, by going back in the Hadith or Koran, and making arguments and reinterpreting Islamic history in a way that, from their position, brings a little humanity and respect back to their gender without losing their faith.

Honor Killings

Avi Davis: Well, let me know ask you about honor killings, because in recent months, we’ve been rocked by some terrible examples of honor killings here in this country. Now of course, in Europe and Britain, honor killings are taking place more often than ever, and it’s a very worrying development, and I’m just wondering whether this is really a watershed issue for all of us to confront. Is this the dividing line between the west and the Muslim societies, and how do we confront it?

Supna Zaidi: Who’s sharing first?

Avi Davis: Dr. Jasser, why don’t you tackle that first?

Dr. Jasser: Oh, yeah, I think I agree completely, in that honor killings is not only a small problem, yet like you’re saying, it’s a watershed issue that shows the multi-dimensions of this issue, which is, number one, you’ve got a legal system that feeds into a misogynistic culture that allows men to feel that they have a dominant relationship over their wives. And on top of that, you add violence; there’s some medical studies even that have shown that in Pakistan upwards of 90% of women have suffered some form of physical abuse from their spouse, that it becomes not inconceivable that you’re going to have a problem to where culturally, women become victims to where the misogynistic aspect of culture allows these men to act out in a way to preserve “their families honor”, when, in fact, there is nothing more dishonorable than the barbarism of honor killing. And I think that it’s important to start looking at these things, not only in various cultures, but the underpinnings, the legal underpinnings, the cultural and religious ones, that feed into this. And it’s sad that it’s taken us until 2009 for America to wake up to these things that we’ve seen happen in Texas, and I think Atlanta, there was a family in Toronto, and others that clearly have been honor killings.

Avi Davis: Now, according to Nonie, honor killings  are not condoned by Islam, but are condoned by Muslim society. And the reason I raise the issue of honor killings is because it’s a perfect example of the question that is always asked, is Islam really a religion of peace? Is it a religion that condones the killing of non-believers, the killings of, or the murder of those who don’t agree, or don’t follow the Islamic practices? And so the question really is, for you Dr. Jasser, is Shari’a, is built into Shari’a law, and taken from prophet Mohammed’s teachings, ideas that are not consistent with western civilization, with the western lifestyle we live, and that have no regard for the division between public and private life, and have no regard for the sanctity of human life? Are these fundamental problems that would prevent an assimilation of both western ideals and Islamic law?

Merging Islam and Western Cultures

Dr. Jasser: I could not agree more, and that is the fundamental issue, that it’s not only Shari’a as a legal system, but political Islam as an institutional thought, is incompatible with western society, because what it does it collectivizes one faith group as a political entity that has it’s own legal system, that is an anathema to a society based on universal values, universal human rights, that are blind to specific faith groups, blind to  male/female, to skin color etc., And this is not the way Shari’a law is today or, in a bigger sense, political Islam is as an entity. It prohibits the concept of ummah, for example, needs complete reform, because in Islam today, it not only means Muslim community, but it means nation. So until Muslims can put that concept of ummah as nation into history, they are not going to be able to live a life that’s commensurate with the values of our constitution and our bill of rights.

And that all needs significant reform, and it’s going to have to start small, as Supna was saying, it’s going to have to start on the small short term level with Muslim identity issues, with our youth becoming bonded more closely to American values, and our American way of life, and also understand that that doesn’t threaten their own relationship with God. We need to also start fostering new schools of thought, I mean, the fact there are only eight schools of thought in Islam and four within the Sunni tradition , shows you that, you know, we probably need 50 to 100, but that’s going to take us, as Supna said, generations, it’s not going to happen overnight. But the first thing you can do is, basically, go through the same process that happened with the enlightenment in Europe, which is to separate the religious legal tradition from public life, and then take the time it takes to fix that legal tradition.

Avi Davis: Doesn’t the expression that you just expressed brand you an apostate? Doesn’t that put you outside the mainstream Islamic framework, and as a practicing Muslim, set you up for the possibility of a fatwa and perhaps even a death sentence?

Muslim or Not?

Dr. Jasser: Well, I think that certainly the Islam, that the Wahabis would call me an apostate, because I don’t believe in their form of Salafism, and the Islamic state. However, the non-violent, even the Islamists, those that disagree with my ideas completely, many of them signed the Oman Declaration which put an end to takfir, and takfir in Arabic basically means saying who is and who is not a Muslim. And, they said that since we don’t have a clergy, since we are a community that’s based on personal faith and relationship with God, nobody can decide who is and who is not a Muslim. I mean, I’ve even said, you know, as barbaric as Al-Qaida and Bin-Laden is, it’s not for me to decide that they are Muslim or not, because that’s a slippery slope. Once we start entering into denial and somebody determines who is and who is not a Muslim, you’ve opened the doors for a clergy, and you’ve opened the door for communication and ex-communication from a religious community that basically creates a theocracy. So, that I think, and I think from the global sense, people that know me personally know I raise my kids Muslim, we’re conservative, our family values, we believe in following our personal dietary and worship practices of faith, and I think it’s going to be tough for them to sell that I’m not a Muslim.

