The Caged Virgin - Ayaan Hirsi Ali [70]
Since he is with us I took to the habit of wearing the veil inside the house in order to deter him. That doesn’t stop him, though.
Twice now he unveiled me, ripped my inner garments, and raped me.
When I told my mother she said she would take it up with my father.
My father ordered her—and me—not to question his brother’s honor.
I experience pain each time my uncle comes to see me.
I feel caged, like an animal waiting for slaughter.
I am filled with guilt and shame;
and I feel abandoned, yet I am surrounded by family and friends.
O Allah, Hakim is gone, now that he knows I am pregnant.
For the moment I can hide my abdomen behind my veil, but sooner or later someone will notice. I shall be openly shamed and killed by my father for not being a virgin.
When I consider this, I think of taking my life but know that in the hereafter the one who commits suicide shall never count on your mercy.
O Allah, giver and taker of life.
You admonish all who believe to turn toward you in order to attain bliss.
I have done nothing my whole life but turn to you.
And now that I pray for salvation, under my veil, you remain silent as the grave I long for.
I wonder how much longer I am able to submit!
Fifteen
The Need for Self-Reflection Within Islam
[This is Ayaan’s answer to a critical reaction to Submission: Part I, that was published in De Volkskrant.]
My parents brought me up with the idea that Islam is the most beautiful way of life—morally, socially, and spiritually. Years later I realized that there are ugly blemishes that spoil the beauty of Islam. These imperfections, however, are invisible to those who share my parents’ religious convictions and who justify the wrongs of Islam by repeating over and over that it is not that the religion is at fault, but the faithful who have made a mess of things.
Islamic morality demands that the individual subject himself completely to the will of Allah through the Shari’a, the code of law derived from the Koran, and to the religious community. The Muslim as an individual can do nothing individually: he even has to sit, eat, sleep, and travel according to strict rules; he cannot freely choose his own friends and is expected to have (and avoid) certain thoughts and feelings. Anything that has not been covered by Allah and His Prophet becomes the domain of the religious community, which comprises the immediate family to the worldwide Muslim community. For example: if a Moroccan Muslim were to behave improperly after a few beers, it would be fine for a person from, say, Sudan or Afghanistan to call him to order—in the absence of other Moroccans—for no other reason than that this bystander happened to be a fellow Muslim.
Nowhere is the denial of Muslim individuality felt more strongly than in the relationship between the sexes. Islamic sexual morality places a heavy emphasis on chastity. Sex is only allowed in a marital context. In practice this puts more of a restriction on women than on men. It is all right for men, for example, to marry four wives, but not the other way around. The position of Muslim women, compared to that of many of their non-Islamic sisters, is, frankly, bad—they are powerless, subjugated, unequal.
Like the rest of the world, however, Muslims take advantage of modern scientific progress. Those who can afford to do so make extensive use of technological developments, such as cars and airplanes. They live in modern buildings and work with machines and computers. However, the moral framework of Islam, unlike that of Christianity and Judaism, has not changed with the times. Every Muslim, from the beginnings of Islam to the present day, is raised in the belief that all knowledge can be found in the Koran, that it is wrong to ask critical questions, and that every Muslim (even in 2004) should strive to imitate the life of Islam’s founder Muhammad. In practice, of course, few manage to organize their lives in perfect agreement with the principles of the seventh-century prophet.
As a result of this