BorealFAREWELL POSTINGSPart 4IF NOT GOD, WHO DO YOU CALL UPON AT TIMES LIKE THESE? March 8, 2024 There is seldom a night these days that, before I fall asleep, I don’t call on Lucette to come and get me like she used to do almost every Friday around supper time when I returned by train from Montréal. THE BROKEN CONDOM (Abbreviated from Love, Sex and Islam, Boreal Books) The year was 1993. It was early in the first year of two consulting contracts that would keep me in Montréal five days a week for the next five years or so when, after more than 10 years of marriage, I had my first one-night stand. It was a one-night affair that would prove to my wife that I still loved her and loved her very much. 1993 was also the year the Montréal Canadiens won the Stanley Cup. No Canadian team has won it since. I was at one of Montréal‘s landmark bars on Crescent Street when the Canadiens hoisted the trophy symbolic of hockey supremacy. The crowd at Winnies not only erupted in cheers, but it was hugs all around. The last person I hugged, or hugged again, was a thirty-something female lawyer with whom I had gotten acquainted while watching the game. When it was time to leave the celebrating around the corner on St. Catherine Street, Montréal’s main commercial east-west thoroughfare, had gotten out hand with looting and an overturned police car on fire. We decided to retreat to my apartment at the Chateau Royale, the only apartment hotel on Crescent Street. She had condoms, but not very good ones, as it would turn out. Something didn’t feel right, but it felt good and she didn’t seem to mind so we continued doing what we were doing. When it was all over I noticed that the condom was rolled up like a wrinkled cellophane wrapper at the base of a drooping culprit. The AIDS scare was at its zenith and I had just had unprotected sex, for all intents and purposes, with a stranger. It was only the second time since our wedding night that I had intimate relations with a woman other than my wife. The first indiscretion was not a one-night stand, and it left my Lucette doubting that I still loved her. A busted condom would set her mind at ease. Needless to say, I felt a bit sheepish when she met me at the Ottawa train station that Friday around supper time. As usual, she had prepared everything for a most romantic dinner; a prelude to a special night, and often a special weekend to make up for the five days I had been away. I was not hungry. She asked what was wrong. I told her about the condom incident and that sex was out of the question for at least ten days (from what I understood at the time was the earliest the AIDS virus could be detected) if she still wanted have sex with me. She rose from her chair, stood next to mine and asked me to move it a little. She then sat on my lap, put her arms around my neck and kissed me. It was a lovely and totally unexpected gesture which left me wondering. “You must really love me,” she said, “to admit having sex with another woman to protect me.” I didn’t know what to say. She got up and took my hand. “Let’s go upstairs,” she said. “We can use those leftover condoms in your night table from when Margaret used to visit you at your old place.” .... During our time together she proved her love in tangible ways that made those other things that lovers do to express their affection for their partner pale in comparison. One of those profound, undeserved expressions of how she felt about me occurred on the Sunday following that Friday admission of infidelity. We were in bed. I would again be leaving on an early train to Montréal the next morning. I had already put on a condom when she reached down, and instead of doing what I thought she was going to do, she pulled it off. “I don’t think you have AIDS,” she said, “and even if you did, and I got it, it wouldn’t matter as long as we are together.” *** During the height of the AIDS epidemic, the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta reported that Montréal had the dubious distinction of having a higher proportion of HIV-infected women than any other metropolitan area in all of North America. When I returned from Montréal for good, I found the time to read all three volumes of the findings of the Krever Inquiry into the contamination of the Canadian blood supply by the HIV and hepatitis C virus. What I consider my most important and pitiful non-Islam related posting was the result. ONE LAST ATTEMPT AT GETTING YOU TO TAKE TAQIYA SERIOUSLY March 12, 2025 Taqiya is the Islamic Doctrine of Dissimulation, i.e., lying as a means of advancing Allah’s Cause, a world ruled by the Sharia. The Doctrine of Dissimulation, like much of what is unedifying in Islamic scriptures, has its roots in the Koran. 