A British Muslim woman was sentenced to life in prison this week for killing her son accidentally in the course of beating him. Sara Ege was forcing him to learn the Quran by rote when the death occurred. I find it hard to summon the contempt for the mother warranted by her action. I was administered corporal punishment too when a stripling, and it was never done out of malice. It was applied out of a sincere belief that mastering the contents of the Quran would save one’s neverdying soul from hell. The cruelties of dogmatic Islam are beyond defence, but the people are anything but. There is no shortage of parental love in such homes, and, as the presiding judge remarked, in this family’s too.
Scores of young people are belted for insufficient piety without sustaining fatal injuries, and some that I have known express gratitude in their mature years for what they regard as the ennobling properties of rigid discipline. This case appears to be a freak accident, and will appal even the most unyielding fundamentalist for the heavy implement used in the striking: a wooden pestle.
I cherish some hope that elements in the Muslim community will be jolted by the tragedy into abandoning this coercive method of religious instruction.
The culture of physical admonishment runs deep. Some madrassas make it a requirement of enrolment to sign away parental rights protecting children from abuse. I chanced to attend a couple such groves of learning in my adolescence. One was an afterschool operation located in Tooting, South London, that had little if any lickings. It was a fee-paying academy that was professionally run and taught the national curriculum. The sole occasion I witnessed violence there was when the headteacher planted a good slap on my face, though of a much diminished power than he could have mustered, after discovering that I had scrawled expletives on my exercise book cursing my female teacher (sorry Miss!). A rare event, I suspect, commensurate with a rare miscreant.
I was booted out for this sin, to my lasting joy, as I resented being kept away from my evening television viewing.
The other madrassa in which I observed corporal punishment was a less grandiose affair, my local Stockwell mosque, where light drubbings were common from a man I believe was a volunteer whose method of punishment took the novel form of slipping a pen between the culprit’s fingers and pressing down on them till he yelped with pain. It was more akin to a torture device than any scourging I ever saw. My strong suspicion is that a lot of these classes are staffed by unemployed young men whose only credentials are the length of their beard. To their credit however, these fatwa mills never inflicted the severe punishment one was liable to catch at home. The want of intimacy between pupil and teacher inhibited the sadism encouraged by familiarity.
The foregoing aside, I have no trace of lingering bitterness. I cast my glance back on my theological education with a good deal of amusement and, to my surprise, affection. It gives the man who passes through it a peek into the workings of the religious psyche that no book learning can supply. Later, past the years of my teenage rebellion, when the age of reflection and intellectual pretension gripped me harder than a python, I would discover a renewed interest in Islam that carried me further afield than the placid strain asserted by these benign authorities. I record it only to suggest that duress wins only fleeting obedience, and that Muslim parents would do well to heed the dangers of applying force to what is, at bottom, a purely dialectic affair.
With this in mind, I see no compelling reason for handing the bereft Sara Ege a custodial sentence. The loss of her child is punishment enough.
Update in response to comments: It dawns on me that showing leniency to the mother on account of her accidental homicide would be too great a concession to injustice. Whilst she ought to do jail time certainly, I think more needs to be done to address the underlying causes than simply a stretch in the pokey. The culture of impunity which thrives in some madrassas ought to be tackled. The woman was a product of this environment and the punitive conditions still remain. Close the legal loopholes on physical punishment in private religious schools that normalise the subculture of smacking and conscript the support of Muslim leaders in anti-violence schemes. Without a multipronged effort to address the affliction, locking up a single individual will do precious little to avert a similar tragedy.
Thanks for sharing. I am glad to hear it was not so bad for you, and bothered alot by the story of abusing the young person’s hand.
Apparently there is sometimes strong abuse in closed Amish families too, which we don’t hear about because of their closed-ness. It’s also somewhat ironic, because otherwise they are peaceful, simple, kind people.
“Apparently there is sometimes strong abuse in closed Amish families too, which we don’t hear about because of their closed-ness. It’s also somewhat ironic, because otherwise they are peaceful, simple, kind people.”
