General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsISIS Enshrines a Theology of Rape
QADIYA, Iraq In the moments before he raped the 12-year-old girl, the Islamic State fighter took the time to explain that what he was about to do was not a sin. Because the preteen girl practiced a religion other than Islam, the Quran not only gave him the right to rape her it condoned and encouraged it, he insisted.
He bound her hands and gagged her. Then he knelt beside the bed and prostrated himself in prayer before getting on top of her.
When it was over, he knelt to pray again, bookending the rape with acts of religious devotion.
I kept telling him it hurts please stop, said the girl, whose body is so small an adult could circle her waist with two hands. He told me that according to Islam he is allowed to rape an unbeliever. He said that by raping me, he is drawing closer to God, she said in an interview alongside her family in a refugee camp here, to which she escaped after 11 months of captivity.
The systematic rape of women and girls from the Yazidi religious minority has become deeply enmeshed in the organization and the radical theology of the Islamic State in the year since the group announced it was reviving slavery as an institution. Interviews with 21 women and girls who recently escaped the Islamic State, as well as an examination of the groups official communications, illuminate how the practice has been enshrined in the groups core tenets.
The trade in Yazidi women and girls has created a persistent infrastructure, with a network of warehouses where the victims are held, viewing rooms where they are inspected and marketed, and a dedicated fleet of buses used to transport them.
A total of 5,270 Yazidis were abducted last year, and at least 3,144 are still being held, according to community leaders. To handle them, the Islamic State has developed a detailed bureaucracy of sex slavery, including sales contracts notarized by the ISIS-run Islamic courts. And the practice has become an established recruiting tool to lure men from deeply conservative Muslim societies, where casual sex is taboo and dating is forbidden.
A growing body of internal policy memos and theological discussions has established guidelines for slavery, including a lengthy how-to manual issued by the Islamic State Research and Fatwa Department just last month. Repeatedly, the ISIS leadership has emphasized a narrow and selective reading of the Quran and other religious rulings to not only justify violence, but also to elevate and celebrate each sexual assault as spiritually beneficial, even virtuous.
Every time that he came to rape me, he would pray, said F, a 15-year-old girl who was captured on the shoulder of Mount Sinjar one year ago and was sold to an Iraqi fighter in his 20s. Like some others interviewed by The New York Times, she wanted to be identified only by her first initial because of the shame associated with rape.
He kept telling me this is ibadah, she said, using a term from Islamic scripture meaning worship.
He said that raping me is his prayer to God. I said to him, What youre doing to me is wrong, and it will not bring you closer to God. And he said, No, its allowed. Its halal, said the teenager, who escaped in April with the help of smugglers after being enslaved for nearly nine months.
more...
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/14/world/middleeast/isis-enshrines-a-theology-of-rape.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)and it's beyond revolting. This reads like a bad novel and is unimaginable that it is happening today.
But it is, and shows the depths to which we can sink.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)In addition to engaging in an unprovoked war of aggression, we have the execution of prisoners and now the rape and human trafficking of prisoners.
Jamastiene
(38,187 posts)Being raped in the name of whatever god it is at the time, is also spiritual abuse. That can be horrendous too, for some. Either way, it is horrendous. That poor girl.
whatthehey
(3,660 posts)Even though both victim and perpetrator say it was religious in motivation and the latter acted in practical accordance with that interpretation.
OneGrassRoot
(22,920 posts)so I may be stepping in it and showing my ignorance by replying.
But surely no one denies that these are Muslims following an extremely radical perversion of Islam?
They're using religion just as Westboro and others use religion, but religion is indeed involved.
Still, the vast majority of Muslims do not support ISIS or their radical brand of Islam, just as the majority of Christians don't support Westboro and similar radicals and their particular perversion of Christianity.
I say perversion because scriptural, theological debates are, to me, hopeless. Everyone can find passages to support whatever it is they're defending. So while people may point to a radical interpretation as being, on the face of it, in keeping with scripture, the vast majority of followers don't adhere to violent interpretations.
So I won't condemn all Muslims for the actions of ISIS any more than I'll condemn and paint all Christians as crazies because of Westboro.
But, yes, religion is being used.
(Personally, I'm not a follower of organized religion and do believe it has been abused throughout history and lies at the heart of many of Humanity's horrors.)
whatthehey
(3,660 posts)No problem separating the two.
"The rapist was motivated by Islam" does not, logically, grammatically or in any other way include the concept "All followers of Islam are motivated to commit rape". It only seems to be in discussions of religion that this is even considered as a potential objection. Nobody denies testosterone plays a part in motivating rape too, but only the wildest of extreme misandrists assumes anyone with T levels above 0 is a budding rapist. A desire for power over others helps motivate rape too, another unchallenged truism, but again it would be laughable to think anybody with high dominance seeking scores in a psych profile is going to start raping women at will.
No it's perfectly possible for a few thousand Muslims to think rape is commanded in the Qur'an and for many millions to disagree, and plenty to be in the middle, while still not negating the religious motivation of the first group.
cali
(114,904 posts)to discuss what elements within Islam propel this shit. At least it's impossible to have that discussion here. And there are inevitably, a large number of people who derail any attempt with "Christian fundamentalists in the U.S. are just as bad"
world wide wally
(21,740 posts)their actions. Isis is a refuge for homicidal maniacs and serial rapists in that part of the world.
ladjf
(17,320 posts)just crazy and cruel as hell. nt