Peterson Pace - "Those who can, do ....."

[_harmony]

Interesting how it's easy to blame the Taliban, as if they weren't Muslim at all

???????????????

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You're so articulate. That's one of the many reasons I admire you so much.

yet the Taliban's brand of Islam manages to impact such a huge percentage, while the other brand... the brand in power... only manages to impact 13%.

So you assume that, if the government in Kabul had complete control of Afghanistan, the Afghan literacy rate would very soon be 100%? Like, say, the literacy rates in nearby India, Iran, Bangladesh, and Pakistan?

What I assume is something better than 1 in 8 women literacy rate. It looks to me like women's education is so far down the list of priorities (see Antishock's posts above), that is nearly nonexistent... which definitely is reflected in the literacy rate.

The Third World is a very backward place, and many factors contribute to that backwardness.

Perhaps if these particular parts of the 3rd World weren't quite so heavily Muslim, they wouldn't be quite so backward.

And they all live . . . under the same government

The Taliban are at war with the government. (This has been in the news, I think.)

Seems to me like the rest of the Arab world would be pouring resources into Afghanistan to defeat the Taliban, if they were really as opposed to them as you say. It's not like they don't have plenty of resources available.

Looks to me like the rest of the Arab world, especially the ones with all those resources, doesn't care much about what's happening in Afghanistan. Else the Taliban would be history. Maybe it's only on the surface that it appears that we, the infidels, are the ones most actively pouring our resources in that endeavor.

Are you going to address Antishock's posts? He raises some good points, and he wasn't at all a jerk about it.

[_Daniel Peterson]

What I assume is something better than 1 in 8 women literacy rate.

You announce that as if I've somehow been arguing that 13% women's literacy is optimal.

It looks to me like women's education is so far down the list of priorities (see Antishock's posts above), that is nearly nonexistent... which definitely is reflected in the literacy rate.

I doubt that women's literacy is at the top of the Kabul government's priority list.

Avoiding assassination, fighting a deadly insurgency in a difficult terrain, coping with the opium issue, and dealing with a virtually nonexistent infrastructure probably rank up near the top.

Perhaps if these particular parts of the 3rd World weren't quite so heavily Muslim, they wouldn't be quite so backward.

Perhaps. But I doubt that you can really blame India's high illiteracy rate on Islam.

Seems to me like the rest of the Arab world would be pouring resources into Afghanistan to defeat the Taliban, if they were really as opposed to them as you say. It's not like they don't have plenty of resources available.

Looks to me like the rest of the Arab world, especially the ones with all those resources, doesn't care much about what's happening in Afghanistan. Else the Taliban would be history. Maybe it's only on the surface that it appears that we, the infidels, are the ones most actively pouring our resources in that endeavor.

This all may or may not be true. I'm not a particular fan of the politics of the Arab world, on the whole, and feel no obligation to defend them.

But this is very far afield from the claim that Islam, as such, punishes the education of women, which is what brought me into the discussion.

Are you going to address Antishock's posts? He raises some good points, and he wasn't at all a jerk about it.

If you say he wasn't a jerk, perhaps I'll read it. I tend to ignore his posts these days.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Here, incidentally, although it dates to 2002, is a useful little piece about the situation of women in Afghanistan:

http://www.un.org/events/women/2002/sit.htm

Okay. (Takes a deep breath.) I've been told that antishock8's post is worth reading, so I'll give it a shot.

The Quran does indeed uphold and provide "religious authority" for the oppression of women, including the taking of women as prizes of war and plunder and generally designs a subordinate place and "second class" status for women in society.

That's absolutely true. It's never been in dispute.

Of course, it would be useful to compare and contrast the status of women in the Qur’an with their status in pre-Islamic Arabia.

There IS a reason why so much male hostility and oppression toward women occurs within the Islamic world. From honor killings to the burning down of a girls' school in Saudi Arabia, woman-hate is sanctioned by Islamic relgious authority, which justifies its rationale from the Quran and Hadiths.

"Woman-hate"? That's a very broad generalization. Islam isn't a monolith.