Avi Davis: How then, do you have an impact on the Muslim world? By setting an example as an independent, which is frowned upon in Islam, how do you have  AN impact?

Impact as an Independent Muslim

Dr. Jasser: Well, I think impact upon the Muslim world is going to be two-fold; one is in the weight of the ideas, in that, to me as an American and a Muslim, I never felt, I could never feel more Muslim than I can in a country that guarantees me the freedom. So, I think we can win that idea, we need to have that battle of ideas to say that a secular society does not threaten one’s personal ability to practice faith, and actually more so, theocrats threaten that. So, the ideas, I think, will win in and of themselves since theocracy has proven to be a failure. But secondly is, I need, we need, all of us need to start creating a network of Muslims that will have a weight of a movement that can be, will be, much harder for them to marginalize, because yes, if it’s just me by myself, and I’m out there with the ideas and more of an anathema than a movement, then it easier for them to cast me aside versus a group of strong willed Muslims that are standing up for our independence and also our faith.

Avi Davis: So now, Supna let me invite you to comment on everything we’ve just said. Are you there?

Supna Zaidi: I am. I think, for me, the biggest dispute here is the fact that in western society so far, in the media and from policy makers, we’ve failed to distinguish political Islam from Islam of the faith. In our fear, in talking about it, as a real movement that has in fact, not only in the Muslim world, we then are unable to understand the fact in the western world. Because there is no true law, there’s division between east and the west now, with the modern immigration and modern economics, we engage every day, culturally, through work, etc.

And what we don’t acknowledge of the Muslim brotherhood, or political Islam, or the fact that this is an interpretation of the faith by a group of people from the twentieth century. We are not able to let the children growing up in western society know that this is not the only way to look at your faith. This is just a device of understanding of faith that prevents you from being American or British or French. And that failure in engaging in that real debate of Islamism versus Islam, is I think a real policy mistake that western politicians are making today.

Sex with Children

Avi Davis: Now, getting back to the role of women and position of women in Islam, there’s been a claim that Islam is sexually repressive for men, but Nonie goes on to say in her book, and I wish she was here to speak for herself, but she actually says “sex for the male is a huge buffet of alternatives from which he can freely choose, including sex with children”. Now, she makes some astonishing claims here, that sex with children, as young as a baby, is endorsed by authorities within the Islamic law, such as the Ayatollah Khomeini, who wrote extensively about it, and justified it. I mean this is, very, very troubling for any society. And I’m just wondering if the major Islamic leaders and theologians are supporting positions like that, what hope is there really to wreak any change?  I’ll address that to you, Dr. Jasser.

Dr. Jasser: You know, that’s a great question. Those examples are so bizarre; I don’t even know what to say to those, and that I hope those types of ideas will disappear. I know that they exist, and I even remember that there’s a fatwa out of al Azhar( University) , that talks about the fact that if a man wants to be able to work with a woman, then somehow breast feeding would make it more kosher. I mean, these are the types of weird and bizarre rulings that come out that type of tribalism that is stuck in a misogynist mindset, that ends up turning upside down the moral constructs that we understand to be truth in the west.

So, I know it can seem hopeless when you see oddities like that, but, you know, I think the bottom line is, as Supna said at the beginning, the answer is going to come from western Muslims that have been able to reconcile our faith with western ideals. And one of the biggest problems of the nations in the Middle East, is that you had generation upon generation now living under dictatorship that has created a corruption, to where they have become so corrupt, to where dishonesty, lying, cheating, stealing is just part of the normal culture because that’s what the government has taught, and religion has been swept up into this. So you’re going to find behaviors and actions that are done in the name of Islam that certainly have built a legal tradition that’s done in the name of Islam, but, you know, if you talk to my family, that’s certainly not Islam. And we need to be given the tools and the mechanisms to have this debate publicly and openly, to show these individuals for what they are, which is tribal warlords and not the leaders of our faith.

Western Ideas and Islam

Avi Davis: Let me just take you up on that point, and we’re talking about your Islam, I know I keep harping back to this, because it is an issue of tremendous interest to me. Isn’t your Islam more akin with western humanism, or the principles of Judea-Christian religious doctrine?  We don’t have time to go into the range of your religious observance and practice, but it seems to me you might be importing foreign ideas and foreign philosophies into Islam itself.