Well, doesn’t it make sense? If you get your fill doing God-knows-what to your own children, wives, and elders, who’s got anything left over for the rest of the world. After all, it’s a cinch some of those abused kids will take up the slack. I mean, there aren’t enough Amish for all the Bushmasters.
Hard cases make bad law. The law will presumably punish her. Are there other children requiring a parent (and, perhaps, religious instruction)? What, BTW, are imams saying about her behavior, its purpose and reasonableness, and its possible playing-out in British courts?
link to guardian.co.uk
17 yr sentence, don’t appear to be other children. A whole lot less benign than the picture Theodore Sayeed paints.
She beat a 7 year old …a 7 year old for not memorizing the Koran?!!
And then set fire to his body to cover her crime?
Ha..put her away with the criminally insane…which she clearly is.
And as a lesson to the others who try to” beat” their children into anything.
“put her away with the criminally insane…which she clearly is.”
No, she’s not insane; she’s religious, which is often mistaken one for the other.
“No, she’s not insane; she’s religious, which is often mistaken one for the other.”
Wouldn’t that sort of depend on whether the Koran endorses child-killing and body-burning for not earning enough “yaller tickets” (Tom Sawyer)? I’d sorta like to think it didn’t. Frankly, I always will think it doesn’t, (does not endorse killing your own child) no matter what it actually says. Erasers have come a long way since it was written.
The Qur’an endorses no such evil, in fact speaks against the old practice of burying female children which was practised at the time. Muhammad Abduh, a remarkable scholar, spoke out against this rote education which is tantamount to child cruelty.
Insanely religious then.
This article is obscene and unmitigated garbage. To use the manslaughter of this child at the hands of his own mother to reflect fondly and amusingly on your own history of child abuse is appalling enough. But to excuse the rampant and disgusting child abuse and mentality that sees beating a child in pursuit of a wholly worthless and nonsensical religious goal is beyond the pale, is a black mark on Mondoweiss and shows the deficienciencies of your character.
You are wrong:
1) there is a lack of love in these homes. If there wasn’t, these barbarians wouldn’t beat and abuse their children. They simply do not love their children;
2) the fact that some people justify the child abuse they suffered as children is no reason to excuse child abusers and child killers as you do;
3) any parent who would sign away parental rights to protect the children against abuse in order to send them to madrasas have no business being parents and the state should take those children away and shut down those hellholes; and
4) any parent that would take seven-year old children away from their general education to do a dumb and pointless exercise such as memorizing a book–no matter how “holy” you, in your delusions, think it is–is not fit to have the child and the state failed in not taking the boy away to be raised elsewhere.
Finally, this woman is lucky she committed her crimes in the UK. She deserves to hang for what she did in beating this poor child for months.
@woody, amazing we agree! In a perverse way this piece reveals the huge dangers we face from religious fundamentalism.
Woody, I’m very sure the article is not meant to be read quite so literally. I admit, I don’t know exactly how it is supposed to be read, I’ll have to read it again, and it seems the author comments below, which might give me a clue. Or it very well might be a conceit I don’t grasp or ironic in ways I don’t get yet. But I don’t…. you know, I better skip down and see what Mr. Sayeed has to say, before I go any further…
This article is obscene and unmitigated garbage. To use the manslaughter of this child at the hands of his own mother to reflect fondly and amusingly on your own history of child abuse is appalling enough. But to excuse the rampant and disgusting child abuse and mentality that sees beating a child in pursuit of a wholly worthless and nonsensical religious goal is beyond the pale, is a black mark on Mondoweiss .
I totally agree.
She deserves to hang for what she did in beating this poor child for months.
No, Woody! The woman does not deserve to hang. Remember: Two wrongs don’t make a right. Revenge is not justice.
“No, Woody! The woman does not deserve to hang. Remember: Two wrongs don’t make a right. Revenge is not justice.”
You presuppose that captial punishment is, necessarily, a wrong. Sorry, I disagree. I believe there are circumstances where it is an appropriate and justful punishment. One of those circumstances is when a mother beats her child for months on end, for no valid reason, until he dies of the abuse, to which she responds by burning his body. We will disagree on this point, I know.