4:71 O believers, be on your guard; so march in detachments or march altogether. 4:72 Indeed, among you is one who will stay behind, so that if a disaster befalls you, he will say: “Allah has favoured me, since I have not been a martyr with them.” 4:73 If, however, a bounty from God comes to you, he will say, as though there was no friendship between you and him: “Would that I had been with them; then I would have won a great victory.” When I started boreal.ca in 2003 it was not dominated by current events involving Islam and how they were related to what is written in Islamic Scriptures, but current events as an opportunity to teach Canadian history, and how we got from there to here and which resulted in my first and most successful book Canada – Fractured Nation Interviews. It was only after immersing myself in Islamic scriptures that I decided to change the focus of boreal.ca having decided that Islam represented a clear and present danger to an evolving history that had largely shaken off the shackles of dogma to see it return with a vengeance spearheaded by a militant, dissimulating, supremacist religion. 61:9 It is He Who sent His Messenger forth with the guidance and the religion of truth, to make it triumph over every religion. 3:85 Whoever seeks a religion other than Islam, it will never be accepted from him, and in the Hereafter he will be one of the losers. The “religion of truth” has already triumphed over every other religion in getting a Western government to create and fund an office dedicated to the dissemination of Islamic propaganda in accordance with the doctrine of taqiya to which the government has given its blessing in a document that is a testimonial to what it stands for. On March 3, 2025 the Canadian Department of Heritage published The Canadian Guide to Understanding and Combatting Islamophobia prepared under the aegis of the Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia of Canada, Ms. Amira Elghawaby. In making three egregious claims that cannot go unchallenged it is clear that that Canadian government has embraced the Islamic doctrine of taqiya, in effect making it official government policy when it comes to Islam. 1. ISLAMOPHOBIA The egregious claim being that Islamophobia is an irrational fear. You know better if you have read You're an Islamophobe and a Racist, Admit It!. To recap, Islamophobia is a rational fear of the irrational and you need not apologize for being a rational person. Fear is what non-believers who get close and personal with the Koran and Allah’s unrestrained visceral hatred and cruelty for their kind will experience, for that is the intent. It is a fear nourished and amplified by the Author’s demands of believers when it comes to dealing with those for whom He has nothing but contempt: from avoiding them, to enslaving them, to beheading them—the meaning of “smite (their) necks” which Mohsin Khan's Saudi-funded translation of the Koran makes abundantly clear. 47:4 So, when you meet (in fight - Jihad in Allah's Cause) those who disbelieve, smite (their) necks till when you have killed and wounded many of them, then bind a bond firmly (on them, i.e. take them as captives). 2. JIHAD David Cook, author of Understanding Jihad, defines jihad as “’Warfare with spiritual significance’ [and this] is the primary and root meaning of the term as it has been defined by classical Muslim jurists and legal scholars.” The Encyclopedia of Islam agrees: “In law, according to general doctrine and in historical tradition, the jihad consists of military action with the object of the expansion of Islam and, if need be, of its defence.” The Canadian Guide to Understanding and Combatting Islamophobia would have you believe that “jihad” is an “effort to overcome base desires… [a] struggle against oneself” and not about making war on unbelievers. As if to add insult to injury in expressing such a disingenuous description of Jihad, the government’s guide goes on to claim that “the term holy war has no root in Islamic terminology,” when the entire concept of a holy war originated with Islam not the Crusades. Jihad as Penance (Abbreviated from Jihad in the Koran, Boreal Books) Abdallah b. al-Mubarak [726-797 author of the Kitab al-Jihad (Book of Holy War) summarized the redemptive value of killing and dying in the name of God as follows: The slain [in jihad] are three [types of] men. A believer, who struggles with himself and his possessions in the path of God, such that when he meets the enemy [in battle] he fights them until he is killed. This martyr (shahid) is tested, [and is] in the camp of God under His throne; the prophets do not exceed him [in merit] except by the level of prophecy. [Then] a believer, committing offences and sins against himself, who struggles with himself and his possessions in