I bet you didn't know these two recent stories:
A 49-year old female in New York suffered burns on more than 50 percent of her body because her father poured acid on her face and body.
A 29-year-old female in Montreal suffered burns on more than 70 percent of her body. Why? Her boyfriend doused acid on her face during a fit of anger, literally melting her skin away.
You didn't know these stories because acid attacks are pigeonholed as a "Muslim problem." And in these cases, neither the victims, nor the assailants, were Muslims. It is suggested that 99.9 percent of such attacks occur in the Muslim culture. Check out the news about the above victim in New York. It ends with a link to an Afghan acid attack story. Talk of being suggestive.
That suggestion, however, is flat out wrong. More than 80 percent of all acid attacks are committed against women. Granted, in some cases women have also committed these crimes against other men and/or women, but majority of them were retaliatory. Therefore, men are the common denominator -- not Islam.
A WHO report remarked: "Apart from Bangladesh, acid violence has been reported in Afghanistan, Cambodia, China, India, Jamaica, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Africa and Uganda. There have also been a few isolated cases in Europe and North America."
"Acid violence is a worldwide phenomenon," said the Acid Survivor Trust International, the largest European organization helping the victims of acid attacks, "that is not restricted to a particular race, religion or geographical location." According to estimates, more than 1,500 people in 20 countries are victims of acid attacks every year.
Sorry guys, but saying that acid attacks are unique to the Muslim world is like saying that rage, rape, revenge, resentment is -- and men are -- unique to the Muslim world. It doesn't work that way.
Some jokingly insist: "American men probably got the idea from the Muslims." That's a bad joke for two reasons. It's insensitive and inaccurate. According to the New York Times, a Brooklyn man threw acid on his "exceedingly good looking" landlady's face in 1890s.
The truth is that almost no sizable race, religion, country or custom is immune from this vile crime.
Take Colombia. A South American Spanish speaking country that recently reported up to 100 acid attacks a year. The country's population is 95 percent Christian and less than 1 percent Muslim. So would you blame the Christian or the Spanish culture?
Consider Cambodia. Located close to Vietnam, it reported approximately 100 acid attacks over a two year period. More than 95 percent of the country practices Buddhism with less than 2 percent Muslims. So much for Nirvana (a state of ultimate peace) I guess.
Or look at India. While actual numbers are much higher, a Cornell University study asserts that there were 153 acid attacks reported just in the Indian media from 1999 to 2010. The country is 80 percent Hindu, 13 percent Muslim and 2 percent Sikh (who are also not immune to such attacks). Many cases have been reported from Hong Kong and China. Even in Israel, a small country, a teacher and two students were burned when a Jewish family decided to bring the feud to school by throwing acid on their faces.
Count it all and you end up with approximately 5 billion people, adherents of five of the world's largest religions, spanning over five continents.
Yes, the rate of acid attacks remains higher in the Muslim majority countries but that's true for the rates of polio, illiteracy, poverty and corruption too, suggesting an alternate hypothesis.
That hypothesis, according to psychologists, is the despicable desire to inflict permanent disfigurement, not death, upon the victim. And the feelings of rage, revenge, resentment in the background of self-righteousness, poverty, illiteracy and false pride are largely responsible for such desires. Let's see if this hypothesis resonates with our minds.
Rage caused permanent blindness for Victor Riesel, a famous journalist, when a gangster threw acid at him in New York City in 1956.
Perhaps the paradigm of rage-revenge was at play when women in Arizona, Cleveland and Chicago suffered similar attacks in recent years.
We don't know if it was resentment or an attempt to gain sympathy when a woman in Washington State was caught with a self inflicted acid attack.
And the vitriolic self righteousness -- which has already burned people at the abortion clinics in the states of Texas, Louisiana and Florida during 1998 -- continues to threaten similar clinics in England.
Thankfully, the perpetrators are not getting a free ride anymore -- even in Muslim countries. Since Bangladesh introduced death penalty for throwing acid in 2002, according to Morrison and Rahman, acid attacks have dropped from an estimated 500 in 2002 to fewer than 100 in 2010. In Iran, acid attacks are now considered a capital offense. The Oscar winning documentary "Saving Face" has exposed these heinous crimes in Pakistan where acid attack are now punishable with life imprisonment.
Muslim men should realize: Staying indifferent to these crimes happening in Muslim countries is like allowing someone to douse sulfuric acid on Islam's face.
And all men could help by raising awareness about these crimes and demanding stricter legislation, instead of blaming Islam.
Dr. Faheem Younus is a clinical associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and he teaches courses about Islam at the University of Baltimore. He is also founder of Muslimerican.com and can be reached at Faheem.younus@gmail.com.
Follow Dr. Faheem Younus on Twitter: www.twitter.com/FaheemYounus
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But why do you think he did not prove the point? Specifics please.
