DH thinks we're going to get arrested in Dubai

[willyougobacktobed]

Going to Dubai next week for Easter on a mini break with DH. As a tactile couple who enjoys a couple of drinks with dinner he's getting really anxious that we're going to get arrested if we a) unthinkingly give each other a peck on the cheek or b) share a bottle of wine and have a giggle.

He has googled their strict laws and legal systems LOTS.

I think he's BU, his worries and mithering are making me not look as forward to a holiday I've saved hard for as much as I otherwise would.

Are we going to get arrested?!

Sheogorath, no-one is going to go to the police without evidence when they know that the police do not accept accusations without evidence. This is not just about women.
In the UK, if someone slapped a man in the face during an argument, he could go to the police and report it as assault. In Arab countries, if he tried that, he would get kicked out and reprimanded for wasting police time (which doesn't mean that slapping faces is allowed, just that police won't take it seriously or investigate it).
The problem comes in when people go to a country with different laws and customs that they are not aware of while expecting everything to be like what they are used to at home.

Xenia, there are Muslims who drink alcohol, take loans with interest etc. It doesn't make it permissible. Once a consensus has been reached it is impermissible for anyone to differ from it. This is a basic principle in Islam.

Bellini, some of the posters criticising Dubai on this thread are the same ones on other threads criticising UK Muslims who are seen as not fitting in to the norms.

So if a woman is raped she's just supposed to stay quiet and put up with it?

That's just not true breeze. If we're bringing other threads into this, I can recall a very, er, interesting one you were on where you were talking about the problems with the west'.

Many women in the UK and other Western countries don't report rapes either because they know that if they don't have evidence they have very little chance of getting a conviction. The wrong has already been done to them, by the rapist.
It's a sad situation but you can't convict people of crimes without evidence.

What's not true?

It's not true that people criticising Dubai as a holiday destination are criticising Muslims in general living elsewhere in the world. That's a dirty trick you're playing there.

breeze44 I think you are missing the point. A woman being jailed because she says she has been raped. That's a vile crime not a lack of evidence. And it perpetuates the harm already done.

I wasn't talking about you. Other posters like clairemcnam, sheogorath and SimonJT are the ones doing that. I'm saying there is some overlap. I understand that you have a different perspective.

But there are convictions of rape in the UK, including maritial rape. And women are not jailed for reporting rape. At least they're not flogged like in Saudi Arabia.

If women are too scare to report rape, whether in Dubai or the UK or anywhere else, that's a problem.

If you are referring to the circumcision thread, I already explained that I was not talking about 'problems in the West' at all. I was trying to explain to a poster on that thread that when you have a certain type of upbringing, certain concepts will be either more, or less central within the ideology that underpins that upbringing.

Its absurd to compare the treatment of rape victims in the UK and Dubai. In the uk a woman can report a rape, dna evidence could be collected, medical examinations done, photos of any other injuries can be taken, and the woman's testimony can be taken and recorded. If the CPS decide there isn't enough evidence to go to trial then that information can sit there in case another report occurs, which then might build up to make a bigger case. What definitely won't happen is being arrested and put in prison for adultery!

Our system in the UK is far from perfect and needs a lot of work. That doesn't mean that we should shrug our shoulders about a system where women are actively disbelieved and treated as criminals.

Wearing hijab is a religious requirement not just a cultural norm. There is consensus among Islamic scholars that hijab is compulsory

This is not true, there is no consensus, it’s about a 50/50 split.

No where in the Quran or hadiths does it say it’s compulsory, just advised.

The 50/50 split is over niqab not hijab.

No, it’s over the hijab.

Show me the evidence that any classical scholar from the time of the establishment of the schools of Islamic jurisprudence said that hijab is not obligatory

breeze You seem to have a pretty narrow view of Islam.
Haya is about modesty, shyness, bashfulness, refraining from immodesty. That is something all Muslims believe in. How to enact that does differ. So no not all Muslims believe women covering their head in public is necessary to observe haya.

I think the hijab discussion is worthy of it’s own thread, I’ll start one in Philosophy and Religion later.

Claire the issue of hijab is very clear. There are quite a few women who don’t wear hijab but they don’t deny it is obligatory. Those denying it is obligatory are either very ignorant in terms of their Islamic knowledge or belong to extreme fringe groups which are totally outside the mainstream of Islam.

In Egypt the groping is entirely unrelated to what you wear. Same with the other abuse. Women in full niqab experience it all too. It reduces as you age, but the only thing that works as actual protection is being a man

Yes of course you are right, but I think you are more likely to experience it if you don't cover. This is probably why you can go to Egypt and be forgiven for thinking that it's a country with no women in it. They barely leave the house unless. Especially alone.

I meant unless with their husbands.

I don't agree that covering your head is required in Islam. however it sounds like people don't agree with me. I have never thought less of those muslims I know who don't ocver the head. In fact the head coveirng in the UK is a fairly recent thing - probably caused by the spread of extremist Saudi Wahhibsm where we have seen in the UK a trend where mothers didn't cover heads but daughers are doing so - a backwards trend in my view.

It doesn't even require it in the Koran except on a rather twisted interpretation of it. If some or even most scholars think it does then they are simply wrong.

Yes Zenia, that's exactly right.

Do you speak Arabic Xenia?

I was listening to 'How To Be A Muslim Woman' on BBC Radio 4 yesterday where various British Muslim women talked about the hijab issue among other things. They were very keen to point out that for them it was an entirely personal choice to cover.

I'm sure many Muslim women are not afforded that choice and some will think they are making a conscious choice when actually they are just bowing to peer pressure or copying what the majority of their friends and family do. But it is more a marker of religious and cultural identity than of absolute religious requirement.