ISIS executing 'educated women' in new wave of horror, says U.N.

[oberliner]

Source: AFP via Al Arabiya

The United Nations on Tuesday decried numerous executions of civilians in Iraq by the Islamic State group, warning that educated women appeared to be especially at risk.

The jihadist group is showing a “monstrous disregard for human life” in the areas it controls in Iraq, the U.N. human rights office said.

The group, which controls large swathes of territory in Iraq and in neighbouring war-ravaged Syria, last week published pictures of the “crucifixions” of two men accused of being bandits, and of a woman being stoned to death, allegedly for adultery.

Numerous other women have also reportedly been executed recently in ISIS-controlled areas, including Mosul, spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told reporters.

Read more: http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2015/01/20/ISIS-executing-educated-women-in-new-wave-of-horror-says-U-N-.html

[leftynyc]

1. Of course they are

Educated women are the bane of the existence of all religious conservatives everywhere. Of course, the vast majority don't stone, behead or crucify them.

[DetlefK]

2. And the islamic state is supposed to work how?

All the educated people who know how to keep a city running are getting killed or flee. Who keeps bureaucracy running, what about the sewage system, water, electricity, hospitals? Seems like ISIS wants to rule over a deserted no-mans-land.

"Allahu akbar, my brothers. From this hut and with this herd of goats we will bring back the Golden Age when Islam was synonymous with the most advanced civilization on Earth."

[Raster]

3. Allah will provide, of course.

[chrisa]

13. Keeping the slaves uneducated keeps them in line.

Then, mix in tales of a vengeful sky fairy punishing those who rebel. See, it's not them making the rules. It's the guy who lives in the clouds and watches us all, like Santa Claus!

[DetlefK]

14. But guerilla-fighters and uneducated slaves don't know how to run a hospital.

A month ago I read a story about a hospital in IS-territory. The doctors and nurses there get paid by Iraq and the salaries are brought into IS-territory by a courier of that hospital.

ISIS can't even pay the people who keep their society from collapsing. No wonder they tried to invent their own currency in IS.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

51. Ah, THAT explains the GOP's ejumakashun policies for Americans

[Xithras]

15. The IS has zero problem returning the ME to the 10th century.

Bureaucracy, sewers, running water, electricity, and hospitals are western creations. The slaves can dig wells to drink from, you can crap in the desert, and if Allah wanted you to have electricity and medicine, he would have given them to you.

You have to remember that the IS isn't about restoring the "golden age" of Islam. They exist to impose an orthodox and fundamentalist form of Islam that prohibits evils like dancing, art, and free thinking.

[Exultant Democracy]

17. Obviously you haven't the first clue about the Islamic world during the 10th century

First off they had a top notch bureaucracy in fact it the amazingly effective bureaucracy is given partial credit for the Islamic golden age under the Abbasid Caliphate.

They had running water, in the middle east long before they had it in Europe, hydro engineering was a specialty in the region for obvious reasons. The Abbasid's in particular loved to put fountains everywhere.

Arabs were familiar with the concept of electricity and the atom in 1000 c.e. unlike their European counterparts. Europeans in the middle ages literally had no idea who Aristotle was until Islamic scholars reeducated them.

Western Medicine is an invention of the Islamic world, while the Europeans might have had one bath a year the Muslims never forgot Galen and very much improved upon him and all the classical works. Moreover all of the Western natural sciences depend on advances made in the Islamic world. If it had not been for Islamic scholars there never would have been a European renaissance or scientific revolution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age
This article starts to scratch the surface, but suffice to say your post seems ignorant in the extreme in light of the basic facts.

Suffice to say the best thing that could happen for the people in the middle east is if their was a revival of their golden age, Isis is trying to do the opposite.

