Wednesday, October 25, 2006
"UNCOVERED MEAT IS THE PROBLEM"
Sheikh Feiz Muhammad last year told a Sydney audience that victims of sexual assault deserved to be raped:
She has no one to blame but herself, for she has displayed her beauty to the whole world. Strapless, backless, sleeveless - they are nothing but satanical.
Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali—Australia’s most super-dooper Sheik—has lately picked up on that same theme, according to the Australian:
In the religious address on adultery to about 500 worshippers in Sydney last month, Sheik Hilali said: “If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat?
"The uncovered meat is the problem."
The sheik then said: “If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred."
A lot of things don’t occur if you never leave your room. Ask any prisoner. I’m actually hoping that the Australian has gotten this wrong somehow, because the quotes attributed to Sheik Hilali (resident in Australia for nearly 20 years) are so incredibly, astonishingly abhorrent as to invite disbelief (you’d expect less vile public opinions from someone with any political sense). Yet the paper publishes further post-speech comments which support those alleged lines from Hilali:
He told The Australian the message he intended to convey was: “If a woman who shows herself off, she is to blame ... but a man should be able to control himself”. He said if a woman is “covered and respectful” she “demands respect from a man”. “But when she is cheap, she throws herself at the man and cheapens herself."
If he said that, and the preceding remarks, Hilali should be confined.
UPDATE. Pru Goward wants him deported:
Australia’s top Muslim cleric Sheik Taj Aldin Alhilali should be sacked and deported for comments which essentially excused young Muslim men who committed rape, federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner Pru Goward said today.
UPDATE II. In accordance with Islamic tradition, Keysar Trad claims the comments were taken out of context:
"He wasn’t talking about rape in any way,” Mr Trad said.
"He wasn’t talking about standard norms of dress in Australia or any country, he wasn’t talking about the hijab, he was talking about people who engage in extramarital sex.”
UPDATE III. Withering condemnation from the Muslim community:
At least one Muslim leader has branded the Australia’s Mufti “out of line” for his comments blaming immodestly dressed women for sexual assault.
The former secretary of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, Shujat Mantoo, said the Sheik Taj Aldin Alhilali was probably out of line, but he defended the Muslim cleric’s right to stay in Australia.
UPDATE IV. Stronger condemnation from the Islamic Council of Victoria’s Waleed Aly; also Labor leader Kim Beazley and Treasurer Peter Costello.
UPDATE V. Victorian Liberal MP Sophie Mirabella:
“I have a message for Sheik Alhilali: This is Australia, not Iran, and violence and degradation of women is not acceptable,” she said.
"If he wants to sprout this type of offensive discourse, perhaps he should be making these comments in an Islamic state - something that Australia never has (been) and never will be.
UPDATE VI. Our pals at muslimvillage have apparently published the phone number and two email addresses of the journalist who wrote the Hillali article.