Further, I agree that revenge is not justice, but I don’t think that the goals of the criminal law system is limited only to justice. I believe that revenge (or vengence)–properly managed–is a proper function of a criminal law system, because I believe that there are people for whom deterrence and rehabilitation is impossible absent the use or threat of vengence.
You’ve got to be kidding me with this article. To the eternal shame and disgrace of Mondoweiss in my opinion; I can’t believe I just read this vulgar apology for a religious fanatic who killed her own child. It’s articles like this that feed into the dehumanization of muslims in the West – how on earth can you feel solidarity or empathy for a monster like this? Sayeed should be ashamed of himself, and so should Phil Weiss, Adam Horowitz and the rest of MW. Revolting. I spit on this article.
I’d also like to add that the title to this article, once opened, in my chrome browser is “muslim parenting” – a real nice touch. unreal.
the mother is obviously insane and a danger to society. i too am completely baffled by this article.
she beat her own child with a hammer.
I have no truck with corporal punishment. I stated that I hope this extreme case jolts the community out of its tolerance for it. My reservations about Sara Ege’s sentence is that it rather misses the point in focusing too narrowly on its homicidal nature: Though her case proves uncommon for the severity of the abuse, physical admonishment is not. This tragedy might have been used to bring this epidemic out of the shadows and into the full light of day. But it won’t. Because it is much easier to use her as a scapegoat for what is a pervasive attitude. Her action warrants contempt I believe I said, but her coercive approach to religious instruction is not peculiar to her.
This tragedy might have been used to bring this epidemic out of the shadows and into the full light of day.
with all due respect Theodore, are you aware, according to wiki “Corporal punishment of minors within domestic settings is lawful in all 50 of the United States and, according to a 2000 survey, is widely approved by parents.”
corporal punishment in schools is legal in 19 states here in the US.
so when you call it an epidemic and reference “a pervasive attitude”, without including (at all) the fact that many cultures use corporal punishment, the implication is that this ‘attitude’ within the muslim community is not shared by parents and families across all segments of society whether religious or not.
perhaps you are not aware how popular corporal punishment is all across america, even today.
time magazine October 2012:
link to healthland.time.com
this is school district, not private religious schools.
Annie,
I don’t question that other sectors of your country labour under similar problems. I have no desire to make this an Islamocentric affair. But I am a Brit. Corporal punishment is outlawed here in state schools.
The Muslim schools about which I write were pleasant enough centres of learning from which I profited. I look back on them with appreciation as the article notes. But corporal punishment was employed for disciplinary ends. The more professionally run schools, I was careful to observe, rarely used it. The unaccredited ones convened at mosques with poorly trained staff were not so anodyne.
I come out of the Muslim community, and these reflections are born out of my experience. Had it not been for this tragedy, I would not have been moved to write about it. But some here would rather feign ignorance about some of the troubling pedagogical habits we cultivate.
“Corporal punishment of minors within domestic settings is lawful in all 50 of the United States and, according to a 2000 survey, is widely approved by parents.”
corporal punishment in schools is legal in 19 states here in the US.”
It figures. With that, the continuing ritual murder of humans, our ceaseless war and our 90%+ religiosity no surprise we are the main partner of both Israel and Saudi Arabia.
But you already have. The title says it all.
And the URL address reads: “such-muslim-education.html” Is that supposed to be sarcasm? It sure looks like it.
I’m confused.
Is your article limited in scope to your own personal experience within the British Moslem community?
The British Moslem community is comprised of both immigrant Moslems from various countries and native-born Moslems. Is there a difference between these two segments in regard to what you wrote in your article?
How prevalent is what you describe across all Moslem schools in Britain?
How prevalent is what you describe in schools throughout countries like Egypt, Lebanon, Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Indonesia, the Palestinian Territories, Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Yemen, Afghanistan, Sudan, Chad, Morocco, Qatar, the UAE, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Jordan, Syria, Somalia, Oman, India, Sri-Lanka, the Maldives, etc.?