[Xithras]

18. Lol. I'm quite aware of the history of the ME.

The Islamic golden age was also a period of immense social inequity in the middle east. While life may have been good for the merchant and governing classes, nearly all of the population wasn't in those groups and lived in conditions that differed little from their bronze age forebears. Slavery flourished under the Abbasid's, and in fact it was during the 10th century that the Mamluk system was established and the Islamic world used entire slave armies to enforce its will and spread its reach into new areas. Women were forced into sex slavery by the tens of thousands, and boys as young as five were routinely sexually mutilated and enslaved to do the bidding of the upper classes.

For the average person during the Abbasid era, life was hell. Infant mortality rates reached 50%, childhood was over by age 8, there was no medical care, few could read, those without farmland or a hereditary trade had to compete against slaves for work, and could be forcibly enslaved if they were unable to find any. No commoners had running water or sewers in their homes. And none were permitted an education beyond what they could pick up at the local mosque. Most people ended up dead before they reached their mid 40's.

Life was great for the nobles elites who ran the place, but it's a fallacy to argue that life was anything but miserable for the commoners. It was a golden empire built on the back of misery and servitude.

The "good life" was limited to a privileged minority. That's exactly the world the IS is trying to recreate.

[Exultant Democracy]

20. By killing educated people? Seems like the opposite to me, educated people were their rock stars.

And if you already knew so much, why the ignorant comments about medicine and running water?

[Xithras]

21. It's like the Abbasid's and paper.

Islamic writing flourished under the Abassid's because paper making was introduced. While papyrus writing had existed in the middle east for millennia, paper production reduced the cost of writing and allowed it to be more widely used. Paper making was a Chinese invention that was introduced into the Islamic world after their armies raided western China and enslaved Chinese papermakers. For centuries after that, papermaking was the sole domain of the paper slaves. There were no Arab papermakers, and no free papermakers.

The Abbasid's held papermaking in high regard and considered it to be very important to their empire and learning, but at the same time they limited the practical application of that skill to people who they could control completely. This was fairly typical of the way they treated any new technology. They treated those with valuable skills like "rock stars", but only when they were firmly under the caliphates control.

There was no running water, medicine, paper, or education for the common folk.

[Exultant Democracy]

24. You said no buracracy in 1000 c.e. which is fabulously ignorant

Last edited Wed Jan 21, 2015, 11:38 PM - Edit history (2)

and everything else you are saying shows the same shallow level of understanding.

You really think giant megalopolis like Damascus, Baghdad,and Marrakech, we able to grow without the population having access to clean drinking water? That sounds extremely unlikely to me, especially considering we can still see the aqueducts today, not to mention the extensive underground canal networks they built. If they we only giving access to running water to the nobles, why did they build such extensive water management systems as if they were providing clean drinking water for millions? (how did their famous firemen do their jobs)

If paper was only for the elite how do you explain their vast and comprehensive public education system. By 1000 c.e. there was a fatwa in place that ordered every child to be enrolled from age 6 to 14 and their literacy rates were sky high. They even had special laws to make sure that orphans were given access to public schools to make sure they wouldn't be exploited. Are you implying that they didn't have the public schools that are so well documented in history? Or are you more ignorant then you think?

You literally said they didn't have hospitals, but they invented the concept and we borrowed the idea of hospitals from them. Their hospitals were also open to the public because their doctors followed the Hippocratic oath. As a rule no one was turned away and the treated leapers, the blind, beggars and so on. They also had male and female nurses and practitioners who were all salaried by the caliphate.

So if we are looking at real history they had public education, public hospitals, and running water available to the public in their cities. That would make you wrong on every count.

[DetlefK]

39. Actually, it was islamists who destroyed the arabic science community in ME (very long article)

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/why-the-arabic-world-turned-away-from-science

Excerpts:

"In its place arose the anti-rationalist Ash’ari school whose increasing dominance is linked to the decline of Arabic science. With the rise of the Ash’arites, the ethos in the Islamic world was increasingly opposed to original scholarship and any scientific inquiry that did not directly aid in religious regulation of private and public life. While the Mu’tazilites had contended that the Koran was created and so God’s purpose for man must be interpreted through reason, the Ash’arites believed the Koran to be coeval with God — and therefore unchallengeable. At the heart of Ash’ari metaphysics is the idea of occasionalism, a doctrine that denies natural causality. Put simply, it suggests natural necessity cannot exist because God’s will is completely free. Ash’arites believed that God is the only cause, so that the world is a series of discrete physical events each willed by God."

