Women in Iran Are Fighting for Their Freedom, and This Imam in Texas Is Furious

Robert Spencer-Opinion : Oct 10, 2022
PJ Media

"...Qadhi is ignoring the fact that women have received draconian and disproportionate sentences for not wearing the hijab, and 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was killed in police custody after being arrested for not wearing her hijab properly in the eyes of the security forces. That already takes the protests in Iran far beyond any question of the right of the state to make laws regarding public indecency..."

[PJMedia.com] What is happening in Iran these days is world-historical. The entire country is rising up against a brutal, violent, repressive regime that the people of Iran have endured for over forty years, and the most courageous of all are little schoolgirls who have their whole lives ahead of them and thus the most to lose. Yet while practically the entirety of what used to be called the free world is cheering on the demonstrators who are standing unarmed against ruthless security forces, one imam in Texas is not happy at all. Yasir Qadhi, one of the most prominent Muslim clerics and Islamic apologists in the United States, recently likened the protests in Iran to protesting for the right to walk around nude in Texas. Yes, he really did. (Screengrab image)

The East Plano Islamic Center's YouTube channel, EPIC Masjid (which has nearly 300,000 subscribers), recently posted a video of Qadhi explaining that to oppose Iran's mandatory hijab law, which some women have received ten-year prison sentences for violating, is tantamount to opposing public indecency laws in the good old USA. Qadhi said: "In the last two weeks, I have been inundated with dozens of emails with one particular focus or theme... regarding the enforcement of the hijab in a particular country, and apparently, it caused the death of somebody and whatnot." Qadhi explained that he wasn't a political commentator, and so he said he wasn't going to name the country or get into the political issues involved.

Qadhi said that he received a question from one of his followers, a high-school girl: "Is it true that our religion forces the women to wear the hijab? Can an Islamic government have this right? Shouldn't worship be done freely?" Qadhi responded by warning about getting involved in hypothetical issues that are far beyond our own responsibility: "I am not responsible for something happening five thousand miles away." He then launched into a lengthy critique of Western secularism, comparing it unfavorably to Islamic law, and argued that all countries, including those in the secular West, enforce codes of morality; they just differ in their content.

On that basis, Qadhi then advanced a curious argument: "Even in the West," he explained, "there are laws against indecency, and there are moral prescriptions about what one can and should and must wear." He added: "If you show certain parts of the body, and if you show certain organs of your body, you shall be fined, and if you continue to do so, you shall go to jail. Now, the issue therefore is not over, Can the state control what you can or cannot show? The issue is, How much can you show? So some Middle Eastern countries might have a lot more. And, uh, here in America, it is a lot less. But the notion of the state telling you a minimal amount that you can wear, that is pretty much universal."

Related: As Women in Iran Are Shot Down While Fighting for Their Rights, the Squad Has Little to Say

That's true as far as it goes, but Qadhi is ignoring the fact that women have received draconian and disproportionate sentences for not wearing the hijab, and 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was killed in police custody after being arrested for not wearing her hijab properly in the eyes of the security forces. That already takes the protests in Iran far beyond any question of the right of the state to make laws regarding public indecency. Nor is brutality against Muslim women who dare not to wear the hijab limited to Iran. Aqsa Parvez's Muslim father choked her to death with her hijab after she refused to wear it. Amina Muse Ali was a Christian woman in Somalia whom Muslims murdered because she wasn't wearing a hijab. Forty women were murdered in Iraq in 2007 for not wearing the hijab. Alya Al-Safar's Muslim cousin threatened to kill her and harm her family because she stopped wearing the hijab in Britain... (Screengrab image) Subscribe for free to Breaking Christian News here

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