You use terms like “culture” and “community”, but you leave it up to the reader to guess what “culture” and “community” entail in this particular case.
thanks for responding theodore. i didn’t mean to infer your personal reflections growing up in the muslim community in the UK were misrepresented. just pointing out when you say “troubling pedagogical habits we cultivate,” it’s not exclusive to the muslim community.
and the topic of corporal punishment is a global issue not exclusive to the muslim community at all. link to endcorporalpunishment.org
the title, “Muslim education” and the heading in the browser “Muslim Parenting” could easily lead the reader to conclude otherwise.
it reminds me in a way of my first reaction to another kind of child abuse. since i was completely unfamiliar with it in my own upbringing when i first heard about it i thought it was rare and only happened to people far away. imagine my surprise when i found out later in life one of my dear friends growing up was severely abused by her father almost her entire childhood. kids often don’t share the abuse they suffer at home.
i’m not sure what you experienced was ‘muslim’ if it’s also ‘christian’ (as in my example) and ‘secular’ (as the texas example) and ‘hindu’ link to articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com. unfortunately child abuse is adapted to many cultures, and has been since the beginning of time. why does it seem ‘muslim’ to you?
while corporal punishment in illegal in state schools in the UK now, that was likely not the case when you were growing up as it only became banned in 87.
btw, japan: link to yomiuri.co.jp
and consider all the corporal punishment endured by palestinian children at the hands of the ‘jewish state’. would that make it jewish punishment?
Annie, I am happy to say that I share your sentiment entirely. If I seem to focus on internal Muslim dynamics in this post, it is only because I have written extensively about Western foreign policy and Zionism and anti-Muslim bigotry elsewhere. Other subjects beckon my interest from time to time. I get email whenever I write something critical of the West demanding why I don’t criticise Muslims. And when I do so in the most conciliatory tones, I get admonished for being too critical. If I’m getting it from all sides, I must not be far off the mark.
Avi – G
You asked for data. Official stats corroborate that physical punishment is common in private Muslim schools across Britain, involving, on the low end of estimates, hundreds of children:
link to bbc.co.uk
What sets them apart is that where aggressive corrective measures are outlawed in state schools, they are not in these religious centres. That official sanction it enjoys informs the wider Muslim discourse about what is and is not acceptable. None of this is inevitable or particularly driven by Islam. But setting this homicide down to a lone outbreak of insanity is to playdown the true cost of such policy.
“I get admonished for being too critical”…sayeed
That’s not why. It’s that you say you resent this clerical influence and yet you don’t want anyone punished for it.
And you portray it as the culture….implying this is the Islam religious culture and this woman is a victim of the culture….and therefore should not be punished.
Well, what do you think should be done about this culture to prevent the beating of children?
You think just saying oh well too bad and letting a person go unpunished for this does anything to change the culture..sends any message to the clerics and others?
“Though her case proves uncommon for the severity of the abuse, physical admonishment is not”
Aren’t most domestic child killings, all over the world, preceded by an escalating spiral of coercion and punishment, which in some cases, escalates to homicide? I think that is mostly the case. Therefore, if no physical coercion at all is used, the distance from a Koran (or Torah, for that matter) recitation mistake to murder is that much greater.
And whenever physical coercion is used, the acceptance of that coercion, the acceptance of that physical punishment by society and the child (who has very little choice, and no way to set a limit)
brings the possibility of murder that much nearer.
And for what compelling reason do we take that chance with our children? Yaller tickets and a Dore’ Koran?
Of course, there was a huge amount of coercion and physical punishment involved in my religious education, but the final result: The Rabbi won, by 3 KO’s, 2 on points and a TKO out of seven bouts, and most of the bruises were gone by the Bar Mitzvah day. He looked fine.
Mooser,
I think much of the commentary surrounding this case has failed to deal with the root cause. There is much howling and hysterics about the evils of child murder. There is only one problem with this: No one defends child murder. The woman had no homicidal intent when she caused her son’s death. The problem is the resort to physical discipline which I’m sad to say has clerical sanction in some quarters. This will not be dealt with. I resent this.