"Can you HEAR me NOW?" ~ EVERY woman who feels like a 2nd class citizen living 'at the will' of a MALE dominated world power structure.
This, too, shall pass.
At the beginning of the statement he gives two examples of women who were recently attacked by acid, one in Montreal and the other in New York. Strange thing is, neither of the articles the author linked to made any mention of religion. I guess the author has some inside information and knows they weren’t Muslim.
Additionally, his use of numbers really bother me. For example the author states that Cambodia only has a Muslim population of 2%. OK, so what? Simply stating that Muslims are a low percentage does not disprove that Muslims weren’t throwing acid. There is still a Muslim population of 300,000 who I could imagine might be responsible for 100 yearly attacks. I’m not saying they did it, I’m saying the author doesn’t disprove it. The author uses a few more examples of acid attacks in countries where there is low Muslim population but he doesn’t show that they weren’t in fact perpetrated by any other religion.
I believe the argument would be much stronger if the author could use a reputable source eg. Acid Survivor Trust International and prove that these of the 1500 yearly attacks only X% can be attributed to any religion.
Do you not believe the WHO report he cited? And the reference to Acid Survivor Trust International is also not good enough? In my opinion, there was actually no need to go to such an extent to "prove" that it's not a Muslim problem after such authoritative data saying that there is no link with a specific country or religion.
Plus don't ignore the first two stories. This is a pattern. An acid attack occurring in the West will simply not make it to the airwaves. While a Muslim victim will make it to the front page of Yahoo! and the cover of Time magazine. Just a sad reality.
"This might be unbelievable but for the fact that Islamic law, as cited in the Hadith (traditions of Mohammed) ascribes to women’s testimony just half the value given to that of men. Muslims consider the accounts of Sahih al-Bukhari unassailable. And according to Sahih al-Bukhari (3:48:826), Mohammed said, “This is because of the deficiency of the women’s mind.” Presumably for the same reason, Islamic law historically accepts accusations of rape only when there are four witnesses (not including the victim), an intentionally impossible benchmark. Three quarters of women imprisoned under Pakistan’s hudud laws, not surprisingly, are reported to be rape victims. ... "
" “Men are in charge of women,” asserts the Qur’an in Chapter 4, verse 34. Other edicts concerning women are also especially harsh, and they are all based on the Qur’an, as well as other traditional Islamic sources."
http://www.alyssaalappen.org/2009/02/26/the-evils-of-islamic-political-ideology-2/
well this is similar to lawyer picking the right jury see in islamic courts some cases the testimony of 1 woman is equivalent to two men testimonies and vise versa, and its the judge call based on his experience!
read and research sista b4 u type!
Do you have a reference I could look up?
WHERE IS YOUR SOURCE, OH LAWDDDDDDDDDDDDDD!
Recent studies have shown that prenatal development can be impaired by mothers' Ramadan fasting, causing lasting damage with lifelong effects, including learning disabilities.
"We use the Islamic holy month of Ramadan as a natural experiment for evaluating the short and long-term effects of fasting during pregnancy. Using Michigan natality data we show that in utero exposure to Ramadan among Arab births results in lower birthweight and reduced gestation length. Preconception exposure to Ramadan is also associated with fewer male births. Using Census data in Uganda we also find that Muslims who were born nine months after Ramadan are 22 percent more likely to be disabled as adults. Effects are found for vision, hearing, and especially for mental (or learning) disabilities."
Research paper:
http://www.chicagofed.org/digital_assets/publications/working_papers/2007/wp2007_22.pdf
Abstract:
http://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedhwp/wp-07-22.html
Most Muslim women still engage in Ramadan fasting even when pregnant, regardless of any possible exemption. In consequence there are thousands of tragic cases every year of easily avoidable prenatal damage to Muslim children with lifelong consequences.
The Muslim community, for the sake of their own children, should exclude ALL women from engaging in Ramadan fasting, regardless of age or other consideration. This is clearly the most effective and most humane way to bring an end to prenatal damage due to mothers' Ramadan fasting.
Even if a woman does intend to avoid fasting during pregnancy, weeks can go by, after a woman conceives, before she realizes that she is pregnant. If she is fasting during these days, lasting damage may be done. In fact, if you read the paper, you will see that it may actually be in the early embryonic stages of gestation that a developing baby is most highly vulnerable to damage.
Furthermore, there may be times when a woman does not wish to admit or draw attention to the fact or possibility that she is pregnant. Surely no one would want to let some cases of prenatal damage continue to occur, just because the mother didn't want to consider or to admit that she was pregnant.
For these reasons, the appropriate way to prevent damage to unborn babies due to fasting is to exclude all women of any age from engaging in Ramadan fasting. Otherwise, some cases of damage will still occur.