Dr. Jasser:  Well  I know that some people say that it’s wrong to use the equivalencies from other faiths, but I think every faith, whether is was the Church of England that went through a power struggle with the secular humanists, but also with the deists and the Christians that formed America that decided they didn’t want to be oppressed by the Church of England, or any faith that went through a reformation, that developed, such as in the Jewish faith with orthodox, conservative, reform and many different forms. I think that the evolution of every faith population involved finally different expressions that provide a mechanism of dealing with the world around them, while maintaining a relationship with God.

And right now, as a Muslim, what makes me a Muslim, is I believe the fact that there is a communication that I believe God had with Muslims through the Koran, that I’m able to glean some principles from and some communication from, and yet, not make it conflict with the society in which I’m in and actually allow those values. Because I think you don’t get your values from a book. I actually, my son is seven years old, for example, and I think that before he understands Koran, he’s going to have a moral fabric by which he leads his life. And then as he gets older, he’ll start to understand the science of scripture and the science of our faith. So, you bring your values to a text and then you interpret in a way that, as you just described as western humanism, as long as it is true to the ideals of belief in God, the integrity of the family, other things that are a part of morality. So it, I think, is sort of which came first? If the book comes first, and Shari’a comes first, I think you’re going to create, right now the way it is, barbarians. But if morals come first, you can then interpret that message in a way that’s commensurate with western society.

Avi Davis: So, Supna, do you have a response?

No Common Understanding of Shari’a

Supna Zaidi: I would make two points. With regards to the issue of interpretation, I do agree that reading the Koran by itself, like reading a legal text, or any archaic philosophy by itself has little value. Interpretation is always based on the personal history and experiences of the reader. At that point, we have to remind readers that the majority of the Muslim world, like in Pakistan, the populations are over 60% illiterate. The teachings that they are taught is not any real understanding of what, or what is not Shari’a, regardless of how  Shari’a is being deemed. Like the quotes that Nonie is talking about in her book, maybe it’s absolutely true, everything that Nonie is talking about, but it’s not the Islam most Muslims even know because the majority are non practising. They never read the Koran, or they read it at the age of 8 or 9, in a language that they did not understand. So the most that they know is the cultural interpretation that was handed down to them generation by generation, which for the most part is completely patriarchal. So it does reinforce the sexism that maybe is inherently in Shari’a itself and worsens any benefits that, arguably, the prophet provided.

And that would be to my second point, which is the biggest mistake Muslims make is by being literal. In law school, for example, we’re taught, when I was in it, there is a spirit and intent behind laws. And that is what you are supposed to maintain over time, not the words themselves. So in the most liberal and progressive sense, the way I could defend Islam, and an optimistic vision, is if, during the time of Mohammed, women were considered property, and there were no rules as to the number of wives or slaves or concubines a man could have, women had no inheritance or custody rights, whatever little did Islam did bring, it did bring women, you know, let’s say 10%. We’re not 100% equal to men in court, but it was zero before then.

So, what has happened progressively over the centuries is that as western society evolved, and brought in and embraced universal human rights, Muslim society stagnated, because they only looked to the words and the little forms that they were understood in centuries and centuries ago. So what would have been, in a very open minded context, considered liberation of women in the seventh century, is the worst chaining of women today in 2009. And it is that kind of misunderstanding of the potential progressiveness and the faith that Muslims in these patriarchal societies are going to prevent the faith from flourishing, and marginalizing it. So it’s a choice that they have, to look at the words and the context and see if there is any room to bring it forward and compatible with universal human rights. So, it’s a reform movement issue, and it is possible, but women can’t do it by themselves, the men have to participate. It’s a changing society where you’re going to have a women’s movement and they’re going to move out of their families and live on their own for the sake of realizing these benefits.

Political Implications

Avi Davis: Let’s now move the political implications of all this, and how it affects national policy. The argument, as I mentioned in the beginning of the show, of Bernard Lewis, and David Price Jones and others, is that women, in western society, act as a brake on men’s aggressive tendencies, and that offer a moderating influence on policy. On national policy, on local disputes, and even within the family, which is the basic building block of any nation. How do you think the repression of women manifests itself in terms of the political developments in the Arab and Muslim world? That’s for you, Zudhi.

Dr. Jasser:  So, can you repeat that, I’m sorry. Specifically, how does repression manifest itself in the Muslim world?

Avi Davis: Yes. How does repression of women manifest itself in the political developments in the Arab and Muslim World?