It's clear, that the major ulemahs within Sunni Islam (85-90% of the world's Muslims), are pretty much united in their condemnation of women.

Another overly broad generalization.

Women are beat. It's sanctioned.

This is a matter of contemporary debate within Islam.

Women are assigned a second-class status. It's sanctioned.

That, I think, is more or less true in certain ways. But women vote in Egypt and Iraq and elsewhere, sit in the parliaments of the major Islamic nations, and, in Islamic countries from Morocco to Indonesia, hold cabinet rank, have served as presidents and prime ministers, teach at universities, serve as lawyers, work as physicians, etc., etc.

Women are taken as sex slaves. It's sanctioned and happening RIGHT NOW.

In certain places, yes. But not in all or even most. And far and away not only in Islamic countries. (Has anybody here ever heard of Bangkok?)

Men divorce women with ease, but it's nearly impossible when the roles are reversed. That's sanctioned under Shariah.

Again, a matter of contemporary dispute under Islamic law.

Pedophilia is sanctioned as long as the girls is "married". It's sanctioned. What do you think the odds of a little girl who is married off and most likely impregnated early are with regards to receiving a good education?

This does happen in some Islamic societies, yes. In others, it doesn't.

Across the Islamic world there exists a gulf for women having equal access to education, equal opportunities for higher education, and being free to choose their subject of study when allowed to go to school.

That has been very true in the West, as well, and within living memory. Is the Islamic world somewhat behind the West in this regard? Absolutely. But not quite as far as some here wish to pretend.

Islam may not be the sole factor in the repression of women. Local, social, economic, political, and educational forces as well as the prevalence of pre-Islamic customs must also be taken into consideration.

I doubt that women in Bolivia, Cambodia, Burma, Sri Lanka, Bulgaria, Mexico, the Congo, and scores of other countries on the planet -- perhaps including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany -- have precisely equal status with men, or entirely equal access to education, or equal freedom in their careers. Anybody who cares to do so is welcome to look into the relevant statistics.

This is a worldwide issue.

But Islam and the application of the Islamic law remain a major obstacle to the evolution of the position of women in the Muslim world.

In many ways, that's indisputable. And I haven't disputed it. I've been studying the Islamic world seriously for more than thirty years; these aren't new discoveries for me.

Anyway. On and on... The apologia I'm seeing conducted on this board on behalf of Islam, as it relates to women, is sobering.

All you've seen (from me, at least) is a flat denial that Islam, as such, punishes the education of women, or opposes the education of women. I stand by that denial. It's simply true.

The notion that I regard the status of women in the Islamic world (or, for that matter, anywhere else) as having reached utopian perfection was ginned up by harmony in her "passionate" rants. I've never said anything remotely like that.

It makes sense to observe Mormons defend Muslims in their treatment and subordination of women, because deep down they both have the same goals in mind: Keeping women in their place.

This is nonsense.

Oh. Look! There's another antishock8 note that's fairly civil! I guess I should address it, too.

It's about priorites, Dr. Shades. If you were an Islamist state, and a scholar of the Quran and Hadiths, you have to figure out what's most important to enforce first, and then second, and then third, so on and so forth. The Taliban aren't against women being educated per se,

I'm not an authority on the Taliban version of Islam, but could you provide some evidence that the Taliban don't oppose the education of women as such, but merely see it as something a bit further down their list of priorities? Is there any evidence, say, that the Taliban have ever seriously contemplated something like an all-women nursing school or an all-female medical college or an Afghan women's university?

but it's something that should be done in total exclusion and isolation where risk of contact with men, who isn't a husband or immediate family, is zero. And until that happens any girls who turn 8 are withdrawn from school and either married off or sent home. Their education is less important than them being exposed to men. Way less. Like... Way down that priority list. So, sure.. They can say they're for education, but as long as it's compliant with their laws, based on their interpretation of Shariah.

And that, of course, even on your reading, would be entirely consonant with my consistent comment here that it's the Taliban understanding of Islam, not Islam as such, that opposes the education of women.

