* This is not the original video but it has the same gist
I have already done the Christians so it is only fair that I comment about this Muslim man as well. Mr Zakir Naik makes me very angry in so many ways; I don’t recognise his Dr as he does not deserve it. He might be a doctor but someone only deserves that honour when they are not so faulty in their understanding of the world. This man is not in the real world and once again the agenda that he is trying to present is more than clear. I will once again put the general statements in blue with my reaction afterwards. Watch the video before you read the comments, even if it’s only for the first couple of minutes or you will not understand my reaction to it.
Rape should first be dealt with by men averting their gaze, and then covering women up and finally Capital punishment. America should adopt Islamic law to stop rape. – Let me say that this is messed up in all respects, to start off with a logic problem; Naik argues that America suffers from more rape victims than countries with Islamic law like Pakistan. The population of Pakistan is 164 million; the population of America is 301 million so of course there are going to be twice as much of everything because there are almost twice as many people. Pakistan is a country where women can be sentenced to gang rape for a brother’s crime (cited in Hitchens – god is not great and here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4322021.stm). Rape Victims are the ones who are punished for being rape against their will, they did nothing wrong (cited here: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0DE6D81E39F934A25756C0A9649C8B63). They don’t listen to rape victims because it is against Islamic law (cited here: http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/006808.php) Why would women report being raped when they could suffer not only under the protection of the state but also punished for it by their society? They would not and this means that the level of reported rape in Pakistan is not a true reflection of rape that occurs.
Women should not be forced to cover up; if men are the ones that rape women then it is men who need to be forced to do things not women. Since we have already discussed why women covering up, as is required in Pakistan, does not stop rape it should never be used as a method of prevention. If you want to make the case for women covering up then don’t base it on these grounds. As for capital punishment he is wrong, America also performs this act against its people. The problem with it, is that it is clear that capital punishment does not work, so if the reason for capital punishment is to get your own back on people that have wronged you then it should be accepted, if you think that it stops crime then there is a body of evidence that goes against this. I don’t want to over cite the evidence, still it is the case from a large body of research. I think that it is wrong but that is my personal opinion. So would I rather live in America where rape is a crime and the state/society punishes the person committing the crime? Or would I prefer to live in Pakistan where the issue of rape is hidden, not discussed and ultimately not dealt with? The answer is America.
Islam is the best way of life; Islamic law achieves good things – See above! I am not saying that Muslim people cannot do good things but at its core, Islamic law does not protect good people. Zakir Naik is not doing a good thing here on the grounds that the more time & energy there is in moving away from the truths of an issue the less time & energy we spend dealing with the issues that we as societies need to address. I will simply say here that if the statement “Islamic law achieves good things” is true, then we only need to find one event where it does not achieve good things for the statement to be proven false. I have given the evidence that proves this statement false. I can accept that Islamic law can achieve good things sometimes, but that is a completely different statement and has a completely different meaning to what Naik illustrates for us.
Atheists have become atheist because they believe in science and technology – Umm… No! After Naik’s statements about atheists he goes on to talk about how science is represented in Koran, that is a different debate although I will acknowledge those fact as being true, I don’t have evidence to say it is wrong at this time. I don’t agree with his idea of science and the use of his metaphor of creation. Still speaking as an atheist, even though I don’t speak for the group, I never became an atheist because of science and technology. I rejected religion because I believe it is not true, it does little to explain things in the world. I rejected religion because it does harm, so many things have been done in the name of religion to which religion never has to answer for. I reject religion not because it has been replaced with science and technology but personal experience and reason. To be an atheist is not to accept science, atheism does not equal science. To be an atheist does not mean you believe in evolution. Atheism is non-belief and it should never be confused with belief of anything non-religious. Atheism is the rejection of theology, Evolution is a scientific theory.
These are the reasons why Zakir Naik is wrong and why he does not understand the world.
Zakir Naik is DEFINETLY CORRECT and it is you who is wrong…
hmm.. You are a atheist who is far far away from the truth no surprise that you have made such a statement..
You said religion harms and so many things are done in the name of religion. but what about HITLER he killed 6 million jews. Does it is written in the christian bible that you should burn 6 million jews alive. DEFINETLY NOT and if you read the Quran..
Ch.5:Verse:32 it says:On that account: We ordained for the Children of Israel that if any one slew a person – unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land – it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people. Then although there came to them Our messengers with clear signs, yet, even after that, many of them continued to commit excesses in the land.
So the Quran aslo condemn this type of brutal act. So the blames only goes to HITLER not to christianity.