the path of God; such that when he meets the enemy [in battle] he fights until he is killed. This cleansing wipes away his offences and his sins – behold the sword wipes [away] sins! – and he will be let into heaven by whatever gate he wishes. … [Then] a hypocrite who struggles with himself and his possessions in the path of God; such that when he meets the enemy [in battle] he fights until he is killed. This [man] is in hell since the sword does not wipe away hypocrisy. David Cook, cf. Ibn al-Mubarak, Understanding Jihad, p.14. Later writings would expand on his concept that killing and being killed “in the path of Allah” has two redeeming features: atonement for your sins and rank in heaven. In the Christian gospels, Jesus of Nazareth shed his blood to redeem the sins of mankind; in the Islamic variation, it is the shedding of one’s own blood, while killing the enemies of God that wipes away sins—the exception being one who dies in “the path of Allah” but whose loyalty was not always constant: the hypocrite. The most willing to die and the most bloodthirsty get the most benefits'. There is a man who fights in the path of Allah and does not want to kill or be killed, but is struck by an arrow. The first drop of blood from him is atonement for every sin he has committed; for every drop he sheds he gains levels in paradise. The second type of man is one who fights desiring to kill but not to be killed, and is struck by an arrow. The first drop of blood from him is for every sin; for every drop he sheds he gains a level in paradise until he bumps Abraham’s knee. The third type of man is one who fights in the path of Allah desiring to kill and be killed and is struck by an arrow. The first drop of blood from him is atonement for every sin; he will come to the Day of Resurrection with a drawn sword [able to] intercede. David Cook, cf. Ibn al-Mubarak, Understanding Jihad, p.15. Abdallah b. al-Mubarak’s book on the conduct of holy wars, along with the Koran, is the strongest evidence we have that the concept of such conflicts originated with Islam, not Christianity. The Koran, the definitive text, was revealed in the 7th century and al-Mubarak’s Book of Holy War written in the 8th; 400 and 300 years respectively before the first Crusade. It seems to me that a politically correct mythology is replacing history on many of these topics. Consider the Crusades. The Christians are often depicted as barbarian aggressors and the Muslims as their highly cultured victims. But the Crusades were primarily a response to 300 years of jihad (whether the crusaders were aware of the Islamic doctrine or not). They were a reaction to Muslim incursions in Europe, the persecution of Eastern Christians, and the desecration of Christian holy sites. And few people seem to remember that the crusaders lost all but the first of those wars. Although the Crusades were undoubtedly an expression of religious tribalism, the idea of holy war is a late, peripheral, and in many ways self-contradictory development within Christianity—and one that has almost no connection to the life and teachings of Jesus. One can’t say the same about the status of jihad under Islam... The reality of martyrdom and the sanctity of armed jihad are about as controversial under Islam as is the resurrection of Jesus under Christianity. It is not an accident that millions of Muslims recite the shahadah or make pilgrimage to Mecca. Neither is it an accident that in the year 2015, horrific footage of infidels and apostates being decapitated has become a popular form of pornography throughout the Muslim World. All these practices, including this ghastly method of murder, find explicit support in scriptures. Sam Harris and Maajid Nawaz, Islam and the Future of Tolerance, Harvard University Press, 2015 3. 3. SHARIA The objective of Shar’iah is to establish justice and peace in society. The Canadian Guide to Understanding and Combatting Islamophobia There is a grain of truth, a horrible truth for any normal person, in how the Sharia is a means to an end that Western law strives to achieve without resorting to murder, mutilation, threats and beatings. “Sharia”, as explained in the guide, “is derived from two main sources: the Quran, which is considered the direct word of [Allah], and hadith—thousands of sayings and practices [of Muhammad]. And there’s the rub, it cannot adapt to the times or circumstances. It is, in essence, a brutal petrified legal tradition from the Dark Ages that Islamists would see become the law of the land everywhere. There is method to the madness in the law that would bring structure to the lives of those who willingly submit to the Will of Allah, the meaning of “Muslim.” The Koran, in adopting the Jewish concept of Talion Law, the law of revenge or retaliation; it’s most common expression is "an eye for an eye." Retaliation is a central theme of the Koran; proportionate retaliation for wrongs done to the believers, brutal retaliation if the alleged crime is deemed to be a crime against Allah or Muhammad. 