...

"The greatest and most influential voice of the Ash’arites was the medieval theologian Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (also known as Algazel; died 1111). In his book The Incoherence of the Philosophers, al-Ghazali vigorously attacked philosophy and philosophers — both the Greek philosophers themselves and their followers in the Muslim world (such as al-Farabi and Avicenna). Al-Ghazali was worried that when people become favorably influenced by philosophical arguments, they will also come to trust the philosophers on matters of religion, thus making Muslims less pious. Reason, because it teaches us to discover, question, and innovate, was the enemy; al-Ghazali argued that in assuming necessity in nature, philosophy was incompatible with Islamic teaching, which recognizes that nature is entirely subject to God’s will: “Nothing in nature,” he wrote, “can act spontaneously and apart from God.” "

[Exultant Democracy]

49. I would say Orientalism has already been discredited.

This article is full of notions that found their origin in old school late 19th early 20th century. The key factor is he timeline does not fit the fact and neither do many of his facts fit the facts.

I do want to spend a half hour responding to everything he got wrong, so I will just point to a few people that must not have ever existed if his thesis is correct.

We will start with the Ash'arites, Al-Biruni and Ibn al-Haytham. If the orientalist are correct then these men could not have pioneered the scientific method because it would have been antithetical to their belief system. Unless in fact the Asharites believed that faith should only apply to Islam and not to scientific studies.

Then we have Mirza Ulugh Beg (1449) who also falls far outside of the timeline Ofek seems to pull from whole cloth. Ulugh Beg (and his mom also an outstanding scientist) must not have actually been the major influence of Tycho Brahe. No way Tycho could have borrowed his ingenious design in order to build his own observatory.

Finally the Marie Boas Hall one of the foremost scholars on the scientific revolution must not have been a real women who after finding that she was spending a considerable amount of time translating Arabic correspondence noted "At first thought, it seems unlikely that the Fellows of the Royal Society founded by the ‘new philosophy' in England in 1660 ‘for the promotion of natural knowledge', self-confessedly forward looking modernists, should have concerned themselves with Islamic learning. That they did so throws further light upon the complexities of the scientific revolution."
She must have been just full of shit I am sure Ofek spent far more time pouring over the records of the Royal Society before taking the words of the, discredited nonagenarian last hold out of the Orientalist, Bernard Lewis at face value on the topic.

Hint anyone who quotes Bernard Lewis on Islam is either ignorant of his historiography or is trying to push Lewis' discredited racist agenda. I will take Marie Boas Hall over Lewis any day and I find it surprising to see his tripe on a liberal board. If you believe that Marie Boas Hall was a fraud an a liar then Lewis and Ofek might have a point.

[oberliner]

33. The Abbasid Caliphate was no "Golden Age" for Muslim women

Males dominated society, segregating women in all aspects, with the exception of family. Harems and veils appeared and became representative of the females’ subjugation to males. Marriage occurred early for women with the goal of childbearing.

The seclusion of women and the veil become official policy under the Abbasid's. It was a giant step backwards for women in every respect. Female infanticide was a serious problem - and adult women were the property of their husbands and fathers.

ISIS represents a desire to return to this Golden Age in that respect (and many others - such as reintroducing slavery and making the Koran the law of the land).

[Exultant Democracy]

34. So those lists of female scholars merchants and soldiers are bullshit?

Not to mention all the female doctors around during the Abbasid Caliphate.

The one of the foremost medieval Islamic historians Al-Sakhawi (1428-1497) devoted an entire book to famous female Islamic scholars from the period and the advancements they made across a number of fields. I guess those thousand some women were figments of his imagination?

