Bridge of Grace

During my studies of war in the Middle East, I've noticed a disturbing trend, a trend of sex slavery.  In numerous conflicts I've examined a long-standing practice of women being abducted and sold into sex slavery.  Why is this?  It's clearly a violation of Just War Principles.  It's a violation of UN Law.  Frankly, it's a violation of any decent-minded person as any such person would conclude that rape and sex slavery is wrong.  So why is this such a widespread phenomenon in this region?  To understand this, we must look at the history and the scriptures of the region.   In pre-Islamic pagan Arabia, tribal warfare was a common theme of the region.  In this tribal society, taking women as "spoils of war" was a long-standing practice.  When the Islamic faith began, the founder, being a tribal Arab himself, mandated that this practice continue.  As such, it is mandated in the Qur'an in the following Surah's: Surah 70:...

During my travels in Pakistan in Dec. 2017, I discussed with some of my hosts about Pakistan's blasphemy laws with most hosts and they informed me how out of control they are.  They informed me that in April of 2017, a young Muslim college student by the name of Mashal Khan, who studying at to receive a degree in Mass Communications at Abdul Wali Khan University.  A humanist & believer in free speech, he paid for his beliefs with his life.  All he had done was put a few posts on Facebook.  Radical clerics in the region claimed that these posts blasphemed the Islamic faith.  Soon, a mob of people stormed through the campus and beat Mashal, Khan to death.  A later investigation by the Pakistani police concluded that none of Mashal's posts blasphemed Islam.  Dozens of people were arrested & imprisoned for murdering this innocent man.   It is absurd that a young man would be beaten to death by a mob simply for "allegedly" pos...

In Egypt, there is an epidemic of Islamists abducting Coptic Christian women and selling them into sex slavery.  There are hundreds of publicized cases, and thousands of un-publicized ones.   The kidnapped woman are subjected to physical & psychological abuse, enslavement, rape, forced marriage, & forced conversion to Islam.    The late Coptic Pope Shenouda III acknowledged this crisis as early as 1976.  There were at least 550 documented cases of Coptic girls being abducted and forcibly converted to Islam over the previous five years prior to the Arab Spring.  The Arab Spring & its aftermath only led to an increase in abductions.    The problem facing us is that this is not random abduction, it is a massive sex trafficking rig that is spread through a number of Middle Eastern Islamic Nations.  Many of the Islamist abductors work in cooperation with corrupt fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood members and supporters who infi...

Seven years ago, a Pakistani Christian man whom I shall call "Nicholas" married a young Muslim woman whom I shall call "Amber" to protect their identity.  Today they have two little children.  "Amber's" family was strongly opposed to the marriage as Sharia Law mandates that Muslim women cannot marry non-Muslim men.  This led them to file a police complaint against "Nicholas."  For two years, they fought the courts and were finally granted permission to marry, but they're still not safe.  T he family was forced to flee their native city of Faisalabad and settle in another part of the country.  They will never be able to go back to Faisalabad again as "Amber's" family has sworn to kill them both.  After fleeing, "Amber" converted to Christianity.  When I interviews them, they informed me that they received help from one Christian organization for two years and several promised to get them out of Pakistan, but none...

  Ever since the 1993 Oslo Accord we have heard countless promises of peace from the Palestinian Authority, yet for the past 25 years, there has been no peace.  Why is this?  The answer is that the Palestinian Authority does not believe in a lasting peace, and for them the Two-State Solution is not a road to a permanent peace, but a temporary means to an end, specifically Israel's end.   In July of 2000, the Camp David Summit ended in failure.  When Khaled Abu Toameh, an Israeli-Arab journalist for the Jerusalem Post asked Yasser Arafat why it failed. Arafat stated that it failed for two reasons: "First of all the Jews did not give me 100% of what I wanted." "Secondly, the Jews wanted me to end the conflict after I get what I want. I can not do this because if I make peace, I will end up drinking tea up there with Anwar Sadat (The former Egyptian President who was assassinated for signing a peace treaty with Israel)."  So it seems th...

Linda Sarsour: Champion of the Feminist Left and one of the organizers of the massive Feminist March after the election of Donald Trump as President.  She likes to paint herself as a modern feminist, that her hijab is her choice, & that she has the right to choose.  I fully agree.  Her hijab is her choice, and she has a right to wear it.  However, to women have the right to choose not to wear one?  Is the hijab truly a symbol of female empowerment and liberation?  Facts seem to state otherwise. Throughout the Middle East, women are forced to wear a hijab.  They don't have the luxury of choosing to do so.  Maryam Rostampour & Marziyeh Amirizadeh were both former Muslims from Iran.  They both testified that when in school, they had to wear their hijab, and that their teachers would rip out any strand of hair that was showing.  In a recent protest in Iran, a young female protester was jailed and received a two-year prison se...

Arab culture is based on honor, and the concept of honor in the Arab world is the driving force behind wars, killing, & international conflict.  Any perceived injury to the honor of one member of the clan by an outsider is considered an injury to all members of the Arab world.  Therefore, the drive for revenge to cleanse the honor justifies the killing of innocents, who have to pay the price to wipe away the shame.  A family’s respect and position within the Islamic community is dependent on the family’s honor.  The honor is the sole responsibility of the women of the family who are taught from childhood the consequences of their behavior.   The woman is the property of the man, whether her father, brother, or husband.  Shame is linked to every aspect of the woman’s behavior: her dress code, social behavior, her proper head covering, and many others.   An unmarried woman must remain a virgin un...

My previous blog ( Link to Blog ) illustrates that Qur’anic verses & Hadith accounts that concern Muhammad’s views on women and his teachings on how they should be treated.  Suffice to say, they are not flattering.  The impact of these teachings on the Islamic world can be seen everywhere in the Islamic world.  Human rights for women in Islamic nations is almost non-existent.  Women are told to be fully veiled in the Qur’an, they are considered unclean & inferior ( Surah 33:59 & 4:43 ) Their testimony is worth half that of a man and women are the majority in hell ( Bukhari Volume 1, Book 2, Number 28 ).  Mark Gabriel, a former Imam & Professor at Al-Azhar University has always disagreed with how women are treated in Islamic society.  Nevertheless, he conceded in his writings that upon examining the Qur’an and Hadith accounts, he came to the unpleasant realization that many of the restrictions and abuses that wo...

Throughout the course of history, philosophers, faith-based teachers, and national leaders have continually expressed their world-view about the role that women should play in our world.  The rights that a woman has within a nation usually depends on a specific nations tendency to build their societies around the the teachings and philosophies of specific individuals throughout the course of history.  So why is it that the Top 10 nations ranked worst in terms of women's rights (Yemen, Pakistan, Syria, Chad, Iran, Mali, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Morocco, & Jordan) are nations that are built around nations in which their societies adhere to the teachings of Islam?  What was it that Muhammad, the founder of the Islamic faith taught about the women?  Well, let us first look at the verses concerning women in the Qur'an, believed by Muslims to be the divine word of Allah revealed directly to Muhammad by the Archangel Gabriel: Surah 4:34- “ Men are in charge of wome...