Is there a problem with Islam?

[LeafBud7]

My answer to this has always been, no, even if there are problematic elements within Islam especially for women, you can say the same about any culture or ideology, or religion.
I have been reading and thinking more about this recently, and i'm going round in circles. My brother in law is Muslim, and I am going to ask him what he thinks when I next get the chance for a proper chat, also a female colleague who I think would be open to talking about this..
In the meantime, what do you think? Is it as I have always thought, above, or is there something potentially within the religion what makes it more problematic, or is it not the religion itself, but more how things evolve in some communities? Is it all just a imaginary "problem" used by racists to whip up a storm?
One thing is for sure, it seems one is not really allowed to ask these questions in some circles, without being accused of being racist, which I find really unhelpful.

There crystal clearly is an issue in how its used as a justification by men to oppress women at a personal and national level. And every shade and level of oppression.
That is undeniable, it would be madness to suggest otherwise.

Elephant in the Room when this is what has to happen.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/sep/11/afghan-women-summit-taliban-albania

I’m not in the pay of Russia. Bizarre comment surely nothing I’ve said is controversial rather stating the obvious to anyone who pays attention? Putin clearly believes he is acting in the interests of Russia, that does not make him a friend to Britain and I think we should absolutely be on guard but they have nuclear weapons - it’s completely stupid to go picking a fight, we need armed neutrality and caution and the fact are absolutely idiotic politicians can’t see that is deeply deeply concerning.

Immigration has some benefits but it’s obviously destabilising socially when it’s mass migration, just study history, especially uncontrolled illegal migration where there are no checks around who is
coming in.

Are you saying uncontrolled legal and illegal immigration is not problematic and the only reason the British people have a problem with it is (checks notes) Vladimir Putin told them it was bad. Forget genuine concerns about grooming gangs, drug gangs and jihadi attacks it’s all just stirred up by Russia?

I don’t know how you can take the loss of lives in the recent terror attacks on British soil so lightly. It’s clearly destabilising, look how the media are constantly bemoaning lack of trust, look how communities are divided. sense of threat is psychologically destabilising.

May I introduce you to Filia where you can find out how to support women’s rights around the world.

I am no fan of Putin at all but all I see is evidence he is acting in the interests of the Russian nation

@superfans Putin re-legalized men being able to beat their wives, so he’s certainly not acting in the interests of at least half the Russian people.

There are different views about why Putin invaded Ukraine, the one I find most convincing is that he was ready to step down but wanted to go out with a bang by leaving a big legacy. He thought he could easily conquer territory in Ukraine and bringing that land back to Russia and that would be the legacy he craved. Clearly that has not gone to plan.

You talk about our need for better diplomatic relations, but that is exactly the strategy Western nations were following before the invasion. They thought that bringing Putin into their fold in terms of interdependency of trade would lead to mutually beneficial relations. Hence Germany becoming reliant on fuel from Russia.

Sadly, it turns out they were assuming Putin thinks like democratic Westerm leaders who do think in terms of the best interests of their people. But Putin is a dictator and they think very differently. They think in terms of ego, self interest and immortality through historical legacy. And have no qualms in sending young men to die in that pursuit.

Believing Putin, and other dictators, are strong leaders acting in the interests of their people, is a trope I hear from the conspiracy theorists I know, btw.

You do know there is good evidence CIA sponsored a coup in Ukraine in 2014, right? The pro Russia government was replaced by a pro American/EU one. The term conspiracy theory was invented by the intelligence agencies in the seventies to discredit opposition. It doesn’t mean some of the stuff people believe isn’t bonkers and it doesn’t mean the Russian government is wonderful and it doesn’t make the invasion of Ukraine right but we need to look out for our own interests. Russia is a nuclear power. That means hostile relations should be an absolute last resort. The absurd power plays over Ukraine could get literally billions of people killed.

Democratic leaders have somewhat more incentive to act in the interests of their people but you’re a fool if you think there are not significant other influences acting on them too and they are vulnerable to ideological capture. It’s very clear to me that apparently democratic nations act sometimes in ways that are anathema to democracy by manipulating social media and suppressing free speech, imprisoning journalists like Julian Assange who expose wrong doing. For example the so called conspiracy theory about hunter biden’s wrong doing that was suppressed and discredited in the last US election turned out to be true. The conspiracy theory about Biden not being fit to be US president too. Russian bots might be on mumsnet but it’s pretty clear our own security services monitor and manipulate it too as well as corporate entities.

I think we should all want peace in our time and act as best we can to promote it and to promote individual rights and dignity throughout the world.

Tony Blair was a democratic leader. What you say about thinking in terms of ego and historical legacy and sending young people to die applies exactly to him. He lied to parliament to get us involved in Iraq, many people died and he has never been held to account.

I've been working and being mum all week, I have just sat down on my day off, and logged into mumsnet having no idea that 246 posts had been added to my thread! Am now reading through them all, and finding it really interesting and thought provoking.
As for "stirring up nonsense", the fact that there is so much discussion around this, and interest in sharing views i think shows that it isn't "nonsense" and I am not the only person to be interested in this question.

But you can also be sure that in those countries you refer to that women are not attacked walking home from work, that scumbags aren't knocking on vulnerable people's doors pretending to be salesmen etc then breaking in an attacking people in their homes, stealing cars, so many other crimes that go on everyday.

Why? Because they have punishment thar fits the crime and are not soft on criminals.

I find this post delusional. In Egypt for example, women suffer a tsunami of sexual harassment outside their front door. It's common for groups of men to crowd around a woman and sexually assault her.

I'm assuming that sexual harassment isn't considered a crime because there's evidently no punishment for it and it's considered a part of daily life.