If women were property, then why did they have distinct property rights along with the right to divorce?

You think a burka is a step forward from a semi transparent half face veil? I posit that most people would think that if the women in the middle east were to take off their burkas in exchange for semi transparent half face veils that it would be a step forward. I will agree that over the course of the caliphate conditions for women eventually declined, but this was also during the over all general decline and well after the golden age had ended.

[oberliner]

35. That would be about one female scholar per year? Across the entire Muslim world?

Over a more than 1000 year period. Certainly the least likely period and location for any of said scholars to emerge from would be the Abbasid Caliphate. This is widely regarded as the period of time where women lost the most ground in the Muslim world. In any case, even the most repressive European Christian communities could come up with one female scholar per year in spite of their obvious subjugation.

Probably, though, if such a list was being compiled, a scholar could come up with literally thousands upon thousands of names per year of Muslim women and girls in the Abbasid Caliphate who were courtesans, slaves, or worse.

Actually that would be quite a challenge since so many of these women and girls (especially the slaves from conquered lands) were often not given names. I would encourage you to look closely into these grim facts.

Any place where the Bible or Koran held sway was not a place of great enlightenment with respect to women. Please let's not kid ourselves on that score.

And I would argue the same is very much the case today, lamentably.

It is only with the abandonment of the superstitious and hateful nonsense of these holy books that women, and indeed all people, can truly be free.

[Exultant Democracy]

37. No this was just a list of a little over a thousand rock star women who made serious advances.

He wrote and entire book about them in the 1400's. (covering far less than a 1000 year period encase you were still having trouble with the math) Do you really not understand the significance of that. How many modern scholars have produced documents of a similar scope for western female scientists, I am guessing the list is very very short?

There were plenty of other women scholars who did not make it into his book, we know for example that they kept their hospitals staffed with female nurses and doctors (including surgeons) so I'm not sure what your point is. Unless are you contending that these female doctors and scholars didn't exist, that these hospitals and schools weren't really their? We still have plenty of other records of female merchants and figures of importance do you suggest that these are fabrications?

I also hope you understand the difference between slavery under Islam and the horror of slaver as it was practiced in the US, because they could not be more different. In fact we actually know some of these female scholars were slaves or freed slaves or members of harems. Being a slave was not an impediment to getting an education, we have a considerable body of evidence to indicate that slaves who showed an aptitude were greatly encourage in their academic endeavors. A smart slave was a valuable slave in the Islamic empire as opposed to the U.S. where a smart slave was a dead slave. There were a considerable number of slaves who held power and authority over free men by holding various government offices, granted while still being beholden to their masters. If you were lucky enough to be the kings slave you could hold a rank a high a prime minister.

It is not that controversial to consider slavery under medieval Islam to be one of the most moderate examples of the institution, freeing slaves was also considered a highly virtuous act. One of the reasons they went out to get some many new slaves is because they were constantly freeing so many of their slaves.

However you apparently think a full body covering burka is a human rights advancement when compared to the semi transparent half face veil so I'm not sure I should take anything you write here very seriously.

[oberliner]

41. Have you read this book?

If not, what are you basing your information about the book on?

If so, can you tell me where I can get a copy of it in English?

I am not sure where I said a full body covering burka is a human rights advancement. If you got that impression, I certainly did not mean to imply any such thing.

Here's a citation addressing what I meant about the Abbasid Calphiate:

Author: Dr. Younus Shaikh, Pakistani Rationalist and founder President of the Rationalist organization of Pakistan, "The Enlightenment", who was once sentenced to death for blasphemy in Pakistan, writes on Islam and Women.