5:33 Indeed, the punishment of those who fight Allah and His Messenger and go around corrupting the land is to be killed, crucified, have their hands and feet cut off on opposite sides, or to be banished from the land. That is a disgrace for them in this life, and in the life to come theirs will be a terrible punishment. A revelation from Allah about retaliation in kind being a good thing sets the tone: 2:179 In retaliation there is life for you, O people of understanding, that you may be God-fearing. **** The Crime of Apostasy Narrated Ikrima: Prophet said: “If somebody (a Muslim) discards his religion, kill him." Bukhari 52.260 Apostates in jurisdictions governed by the Sharia, today, are usually simply beheaded; in the past some have been subjected to the punishment prescribed by Allah in Revelation 5:33 which is still a valid punishment under the Sharia. Revelation 5:33 appears to have been influenced by Pharaoh who prescribed such a punishment for his magicians who, after having failed to better Moses’s magic, became Muslims. In the Koran, Allah refers to how Pharaoh intended to punish his magicians on three occasions. 7:124 “I will surely cut off your hands and your feet on opposite sides; then I will crucify you altogether.”
20:71 He (Pharaoh) said: “Do you believe in him before I give you leave? It must be your chief who has taught you magic. I shall then cut your hands and feet on alternate sides, and I will crucify you upon the trunks of palm trees, and you will certainly know whose punishment is sterner and more lasting.” 26:49 He (Pharaoh) said: “You have believed before I gave you leave. He (Moses) is indeed your chief, who taught you sorcery, and so you will learn. I shall cut off your hands and feet alternately and will crucify you all.” For the five variations in the Koran of Moses’ meeting with Pharaoh please see Chapter/Section “Moses - Moses and Pharaoh’s Magicians,” Shared Prophets, Boreal Books. In two variations, Pharaoh does not demand that his magicians be cruelly put to death but that someone builds him a tower. 28:38 Pharaoh then said: “O my dignitaries, I did not know that you had any god but me. So kindle for me, O Haman, a fire upon the clay and build me a tower that I might behold the God of Moses. I really think he is a liar.” ----- 40:36 And Pharaoh said: “O Haman, build me a tower that I may perchance reach the pathways, 40:37 “The pathways of heaven; and then look upon the God of Moses. For I think he is a liar.” That is how embellished for Pharaoh was his evil deed and how he was barred from the Path. Pharaoh’s guile was only destined to fail. With his tower it is obvious that Pharaoh hoped to catch a glimpse of Paradise, which in the Koran is just above the clouds held up by invisible pillars. 13:2 Allah is He Who raised the heavens without pillars that you can see; there He sat upright on the Throne and made the sun and the moon subservient, each running for an appointed term. He manages the [whole] affair and makes clear the Revelations so that you may be certain of meeting your Lord. For more on Paradise’s location and construction please see Chapter “Paradise – The Nuts and Bolts,” The Islamic Hereafter, Boreal Books. *** In this short introduction to Islamic law we will only deal with the law is it pertains to the transgressions of believers against God. For the purpose of explaining Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) in terms more familiar to non-Muslims, I divide the Sharia (God’s Law or Islamic law) into two broad categories: Criminal Law and Family Law. This definition and division you may find completely spurious as you come to terms with the reality of the Sharia as explained by Al-Qaeda. Any study beside that of the Quran is a distraction, except the Hadiths and jurisprudence in the religion. Knowledge is what He [Muhammad] narrated to us, and anything other than that is the whispering of the Satan. Criminal Law The Sharia is all about sins; mostly the Greater Sins, of which there are more than forty at this writing. The Greater Sins are those where the Koran or a saying of Muhammad explicitly state or imply, or where there is a consensus among religious experts that those who commit these sins will go to Hell. All of the Greater Sins are punishable by death, mutilation, retaliation in kind, a severe whipping or blood money. 17:38 The evil of all this is hateful in the sight of your Lord. The forty greater sins in descending order of evilness, with "associating other gods with Allah" at the top of the list. 1. Shirk (polytheism), associating other gods with Allah. 