According to Muslims Every Embarrassing Feature of Islam is a Misinterpretation of Islam

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Executive Summary

One of Muslims’ primary deceptive arguments is that every embarrassing feature of Islam is Islam’s misinterpretation.
We will look at this claim regarding the treatment of women.

Introduction

Muslims have a pattern of explaining away any embarrassing feature in Muslim countries’ Islam or behavior as unrelated to Islam. When other Muslims point to specific passages in the Koran or Hadith that explain and justify the behavior, Muslims will often say that this is a misinterpretation of Islam. In many cases, Muslims will actually alter the quotation because of their dedication to lie to the Kafir or non-believer.

See our references for this article and related articles at this link.

A Perfect Example of the Misinterpretation Accusation

To see the use of this argument in real-time, see observe at the 12:07 mark in the following video, the claim made by a Muslism that all mistreatments of women in Muslim countries are related to misinterpretations of Islam.

The statement is made by a “progressive Iman” that the oppression and suppression come from a misinterpretation of Islam.

What is curious about this claim is that every Muslim country in the world somehow managed to misinterpret the Koran and Hadith. One might ask, how is that possible? Even if the claim were true, it would mean that the Koran and Hadith are naturally misinterpretable, and in fact, normally misinterpreted to lead to the poor treatment of women.

Quotes from Islam That Support the Oppression of Women

The Koran and Hadith are filled with directives to oppress women. For one, Mohammed supported having sex slaves taken as POWs. In fact, this was a primary engine for the spread of Islam, which created a highly effective recruiting tool, as many men will fight fo Allah if they can obtain sex slaves from their fighting effort. And Mohammed himself has sex slaves in addition to his own wives. Mohammed practice child marriage and promoted child marriage to his friends. According to Mohammed, women’s testimony is only worth 1/2 that of men, because women are “deficient of the mind,” as we find in the following quotation.

What is deficient in our intelligence and religion?” He said, “Is not the evidence of two women equal to the witness of one man?” They replied in the affirmative. He said, “This is the deficiency in her intelligence. Isn’t it true that a woman can neither pray nor fast during her menses?” The women replied in the affirmative. He said, “This is the deficiency in her religion.” – Hadith 304

Muslims consider Mohammed the perfected Muslim, and his behaviors beyond any questioning. Contradicting Mohammed, in anything he did in his life, is apostasy. So Mohammed’s life was intensely oppressive women.

David Wood on Spousal Abuse in Islam

As explained in this video, women can be beaten until their skin is green.

Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are obedient, guarding the secret that Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them (beat them). Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them Lo! Allah is ever high, exalted, great. – Koran 4:34

How is it necessary to misinterpret this verse to mistreat women? How can Mohammed’s behaviors be “misinterpreted” to be highly oppressive to women? Why are men allowed to have four wives, but wives can only have one husband? Why can men have as many sex slaves in Islam as they can capture and support? Where is there any textual support in the Koran or Hadith for women being treated remotely equally to men?

It appears that non only are Muslims “misinterpreting” Islamic documents, but when I read them, I also misinterpret them. In fact, when I read the Islamic sources, I understand perfectly the logic of the behavior of ISIS and Boko Haram. These groups are following the literal directives of what is written in the Islamic sources.

What is also curious is that Dr. Taj Hargey works at the Muslim Educational Center at Oxford. However, Dr. Hargey clearly lies to western audiences about Islam. And he works at one of the most prestigious universities in the world. I will credit Dr. Taj Hargey for stating that Mona Eltahawy is entitled “to say these things,” however that is not the majority view among Muslims. Eltahawy would most likely not have published her controversial article if she lived in a Muslim country (she lives in the UK). As she said in the interview, no publication in a Muslim country would publish her article.

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Conclusion

Islam’s presentation is misinterpreted in the same way in the most Muslim world is an absurd proposal. The areas that have the fewest issues with “misinterpretation” are Southeast Asia, which is a region where Islam spread through trading rather than through conquest. This means that Southeast Asia has the lightest form of Islam because Muslim traders did not have the ability to conquer Southeast Asia.

The Expectation of Lying From Muslims on Islam

Islam either turns Muslims into liars to defend Islam, or Islamic societies do not develop a respect for truth due to their development. And Islamic scholars are frequently extremely unreliable sources on Islam, as they are in the business of promoting and defending Islam rather than providing accurate information on Islam.

This unceasing lying on the part of Muslims has made practicing Muslims the least authoritative sources on Islam. Secondly, even if it were true that Islam was misinterpreted, it has been 1400 years since Islam appeared, and Islamic societies have had the same pattern of oppression of women. Yes, there have been improvements, such as in Iran in the 1970s, but this was when Iran became more secular. When Iran fell back to the Ayatolla, taking power, women’s rights and conditions took a turn for the worse.

One of the number one predictors for how poorly women are treated in a society is how Muslim society is. Therefore, Islam has the religious documentation that promotes women being treated as lesser and the 1400 year history of women being treated as lesser. This is not to say that women were treated as lesser in Christian or other non-Muslim societies. They certainly were, and to improve women’s conditions, it was necessary to “put Christianity in its place.” Which western civilization largely did. Equally, without putting Christianity in its place, the Enlightenment nor the scientific method, would have ever occurred, as these thinkers would have had to perpetually run their idea by a Christian authority to make sure that nothing was inconsistent with Christian thought.

It is beyond obvious that Islam is the major impediment to the Muslim world-changing and matching the improvements for women in the non-Muslim world. The Muslim world never went through the process where it put Islam in its place. And therefore, Islam is still a primary influence on how women are treated, rather than secular humanism.