Editado em 06/07/2022: colocado texto, caso o vídeo seja removido do Youtube.

É possível ser feminista e defender o Islamismo? Não. Ao menos não honestamente se bem informada…

Islamic Feminism – Debunked (Yassmin Abdel-Magied Hitchslapped) | Rationality Rules

On the 13th of February, 2017, then Senator Jacqui Lambie, and Islamic youth leader Yassmin Abdel-Magied, had a screaming match on Australia’s Q&A, and within it, Yassmin asserted the following: “Excuse me, Islam to me is one of the most, if the most feminist religion. Right… we got equal rights well before the Europeans. We don’t take our husband’s last names because we ain’t their property”, and I simply can’t let that slide… this is Islam is the Most Feminist Religion – Debunked.

“Anybody that supports Sharia law in this country should be deported.”
“So, do you know what Sharia law is?”
“Yes, but it does not have–”
“Do you know what it is? Me praying five–”
“Are you too for Sharia law?”
“Of course – me praying five times a day is Sharia, right.”
“Like basic… do you even–”
“What about equal rights for women? What about, what about–”
“That’s completely separate from Islam!”
“Oh, so now you can be a Sharia law supporter and half pregnant at the same time? Come on…”
“What are you talking about? You are talking about stuff you don’t know anything… like, okay, I’m not going attack you personally, but my… but the frustration is that people talk about Islam without knowing anything about it, and they’re willing to completely negate any of my rights as a human being, as a woman, as a person with agency simply because they have an idea about what my faith is about. Excuse me, Islam to me is one of the most, if the most feminist religion. Right we got equal rights well before the Europeans.” “We don’t take our husband’s last names because we ain’t their property, right. We were given the right to own land. We are con… like the fact is, what is culture is separate from what is faith, and the fact that people go around dissing my faith without knowing anything about it, and want to chuck me out of a country–I have done, and Muslims… The fact is Jacqui I agree… with you…wait, wait–”
“The fact is there is we have one law in this country and it is the Australian law, not Sharia law.”
*Cheering* “Not in this country. Not in my, not in my day.”
“In Sharia it says you follow the law of the land on which you are on. It says in Islam you follow the law of the land on which you are on.”
*Applause* “You tell me why are women… treated like second class citizens. Why gays are killed? You tell me that.”
“That is not my religion.”
“Jacqui, Jacqui, both of you. Can I just say that shouting at each other is not going to help…”
“That is true.”
“So please stop.”

Meow… crap, I’m going to get accused of misogyny now! (“That’s a whole other level of harassment, really!”).

Jokes aside, within this short exchange Jacqui and Yassmin both make several assertions, and while I find fault with Jacqui’s (and specifically her rhetoric), I find greater fault with Yassmin’s, as not only are they factually incorrect, they’re dangerous! Over the last few years there’s been an influx of female Muslim activists insisting that Islam is a girl’s best friend, and it’s about time that real feminists called out this insulting tripe for what is it.

“So what I’m offering you today is the story of how Islam has made me a feminist.”
“Who in society deserves my respect and kindness? And so the Prophet replied “Your mother” […] What it means is that your mother actually deserves three times more respect than your dad does just because she had to bear with you for nine months.”
“So many times you’ve brought up women and Islam… I’d just like to correct that I’ve read the Quran, and all Muslim scholars would agree with me that Islam gives women a lot of rights.” […] “I mean, I am a young Muslim woman myself, I sit before you, I have a voice, and I can speak to you and I can look you in the eye, and I do have my rights. And when I go to Iran– I’m actually Iranian as well, and so when I go to Iran I also have my rights.”

“We’re going to take that a comment, and as a very passive one at that.”

*Clapping* “Oh now we’re not – we’re not! We’re not going to take that as a comment. I can see your face, I can see your hair, and I can see you sitting in an audience with young gentlemen – don’t you tell me you can do any of that in Iran.”
“I can though…”
“No you can’t.”
“Yes I can.”
“No you can not!”
*Laughter* […] “You insult your sisters in Iran who’re being beaten… who’re being beaten and raped every day when you say that they have their rights in the Islamic Republic–It’s an insult to the women of Iran.”

Yeah, Hitch! You go, girl… so here’s the plan – I’m going to identify and then address each of Yassmin’s claims, starting with her concept of Sharia Law.