Excerpt:

Later on, however, the insecurity of early Islam gradually added to the exclusion of women, and 100 years later, by the reign of the Abbasid Caliph Haroon ur Rashid, women became merely sexual toys and breeding machines; and as married women they were merely maid servants- mere man's social appendages. Moreover, as female sex-slaves, women were freely bought and sold in open markets of all Islamic countries, and loaned, rented or bestowed as gifts to friends. The prophet himself bestowed women sex-slaves to his favourites. There was no limit to the number of slaves one could own; one of the companions of prophet Hazrat Zubair Ibn ul Arvan, for example, had 1000 men-slaves and 1000 women sex-slaves. Islam took the woman as the land tilled by the man where he spilled his seeds.

http://www.rationalistinternational.net/article/20041120_en.html

I am happy to read and learn more on this topic, and I would hope you would be as well.

[Exultant Democracy]

46. Nothing against Dr. Shaikh, but he had an agenda and this is not scholarly work

Last edited Thu Jan 22, 2015, 06:42 PM - Edit history (1)

Red flags terms like "to that the evil Islamic mullahs" give you a good hint as to what is going on here. A person who outright says a people are evil in a paper can not be expected to give a far and measured assessment of the subject.

Other gems in this page include.
"Iran basically an Islamic spiritual colony, is the godfather of the Shiite Islamic terrorism,( Saudi Sunnis are an Islamic sect like the Christian Catholics while Shiites are like the Protestant Christians). This Allah's government in Iran is the most evil religious state today. Torture, murder and Islamic absolutism- an Islamic version of Hitler's Nazism, Stalin's Communism and Mussolini's Fascism combined."

The paper is so all over the place that it never bothers to make a cogent argument that can be argued against, with a considerable amount of nonsense. Mixing back and forth from age of Islamic conquest with the golden age of Islam is nonsensical. Notice he left out that some of the most powerful generals during the Islamic conquest were women.

His comments on poetry are especially baffling. It is not hard to argue that Rumi is the most influential poet in history (on competition is the bard.) If the good doctor is correct either Rumi never existed or he wasn't famous for lines like "This woman, who is your beloved, is in fact a ray of His light, She is not a mere creature. She is like a creator." However we know for a fact that Rumi is the single most influential poet in Islam if not the world and he did write those lines in addition to many many more that are all full of praise for women, not only for their beauty but for their wisdom and grace. Either the good doctor has never heard of Rumi in which case he is a fool, or he choose to ignore Rumi in which case he is both a fool and a liar.


If someone was to make a similar argument on DU we would laugh at them. She also uses a considerable amount of information that I know to be blatantly false, such as her claim that FGM is Islamic. There are a few sects of Arabs that do practice FGM but it has never been a feature of the religion.

Here is another quote I for one found outrageous.
"Muslims in civilized and democratic societies should be required to take the oath of loyalty to the state and democracy. "

I would say with robust certainty that if this is where you are getting your information from someone who claims " Islam is an organized crime against humanity!" that it explains a lot about what you mistakenly believe.

The book you are asking about is called al-Daw al-Lami, biographical dictionary of eminent persons of the ninth century by al-Sakhawi, it list over 1000 prominent female scholars from the period. However if you are not getting college credit for it a primer like Beyond The Exotic: Women's Histories In Islamic Societies edited by Amira El Azhary Sonbol contains actual scholarship on this issue and isn't full of bullshit by propagandist trying to push an agenda.

[oberliner]

50. Yes, he certainly has an agenda: promoting human rights

He has been accused of blasphemy. A crime, incidentally, that was punishable by death during the so-called "Golden Age of Islam" to which you refer. Regrettably, there are some places that still have not emerged form this medieval barbarism.

Can you name for me the branch of Islam that does not object to apostasy and/or blasphemy? Either historical or in the present day.

In any case, this is a man who had a fatwa put out against him - a man who was sentenced to the death penalty for the charge of "speaking words that defile the prophet".

