Question:

I am a young married American woman and I find troubling things of your culture. There are many instances of women being beaten or killed just because their husbands accuse them of something and they do not have to prove reasons. I have recently come across the case of Amina Lawal who was accused of adultery for having a child after she was divorced. Your government asks that she be stoned to death, but what happens to the man that made the child? Nothing for him, now how could that be called justice? It takes two people to make and to blame the women is hateful and purposefully aiming to affect only her and not the father of her child. And if Amina Lawal thinks that the child is of her last husband, then all that would need to be done would be a simple blood test from the baby and her last husband. 

Quoted from one of your pages is the text: “The third important element in the Charter of Human Rights granted by Islam is that a woman’s chastity must be respected and protected at all times, whether she belongs to one’s own nation or to the nation of an enemy, whether we find her in a remote forest or in a conquered city, whether she is our co-religionist or belongs to some other religion or has no religion at all. A Muslim may not physically abuse her under any circumstances.” In your writing you condemn injuring women and yet 80% of Pakistani women are beaten on a daily basis. They are compared to a shoe while a man is compared to a castle.  How can Pakistan government justify these actions, and think that it is ok? If they could be in a free country to experience what real woman feel, then Pakistan would be all men. There would be no government, no husbands, no boys, without the women who gave birth to them.  If you don’t love your wife or children, then divorce her, and let them go. But don’t kill them because you are so hateful.

We wish you had written a few more pages as well. Your message was not that long for us to skip even a word. Yes, it was read all and with keen interest.

After going through your incisive mail, I feel reassured that the Muslim world must embark upon a well conceived strategy to project the true teachings of Islam to help people separating facts from fiction. A factor that generates misunderstanding about Islam and Muslim societies is the newly created environment all around that, with active financial and logistic support from outside, has been painting a distorted and misleading local picture and exaggerating minor instances of excesses in Muslim societies beyond proportions.

Picking up a few points from your comments, let me draw your attention to certain realities:

1. Beating wives the way you explained, and committing other such excesses, is neither very common in Pakistan, nor specific to this society. It is a global phenomenon not at all approved by any civil society or any religion worth the name.
   Certainly there are instances when in a backward and un-educated community a woman is meted out harsh treatment, and she finds no means to avail justice. This partial failure of local state machinery, or poor social organization, though very unfortunate and lamentable, should not be generalized. Islam, the state law and general social order simply do not permit or tolerate such acts.
2. The impression that honour killing is allowed by Islam or overlooked by the state law in Pakistan, is totally baseless. A wife/woman accused of illicit moral conduct is subject to trial under law [just like an amorous man], but no person is allowed to take law in his own hand and execute the accused. The process has to be totally legal through the established courts of law.
3. If a woman is accused of extramarital conception, she, like any common citizen, has all the provision to prove herself innocent. Yes, a blood test should be there, we agree. That will prove the case one way or the other. And certainly, she can point at the person who fathered the illegitimate child. He will also have to face the consequences as much as the accused woman. Remember please, even a bit of doubt in criminal cases, is the source of benefit to the accused. Under Islāmic law, the procedure of evidence is also so complicated and thorough that it eliminates almost all chances of the execution of innocent people except in the rare cases of willful admission by the accused or absolutely open show of the crime.
   Your reference to one Amina Lawal is based on disinformation. The government never asked (nor it can) to stone anybody to death. A lower court of law did decide a case but that was not upheld by the higher courts. In the whole history of Pakistan, no woman has ever received such punishment. If, however, a married woman or a man confesses the guilt of adultery, or the case is proved beyond any doubt, the Islāmic Penal Code does provide stoning to death.
4. Comparing wife to one’s shoe, or a maid of some (worldly) god, are simply unthinkable ideas in a Muslim family. We certainly have such feelings in some far-flung un-educated groups. This in fact, is the lingering influence of the Hindu culture of the past, with which we have been interacting for more than a thousand years.
5. Let me through some light on the true context of the term castle also. In fact, the marriage contract or institution is termed Eĥşān [Hisn literally meaning: a fort] in the holy Qur’ān. Accordingly, a married man is moĥşin and married woman is mohsinah – both meaning fortified or protected. A legal marriage thus protects [or fortifies] a man and woman from the dangers of indulging in immoral [extra-marital] sex business. If, therefore, a man is a castle, then the woman is also a castle.

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