By Peter Burrows elburropete@gmail.com 6/26/20

I was surprised to learn that the population of Israel is over 17 percent Muslim. Any other Judeo-Christian nation with that many Muslims would be in a civil war. I wonder if Israel's Muslim citizens are tacitly grateful to live in an oasis of civilization, free from the smothering requirements of sharia law.

On the other hand, it could be the Muslims know their Jewish brethren have a low tolerance for sharia nonsense. I prefer that latter explanation, but what else would you expect from an old Islamophobe?

It will therefore be interesting to see what happens in the wake of a recent Israeli court ruling that has, for the first time, indicted Israeli Muslims for facilitating the underage marriage of their daughters. The charges were brought against four families, and their daughters range in age from 11 to 14.

Sharia law usually permits girls to be married as young as 9, although some Islamic scholars say girls can be married at any age. Also, sharia law explicitly empowers parents to arrange a virgin daughter's marriage without her consent, regardless of age, which is no doubt what was about to happen in Israel.

In Muslim ruled countries, attempts to raise the age of marriage to protect young girls from such a fate have often been met with violent outrage. Devout Muslims see such man-made laws as a desecration of both the Koran and the life of the Prophet Muhammad.

In Islam, a man cannot divorce a pregnant woman, and to guard against this, Verse 65:4 in the Koran decrees a waiting period of three months, both for wives who have reached menopause as well as for wives "who have not yet menstruated." Both the 1996 Saudi Arabian Khan/Al-Hilali translation, "The Noble Qur'an," and the 2011 English version of the Pakistani translation by Sayyid Mawdudi, "Towards Understanding The Koran," have scholarly annotations explaining that this part of the verse refers to prepubescent girls.

Muslims are not free to disagree with this conclusion. Sharia law says, "Never explain a verse of the Holy Koran by your own opinion, but check on as to how it has been understood by the scholars of Sacred Law who came before you." If your opinion differs, "forsake your wretched opinion and fling it against the wall."

A second verse in the Koran, Verse 33.21, tells Muslims that Muhammad lived a life worthy of emulation. Since Muhammad married a six-year-old and began having sex with the little girl when she was nine, a law that would prevent such a marriage is seen as a criticism of a man Allah says cannot be criticized. (We know the Koran is from Allah because Muhammad said so. We know everything Muhammad did was approved by Allah because the Koran says so. Makes sense to me.)

Thus, when Bangladesh considered a law banning child marriage, an Islamic authority said, "Banning child marriage will cause challenging the marriage of the Holy Prophet of Islam," adding that 200,000 jihadists were ready to sacrifice their lives for any law restricting child marriage. In Iran, that wouldn't be necessary because the law specifically allows girls to be married at the age of nine, in accord with Muhammad's example.

This is how Islam treats girls who are Muslims. If you think non-Muslim girls would be exempt, you couldn't be more mistaken. The Koran authorizes the sexual enslavement of non-Muslim women captured during war, and when ISIS was ravaging parts of Syria and Iraq, many unfortunate Yazidi and Christian women and children were raped by their Muslims captors, who felt no moral compunction against such behavior. It's in the Koran, after all!

In fact, ISIS published an instruction manual for its jihadists on the proper treatment of captive women, which answered a number of questions a jihadist might have. For example: "Question 4: Is it permissible to have intercourse with a female captive? A: It is permissible to have intercourse with a female captive. --Question 6: Is it permissible to sell a female captive? A: It is permissible to buy, sell, or give as a gift female captives and slaves, for they are merely property ---Question 13: Is it permissible to have intercourse with a female slave who has not reached puberty? A: It is permissible to have intercourse with the female slave who has not reached puberty ---."

The enterprising ISIS Muslims even raised money by selling their captive women, pricing them by age categories. You might guess that the most expensive would be those in the 20 t0 30 group, but you would be wrong. For only $84.60 you could buy, on average, a Yazidi or Christian woman. The most expensive female slaves were children in the 1 to 9 age range, with an average price of $169.21, twice that for a mature woman.

When ISIS came under military threat, they moved their slave markets into Turkey, where they were protected by the Erdogan government, Erdogan being an unapologetic Islamic fundamentalist.

If you are appalled by the foregoing, then you must, perforce, be appalled by the religion of Islam. Islam commands jihad, and Islam commands women captured in jihad are slaves who can then be sexually abused, regardless of age. No ifs, ands or buts. If you think this is some perversion of Islam, you are wrong.

This is what Muslims MUST believe or they are considered apostates, and apostates can be murdered with no penalty because they "deserve to die." The question then becomes, "Why do we allow Muslims to immigrate to America?"

Personally, I would allow Muslims to immigrate here if they were escaping their religion, but, unfortunately, almost all of them are bringing their abominable religion with them, a religion totally incompatible with our constitution and our common decency, which has its roots in Judeo-Christian ethics.

People who defend Islam on multicultural grounds are morons, as are those who think Muslims represent a 'race' that must be protected. If you have been a defender of Islam and Muslims, for whatever reason, you have defended the molestation of young girls, whether you knew it or not.

Now, you know it.