Here is more information:

Born in a Muslim family and educated in Muslim schools, Dr. Younus Shaikh found his way to rationalism and liberalism through books. After studying medicine in Pakistan and in Ireland, he returned to his country and worked as a medical doctor and college lecturer. In 1992, he founded the rationalist organization The Enlightenment and served as its president. He fought in public meetings and newspaper articles courageously for freethought and free speech, for separation of state and religion and for women's rights. He also founded and led the South Asian Fraternity, which aims at promoting understanding, goodwill and harmony, religious tolerance, interaction, and people-to-people contact amongst the countries of South Asia.

In October 2000, he was arrested in a cooked-up blasphemy case. Islamic fanatics accused him falsely of having made derogatory remarks about the Prophet during one of his lectures on 7th century Arabia. They filed a criminal complaint against him under the draconian Blasphemy Law (Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code), which carries mandatory death penalty. Sentenced to death in August 2001, he was languishing in solitary confinement in one of the dreaded death cells of Rawalpindi Central Jail for more than two years, before he was acquitted and released in greatest secrecy and under heavy security. He had to leave his country because fundamentalists threatened his life and now lives in Switzerland as a recognized refugee.

http://www.rationalistinternational.net/associates/y_shaikh.htm

In any case, we've gone far afield of the initial topic, though I have found this discussion to be very interesting, and I appreciate you taking the time to share your perspective.

My assertion, which I recognize you don't agree with, is that the doctrinal texts of Islam - when followed precisely - will always lead and have always led to the oppression of women.

I would assert the same for the Bible, both Old and New Testaments.

That is not to say there have not been individual cases of specific women who have managed to overcome these inherent prejudices, both in the Muslim and Christian world, but to say that the only reason for the current actions of ISIS against women is as a response to Western imperialism, to me is not a reasonable claim to make. And I feel that the historical record of the various Islamic Caliphates supports rather than detracts from such an assertion.

But, as I said in our other discussion, I am always open to learning more and reading more on the subject with an open mind, as I hope you are too.

[Exultant Democracy]

53. Can you name any religion that doesn't object to apostasy?

I can name more then a few orders of Islam where there is no punishment for apostasy that rises above general disapproval. There are entire sects within the broader school of Sufism where a physical punishment even a slap on the face would be unthinkable.

Your assertion that 'Islam will always lead to and has led to the oppression of women' reminds me of a Bertrand Russel quote. "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts."

There is plenty of counter evidence to you assertion much of which I have shared in this thread. I know of more then a few Sufi women who would be scratching their head at being describes as oppressed by their religion, especially all those female Sufi Muqaddams.

What you are doing is the same as someone looking at the teapullican xtians in America and making broad statements about Christianity and the role women will always play in the religion without considering the Quakers. Quakers are still real even if they do not fit in with your argument which means your argument is wrong.

And when we are talking about female Doctors and other educated women during the Islamic golden age we are not talking about an individual here or there, we are talking about an entire class of people. They were not an exception to the rule they were the rule. Someone should acknowledged that these women had access to education and agency. Far more access to education and far more agency then Isis wants to allow women. I think that fact is self evident but my entire presences on this thread is a response to the ignorant notion that Isis wants to bring the M.E. back to the 10th century.

[csziggy]

25. It's going to be another regime like Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge

Pol Pot (Khmer pronunciation: [pɒl pɒt]; Khmer: ប៉ុល ពត; 19 May 1925 – 15 April 1998),[1][2] born Saloth Sar (Khmer: សាឡុត ស , was a Cambodian communist revolutionary who led the Khmer Rouge[5] from 1963 until 1997. From 1963 to 1981, he served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea.[6] As such, he became the leader of Cambodia on 17 April 1975, when his forces captured Phnom Penh. From 1976 to 1979, he also served as the prime minister of Democratic Kampuchea.

He presided over a totalitarian dictatorship[7] that imposed a radical form of agrarian socialism on the country. His government forced urban dwellers to move to the countryside to work in collective farms and forced labour projects. The combined effects of executions, forced labour, malnutrition and poor medical care caused the deaths of approximately 25 percent of the Cambodian population.[8][9][10][11] In all, an estimated 1 to 3 million people (out of a population of slightly over 8 million) died due to the policies of his four-year premiership.

