Sex Slaves: The fruits of Obama's foreign policy

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The man, Abd al-Rauf Awn, who identified himself as an Islamic scholar who studied at Al Azhar and an expert at Islamic jurisprudence, then appeared on the show, giving several Islamic explanations to justify his marriage, from Islam's prophet Muhammad's "sunna," or practice, of "marrying" enslaved captive women, to Koran 4:3, which declares: "Marry such women as seem good to you, two and three and four… or what your right hands possess."

Though the term malk al-yamin literally means "that which is owned by your right hand," for all practical purposes, and to avoid euphemisms, according to Islamic doctrine and history, she is simply a sex-slave. Linguistic evidence even suggests that she is seen not as a human but as a possession.

Even stripping the sex-slave of her hijab, the way Awn did, has precedent. According to Islamic jurisprudence, whereas the free (Muslim) woman is mandated to wear a hijab, sex-slaves are mandated only to be covered from the navel to the knees—with everything else exposed. Awn even explained how Caliph Omar, one of the first "righteous caliphs," would strip sex-slaves of their garments, whenever he saw them overly dressed in the marketplace.

Awn further went on to declare that he believes the idea of sex slave marriage is ideal for today's Egyptian society. He bases this on ijtihad, a recognized form of jurisprudence, whereby a Muslim scholar comes up with a new idea—one that is still rooted in the Koran and example of Muhammad—that fits the circumstances of contemporary society. He argued that, when it comes to marriage, "we Muslims have overly complicated things," so that men are often forced to be single throughout their prime, finally getting married between the ages of 30-40, when they will have a stable career and enough money to open a household. Similarly, many Egyptian women do not want to wear the hijab in public. The solution, according to Awn, is to reinstitute sex-slavery—allowing men to marry and copulate much earlier in life, and women who want to dress freely to do so, as technically they are sex-slaves and mandated to go about loosely attired.

The other guest on the show, Dr. Abdullah al-Naggar, a professor in Islamic jurisprudence at Al Azhar, fiercely attacked Awn for reviving this practice, calling on him and his slave-wife to "repent," to stop dishonoring Islam, and arguing that "there is no longer sex-slavery"—to which Awn responded by sarcastically asking, "Who said sex-slavery is over? What—because the UN said so?"

In many ways, this exchange between Awn, who advocates sex-slave marriage, and the Al Azhar professor symbolizes the clash between today's "Islamists" and "moderate Muslims." For a long time, Al Azhar has been engaged in the delicate balancing act of affirming Islam while still advocating modernity according to Western standards, whereas the Islamists—from the Muslim Brotherhood to the Salafis—bred with contempt and disrespect for the West, are only too eager to revive Islamic practices that defy Western standards.

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3149/egypt-sex-slave-marriage

And of course we now know that the Muslim Brotherhood has also gained control in Libya.

[_MeDotOrg]

First of all, the idea of such gross inequality in marriage is repugnant to me.

But I there's a larger question here: what foreign policy would you have the United States pursue? Would you have it continue propping up an ailing and corrupt Mubarak regime? A regime that has engaged in torture and political repression? How many more years would we have bought before the pot boiled over? How hypocritical is it for a democracy to repress democracy?

Would the administration have liked to have seen someone other than the Muslim Brotherhood win the election? I'm sure they would have. But I think political repression is analogous to a pressure cooker: the longer you keep the lid clamped on tight, the bigger the boil-over when the lid finally comes off. The longer the United States kept propping up the Mubarak regime, the greater the blowback when the repressed come to power. Look at Iran as an object lesson:

A lot of Americans aren't even aware that after World War II Iran had a Constitutional Monarchy, similar to England, where the Shah (like the Queen) was a figurehead, but the real governance came from the parliament. Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossaddegh was Time Magazine's Man of the Year in 1951. He had worked to re-negotiate the Iranian agreement with British Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) to a 50-50 split of profits with the British Government. (Much like the split that existed between the United States and Saudi Arabia via ARAMCO). The British refused to re-negotiate, and Mossaddegh retaliated by nationalizing the oil Industry.

In 1953 the intelligence agencies of the Untied States and Great Britain financed and orchestrated a coup against Mossaddegh, replacing him with the Shah, who was cowering in a luxury hotel in Rome while most of the dirty work was being done. The U.S. and Britain now had their man on the throne, bought and paid for. The CIA helped the Shah establish SAVAK, the Iranian Secret Police, which brutally repressed and tortured all opposition movements. Thus the United Stated and Britain helped push together an unlikely opposition alliance: the liberal secular Iranians with the religious fundamentalist Iranians. All of this culminated in the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which did for Islamic Fundamentalism what the October 1918 Revolution did for Communism. And it all started because the British didn't want to split their oil profits equitably with the Iranians, and the United States joined with the British in overthrowing a democracy.

There are many parallels between the situation in Iran and Egypt. The reality is that democracies sometimes elect governments whose short-term interests do not coincide with the United States. But by clamping the lid down on democracy, the pressure cooker of repression is just kicking the can down the road for another administration to deal with. And it almost always ensures that the long-term blowback will be worse.

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But I there's a larger question here: what foreign policy would you have the United States pursue?

Supporting, on the one hand, the extant dictatorships is the best option. An Islamist government is no better. On the other hand, there are actually small democracy movements there and we should support them only whilst continuously thwarting and killing the Islamists wherever they are. What has happened is we've been knowingly supporting movements that proclaim democracy in English while they declare holy war and the return of the Caliphate in their native language.

In addition, we should not stop Israel when there is a war. Let it play out to it's final conclusion with only minor guidance from us until these people are tired of war or are destroyed. A two-state solution should NEVER be in the cards even after total victory.

Of course it would be useful to be energy independent at the same time; we've had decades of talk about that and no action. I'd implement it all now anyway.