“Anybody that supports Sharia law in this country should be deported.”
“So, do you know what Sharia law is?”
“Yes, but it does not have–”
“Do you know what it is? Me praying five–”
“Are you too for Sharia law?”
“Of course – me praying five times a day is Sharia, right.”

Yes, praying five times a day is Sharia, but so too is stoning homosexual to death, executing apostates, and requiring two female witnesses in court to oppose one male witness. To put it simply, the term ‘Shari ah” refers to Allah’s immutable divine law, and it evidently originally meant “way” or “path”. Hence, Sharia Law means divine law, and it’s derived from various Islamic sources, such as the Quran and the Hadith. Now the reason this needs to be made clear is because Yassmin’s Sharia Law is… well, Yassmin’s:

“You tell me why are women… treated like second class citizens. Why gays are killed? You tell me that.”
“That is not my religion.”

Really, Yassmin? Executing homosexuals isn’t an edict of your religion? Because the Hadith plainly states that “If a man who is not married seized committing sodomy, he will be stoned to death”, and within the Quran your prophet Mohammad says “Whoever you find committing the sin of the people of Lot, kill them, both the one who does it and the one to whom it is done”.

According to the ILGA, there are currently eight countries in which homosexuality is punishable by death – that being Iran, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen; parts of Somalia and northern Nigeria, and coincidentally, they all justify this punishment with explicit reference to the aforementioned Islamic sources: that is, they all justify this punishment with explicit reference to Sharia Law.

And so yes, Yassmin can say “That is not my religion”, but in doing so she’s committing a No True Scotsman fallacy – she’s hand-waving away legitimate criticisms of Sharia Law by insisting that only her very unique interpretation is the “real” one. To dust-off and reemploy the almighty glove of Hitch, she’s doing her sisters abroad (who’re truly suffering under Sharia Law) a grave disservice.

Moving on, I think Yassmin is very much mistaken when she says “What is culture is separate from what is faith”, and “That’s completely separate from Islam!” The truth is that culture and religion heavily influence one-another, and under the rubric of a theocracy they are pretty much indistinguishable (as is the case, for example, in Saudi Arabia). As a culture, Saudi Arabia overwhelmingly despises homosexuals because it’s overwhelmingly Muslim.

We see this type of scapegoating by Islamic apologists all the damn time – they attribute all that is bad about Islam to “culture”, and all that is good about Islam to “Islam”, and this is precisely what Yassmin is doing here.

Anyhow, next, I want to respond to the statement that Yassmin received an applause for:

“In Sharia it says you follow the law of the land on which you are on. It says in Islam you follow the law of the land on which you are on.” *Applause*

Yes, due to a verse in chapter 4 of the Quran, which states “O ye who believe! obey Allah, and obey His Messenger and those who are in authority over you”, Sharia Law holds that Muslims must follow the laws of the land upon which they are on, BUT only if those laws are is not in contradiction with their religion. Or to quote the Hadith, “It is necessary upon a Muslim to listen to and obey the ruler, as long as one is not ordered to carry out a sin. If he is commanded to commit a sin, then there is no adherence and obedience.” And so what this equates to is Muslims saying “Yes, I’ll live according to your rules, but only if they don’t contradict my rules…”

And finally, I want to address the crux of Yassmin’s central claims: “Excuse me, Islam to me is one of the most, if the most feminist religion. Right we got equal rights well before the Europeans. We don’t take our husband’s last names because we ain’t their property.”

To begin, when Yassmin says “We got equal rights well before the Europeans” I’m fairly certain she’s misspoke, because female Muslims don’t have equal rights even TODAY, let alone historically. What I think she meant to say is that that “Muslim women had MORE rights than European women during the early days of Islam” – which, so far as my research yields, is correct – the Romans, Athenians, and of course, Christians, horrifically subordinated women.

However, LONG before the inception of Islam, many NON-European women enjoyed significantly more rights than Islam has ever granted them. For example, in Mesopotamia, women could buy, own, sell and inherit land, could engage in commerce, and could testify in court as EQUAL to men (unlike, say, women TODAY under Sharia).