2. Yās (despair), to doubt Allah’s Mercy. 3. Qunut (despondence), losing hope in Allah. 4. Not fearing Allah’s punishment. 5. Murder. 6. Parental disobedience. 7. Breaking up with relatives. 8. Usurping the property of orphans. 9. The charging of interest on borrowed money. 10. Fornication (adultery). 11. Sodomy. 12. Wrongfully accusing a chaste believer of adultery or homosexuality. 13. Drinking alcoholic beverages. 14. Gambling. 15. To neglect an obligatory religious duty. 16. Playing musical instruments or listening to music. 17. Singing. 18. Lying. 19. False oaths. 20. False testimony. 21. Concealing evidence. 22. Breaking a promise. 23. Misappropriation of property. 24. Stealing. 25. Short weighing or cheating in business. 26. Eating of what is unlawful. 27. Usurping the rights of others. 28. Avoiding Jihad. 29. Becoming A’Arāb after Hijrat, “the condition when a desert Bedouin before acquiring the necessary knowledge of religion turns back to his ignorant ways.” 30. Helping the oppressors. 31. Not helping the oppressed. 32. Sorcery. 33. Extravagance, e.g., wasteful expenditures. 34. Arrogance. 35. To war against Muslims. 36. Eating of carrion, pork and blood. 37. Omitting prayer intentionally. 38. Non–payment of Zakat (obligatory charity). 39. To consider the Hajj (mandatory pilgrimage) insignificant. 40. Persistence in minor sins (committing a lesser sin repeatedly). Then there are the ten made up grave sins based on a consensus among scholars that the sinner is going to Hell: 41. Backbiting. 42. Telling tales. 43. Insulting a believer. 44. Intrigue, deception and breaking covenants. 45. Hoarding and selling on the black-market. 46. Disrespect of the Qur’an. 47. Disrespect of Ka’ba. 48. Disrespect to Masajid (mosque). 49. Disrespect of the Tomb of the Prophet. 50. Disrespect to the soil of Imam Husain’s Grave (Shia Islam). The two most serious offenses for which death is demanded are associating other gods with Allah and fornicating with other than your spouse. The next two most serious crimes, based on the severity of the punishment, are theft and murder. Mutilation is Allah's decreed punishment for stealing someone else's property: 5:38 As for the thieves, whether male or female, cut off their hands in punishment for what they did, as an exemplary punishment from Allah. Allah is Mighty and Wise. The punishment for what Western jurisprudence considers the lesser crime—and by a wide margin—can exceed that of murder. Murderers, under the Sharia, can escape any form of punishment by simply paying blood money to the victim's relatives or having someone else die for their crime, such as a slave or a wife. 2:178 O believers, retaliation for the slain is prescribed for you; a free [man] for a free [man], a slave for a slave and a female for a female. But if he is pardoned by his brother (the aggrieved), usage should be followed (capital punishment would be replaced by blood-money) and he should pay him (the aggrieved) liberally and kindly. This is remission and mercy from your Lord. He who transgresses after that will have a painful punishment. Allah made blood money a fit punishment for murder; it was up to His spokesperson to establish the cost of a human life, which he did during what is referred to as his last sermon, i.e., The Prophet’s Last Khutba. From a translation of Muhammad’s by Dr. Muhammad Hamidullah [1908-2002]: And intentional murder shall be punished according to Talion law; where the murderess intention is not clear and the victim is killed using a club or a stone it will cost the perpetrator one hundred camels as blood money. Whoever demands more is a man from the time of ignorance. Muhammad came to that determination based on his grandfather, Abd al-Muttalib, substituting camels as payment after promising Allah to sacrifice his tenth son to Him if He gave him ten male heirs. When the time came for Muttalib to keep his side of the bargain, he consulted a dervish to find out if he could fulfil his promise to God in some other manner that did not involve killing his tenth son, Abdullah, the future father of the Prophet Muhammad of all people. The dervish Muttalib consulted was no ordinary soothsayer; he was a dervish with jinns in his employ, jinns who specialized in eavesdropping on Allah’s conversations with his angels. The caricature of the jinni is based on this enigmatic creature of the Koran. They would fly as close as possible to the lowest of the seven levels of heaven, the one closest to the earth, dogging rocks i.e. meteorites thrown by the angels to keep them away, to find out what Allah had to say about was happening down below (recommended: Chapter “Allah and the Jinn,” Getting