“The problem is the resort to physical discipline which I’m sad to say has clerical sanction in some quarters. This will not be dealt with. I resent this.”…..sayeed
Well it sure never will ‘be dealt with’ if mommie, poppie and the cleric all go scott free in the beating death of a child.
Saying you resent this clerical, cultutral, religious, whatever you are ascribing it to, and yet would be fine with no one being punished for this boy’s death or an example being made of this seems off kilter to me….it rings weird.
The clerics and the boy’s father have not been held accountable. That’s my point. The culture of impunity which thrives in some madrassas is left unabated. The woman was a product of this environment and the punitive conditions still remain. Locking her up solves little of the underlying causes. I have no objection to prison time. But if that’s the start and end of the remedial process than it’s just a rank appeal to populism.
“The woman had no homicidal intent when she caused her son’s death.”
No, she had a depraved indifference to his health and his life. To me, there is no difference between this and a subjective homicidal intent.
“There is only one problem with this: No one defends child murder. The woman had no homicidal intent when she caused her son’s death. The problem is the resort to physical discipline which I’m sad to say has clerical sanction in some quarters.”
I hoped that was exactly what I was saying. I don’t know much about “clerical sanction”.
Theodore, I think most of the criticism you’re getting here is unfair, except for one thing–you ended your piece with the claim that the mother has been punished sufficiently by the loss of her son. Of course I only know what I read in the link you provided, but I don’t think a mother who beat her child hard enough to kill him should be allowed to run loose. Unlike some here, I accept that people can love their children and do things to them that are badly misguided (which is my opinion regarding corporal punishment aimed at children), but when a person is so unbalanced she goes to this extreme, prison time is warranted, in part to send a message to others that this sort of thing will not be tolerated.
Donald,
I grant your point. If I seem less than gungho about stringing her up, it is because I judge, from the limited biographical data one can acquire about her, that she was rather a simple housewife with little education fed some pretty ugly parenting values that were not entirely of her own devising. This crime surfaced only because the boy died, not because his father, acquitted of any part in the murder, felt the need to step in and report the abuse. She’s the fall guy for a wider cultural malaise. Call it what you may, but justice it is not.
>> This crime surfaced only because the boy died, not because his father, acquitted of any part in the murder, felt the need to step in and report the abuse. She’s the fall guy for a wider cultural malaise. Call it what you may, but justice it is not.
The injustice is in failing to hold all parties accountable. Absolving also the mother of her crime does not right the wrong – it merely exacerbates it.
Your excuse for the mother is similar to the excuse Zio-supremacist use to justify Israel’s immorality and injustices: We’re just doing what everyone else does, so don’t make us “the fall guy for a wider cultural malaise”.
“If I seem less than gungho about stringing her up, it is because I judge, from the limited biographical data one can acquire about her, that she was rather a simple housewife with little education fed some pretty ugly parenting values that were not entirely of her own devising.”
Oh, give me a break. She was a grown woman. I don’t care how simple you are; the simplest person can easily figure out that someone telling you it’s okay to beat your kid because he doesn’t learn some silly religious text is full of crap.
“She’s the fall guy for a wider cultural malaise.”
You’re out of your mind. She’s no “fall guy,” she yet another person whose mind has been poisoned by the mind-virus of religion that she would beat her child to death because she loved her superstitious mindset more than her own child. You want to argue that the relgious leaders who teach this nonsense and the boy’s father should be in the cell next to her? Fine. But to call her a “fall guy” is to suggest she’s without blame, which is obscene.
>> Her action warrants contempt I believe I said …
But what you didn’t say is that her actions warrant accountability. Or, more precisely perhaps, what you did say that her actions don’t warrant accountability:
I believe in accountability. Not empty feel-good gestures that make us look tough on crime. Start with closing the loopholes on physical discipline in private schools. End the subculture of hitting children that stamps divine authority on a base action. Conscript the support of Muslim leaders in anti-violence outreach programs. And then punish whoever needs punishing. Without a multi-pronged effort to address the scourge, symbolic measures are vacant.