Secondly, when Yassmin says “We don’t take our husband’s last names because we ain’t their property” she’s clutching at straws. Sure, Muslim women don’t take their husband’s last name, but historically they have been, and to the largest extent still are, treated as if they’re second-class citizens. For example, a Muslim woman can initiate divorce, but imams will often inhibit her less she has her husband’s consent or proof of legitimate grounds (because, again, according to Sharia Law, a woman’s word is worth only half that of a man’s) – but if a Muslim man wants to divorce one of his wives, he can do so at any time and without reason, so long as she’s not menstruating. So yeah… tell me again how Islam is THE most feminist religion…

“My frustration is that people talk about Islam without knowing anything about it.” This is most certainly true, I’ll grant Yassmin that, but she (and other Muslim apologists) talk about Islam as if people know nothing about it, and that’s also not acceptable… The truth is that Islam is not only not the most feminist religion, it is actually one of the biggest threats to feminism. Since the Quran asserts that it is the last revelation, it’s unchanging misogynistic edicts are forever tethered to antiquity, and while “moderate” interpretations will continue to grow vaguer and vaguer (such has been the case with Christianity), the fact remains (and will always remain), that Islam is NOT the most feminist religion – and it certainly isn’t more feminist than non-religious secularism and humanism.

Anyhow, I’m Stephen Woodford / Rationality Rules, and as always, thank you kindly for the view, and an extra special thank you to my wonderful patrons and those of you who’ve supported the channel via PayPal and merchandise. As a quick update on the Debunked card game, I’ve managed to finalised a lot of the rules, have designed a few of the cards, and am aiming to release a Kickstarter for it late January / early February, and so if you’re interested, please stay tuned by following me on Facebook, Twitter, or Patreon. Until next time my fellow apes, until next
time.

Islam is a Religion of Peace – Debunked (Islam is Peaceful – Refuted) | Rationality Rules

Peace is defined as a lack of conflict and a freedom from fear of violence. It’s tranquility and harmony, and a critical component to happiness… and Islam my friends, is precisely not that… this is, Islam is a Religion of Peace – Debunked.

Okay, I might have been a bit facetious in my intro, but I nevertheless stand by the sentiment of what I said – Islam is not a religion of peace, and in this video, I want to predominately explain why. However, for the purpose of clarity, I want to first put this assertion in a syllogistic form:

• • • Peace is defined as a lack of conflict and a freedom from fear of violence.
    • Islam acts according to and in seek of, peace.
    • Therefore, Islam is a religion of peace.

In my opinion, when someone employs this argument the first thing to do is to identify exactly how they’re defining the word “peace”. The reason being is that there are two versions of this argument; the first is one in which the proponent is sincerely asserting that Islam is a religion of peace as defined colloquially, and the second is one in which the proponent is periodically using an Islamic definition of the word “peace”. Hence, this is why it’s important to get them to define “peace” from the outset.

To debunk the second version first, because, you know, screw logic, it’s important that we first understand what exactly Islam means within the Islamic world. The word “Islam” is derived from the Arabic word “salaam”, a word literally meaning “peace”, and Islam as a religious practice refers to a person submitting herself or himself to the will of Allah in order to seek eternal peace and tranquility. Or to put it more bluntly, in the Islamic world, Islam is the definition of peace, and therefore Islam is, by definition, a religion of peace.

Now if this isn’t an obvious example of Circular Reasoning, I don’t know what is… Defining Islam as peace and then asserting that Islam is peaceful is as circular as defining Nazism as love and then asserting that Nazism is loving… not only is this confusing, it’s deceitful! What’s more is that when the proponents of this argument use the colloquial definition of the word “peace” within their first and third premises, but use the Islamic definition of the word “peace” for their second premise, they’re actually committing a classic Equivocation Fallacy. By interchanging between two different definitions of “peace” throughout their premises, their argument is incoherent and therefore invalid.

But what about those who assert that Islam is a religion of peace as defined colloquially? You know, the likes of Maajid Nawaz and Zeba Khan? How exactly have these people come to the conclusion that Islam is indeed a religion of peace? Well, to begin, while they recognize that countless atrocities have been committed in the name of Islam, they nevertheless maintain that these acts are the result of fanatics, extremists and militants taking Islamic teaching out of context. But to raise an immediate objection, this claim is simply false. Flat out, demonstrably, false.