to Know Allah, Boreal Books). To try to answer his client’s question, the dervish, in a time honoured tradition, sent his jinns to eavesdrop on God. One reported that Allah, in a conversation with an angel, had indicated that He would be happy with a sacrifice of camels. But how many camels? The dervish then threw some dice (bone fragments of some type) to find out. The answer they gave was one hundred camels as the price of a human life, and that is the equivalent price to this day that can be demanded by an aggrieved family in return for the State sparing a murderer’s life. A misdemeanor, in most common law legal systems, is a lesser criminal act. Misdemeanors are generally punished much less severely than felonies (usually crimes involving violence). Minor sins under the Sharia could be considered misdemeanors. Minor sins range from being too close to a member of the opposite sex to whom you are not related, cursing, imitating the dress or lifestyle of the kuffar (a pejorative term for non-Muslims), to forgetting to lower your gaze when encountering a member of the opposite sex to entering a house by the back door. 24:30 Tell the believers to cast down their eyes and guard their private parts. This is purer for them. Allah is conversant with what they do. 2:189 They ask you about the crescents (the new moons) say: “They are times fixed for mankind and for the pilgrimage.” It is not righteousness to enter houses from the back; but the righteous is he who fears Allah. Enter then the houses by their front doors; and fear Allah that you may prosper. The punishment for minor sins under the Sharia can be quite severe and varies depending on the school of Islamic jurisprudence which holds sway over a town, region and or country. Take the punishment for the minor sin of Khalwat, the sin of close proximity. You are guilty of Khalwat if you are too close to a non-relative of the opposite sex, or in the company of a member of the opposite sex for no legitimate reason under the law. In Iran, the punishment for committing Khalwat is up to 99 lashes; in Malaysia, it is a fine or up to two years in jail, or both. Family Law Islamic Family Law is mainly about women: what they can and cannot do, how they must dress, whom they can be wedded to, and what they can expect, if anything, from a divorce settlement or a bequest. Western Family Law explicitly recognizes that men and women are equal as human beings and before the Law. Allah emphatically denies this! Men, in the Koran, are superior to women by at least one degree, whatever a degree is, but it is a lot. 2:228 Divorced women should keep away from men for three menstrual periods. And it is not lawful for them to conceal that which Allah has created in their wombs, if they truly believe in Allah and the Last Day. Their husbands have the right in the meantime to take them back, should they seek reconciliation; and women have rights equal to what is incumbent upon them according to what is just, although men are one degree above them (what is meant here is that the men have a superior authority). Allah is Mighty, Wise. That superiority is reflected in a better memory, Revelation 2:282. What His spokesman characterised as a “deficiency of the woman’s mind." Narrated abu Said al-Khudri: The Prophet said, "Isn’t the witness of a woman equal half that of a man?" The women said, "Yes." He said: "This is because of the deficiency of the woman’s mind." Bukhari 48.286 2:282 O believers, when you contract a debt for a fixed period, write it down. Let a scribe write it for you with fairness. No scribe should decline to write as Allah has taught him. So let him then write and let the debtor dictate. He should fear his Lord and not diminish the debt in the least. If the debtor is feeble-minded or week or ignorant, then let his guardian dictate with fairness. And call to witness two witnesses of your men; if not two men, then one man and two women from such witnesses you approve of, so that if one of them (the two women) fails to remember, the other will remind her... That superiority is reflected in how a marriage can be ended by a husband by simply telling a spouse that he is divorcing her. He does not need a reason to divorce any of his wives or obtain anyone’s permission to do so. He simply has to tell her, “I divorce you" and wait until his soon-to-be-ex-wife has experienced three menstrual cycles, and it’s over. To avoid returning her dowry and other things he may have given her, he may make her life so difficult that she will ask for a divorce, which he will grant if she “ransoms herself” by forgoing her dowry, as an example, leaving her more or less destitute unless another man will have her. 2:229 Divorce may be pronounced twice. Then they (women) are to be