>> I believe in accountability.
As long as it doesn’t involve holding the criminal accountable for her brutal crime. Interesting.
>> Not empty feel-good gestures that make us look tough on crime.
Holding a criminal responsible for her crime – slowly beating her child to death over a period of months – is an “empty feel-good gesture”. Interesting.
I guess those five rapists in India should be set free, too. After all, they’re just victims of loopholes and subculture, and holding them accountable for their crimes would be just a vacant, symbolic measure.
Too much…
>> A British Muslim woman was sentenced to life in prison this week for killing her son accidentally in the course of beating him.
There’s nothing accidental about months of punishing beatings that cause internal injuries which result in death.
>> I see no compelling reason for handing the bereft Sara Ege a custodial sentence.
I see a very compelling reason: In a cruel, painful and prolonged way, she beat her son to death.
I guess it’s always possible that she loved him so much she simply had to beat him for months on end until he died, but the world – and its children – could do with less of that sort of “love”.
Leaving aside the purpose that this article is supposed to serve by being published on Mondoweiss, I wonder how representative it is of Islam and Moslems in general.
Conversely, perhaps Pamela Geller was right; after all, this article reaffirms the notion that Moslems strike fear in the hearts of the “unbelievers”, and this poor child was a victim of that terror and the beatings.
So the takeaway message Mondoweiss would like you to have is that this is how Moslems educate and teach their children.
Incidentally, who is Theodore Sayeed? What professional qualifications does he have?
When you think of the circumcision related material and how fast it was shut down on mj Rosenberg’s say so its totally shocking to read this apology for brutalization
Great point, Dan. I had completely forgotten about that incident. I am reminded of another such article when Phil removed it on someone else’s say so.
What did the two articles have in common? They were both discussing customs, norms and practices among world Jewry.
I find it ironic that just like the Israel Lobby and American Zionists, they minute they shout loud enough, everyone acquiesces to their demands.
Either that, or Phil has a soft spot for Jewish-related matter, what with being a Jew and everything……..
“When you think of the circumcision related material and how fast it was shut down on mj Rosenberg’s say so its totally shocking to read this apology for brutalization”
Whoa! Dan charges in where Mooses fear to tread!
“So the takeaway message Mondoweiss would like you to have is that this is how Moslems educate and teach their children.”
Well, that might be the take-away if the reader was convinced there was an “intrinsic” disparity in the way people treat children in, ahh… different parts of the world. On the other hand if you’re prepared to admit that resorting to force against children (they’re small and weak, even weaker than grown women in some cases) out of frustration and pretending it is a disciplinary measure or learning aid is a universal problem, than it’s back to “if you’ve got to peer at a navel through a glass, darkly, it might as well be your own”
Mooser,
Exactly. That is precisely the point. So what is Mondoweiss’ goal? Is it supposed to be a complimentary source of information to mainstream media or is it supposed to be a groundbreaking website?
If it’s the latter — and it certainly appears that way judging by the aggregate of the topics — then articles such as this need to be handled with extra sensitivity and particular attention to the details, the nuances, and accuracy.
“is it supposed to be a groundbreaking website?”
Well, I’ve noticed, he very timidly suggested, that people who try too hard to be “groundbreaking” often end up digging a deep hole for themselves.
“I wonder how representative it is of Islam and Moslems in general”…Avi
Probably no more than, or about as much as, that Jewish sect, whatever it is, that has people defending the pedophile Rabbi.
I doubt she is ‘that’ representative of Islam any more than the sex abusing Rabbi is of all Judaism.
There are whackos and extremes in every religion.
The article could have made that a bit clearer…emphasized that more.
“Probably no more than, or about as much as, that Jewish sect, whatever it is, that has people defending the pedophile Rabbi.”
Well, thank God child abuse has disappeared among Christians and, uh, white people generally! When I think about all the non-Jewish and non-Muslim children who are spared any kind of child abuse, let alone murder, it lifts my spirits, American, it really does.