As I demonstrated in my video about Islamophobia, the Quran and Hadith possess countless violent verses that instruct Muslims, and moderate Muslims do indeed endorse and commit many reprehensible atrocities with explicit reference to Islamic teaching. What’s more is that they do incessantly claim jurisdiction over the experience of others, and so they are therefore not peaceful.

To name but a few examples, a poll of over 38,000 Muslims from over 39 different countries found that: 60% of moderate Muslims believe that a wife should obey her husband; 75% believe that it is necessary to believe in Allah to be a moral person; 40% want the death penalty for those who leave Islam; and, 60% want Sharia law to be the official law of their country. What’s more is that even 61% of “moderate” British Muslims believe that homosexuals should be punished…

So, as Sam Harris says, “the problem is not religious extremism, because extremism is not a problem if your core beliefs are truly non-violent. The problem isn’t fundamentalism. […] The only problem with Islamic fundamentalism, are the fundamentals of Islam.”

To hammer home this point, Harris often uses the example of Jainism as an actual religion of peace, as its central tenet is non-violence and respect towards all living beings… the more extreme a Jainist becomes, the less we need to worry about them. But so far as I am aware, the same cannot be said for any other religion, and especially not for Islam. To quote Harris again – and yes, Harris is going to feature in a lot of my videos because he is in my opinion way ahead of his time, “the problem is that Islam isn’t a religion of peace, and the so-called extremists are seeking to implement what is arguably the most honest reading of the faith’s actual doctrine.”

A second prominent objection that the proponents of this argument present, is that of contextualization. For example, to paraphrase Nawaz, “Muhammad and the history of Islam must not be judged by the standards of civilization that we, after an accumulation of thousands of years have arrived at. Islamic history must be judged by the standards of its time”.

But this is simply nonsense – and here’s why… Islam has always uniquely claimed that its teachings are the final and unalterable revelation from the almighty, and that by extension its edicts are absolutely final! Therefore, because Muhammad practiced and Islam endorses and encourages elderly men to take young girls as wives, this rule is final. For a Muslim to now contextualize this edict and practice is to reject that Muhammad’s example and revelation is final. In fact, it’s worth pointing out that in Saudi Arabia there isn’t an age restriction for marriage whatsoever… and of course, the reason for this is explicitly Islamic…

What’s more is that even if Islam didn’t claim to be the final and unalterable word of the creator of the universe, we still can and should judge its historical acts despite its context. Hell, future generations will most certainly look back at our actions today and judge us… and they should! A third prominent objection that the proponents of this argument present is the assertion that Christianity is not a religion of peace either – often by referring to the Crusades etc. Now of course, this is true – Christianity is definitely not a religion of peace, but to bring this up is simply a Red Herring – it’s a distraction and a redundant use of energy. It’s the equivalent of someone saying in a debate about Hitler’s atrocities that Stalin was worse… it’s irrelevant, and a because of this it can be dismissed without serious consideration.

And finally, a small point I’d like to make before I recap is the fact that yes, pretty much any religion, or any ideology for that matter, can indeed be practiced peacefully – but this doesn’t mean that the religion or ideology is peaceful itself. To be a peaceful Muslim you need a very peculiar interpretation of the Islam indeed; you must reject the vast majority of its teachings and pick a mix the peaceful verses… you know, just like most modern Christians.

So, to recap, the second variation of the argument that Islam is a Religion of Peace is flawed because;

• • • It commits a Circular Reasoning Fallacy, and;
    • It commits an Equivocation Fallacy.

And the first variation of the argument that Islam is a Religion of Peace is flawed because;

• • • Moderate Muslims do promote and commit atrocities in the name is Islam (not just fanatics);
    • Contextualization is irrelevant, and;
    • Some, but not all proponents of this argument, commit a Red Herring Fallacy.

Anyhow, as always, thank you kindly for the view, and instead of leaving you with an overwhelming powerful argument to consider, I’m instead going to leave you with a quote from Douglas Murry: “The fact is that Islam is many things… many many things – but to say it’s a religion of peace is nonsense; it’s to ignore reality; it’s to ignore very difficult, but necessary facts; not paradigms, but facts! To say that Islam is a religion of peace is to say something based entirely on hope; it’s to elevate a hope into truth, and I hope as you all know, history teaches us that’s a very bad thing to do.”