retained in a rightful manner or released with kindness. And it is unlawful for you [men] to take back anything of what you have given them unless both parties fear that they cannot comply with Allah’s Bounds (by obeying His commands). If you fear that they cannot do that, then it is no offence if the woman ransoms herself [pays money to be set free]. Those are the bounds set by Allah. Do not transgress them. Those who transgress the bounds set by Allah are the wrongdoers. In Western Family Law, divorce proceedings are meant to ensure an equitable distribution of jointly owned property so that neither partner is left destitute after the separation. Under the Sharia a wife has no recognized right to any property or wealth acquired during the marriage—including the family home—except her dowry; and she may lose even that if it is the ransom demanded by her husband to get out of an abusive relationship which Allah phrases, in Revelation 2:229, as a legal ransom that a husband can demand before granting a divorce "it is no offence if the woman ransoms herself." Male superiority is reflected in the disposition of an inheritance. 4:11 Allah commands you, with respect to your children, that the male shall inherit the equivalent of the share of two females. If there be more than two females, then they should receive two-thirds of what he (the deceased father) leaves; but if there is only one female, she is entitled to one-half. To each of his parents, one-sixth of what he leaves, if he has any children; but if he has no children, then his parents will inherit him, the mother receiving one third. But if he has any brothers, then his mother receives one-sixth, after any will he had made or any debt he had incurred [is taken care of] Your fathers and sons – you know not who of them is of greater advantage to you. This is a law from Allah; Allah surely is All-Knowing, Forbearing In Western Family Law, a wife is entitled to her fair share of a deceased husband’s estate, usually half. Under the Sharia the same two-for-one in favour of male offspring applies. If she dies her husband is entitled to half of what she leaves behind; if he dies, she is only entitled to a quarter of what he leaves behind. 4:12 You are entitled to half of what your wives leave, if they have no children; but if they have any children, then you are entitled to one-quarter of what they leave, after any will they had made or any loan they had incurred [is taken care of]. And they are entitled to one-quarter of what you leave, if you have no children; but if you have any children, then they are entitled to one-eight of what you leave, after any will you had made or loan you had incurred [is taken care of]. And if a man or a woman dies having no children or parents, but has a brother or sister, then each shall have one-sixth; if they are more than that, then they shall share one-third, after any will made or debt incurred [is taken care of] without prejudice. This is a Commandment from Allah, and Allah is All-Knowing, Forbearing. Allah and His mouthpiece make no bones about their injurious views of women—which a Sharia judge must take into consideration—with Muhammad being the most brazen. Masruq reported: It was mentioned before Aisha that prayer is invalidated (in case of passing) of a dog, an ass and a woman (before the worshipper, when he is not screened). Upon this Aisha said: You likened us to the asses and the dogs. Sahih Muslim 4.1038 Aisha said [to Muhammad]: "You have made us equal to the dogs and the asses." Sahih Muslim 4:1039 You can beat an uncooperative jenny or bitch into submission. Under the Sharia that also applies to your spouse. 4:34 Men are in charge of women, because Allah has made some of them excel the others, and because they spend some of their wealth. Hence righteous women are obedient, guarding the unseen (their sex) which Allah has guarded. And those of them that you fear might rebel, admonish them and abandon them in their beds and beat them. Should they obey you, do not seek ways of harming them; for Allah is Sublime and Great. As mentioned on other occasions, the Koran grants a husband the right to beat his wife, but it is a saying of Muhammad which pretty much guarantees the wife-beater immunity from prosecution. Narrated Umar ibn al-Khattab: The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: A man will not be asked as to why he beat his wife. Abu Dawud 11.2142 Under Sharia law, a husband has a God-given right to demand sex from a spouse who, under a Sharia-mandated pre-nuptial contract agreed to give her husband unrestricted access to her "private parts." Narrated Uqba: The Prophet said: "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 62.81 2:223 Your women are a tillage for you. So get to your