And now I will ASK YOU A QUESTION
Where HITLER WILL GET HIS PUNISHMENT or any other person who has done such crimes ROBBING, RAPING, MURDERING and lived a very happy life and died. WHERE WILL THEY GET PUNISHMENT..
You don’t thing that they deserve punishment so where will they get if you believe that there is no HEAVEN and HELL.
THEY SURELY WILL GET PUNISHMENT and that is on the DAY OF JUDGEMENT.
IF THEIR IS NO FEAR OF GOD then any Human being can become very EVIL and UNJUST.
And I pray to ALLAH(SWT) to give you Guidance..
Thank you for your comments Imran Ahmed.
I am not really an atheist using the definition produced by Sam Harris, if we are talking about non-belief. I take it that you are a Muslim so I assume here that you do not really believe in the Hindu Gods, which would also make you an atheist as well. You perhaps don’t believe in the magical fairies at the bottom of my Garden that would also make you an atheist. To call someone an atheist does not push someone into a category of belief, it rather states that the world is just made up of those that believe things and others who don’t. I happen to not believe in Islam but then again you happen to not believe in the magical fairies at the bottom of my Garden. You are allowed to comment about my belief that there are in fact magical fairies and I am allowed to comment about your belief in Islam. Still rather than me commenting about Islam, I simply commented about evidence and how it worked with what Zakir Naik was saying. I don’t understand why you think that I am wrong and Zakir Naik is right, you did not address the evidence I presented or make any suggestive comments to your thoughts.
You argue that punishment is a good thing that should happen when people do bad things, I completely agree with you on this. Still Hitler, who was a Roman Catholic by the way and never got kicked out of the church, is dead now and the crimes against us all in the final solution happen many years before I was born. I cannot change those things, I can learn from them though. I can learn why the final solution happened and do everything in my power to make sure nothing like that happens again, this I suggest is a more noble use of my time than supporting the idea of punishment. Punishment is never as good as prevention, because by the time we have reached punishment the crime has already been committed and people have been hurt. Zakir Naik in his ideas to stop rape in America goes against the evidence I presented and if we spend more time giving power to Zakir Naik by never speaking out against his argument which is filled with religious and cultural agendas then we are missing the real solution to rape. We must find the real solution and stop people from getting hurt. You talk of punishment; I suggest to you that prevention is worth a lot more. That was my point!
Last of all, you talk of punishment and how religion provides that very punishment. It is a ‘nice’ idea that a supernatural being will punish those that have committed crimes, it must be a very comforting idea to many people. Just because something is ‘nice’, however, that does not mean that the idea of a supernatural being handing out punishments is a true statement to make. Again I thank you for your comments, still I would be grateful if you could address the issue and the evidence I present rather than defended your religion. We might then be able to get somewhere…
1) Concerning the issue of rape and convictions in Pakistan
You have accused islamic rulings based on Pakistan’s implementation of it.
Firstly, Pakistan’s legislature is not based on Shari’ah (islamic laws). Though some rules might be based on islamic laws, a good chunk of it do not have their origins from islamic laws.
In order for a person to make claims of rape, evidence and witnesses have to be produced, else no court in this world will punish the accused. In fact in islam, the minimum requirement to prove rape is much less than that of modern day trials. Now the fact that political supremacy saves the convict is a different issue.
Alright, and the number of rapes reported in Pakistan are not a true reflection of the actual number of rapes – The main reason for this is unfair and never ending trials. And the evidence’s that you have put up are the very few exceptional cases. Why not look up the entire history of rape cases in Pakistan, and you will find that there are more executions of rapist as compared to India. The examples that you have cited find their way into media so easily because, obviously, it is an exceptional case.
If a rapist was to be sentenced to death, it would never appear in international news simply because that is the law.
OK. So as far as Pakistan is concerned, that was the justification. This may be debatable as there are many corrupt people in pakistan. But that is out of the scope of this discussion.
2) Does women covering themselves help in prevention of rape
Well, if you analyse, in any country, no matter which part of the world you are in, what type of women are being raped – I am talking not talking about those exceptional cases. I know people like you who point fingers at islam are very good at finding the most uncommon event and use them as arguments – Well, so if you look at the number of rapes, you will notice that it is the uncovered women who are raped more often. I assume that you are an indian. So look at the case of call centre cases. In Bihar, look at the case of any normal woman, in Delhi, and even in the US. What kind of women are being raped. It is the uncovered women. I can give you zillions of examples where the main stimulant to the event of rape has been the sexual appeal of a woman.
Now to address your point – why should women suffer for others corruption – I agree with you. But what you need to understand my friend is that Allah has made women physically weaker.