Dr. Jasser:  Well, I think that’s a great question, because it’s all over the place. The lack of female participation in politics, the illiteracy rate among the general population is 50%, among the female population it’s upwards of 70-80%, in some studies. So, they’re kept at home and not allowed to get educated, and again that’s not in my family, but certainly in many situations that’s true. And in the criminal system you’ll find that rape victims, for example, become identified as criminals rather than victims, because of various aspects of this repression and interpretations of Shari’a. So it’s in the business community, you’ll find that they’re unable to run their own businesses, so because they don’t have, you know, a lot of the aspects of repression come from financial, or the lack of financial independence. As women are able to get financial independence, they no longer have to continue to live in abusive relationships, becoming property of their husbands, etc. As they get more educated and work outside the home, they develop and broaden their own ideas, their activism, and political activity. So, you see it in the political arena, you see it in the business arena, and you see it the educational arena.

Avi Davis: I want to just conclude in the last few minutes, by just informing our audience about a new movie that is about to be released. It’s called “The Stoning of Soraya M”. It’s based on a journalist’s account of the stoning of a young woman, a young mother, in a village in Iran in the early 1990’s.It may even have been in the 80’s, I’m not sure. But, the story is a harrowing one of a woman who is accused falsely of adultery, or having made improper advances to another man. Accused by her husband and then stoned, and the stoning, of course, is conveyed in a very graphic manner, and almost impossible to watch.

But the question I have is  throughout the years, I’ve seen many films that have depicted honor killings and many other aspects of what are regarded as barbaric practices in the Western world. And yet, there seems to be a prevailing opinion in the west amongst our cultural and intellectual elites, that Islam is a religion of peace, and those who practice it are peaceful, and there is respect for human rights, and many of the attributes, many of the freedoms we associate with the West.  Do you think this will o change anytime soon? Is it necessary for it to change, that there has to be great awareness of what is really happening in the Islamic world, or in certain parts of the Islamic world? That’s for you, Zudhi.

Affecting Change

Dr. Jasser:  Yeah. Yeah I think that, you know, it’s sort of like, you know, I’m a physician by training, and I spend most of my days treating patients with illness, and I think with any disease, before you can treat it, there has to be an awareness. There has to be an acceptance, an end of denial from the patient. They actually have a diagnosis, and then you can start looking at treatments and methods of change. You can’t put into place any kind of successful treatment, whether it’s simple and surgical, or whether it’s long term and behavioral and therapeutic, unless you have an acceptance from the patient that they have the diagnosis and they played some role in the cause, but more importantly the role in the cure has to all come from that.

So, you know, I think that’s how these documentaries, whether it’s the “The Stoning of Soraya M”, or the documentary, “The Third Jihad”, that I was involved in, these are all about people becoming more aware of the problems, so that we can figure out how to implement some of the treatments to change some of these long settled concepts, that we haven’t fixed. We have a long way to go.

Avi Davis: There’s also to inform us of the threats and the risks that we face in our own society. Not just the problems in the Islamic society, but the threats to us ourselves. Would you agree with that?

Threats to Western Society

Dr. Jasser:  Oh, absolutely, because, you know, not only is it directly, something that the Islamists have directly talked about, which is that they have a desire, if you look at the FBI documents of the Muslim Brotherhood meeting in 1991, that talks about them wanting to “destroy our house from within”, but if you look at what they’re doing by trying to set up parallel societies where they put in Shari’a courts, you have, for example, Avi, you had a German judge six months ago and also a couple of years ago say that legally that a man was able to beat his wife and he went to the court. The court did not like it initially, but the judge ruled that and said that that’s ok because it’s a religious practice. And we’ve already determined as a society actually in the West, that if people want to practice polygamy and other things, we don’t let them do that in the name of faith, because we have higher principles that we uphold above that of “things that are barbaric” being done, or medieval being done in the name of religion.

By the way, that judge was overturned two weeks later and the German courts went back to a census, but the bottom line is that these types of systems, if we allow them to exist, are going create parallel societies that promote values that are not only an anathema to our society, but actually threaten the very values which our constitution and our legal system are sworn to uphold. So we have to be careful. They’re insidious, they infiltrate our educational system, OUR universities, and every institution that we have.

Avi Davis: Supna, I’m going to ask for just a 30 second comment, because we’ve only got about a minute to go. So, how would you respond?

Supna Zaidi:  I think the western countries, from a policy standpoint, especially our leaders need to realize that they need to reassert their own understanding of their culture again. It’s something that has been taken for granted for far too long. And there are movements in the UK, like one law for all. And it’s not meant to unite pluralism, but I think, meant to defend pluralism, to bring the diversities, ethnicities and religions under one umbrella. And it’s something that needs to be an education process for kids from the beginning now, and immigrants from the day they arrive.

Avi Davis: Well, thank you very much to both of you. I’m sorry Nonie Darwish did not join us. We apparently had some technical problems with the website, so I apologize for that. We’ll have Nonie on later in May when we have Cyrus Nowrasteh who is the director of the new film “The Stoning of Soraya M.” Next week join us again with James Bowman who is the author of “Media Madness.” Thanks to both of you for attending today and joining us, we’ll see you again next week.