Rapists, teddy bears and other injustices

Two incidents in the past two weeks left many Muslims shaking our heads – partly in disbelief and partly in embarrassment or shame. The first was the case of the Saudi woman (still anonymous) who was sentenced to 200 lashes, and the second was the case of the British teacher, Gillian Gibbons, who was sentenced by a Sudanese court to serve 15 days in a Khartoum jail.

And while we shook our heads, islamophobes rubbed their hands in glee. This, after all, is exactly the kind of thing they need every once in a while in order to justify – even if it is only to their own twisted minds – all their prejudices and hatred against Islam and Muslims and it helps them to feel that they really are superior to us.

In the Saudi case, a 19-year-old married woman met a man, who she had known previously, in a car. While she and the male friend were in the car, the car was hijacked – something that might sound very familiar to South Africans, and the couple was driven to a remote location where they were both gang-raped by seven men, she 14 times. All the protagonists were arrested and four of the rapists were sentenced to between one and five years in prison. (I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels that five years is a completely inadequate sentence for gang-rape.) The woman (and her companion) who was kidnapped, raped, violated and subjected to one of the worst injustices that any woman can be was not, as would be expected, sent for counselling and provided with physical and psychological support. No, Muslims don’t do that kind of thing, do we? Instead, she was sentenced to 90 lashes for being with a strange man! What kind of idiocy is this? What kind of mockery is this of Islam and the shari’āh?

But the story did not end there. She subsequently appealed her sentence. The Appeal Court increased it to 200 lashes and six months’ imprisonment. (So, I suspect, for being raped she will spend her ‘Id al-adha in prison.) The Court added on the 110 lashes plus six months because, they said, she had tried to influence them through the media. Men (the judges were, of course, men), you see, are weak. That’s why women must be locked up in their homes so that we don’t get sexually excited by them. And that’s why they are so dangerous when they talk to the media – because our minds are weak and we might get influenced by them. Even if “we” are the judges in an appeal court. What an insult to the integrity and intelligence of men; what an injustice to the persons of women! Her lawyer was suspended and now faces disciplinary action. He too spoke to the media saying that the punishment meted out to his client contravened shari’āh – in which he is absolutely correct.

Almost two weeks later, certain Saudi officials said that the woman had confessed to having an extra-marital affair and that the additional punishment was because of that. For them, and for many other Muslims, such a “confession” – if indeed there was such a thing – is sufficient to justify the torture of rape victim. How can any Muslim (or any person) believing in justice and compassion (The Just and The Compassionate are two of the names of Allah) think that this can acceptable? Have we become insensitive barbarians who live by some form of law of the jungle? Further, if she did confess to adultery (let us assume that the reports of her “confession” actually meant adultery when they said “having an affair”, then the punishment is not what the Qur’ān prescribes for adultery. And if she did make such a confession, was her male companion also sentenced similarly?

In a different sort of way, the Sudanese case was just as ridiculous, if less unjust. A British school teacher, Gillian Gibbons, asked her Grade ** class to name a teddy bear. A little boy suggested it be given his name: “Muhammad”. Gibbons accepted the suggestion and the teddy bear, with more power over the lives of people than it realised it had, was duly named. So far, so good. Sounds like a fairly typical school day.

But the parents of one of the children then complained to the authorities that Gibbons had, in fact, maligned the name of the Prophet Muhammad (s). She was arrested, charged, hauled off to court and almost sentenced to receive 40 lashes. She apologised for any offence she might have caused and her sentence was reduced to 15 days in jail! As crazy as it all sounds, it did not end there. The next Friday, hundreds of Muslims held a demonstration after the jumu’ah prayer, calling for Gibbons’ head, demanding that she be sentenced to death. Fits in quite neatly with the image of the bloodthirsty Muslim, if you ask me.

Before Gibbons could serve out her full 15 days’ jail term, she was “pardoned” by Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, adding an element of tragic humour to the whole sorry episode. How can we apply any sense of logic to this case? Are we Muslims really that stupid? Perhaps many of us are, if the calls to radio stations and comments on blogs are anything to go by. One caller said, with no shred of evidence, that Gibbons must have been indoctrinating the children. His proof? He had been a teacher so he knows what it’s like. As if one’s own misdemeanours are enough to accuse others of being similarly guilty. One blog commentator lamented that the teddy bear matter was “damaging to Islam’s image, but in the end common sense prevailed”. What common sense? Besides, justice is much more important than “Islam’s image”.
I have decided to start a campaign to evaluate the conduct of all Muhammads, Ahmads, Mustaphas and any others who have a name that was attached to the Prophet Muhammad (s). The campaign is currently recruiting volunteers. If any Muhammad, Ahmad, Mustapha falls short in his general conduct, his parents (or whichever relative named him) should be taken into the street and flogged publicly. The first parents to face this must be of the little Sudanese boy who suggested the name for the teddy bear.
We should also organise a vigilante force to find the parents of the Sudanese president and have them lashed. How dare they give that insolent boy the name (Hassan) of the grandson of the Prophet (s)?