Let me ask you a question.
You have a lot of money. So you will take maximum precaution in order to save your money. Before you travel, you might put certain amount in the bank, then you might split the cash in different pockets of your trousers and so on. But you would ideally like to be least bothered about your money. You would like to relax, and leave it unguarded and spend it the way that gives you peace of mind. But you won’t do that because there are many robbers who can easily overpower you. Therefore you rather taking the pains in being careful with your possession than lose it.
You have to understand that this world is not free from corruption and evil desires. And because women are weaker, they become soft targets. Even though there are laws to punish the culprit, the damage to the woman is already done. So as a precaution for the good of the woman, one of the steps is for her to cover herself. Apart from rape, it prevents many other evil activities.
And the number of rapes and thier nature speak for themselves. It is the pompous uncovered women who are raped more often. Even in the islamic countries, it is the uncovered women.
There have been cases of veiled women being raped and it is very sad. However, as I told you, we don’t live in an ideal world. However, the number of rapes of veiled women is far far far less than rape of uncovered women. Infact, again if you analyse, you will realise that more rape victims are the ones who flaunt themselves more.
It is the sexual appeal that is one of the major reasons for rape. Therefore, one of the steps is to cover this appeal. I agree that it is an extra pain. But it is better than shattering someones life.
Let me not bring in the other advantages of veils, as it is not part of this debate.
And you people, 2 minutes ago, you learnt human rights and today you point fingers at us muslims. Look back a few years and see what sort of treatment women had. Even in India. Kamasutra – is the filth of the corrupt minds of the people of the past. I could cite more examples. But time is short. People like you want women to be uncovered so that you can fulfill your lusts. Such a pathetic people you are. Using women as your entertainment. Spreading corruption all over.
Right, and as for capital punishment. Yes, the US does practises capital punishment. But behind closed doors. Whats the point. It does not send a message out to anyone. The thieves still contiunue stealing, killers continue murdering and so on. Capital punishment should be carried out in an audience. So that the people who see the punishment fear the same fate and think twice before committing a crime. In Saudi, which is the only country which exercises capital punishment after the alleged is proven guilty, theft is the lowest in the world. You believe in looking at results right, look at Saudi. You might argue that rapes may not be reported. OK, then look at the number of murders and thefts in Saudi. It is the lowest in the world!!. They practise capital punishment in front of an audience. Once a person sees death, the way it comes, he/she definitely think before they commit the crime.
In India or UK where the criminals are treated like guests. Even if they are clearly found guilty, they are still allowed to plea, they are still not executed. And even if they are executed, the civilians are not even aware of it. How pathetic,, which is why crime is on an all time high in these countries. Because criminals know that they can work the system even if they are proven guilty.
And I dont understand your stand….. You think that rapists should be punished… but on the other hand you say that punishing does not help?????…. i don’t know which world you live in.
If some other woman gets raped, people liek you say that the criminal should be forgiven. You say that it is a mistake. You say that they should be given another chance. But had a woman from your own family been raped, then you would want the severst of punishment for the criminal. This is how people like you are.
But I don’t blame you. You are an athiest and athiests are confused people. They do not know what is right and what is wrong. And you were a hindu, and hindus are bound to be athiests. Especially as their understanding of the world increases.
And yes, islam is indeed the best way of life. I do not have time now. May be some other day, I will explain to you what life is, and what is the best way to live it.
I hope you will rack your brains now, and think twice about women, rape and punishment before you have filthy thoughts about them.
Women are our mothers, our sisters, our daughters, our wives. We protect them, we respect their status. Our women are chaste and clean, and bless our homes with their grace. Our women are not the naked sluts that the likes of you encourage just so that filths like you can fulfil your lusts.
May Allah (the Hightest) show you the right path and peace be with you.
I will Inshallah, address your other comments in free time.
Let me say that you tend to make a lot of assumptions about me and about other countries, first of all I might be an atheist that does not mean that I am confused at all, I know where I stand and I stand there for good moral reasons. I resent the implication that somehow I am a sexual deviant, this is not the case I actually don’t believe in sex before marriage (where marriage is the commitment two people make not the religious ritual it assumes) and I am conservative in my notion of sexuality. You might view America as a corrupt place, still if you use UN statistics crime in the USA and Europe are at their lowest levels since the 1960’s and almost at the lowest level since records have been produced. I am neither America nor Indian, as you once again assume, and as for capital punishment I under no situation consider it moral for anyone to conduct such a depraved act. If you go back and read what I wrote in the first place, I at no point said that those who commit crimes should get off without punishment. The point that I made was that rather than looking at punishment, prevention is a much nobler goal. Rather than focusing on how we punish people, let instead look at how to stop the crime, suffering and pain before it happens. Zakir Naik is a friend of punishment, with his assumed appeal to people in Pakistan and his assumed intelligence, why does he not look for real solutions to the prevention of rape? This is because his judgment is clouded by his version of Islam. In general countries that have capital punishment have a higher rate of crime; there are studies that show that it does not prevent crime at all.