tillage whenever you like. Do good for yourselves, fear Allah and know that you shall meet Him. And give good news to the believers. One of the few exceptions: a wife-beater cannot flog a spouse as he would a slave and then demand sex before tuning in. Narrated Abdullah bin Zam'a: The Prophet said, "None of you should flog his wife as he flogs a slave and then have sexual intercourse with her in the last part of the day." Bukhari 62.132 The same goes if he flogged her as you would a prized camel! Narrated Abdullah bin Zam'a: The Prophet forbade laughing at a person who passes wind, and said, "How does anyone of you beat his wife as he beats the stallion camel and then he may embrace (sleep with) her?" Bukhari 73.68 Western Family Law tries to strike a balance between the rights and obligations of the marital partners with laws that seek to militate against harming the other either financially or physically. That is simply not the case the Sharia where the husband has rights and the wife obligations. And of course, under the Sharia, men can marry children whose silence at the prospect of such a union Muhammad deemed their acquiescence. Narrated Abu Huraira: The Prophet said, "A matron should not be given in marriage except after consulting her; and a virgin should not be given in marriage except after her permission." The people asked, "O Allah's Apostle! How can we know her permission?" He said, "Her silence (indicates her permission)." Bukhari 62.67 Aisha, who was nine when she joined God's Messenger on the matrimonial mat, knew from experience that this was a specious justification for having your way with a child, and said so to her husband who simply repeated his claim. Narrated Aisha: I said, "O Allah's Apostle! A virgin feels shy." He said, "Her consent is (expressed by) her silence." Bukhari 62.68 Shortly after taking power Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini lowered the age at which girls could be married off from eighteen to nine to conform to Islamic law. In 2006, the Iranian Parliament voted to overturn Khomeini's decree and made it compulsory for girls under the age of 15 and boys under 18 to have court approval to get married. The Guardian Council of the Constitution, which is responsible for ensuring that all legislation is consistent with the tenets of Islam, quashed the initiative and reinstated Khomeini's ruling. For a thorough review of everything the Koran has to say that impacts women and girls please read Women and the Koran, Boreal Books. Islamic Law is Forever Expanding New sins, mostly of the minor variety, and new rules to govern every waking moment of a believer’s existence are constantly being created. Sunni scholars use what they call "analogical reasoning “or qiyās to come up with a new law to fit a novel or changed circumstance. It is a process whereby one or more hadiths are compared and contrasted with revelations in the Koran in an attempt to identify a crime and suitable punishment of which God would approve. Shias reject Sunni analogical reasoning because it might lead to contrary opinions or divergence of beliefs. It’s not that Shias don’t do their own narrowly focused reasoning to come up with new laws. Shias call their process ‘Aql. To avoid divergence of beliefs caused by discordant reasoning, the most revered and learned Islamic scholars among them, e.g., the Ayatollah Khomeini when he was alive, are accepted as the final authority as to whose reasoning will take precedence. The competition among scholars to create new laws or interpretations of existing regulations has been more or less formalized and recognized in what is referred to as the “science of fiqh” as opposed to pseudo-science. Shia Islam has probably gone the furthest in recognizing the contribution of scholars in the creation of new laws by bestowing the equivalent of a doctorate on those who are successful in convincing their peers that a sin has been overlooked. Iran’s ayatollahs all have this form of doctorate. Needless to say, with more than 900 years of scholars mining the Koran and the sayings and actions of Muhammad for new sins, or new insight into how believers should behave if they wish to attain Paradise, means that a specialist in Islamic scriptures who wishes to distinguish himself must dig deeper into the material and be extremely diligent if he hopes to find that overlooked nugget of wisdom left behind by Allah and His spokesman. The Ayatollah Khomeini, in his “doctoral thesis,” could be said to have found such a nugget in finding it a sin for someone who had had sex with a chicken to eat it, but it was permissible for a neighbour three doors down to have it for supper, so to speak, and not risk going to Hell.
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