Marital Rape In Pakistan

This horrific article from the Pakistani Tribune exposes the widespread problem of marital rape in the country, with General Hospital in Lahore dealing with five cases of married women sexually assaulted by their husbands every single week.

Be sure to read the whole article, but there are several things that immediately jump out. First:

Nilofer Raja* complained that her husband had several extra marital affairs and that she had contracted an STD after he forced himself on her. “He abuses me but I cannot refuse him. My family told me that it was my religious duty to do as he demanded and that if I refuse the angels will curse me all night,” she told doctors.

Sahih Bukhari, the most authoritative Islamic religious text after the Qur'an, quotes the "Prophet" Muhammad as saying: "If a husband calls his wife to his bed [i.e. to have sexual relation] and she refuses and causes him to sleep in anger, the angels will curse her till morning.” (Bukhari v.4, b.54, no.460).

Typically, whenever the backwardness of Muslim countries is brought to light, the learned analysts will tell us that this backwardness is merely a "cultural" problem, or is caused by a "lack of education", and anyone who says it has anything to do with Islam is an Islamophobe. But when someone directly quotes a religious tradition word for word in order to justify oppression, that is not "cultural" - it is a direct result of the teachings of that religion, and failing to acknowledge this is what allows it to keep happening time after time.

Shirkat Gah representative Fauzia Vikar said “the concept of marital rape does not exist in our society. She is thought to have signed a contract for sex...

Once again, these attitudes are vindicated by the teachings of Muhammad, who believed that the best and most important thing a woman brings to a marriage is her vagina: “The stipulations most entitled to be abided by are those with which you are given the right to enjoy the (women's) private parts (i.e. the stipulations of the marriage contract).” (Bukhari v.7, b.62, no.81)

Most reports from battered women reflect that they do not think their spouses are guilty of a crime.” “Most women I have spoken to on the issue simply think that marital rape is natural. We need to educate and economically empower women so that they realise it is not their duty to tolerate abuse,” she said. According to Vikar, most women consider it shameful and a sin to oppose non-consensual sex.

It is this sort of thing that gives the lie to those who claim that women in Muslim societies aren't really oppressed, for example, by wearing the burqa, and cite as evidence for this the testimony of Muslim women who say that they are treated fairly under Islam. When the consequence of speaking up against abuse is more abuse, possibly leading to violence and death - or at the very least severe social stigmatisation - that is NOT fairness or liberation. It is the oppressed seeking to justify their own oppression out of fear and demoralisation.

According to a gynecologist Dr Asmah Mehmood “Very few women in Pakistan actually have a healthy sexual relationship with their spouses. Abuse is common and so is violence.”

It is important to note that the Qur'an permits men to beat their wives if they are disobedient: “Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them. Lo! Allah is ever High, Exalted, Great.” (4:34)

Numerous mainstream Islamic authorities, including the authoritative manual of Islamic law Reliance of the Traveller, are very clear that refusal of sexual intercourse is among the acts of "rebellion" and disobedience which justify the beating of women. From Reliance:

When a husband notices signs of rebelliousness in his wife (whether in words, as when she answers him coldly when she used to do so politely, or he asks her to come to bed and she refuses, contrary to her usual habit; or whether in acts, as when he finds her averse to him when she was previously kind and cheerful), he warns her in words (without keeping from her or hitting her, for it may be that she has an excuse...If she commits rebelliousness, he keeps from sleeping (and having sex) with her without words, and may hit her...

Finally, as you contemplate the serious human rights abuses currently ravaging Pakistan, do not ignore the fact that British Muslim leaders support this barbarity as well.

Sleep tight.