I do not agree Saudi, a country which funds terrorists, could ever produce crime statistics that are realistic. Before a crime is recorded the processes of the social institutions are involved, the police officer has to investigate, the court has to seek justice and the process of law has to occur. I don’t believe that such an overt religious country can achieve this, under Islam and Christianity women are seen as second class. Your base assumption that there is a type of woman that gets raped is completely wrong, you think that ‘sluts’ get raped I can think of more than one example where this is not the case. There is a danger in thinking the way you do on this, if you assume that there is a type of woman that gets raped, which is not true, you focus more on the women rather than the men that are the CAUSE. Research Safia Bibi, find out why and how she was raped, and then tell me there is a type of woman that gets raped. You have the wrong end of the stick, you are saying look its all the women’s fault for men raping them – this in civilised societies is a frame of thinking that is seen as wrong. You say this is uncommon, how often does it have to happen before something is wrong? Once, twice, ten times? Are you so stupid, are your actions so determined by your penis, and are you so childish to argue that you as a man have no control over your actions? This is what you are saying and that is wrong, it has always been wrong and will be wrong forever. I am a man I know I control my thoughts, I control my actions, I control my behaviour and if I do something wrong I know that it is my fault.
I did not learn human rights two minutes ago, it was there when I was born and with my say it will still be there when I die. Do you understand that under the concept of human rights I have no say in what women are or are not allowed to wear? I will not be drawn into a long argument about how Islamic law is either good or bad, I will say this though – if one bad thing happens as the result of it then it deserves action and change. There are human rights groups in Pakistan, there are good people that live there and there are good Muslim people. So why are you having ago at me? Why are you not supporting the good people, why are you not trying to bring down Hudood laws? Why are you not supporting women’s rights? And you question me?
I feel I have gone out of my way to explain to you my position and I have been polite with my response, you did not do that, you made assumptions and not very nice ones. Let me tell you what I think is happening, you see someone that is insulting your faith and you are engaged in a defence of your religion. You be honest with me, look at what I said and the links I provided, rethink what you said to me. I care about people; I want everyone in the world to live in free societies with just laws. I don’t say these things to make you angry; I say these things because I want people like Zakir Naik and you to make the world better and not put up with the real nasty things that happen within it. You say that the world is not free from corruption and evil desires, rather than accepting this, do something about it!
Overall, I notice that the people that have responded are unable to keep a reasonable distance from their own hurt feelings. You are not under siege. Any decent debate will be based on a postponement of discarding the arguments presented. You will walk the whole mile, read it, read it again, punctuation included, next open a text file and write a proper comment. It takes time and effort. Unfortunately, most attempts to interact are bound to fail, because the majority lacks maturity, wording skills, proper thinking and the attitude to be willing to learn from others.
‘therationalunderstanding’ is a brave man. He’s willing to take a lot of heat just to deliver his firm stand on matters and eventually get this one repartee that’s worthy of all requirements I stated above.
I have adressed the art of debating here, not the topic at hand. I wonder how much heat I will get because many won’t be able to make that distinction.
Thank you for your comments Dominique! Perhaps discussing the dress rules to which women in orthodox Jewish communities would change the direction of the conversation still I think that my arguments against Zakir Naik are valid to which I feel no heat in the defense of my opinions since I believe they are right and a reflection of the things I presented. There is certainly to be distinction made, just a simple reading and attempt to understand what I am writing would be nice as a start. How dare people attack me? 75% of the women in jail in Pakistan are there because they have been raped, 90% of women in Pakistan have suffered from sexual or physical abuse, in Islam women have already sinned being born. People should not judge me for attacking Zakir Naik, they should judge themselves for being moral suspect in supporting him. And that is the true issue here, I am talking about a man with crowds of people that respect him and he appears to be doing nothing to sort out these issues and let me say here what I think is the real answer – Compassion. Let me be open and honest here we talk about women in this discussion and before you can have compassion we must really understand what it is like to be a woman in Pakistan. It won’t be until we listen to them, know the risks they can present themselves or how others can threaten them, understand the rules which they have to live by and how this differs from men that we really start to be able to truly come to terms with compassion. This is not as easy as giving arguments to why I am wrong but it appears to be worthwhile, at least to me anyway!
