op for the same reason the patriachy oppress women everywhere else?
for the comments about jew hating etc watch the bbc2 doc, it explains it well, the verses about warfare dont say let yourself get murdered but say fight and defend yourself, and are talking about specific groups of people.
neolara, your questions sound genuine.
women being covered is part of islam, islam takes a stance that starts with the community not solely with individuals. so what is harmful and/or a temptation in the community should be limited, it is harder to maintain chaste thoughts and actions, easier to commit adultery etc in a state where there is free mixing between men and women, so in order to limit this harm to society the society is restricted in certain ways.
women used to drive camels and horses in the prophets time, even saudi wont [retend this law is part of shariah.
under shariah law rape is not adultery, but as in the rest of the world rape victims are often looked down upon and there sexual history questioned and disbelieved. even for adultery to be proven you need four witnesses to the act and if there is no four witnesses and the women swears by Allah that she did not do it that is enough to prove her innoccence.
culture and religion are integrated in many places and many people accept parts of culture as part of their religion, what we are experiencing now is people, looking in to their religion and realising that what they have been brought up thinking is religion is not neccessarily true.
culture is what you eat, what you wear, the language you speak, etc, some muslims would say the culture should be islam as your attitudes to education child rearing etc are in islam, but i would say that there is a huge room for culture in islam, obviously islam is a way of life and in business dealings, day to day interactions muslims should remember islam and act morally.
personally my culture is british, i dont see how it could be anything else, i watched the same formative childhood tv programmes, went through same education system, luive in the same society etc etc.
governments pick and choose what comes from islam and what doesnt, thats why you have these places in the middle east and uprisings, for example the islamic party the muslim brotherhood was oppressed banned and members tortured for many years in egypt, which you would think of as an islamic country. what happens is in oprder to gain public upport in a muslim majority country governments implement buts and pieces of islam, but the thing is this is not really workable.
for example the punishment for theft in some cases is to cut of a hand, in an islamic state this would be in the situation where noone is left starving or in need, there is equal distribution of wealth etc etc, and therefore anyone who steals does it for malice not for need. this is different to the muslim majority states we see today.
today we are in a situation were many sheykhs and islamic institutions are puppets of corrupt governments and there wages paidby them so we see fatwas about anything, with huge variations. you can go fatwa shopping to find a ruling that suits your own desires.