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Although the American scholar Bernard Lewis has criticised aspects of Islam in What Went Wrong? The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East, he also demonstrates how Islam extended women the right to choose their own husband, to divorce, to inheritance and to commercial rights some 1300 years before these ideals became common currency in the West. This is an approach that invites debate and belies the kind of arrogant sensationalism now typifying western discourse on Islam.
Polly Toynbee, whose comments Malik calls 'liberal criticism', caused outrage when she argued that, "The top-to-toe burka, with its sinister, airless little grille, is more than an instrument of persecution, it is a public tarring and feathering of female sexuality. It transforms any woman into an object of defilement too untouchably disgusting to be seen. More moderate versions of the garb - the dull, uniform coat to the ground and the plain headscarf - have much the same effect." She was not alone in expressing her disgust at the Islamic headscarf and found these sentiments being shared by the Prime Minister's wife. "Nothing more I think symbolises the oppression of the woman than the Burka" said Cherie Blair.
Islamophobia should not be used as a cover to prevent genuine questions being put to Islam, even if they appear critical. A separation must be made between vitriol and sincere inquiry, but the media and politicians should engage in the debate on Islam in a responsible fashion, although this looks unlikely to happen any time soon. Last year the fictional BBC series, Spooks, depicted an Islamic terrorist cell based in Birmingham actively planning atrocities. In the reprisals that followed, Birmingham's Central Mosque was vandalised by groups of angry youths who sprawled 'kill the suicide bombers' on mosque walls.
The duplicity of media coverage about Islam makes the prospect of serious debate difficult and is leading Muslims to isolate themselves further from the wider society. While this is clearly undesirable, there is a growing perception among Muslims that the media represents an intrinsically anti-Islamic leviathan. Believing the playing field to be anything but level, Muslims feel the only course of action left open to them is often to disengage from the social discourse about Islam altogether.
A case in the sleepy Pakistani village of Meerwala in June 2002 exemplifies why Muslims regard their situation as being so hopeless. Four men were ordered by a tribal council to rape the sister of a young man suspected of having an illicit affair with one of the village girls. Her story flared up into a global media circus with pointed coverage in the English press.
Despite two members of the tribal council and the four rapists all being found guilty and sentenced to death in specially convened courts, the Evening Standard's Brian Sewell concluded that, "The fact remains that Islam has always been militant; the urge to conquer and convert began with the great imperial thrust of Mohammed himself…And what will Islam gain? It will secure the old certainties of poverty, disease, the suffocating conformism compelled by the beatings, amputations and hideous executions of Shari'ah law."
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