Egypt and Jordan and Syria and Malaysia and Indonesia and Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states are Islamic, too, and they have extremely influential scholars of the Qur’an and the hadith. Yet the orthodox Sunni Islamic Al-Azhar University is co-educational (I know; I've spoken there), as are the University of Cairo, Ayn Shams University, Zagazig University, the University of Alexandria, and other universities in Egypt. As are the University of Jordan and Damascus University. (I know; I've spoken at both.) As are the Islamic schools I've spoken at in Malaysia and Indonesia. The new and lavishly-funded King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia is coeducational. There are women's universities in the Gulf states (a friend of mine presides over one). And so on and so forth.

Speaking of which...

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/04/ ... .marriage/

What are the odds this little girl's mother's appeal will win? What are the odds that this girl, growing up in the most pious Muslim country, will go on to be one of Dr. Peterson's female physicist friends? What are the odds, that ANY girl, in the Islamic world, that is married off will end up being highly educated and a light on the hill for the rest of us to marvel at?

Harmony's passionate rants notwithstanding, I've never suggested -- because I don't believe -- that the Islamic world as a whole is a feminist utopia. Quite the contrary. So I feel no need to defend that notion.

So. This goes back to Islamic priorities.

And here, I fear, we're getting back into overly broad generalizations.

Islam is no more a monolith than is Christianity or "the West."

Sure, Muslim males aren't totally adverse to women being educated, as long as it suits them. Women don't really have a say in their world... If they end up being educated it's most likely an anamoly rather than the norm.

Have you ever looked in the personals section of one of the American Muslim magazines? The entries most often read something like the following: "Muslima, 26, doctoral candidate at MIT, seeks Muslim man, 26-35, for marriage." The emphasis on women's degrees is so constant and frank that I've long actually found it amusing.

Here, incidentally, are some links (easily assembled in a matter of two or three minutes) to a variety of Muslim views on the education and status of women:

http://www.answering-christianity.com/education.htm

http://www.ias.org/articles/Women_in_Islam.html

http://science.jrank.org/pages/9097/Edu ... Women.html

http://www.angelfire.com/mo/MWSA/rights.html

http://www.themodernreligion.com/women/true-edu.html (see "Women and True Education," and what follows)

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/290/5489/55

[_cinepro]

Have you ever looked in the personals section of one of the American Muslim magazines?

That has to be the weirdest question I've seen posed on an LDS-themed discussion board in a while...

[_Daniel Peterson]

Have you ever looked in the personals section of one of the American Muslim magazines?

That has to be the weirdest question I've seen posed on an LDS-themed discussion board in a while... :confused

It's a really, really good way to get a glimpse into the reality of American Muslim life. And, trust me, a fairly amusing one, as well.

For years, though I don't subscribe and can't understand quite why I get them, I've been receiving various Muslim magazines, and the "personals" section in each of them is very large and hard to miss.

[_Joey]

http://apnews.excite.com/article/200904 ... O3S81.html

[_Daniel Peterson]

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20090413/D97HO3S81.html

Notice that Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari has a spokeswoman named Farahnaz Ispahani.

[Guest]

I understand there are educated Muslim women. I understand there are a good percentage of Muslim women who enjoy a liberalized version of Islam.

That's the anomoly.

Ms. PhD would find herself in a VERY different situation in the Swat valley of Pakistan, which, by the way, is in real danger of being overthrown by an Islamist regime.

Avoiding the typical Islamic apologist tactic of tu quoque, one has to ask oneself which version of Islam is the "real" or "true" Islam. The kind that allows for a the occasional woman, statistically, to earn a PhD and advertise herself for a Muslim man, or the kind that allows for an 8 year-old to be married off in Saudi Arabi or a host of other Islamic countries? There IS a reason why illiteracy is so widespread among Islamic states... And it has less to do with culture and more to do with ideology.

