Cats and meat

Muslim women wear a veil and cover their hair because their beauty is to be for the pleasure of their husbands alone. In Australia, apparently, such clothing items are also weapons against would-be rapists.

Last week, Sheikh Taj El-Din Hamid Hilaly claimed that women who went out of their homes without being veiled were guilty of inciting rape. He also compared women who exposed their skin in this way to meat left out for wild cats. And, after all, if the cats attack the meat, whose fault is it? Not the cats’, because they are just acting according to their nature.

Needless to say, these comments have provoked intense outrage in Australia. The Muslim cleric has been suspended from preaching for three months, but he is not going to resign. And his apology for his remarks sounds incredibly like a non-apology apology, because he says “I am sorry if any woman was offended, you are quoting me out of context, I was speaking in defense of women.”

This story is really “revealing” in more ways than one. One of the reasons that the sheikh preached this sermon was that a group of Lebanese thugs went on a gang-rape spree several years ago and received harsh sentences just this year. Did the poor Australian victims “have it coming” because they did not adopt Muslim clothing styles? Although there is widespread condemnation of this cleric’s sermon, it must be wondered how pervasive this viewpoint is among the world’s jihadists. Do western nations like Australia and the United States deserve to be attacked because our women wear shorts and miniskirts?

It goes without saying that the provocative dress of a female is not an invitation to a male to rape her. Violence against women cannot be defended in any way, shape, or form. But it also should be expected that Christian women ought to be modest in their choice of attire, in order to minimize visual temptation.

What do you all think? React and debate.