Is it OK to slap your wife?

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7 responses to “Is it OK to slap your wife?”

1. 

   James Killian Spratt

   January 8, 2010

   @Shakir: “…Muslims of 60 years ago…” You’re right, Muslim values ARE being eroded by Western influence, but I dare to speculate that even without western influence, liberalization would have come to Islam naturally in time, for the same reasons it came to us. Proud hardheads that you are, it would certainly have advanced more quickly among Islam if it was your own idea, spread by fatwa instead of western movies. A second-wave baby-boom, centered around 1970, would have put western progress made after World War II in an impoverished condition due to overbreeding. Babies are expensive, and too many can keep a family or a country in the financial doghouse, not a thing we could afford when Russia was screaming things like “We will BURY you!” and slamming its shoes on the tabletop at the UN.

   You can peg the beginnings of liberalization anywhere to the date of the availability of private methods of birth control for women–which makes it real, and an Equal Rights Amendment for women, which makes it official. The West is about thirty years ahead of you, because of the scary spinoffs from World War II and the perceptions of the Cold War, in which the west was participating front and center and Islam was sort of quietly off-stage. The West can’t really influence anyone who doesn’t want to be influenced–your lives belong to you. Realities on your own ground have to be your guides. It won’t help Islam to shoot the messenger, even though it might seem like huge fun.

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2. 

   Shakir Lakhani

   January 7, 2010

   James: until recently Catholics and Protestants were at war in Northern Island. I remember what happened when a Catholic boy’s family converted to the Protestant faith sometime in the 1950’s. The Dutch Catholic priests (who ran St. Patrick’s school in Karachi) tried their best to re-convert the boy back to Catholicism, but failed. Finally the boy was expelled from the school for a flimsy reason (trying to barge into the St. Joseph’s Girls’ Convent next door without permission, where his sister was a student). So you can’t blame Muslims for being like the Christians of 60 years ago. Most Muslims are afraud that their values are being eroded by Western influence. The people of rural Pakistan (including the Northern areas, where the militants are hiding) naturally don’t want their women to indulge in pre-marital or extra-marital sex. In fact, most Pakistanis even believe that Westerners are corrupt and immoral and Western women are nymphomaniacs (this is the impression conveyed by your movies and TV). It will take a long time before Muslims will allow their women to work in fields which are now dominated by men (even though Pakistan already has a few female pilots, engineers and an army general).

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3. 

   James Killian Spratt

   January 7, 2010

   @LTG Khan: Nice to hear your comforting voice of objective truth and reason, as usual. If you stand for Islam, I think Islam will make it just fine. If Saudi Arabia’s oil runs out, I believe the rest of the Muslim world will carry them through; they will always have Mecca. You have the unity of Islam, yet much variety of the execution of it among the Muslim countries; you’ll figure it out. The West needs Islam to remain, so that we can remember how to get back, if we encounter disaster when we go adventuring into the unknown.

   I’ve noted over the months I’ve been here that you Muslims get angriest at each other over the exact same issues that Christians get angry at each other about, mostly about women and money and modernization–ultimately battles of conservatism vs. liberalism. Although we in the West seem to be much more liberal than you, we still have our mad bombers who blow up abortion clinics, wife beaters and check bouncers and thieving bureaucrats and disparate pay-rates just like you do. It is remarkable how similar we are.

   I’d be willing to bet that a threat from space-aliens would put us all, Christian, Muslim and everyone else on the same team instantly, overnight, but until that happens we’ll all continue to rehearse for that moment among ourselves. I don’t think it matters much that, when we were all little, your grandmother’s cooking didn’t smell like my grandmother’s cooking.

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4. 

   Shakir Lakhani

   January 7, 2010

   Lt. Gen. Ayub Khan: during the sectarian clashes in the last decade, I would often wonder if the battle between Saudi Arabia and Iran was being fought in Pakistan. Unfortunately Shia-Sunni unity is not forseeable in the near future. A pity, because if Muslims don’t unite, they are doomed.

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5. 

   Lt. General Ayub Khan

   January 5, 2010

   I just think if they will title themselves as “Custodians” then they should act like it.

   I have no beef with the Saudis…its wrong to forget ways they have helped Pakistan. But there are issues of contention too which government never addresses

   the treatment of guest labourers…..support for groups in Pakistan which engaged or continue to engage in sectarian violence…..their members of royal families who are hunting our endangered species -such as the bustards (though it is our spineless government which grants them permission)……and a few other issues.

   Monarchy governments are so passe in this day and age. It almost goes counter to Islamic principles, which demand equality of all citizens. Paying Saudi citizens monthly “pocket money” has helped promote laziness and unemployment.

   Saudis should invest in their women, like any other country. Afterall, they represent 50% of the potential labour force. The oil — black gold –will not be there forever.

   Look at countries like Turkey and Malaysia. They have no oil/gas yet they are progressive and modern Muslim majority countries.

   In Pakistan, we have Sunnis (Barelvis, Salafis, Hanefis, and some Deobandis), Shiias (mostly 12ers, but also some few Ismailys) and Sufis. Wahhabism claims not to resort to political/revolutionary Islam like what we see in Iran —but I have my doubts.

   Wahhabism never existed in Pakistan, until maybe late 1980s when it was being imported.

   It’s always good to go down middle path. Not too much of anything.

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6. 

   Mohammad Yusha

   January 5, 2010

   @Lt. Gen: I agree with you, brother. To add to what you said, they force women to wear burkas while they run TV shows with unveiled women. They blacken out animate pictures while the king’s pictures decorate hallways and offices.

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7. 

   Lt. General Ayub Khan

   May 29, 2009

   They take pride in being home to the Holy Mosques, but they are the most backwards and hypocritical people. What about the men who drive recklessly at high speed, skidding their tires out of boredom and harassing others. What about the foreign workers who are in slavery conditions. I feel sorry for the educated saudis. this wahhaby culture is pure hypocrisy, that is why King Abdallah himself wants these mullahs on a leash.

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