<SNIP>

The Khmer Rouge also classified people by religion and ethnic group. They banned all religion and dispersed minority groups, forbidding them to speak their languages or to practice their customs. They especially targeted Buddhist monks, Muslims, Christians, Western-educated intellectuals, educated people in general, people who had contact with Western countries or with Vietnam, disabled people, and the ethnic Chinese, Laotians and Vietnamese. Some were put in the S-21 camp for interrogation involving torture in cases where a confession was useful to the government. Many others were summarily executed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pol_Pot

Though the Khmer Rouge wasn't pro-religion, they were anti-everything that didn't fit their narrow criteria, same as the fanatics of the fundamentalists are anti-everything that doesn't fit their perversion of religion.

[hollysmom]

27. exactly!

[First Speaker]

4. This reminds me of the Khymer Rouge executing people who wore glasses...

...what the fuck is wrong with humanity? Goddam savages.

[duhneece]

5. That was my first thought too

But with the focus being on women, I wonder how can I be more sickened, but I am.

[quadrature]

6. only a subset of humanity does this

of course, I can't talk much more about
who exactly that is

[valerief]

7. Most fundies just crush women's souls. nt

[Pooka Fey]

8. K&R

[Trillo]

9. The continuation of the use of "ISIS" instead of "IS" is what Orwell called "Newspeak".

It's probably an attempt to deflect the pagan origins of the term, so this is not only about some violent murderers in the Middle East killing educated females, it is also about relabeling an old Pagan term which was usurped by the Catholic Church into a new label of violence and contempt. The relabeling itself minus any violent acts would seem patriarchal.

(1) The Cult of Isis, an Egyptian mother-goddess religion, was absorbed into Christianity by replacing Isis with Mary. Many of the titles that were used for Isis, such as “Queen of Heaven,” “Mother of God,” and theotokos (“God-bearer”) were attached to Mary. Mary was given an exalted role in the Christian faith, far beyond what the Bible ascribes to her, in order to attract Isis worshippers to a faith they would not otherwise embrace. Many temples to Isis were, in fact, converted into temples dedicated to Mary. The first clear hints of Catholic Mariology occur in the writings of Origen, who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, which happened to be the focal point of Isis worship.

[oberliner]

10. Not really

I think it's just what they were first identified as and the name just stuck. Not seeing any significant difference between saying ISIS or IS.

[Agnosticsherbet]

29. Actually ISIS is an acronym. (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria)

ISIL Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant"

They now call themselves IS, (Islamic State).

It has nothing to do with Isis.

[JustAnotherGen]

11. kick

Because this is what ISIS IS. It's who they are. We need to believe them because time and again they show us and we have a tendency to suspend belief.

[Rhinodawg]

12. I can't believe the anti-muslim comments on this thread..

Look , you cant judge an entire rel....

never mind.

[marble falls]

16. Shocks me too.

[MellowDem]

23. You can judge a religion by its texts...

Islam is explicitly misogynist.

[jberryhill]

30. The victims here are adherents of what religion?

[MellowDem]

42. Not sure what your point is?

[jberryhill]

44. The killers and their victims are all Muslim

So, apparently, Islam is not the distinguishing factor here.

[MellowDem]

45. It's a factor...

as to why ISIS is making these women I to victims. I have no idea how the victims being Muslim show that it's not a factor.

If you have an explicitly misogynist belief system, you'll get these sorts of acts, and the belief system will justify these acts. Considering it's religion, everything is open to interpretation and one interpretation cannot be proven to be any more "true" then another.

[kestrel91316]

38. So is christianity, in case you hadn't noticed.

[MellowDem]

43. I agree...

all the Abrahamic religions are.

