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.
–Mauricio Lima, “ISIS Enshrines a Theology of Rape,” New York Times 8-13-15
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Before you begin spouting your canned response, “ISIS is a perversion of Islam” or it’s a “misinterpretation” of Islam, please think about this: What kind of religious scriptures lend themselves to such “perversion” and “misinterpretation” on a mass scale?
And before you Christians start feeling too self-righteous about this, please consider that slavery flourished for over 1,500 years in Christian lands, with Christian scripture supporting the practice. Of course, Christian apologists use the same excuses as Muslim apologists: the practice of slavery resulted from “perversion” or “misinterpretation” of scripture (in this case Romans 13:1-2, Colossians 3:22, Titus 2:9-10, Exocus 21:2-6, Exodus 21:20-21, Leviticus 25:44-46, 1 Peter 2:18, 1 Timothy 6:1). Again, what kind of religious scriptures lend themselves to such “perversion” and “misinterpretation” on a mass scale?
Is this systemic “perversion” and “misinterpretation” evidence that Christian and Muslim scriptures “encourage morality,” or is it evidence that they encourage the worst types of immorality?
Is this mass “perversion” and “misinterpretation” evidence that Christian and Muslim scriptures were divinely inspired, or is it evidence that they were written by all-too-human savages?
Sharp and Pointed 
Reblogged this on By the Mighty Mumford and commented:
HARD TO HEAR….BUT WE NEED TO…CHRISTIANS AND MUSLIMS BOTH!
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Thanks for the kind comments and for reblogging this. I really wish it wasn’t necessary to remind people of this and that both Christians and Muslims would just cherry pick their scriptures for the humane parts; a lot of them do, but unfortunately there are those who cherry pick for the worst, most inhmane parts.
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I’VE GOTTEN A LOT OF FLACK FROM AN INTELLECTUAL MUSLIM WHO CLAIMS CHRISTIANS DO A LOT OF CHERRY-PICKING (AND—AS YOU SAY–THEY DO). THEN…HE GOES AND DOES IT TOO! 🙂
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Yep. I don’t mind the cherry picking. I just wish they’d honestly admit that they’re doing it.
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