I do not wan’t to speak much but one thing Niqabis have been raped as well. More women have been raped for being Muslim than for wearing loose clothes. Muslim women wearing Niqab have been or still are being raped in India.
“Rape should first be dealt with by men averting their gaze, and then covering women up and finally Capital punishment.”
Am bad at statistics so i won’t touch that. Population of America, India and pakistan. I wonder how relevent it is when we talk of rape, crime, or any single act of transgression against any human or animal.
1. Men Averting their gaze > A man look at a woman, looks for sometimes, gives a second look. Observes her body, observes her curves, and the hormones in body gets activated and lust overpowers the reason and morality. he develops lust for the woman for many reasons which can unfulfillment of his sexual desire with his wife (if he is married) or has no sexual partner. In simple word it can be assumed that this is how generally the process of rape begins. isn’t it? If this is right thn it can be rightly assumed again that process started when the Man looked at woman, and stared at her for some time and obsrved her body and things got into motion. At times people do plan and rape, but again everything started with stimulation of visual sensory organ : Eye (in most of the cases). So the pro-active appraoc (not reactionry) is don’t stare at the woman. even if u r in conversation with them u can avoid looking at them.(Don’t blind people get into conversation with woman? so maybe a person with two beautyful eye can also pretend to be blind).
2) Cover woman. : Fail safe method. The world is not the idle place, The entity who created this World knew this, so he guided his creation to go for fail-safe method. Cover the woman, so that if the wolves/men look at them , stare at them they don’t get to see the curves of woman and the possibility of lust overtaking coginitive process comes down. When you cover the woman ( entity who gets raped and harassed) you stop the supply of stimuli to eye, which triggers chain of reactions and actions in men’s body who in turn fantasize and romanticises the woman body and dreams about her.(Else why would men of all ages would dream of hot bodies of super models, porn stars , model, actress and eveyr bful women they look at, in general). So covering the women is nothing but fail-safe approach, bcuz God knew that Men won’t listen…how can we forget our blessing : Free Will.
3) Capital Punishment : Well, God knew this as well, afterall he is the creator. Don’t ferrari’s engineer know how fatal an accident at certain speed can be? Well, they know, unless they forgot to simulate certain scenarios. God knew, men won’t lower their gaze, men won’t listen to the instruction, and women won’t cover, even the pro-active approac will fail in many cases and even fail-safe approach will fail in many cases, so let the third option be reactionary to set an example and punish those who are caught harassing a women :Capital Punishment. If G od forbid it happens to any women in my family if she was covered or not..if she was in bikini or in veil i will kill tht man. I wonder if george bush, an African nomad, a Manhattan banker, and an Arab sheikh will think anything very different from me. i hope the author of this blog will also like to kill the man who rapes any of his female relative (God forbid).
religion does’t talks in objectivity, it has it’s meaning in context. It has solution for all the problems, but it depends how we as human understand it and implement it. Like America or UK is not a Christain state, and India is not a Hindu state, pakistan too is not an Islamic state. Pakistan is a moslim dominated country. i m afraid most of the cases where the victim of rape in pakistan/fghanistan are allegedly punished are tribal areas of Af/Pak, and these punishments are not islamic but tribal. Many moslem in India celeberate their wedding and lots of occasions in Hindu culture, ifnot completly then atleast influenced by hindu/Indian culture. You can’t say all those celeberation as Islamic, am afraid they are Indian. Those victim women who get punished in those areas of Pakistan are ostly tribal cases who have their own tribal un-Islamic rules. Paksitan does’t reprsent a true Islamic state, i fear if there is any Islamic state in world right now, Not even Saudi Arabia though it has implemented Sharia law. Pakistan stands for an state which is opposed to India, so kindly do not limit your scintific/logical/rational explanation and rheotric against religion/islam to Pakistan.
And about heaven and hell, and judgement day that’s an inherent and important part of religion which you have consciously assumed as superstition. When one blv in God, he blv in things that he can’t see and feel , same is about heaven and punishments after death. Perhaps it helps them, perhaps it helps them in leaving things that are beyond their reach to the entity they blv in. These days, even you escape the traffic police standing at the traffic signals, you can’t escape the CCTV placed their,and when you are chilling and relaxing at home the postman delivers the ticket for jumping the signals. So possibly God too has his own way of sending ticket and punishing for crimes that criminal thought he escaped from punishments.
Btw, i am neither athist nor thiest..am a psychedellic monk living and tripping. I stand here formyself and not for anyone else but self. Peace. All i know is God has still not rejected us, but so many of us have.