Members of the LGBTQ community are also punished for the fact of existing. Women who defy social norms are disproportionately punished. It's the governments and police in these countries who are often the criminals as they don't acknowledge basic human rights.

But you can also be sure that in those countries you refer to that women are not attacked walking home from work,

Agree. They may not be ' attacked walking home from work' but in some places that's because they aren't allowed out without a male chaperone. The women who shroud themselves and behave as expected may not be attacked, but ones (mainly visitors) who do not cover their face, even when wearing modest clothing are attacked. Even in some parts of this country. And to say there are no scammers in places like Nigeria where the scammers are busy phone scamming old ladies in the UK is laughable.

Do you think this is a culture issue or an Islamic one?

It's both. The religion promotes disrespect for women and there aren't sufficient laws protecting women - quite the reverse with Sharia. The culture centres around the religion which denies women agency and women are treated as less than and sub human.

I think saying it's culture vs it's religion is a false dichotomy. Culture is informed by religion and vice versa and there is no one definitive version of Islam that everyone agrees with anyway.

there is no one definitive version of Islam that everyone agrees with anyway.

In every Islamist country, there's very clear misogyny and denial of women's rights. This oppression is backed up with verses from the Qur'an and other religions texts. So there seems to be clear agreement as far as women are concerned.

Which is why debating whether it's religion or culture makes no sense. It's about how it's practised.

I'm not familiar with the authority structures within Islam, as far as I can see there's a patchwork of different Imams, scholars etc. So while I'm sure there are moderate voices condemning things like what is happening in Afghanistan, do they have any recognised authority?

So my answer would be there is a very significant problem with Islam as practised in a number of countries, and I'm curious as to whether they're held in good standing by the Muslim community as a whole or not, or whether there's really any way to make that call. It's obviously complex and may depend on whether certain Hadiths are followed, how they're interpreted etc.

I don't want single out Islam as the only religion with problems in how it's being used politically. I'm a Christian and certainly don't agree with everything that has been done in the name of my faith, but not having lived under a rock for the past twenty years makes it hard to argue there isn't a problem there, whether it's with extreme misogyny, ISIS, terrorist groups or other issues like pressure not to leave the faith.

I should add that my own relationships with Muslims have been nothing but positive, and I'm also worried with how issues in the Muslim community are being weaponised by the far right. It's very tricky.

Check out "God is not great" by the late Christopher Hitchens.

Eye opening.

Yes, I believe Islam is a huge problem and its core beliefs are not compatible with a free and open western democracy.

Agree with this.
Regarding “punishment that fits the crime”, I read that the 28 Afghan criminals deported from Germany couple of weeks ago and who were imprisoned in Afghanistan upon return have now been released by the Taliban.

https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/central-asia/afghanistan-germany-taliban-criminals-free-released-b2609404.html

All that was needed were “written assurances” they would not commit any crimes in Afghanistan.
Some of the crimes committed by these men were rape of an 11-year old girl and participation in gang rape of a 14-year old girl. Another men had 160 criminal convictions.
But apparently those crimes weren’t considered particularly serious.

@Superfans I specifically didn't say I thought you were in the pay of Russia. What I'm more dubious about are some of the sources of information you consume.

There's always been people in the UK who pin most/all the blame for the ills of our society on immigration. Oswald Mosley, AK Chesterton, Enoch Powell, John Tyndall, Nick Griffin, Nigel Farage etc. Russian disinfo didn't start this. What it has done is massively amplify these talking points and target them at socioeconomic groups that are more likely to accept them.

In pointing this out I'm not saying that immigration has no downsides. What I'm saying is that in many instances the downsides are deliberately being magnified and/or outright fabricated by Russia's disinformation campaigns.

There's a huge amount of research on how Russia is doing this, the enormous scale of the operation, and how scarily successful it's been. I can point you to some resources if you're interested.

@Superfans You have repeatedly said that Putin is a leader who is clearly acting in the interests of his nation. This is far from clear, as I have outlined, so I think there is little point in repeating this.

Yes, I am suspicious of the motivations and beliefs of anyone who makes such a firm and sweeping statement on such contentious issue like this.

The fact you are trying to discredit the term ' conspiracy theorist' is also telling. Having spoken at length with conspiracy theorists in RL, I know these are very real and pernicious beliefs held by real life people, who believe things which are not only ludicrous or actually really harmful, and who over time, as they get deeper into this world, start to believe more and more disgusting beliefs. For example, one started off with ' Putin is a strong leader who cares for his people' and over time moved onto ' Hitler was a good leader who cared for his people' accompanied by using air quotes whenever they referred to the Jews. The conspiracy theory world is very real, and its not just a joke, its spreading really harmful crap.

This would be a much more interesting and, more importantly, enlightening thread if there were more Muslim women responding and people actually listening to what they have to say. I fully understand why more might not be comfortable getting involved though - it'll just turn into a very upsetting experience for them with the inevitable disrespect they'll receive and people thinking they know better than them.

Culture vs religion has been mentioned a few times. People should pay more attention to that. In the Arab country my family is from, women of all religions were being married off young as recently as 50 years ago. A (non-muslim) relative was quite literally sold to a man 30 years her senior. She was 14. Had her first child a year or so later. Her sisters were also sold off at similar ages, also to much older men.

It's culture, not religion.

It's culture, not religion.

In your opinion.

I mean, I just provided an example indicating it's culture, not religion. Do you have any examples to indicate it's not culture? Or an explanation as to why non-Muslim girls were being sold to much older men by their parents?

So the Arab country you were in was secular? There was a division between religion and state, laws were secular IE not based on religion?

I’ve listened to several interviews with Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Yasmine Mohammed, both quite critical of Islam. Definitely very enlightening.