Under Shariah law, a woman's lot in life is less PhD and more pederasty. Where does Islam, for women, ultimately lead to? Does it lead to freedom and equality, or does it lead to slavery and oppression? Why is it just 40 miles outside of Islamabad this happens:

ISLAMABAD, April 6 (Reuters) -Two female Pakistani teachers, a female aid worker and their driver were found shot dead on Monday, police and a doctor said, in an area where Islamists have attacked aid groups.

The four, all Pakistanis, were found in a forest near the town of Mansehra, 70 km (40 miles) north of the capital, Islamabad, police said.

"They were all shot dead," said Mohammad Niaz, a doctor at Mansehra's hospital.

The aid worker belonged to a group promoting education, he said.

While the area is not known for Taliban insurgents, Islamists wary of aid groups, especially those promoting a greater role for women, have threatened groups and attacked their offices.

This happens enough, by Islamists, who justify their actions based on Shariah, that one has to ask if apologists are just making excuses for Islam as an ideology, and just perhaps it does, as an idea, promote the subjugation and dumbification of women in order to keep them compliant?

Anyway. I can't argue Islam teaches women should be ignorant because it's not true. I can't argue within Islam women are explicity mandated to be uneducated because it's not true. I simply think Islam is so patriarchal that statistically women are at a severe disadvantage, across the Islamic world, because Shariah gives them little to no recourse to right any perceived injustices... Education, marriage, abuse, equality... It's all in the same boat. A woman is not equal, will never be equal, and has no reasonable recourse within Shariah. She is at the complete, and total mercy of Shariah and Muslim men and whatever their own notions of piety are at the moment.

[_Daniel Peterson]

one has to ask oneself which version of Islam is the "real" or "true" Islam.

And that, I think, is largely a question for Muslims themselves to answer.

Moreover, given the fact that Taliban-style Islam is anomalous, they seem already to have done so: It's not to be lightly dismissed that the Shi‘ite Islamic Republic of Iran educates women through graduate and professional schools, that Egypt's Al-Azhar University (the preeminent bastion of Sunni orthodoxy in the Islamic world for nearly a thousand years) is a co-educational institution, that the Custodian of the Two Noble Sanctuaries (as he is frequently titled, referring to Mecca and Medina), King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, is personally funding the co-educational King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, that well-funded women's universities have sprung up in the very Islamic Gulf states, etc.

This happens enough, by Islamists, who justify their actions based on Shariah, that one has to ask if apologists [sic] are just making excuses for Islam as an ideology, and just perhaps it does, as an idea, promote the subjugation and dumbification of women in order to keep them compliant?

You're certainly free to ask that question.

Anyway. I can't argue Islam teaches women should be ignorant because it's not true. I can't argue within Islam women are explicity mandated to be uneducated because it's not true.

I hope that harmony will read those two sentences and ponder them.

I simply think Islam is so patriarchal that statistically women are at a severe disadvantage, across the Islamic world, because Shariah gives them little to no recourse to right any perceived injustices... Education, marriage, abuse, equality... It's all in the same boat. A woman is not equal, will never be equal, and has no reasonable recourse within Shariah. She is at the complete, and total mercy of Shariah and Muslim men and whatever their own notions of piety are at the moment.

There's some truth to that.

I object to the idealization of Islam and Islamic society precisely as much as I object to their demonization.

[_ludwigm]

While I can read such news on a daily basis, my opinion is worth of law suit about ANY ISLAM-DEFENDER.

Shiites, sunnites, shariah, strict interpretation, I don't care.
If this type of stories can happen under any version of islam, then islam is evil, as is.

The Taleban in Afghanistan have publicly killed a young couple who they said had tried to run away to get married, officials say.

The man, 21, and woman, 19, were shot dead on Monday in front of a mosque in the south-western province of Nimroz.

Nimroz is an area where the Taleban have a strong influence.

Governor Ghulam Dastageer Azad told the AFP news agency the killings followed a decree by local religious leaders and were an "insult to Islam".

Religious leaders was taught under other religious leaders of the same religion. Such type things are built in every religion. Some are more fundamentalists, some are less.

Correspondents say that the killings took place in a remote and dangerous region, where the government has no access.

Interestingly, the religion has access everywhere.