[heaven05]

19. religious mysogynists

at it again. All this in the name of male religious dominance. A smart woman is definitely feared by many men on this planet. If she is smart and strong, I like her even more. Between boko harem and these clowns, I just don't like the world any more. Throw in our brand of racist, religious mysogynists and I can't stand it anymore.

[Coventina]

22. An educated woman is a danger to the patriarchy inherent in the Abrahamic tradition.

I'm saddened and angered, but not shocked.

Not in the least.

[shenmue]

26. Mercy

[bluestateguy]

28. Savage beasts of ISIS

nt

[Exultant Democracy]

31. In the middle ages an Islamic woman founded the worlds first University.

And at the time she was considered a hero of Islam. Today they are killing women for being educated. Says a lot about the radicalizing power of western imperialism.

[oberliner]

32. Did you know that only men were permitted to study at said university?

This, incidentally, continues to be the case today.

Also the only reason Fatima al-Fihri was able to spend her money to pay for this university was because her father and husband both had died.

The oppression of women has been a feature of Islam (along with many other religions) since it's so-called Golden Age.

And I would think it need not be pointed out that Muslim men at this time (as many still do today) took multiple wives, if they could afford to do so, some as young as ten or eleven years old.

Nothing whatsoever to do with "the radicalizing power of western imperialism" but rather than doctrinal texts of said religions.

It is also worth noting that Muslim imperialism and conquest was the norm during this period. The Fatmid Caliphate which ruled most of North Africa and much of the Middle East at the time of the foundation of said university featured a permanent slave class - as instructed to them by their holy texts.

[Exultant Democracy]

36. There were female professors at the university of Cordoba and Valencia by 1000 c.e.

In fact the leading scholar in Islamic Spain during the period was a woman. Women worked in and made progress in every field of scholarship studied in the Islamic world. Making her one of the foremost scholars in the Islamic world during the Abbasid period. There were also plenty of notable schools for women in Baghdad too, training for instance surgeons among a number of other fields.

There are plenty of of boys and girls schools in America too. It doesn't change that kings came to study at Fatima al-Fihri's feet. Saying she only got where she got because of money is a very sexist dismissal of her standing as a foremost Islamic scholar. There were plenty of women with money, she got where she got because of vision and there was nothing in the Islamic world at the time in place to stop her in any way.

There were also school across the region that catered to women teaching everything male schools taught from religion and philosophy to science and especially medicine.

[oberliner]

40. "In fact the leading scholar in Islamic Spain during the period was a woman"

To whom do you refer with that statement?

[Exultant Democracy]

47. Lubna of Cordoba of course

the palace secretary of the caliphs (where she exercised considerable political control) who also served as the head of the royal library which was a role similar to the one played by president of the royal society in England.

Who else do you think it could have been? One of the Bibi's? There could be an argument for Bibi Qadeyfa, but I think in the balance Lubna was such a powerhouse politically that she was able to achieve far more then Qadeyfa.

(Lubna's wiki is wrong in case you haven't heard of her and decide to look her up. She was not the daughter of the caliph in fact she stated life as a Spanish slave.)

[oberliner]

48. By no definition could she be defined as "the leading scholar in Islamic Spain"

Can you site a source that makes such a claim?

How could you not consider Ibn Ḥazm?

(Incidentally, I share your distaste for Wikipedia)

[Exultant Democracy]

52. Hazm and Lubna were not contemporaries she died 10 years before he was born?

Last edited Thu Jan 22, 2015, 07:30 PM - Edit history (1)

The head of the Royal Library was the equivalent of the head of the royal society in England. Saying she could not be defined as the leading scholar is like that is like saying Robert Boyle was not the leading scholar in his heyday.

Many would say that Ibn Hazm would have never achieved what he did if it was not for the ground work of Lubna put in place and the institutions that she built in Spain to support the sciences. Books are a polymaths food and Lubna presided over a program that maintained least 150 women scholars of at all time working on translating and copying ancient texts in order to improve the libraries in Spain.