Hmmm, “pedophile Rabbi”? Why does that expression remind me of another, much more usual, which is a little more, well, alliterative, if you get my drift…
Proverbs 13:24 — “He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.” Proverbs 23:14 — “Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.” This is our common heritage as Peoples of the Book, we are just at different stages in overcoming it.
very common today:
link to beliefnet.com
The New Dare to Discipline [Paperback]
James C. Dobson (Author)
link to amazon.com
Yup. You knew the Shenfields were gonna love this one:
“This is our common heritage as Peoples of the Book, we are just at different stages in overcoming it.”
—————————
“You” got mohels killing kids with disease via mouth to penis contact, bro – what stage is that? You can make the point of a common fcked-upedness without the self congratulatory BS.
You are reading something into my comment that wasn’t there. Of course, those communities within my inclusive “we” which have made not overcome this vicious common heritage exist in all the religions that revere “the Book” — Jews, Christians, Moslems, Mormons (in order of historical appearance). It’s true that IF I had been referring specifically to Judaism a self-congratulatory tone would have been completely unjustified, because taken as a whole Judaism has been regressing, mainly as a result of the alliance between its most backward elements and Zionism. I would ask you to think about why you misinterpreted my comment in the way you did.
Regarding the case of child abuse we are discussing, I have been reading articles in the British press and these provide some useful insights. It appears that the father wanted the boy to become a hafiz (someone who knows the whole Quran by heart) because this would bring the family (above all, I suppose, the father) higher status in his community, rather than because he believed that otherwise the boy would go to hell. It also appears that the mother really may have been clinically insane: she says she was obeying voices telling her to go on beating the child and she thinks these voices were from the devil. Yes, the insanity has roots in religious ideas, but also in the pressure she herself was under from her abusive husband.
Dan and Stephen, let me tell you something about “The Book”. The fact is, I laughed from the moment I picked it up, till the second I set it down….
Stephen,
Your analysis is sound. The kid’s parents did want him to become a hafiz. (I have never quite understood why that word is spelt the way it is in English because the Arabic pronunciation is closer to haafith, but never mind.) There is vast pressure to upload the contents of the Quran to one’s mind in religious circles. It’s a mark of surpassing distinction. The reason for doing so is that committing the book to one’s memory is a sure entry to heaven and an escape from damnation. Because the effort demands much time, perseverance and dull repetition to engrave pages and pages of text on one’s memory, parents and instructors with no formal training easily get exasperated. Frustration at the speed of progress, aggravated by the attention deficit natural to minors, makes some lash out at the object of their anger. This obsession with rote learning is the progenitor of child abuse.
The real culprit here of course is the government. State schools have banned all corporal punishment. The same protections do not extend to madrassas. This policy is active complicity in this tragedy. When the state, the schools and the subculture tolerate violence as a worthy educational tool, it is no marvel that intemperate people feel justified in applying it.
I was just going to make this point, Stephen. Islam isn’t the problem — religious fundamentalism is. Be it Islam, Christian, Jewish…or Druid.
“Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
“Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
It’s very obvious from this quote that Jefferson has never met Her.
What is the reason for publishing this article here? I must admit that this is the side of Mondoweiss I find distasteful – all this sectarian focus. You guys are much better when you come from a place of human rights rather than all this stupid sectarian rubbish, whether it’s Jewish or Muslim.
This article is rather offensively written; it paints abusive behavior as normative and integral to Islamic pedagogy. Many Muslims, including traditional scholars, would find child abuse or even corporal punishment “applied out of a sincere belief that mastering the contents of the Quran would save one’s neverdying soul from hell” an unambiguous evil on the part of the guardian. For Muslims, children are born sinless and remain ‘angelic’ at least until puberty; Quranic knowledge is not needed to save any child’s soul from Hell. The presumption is innocence.
Theodore’s experiences and generalizations may apply to certain hillbilly elements of the Muslim world, but this is because of their hillbilly-ness, not their Muslimness.
“Theodore’s experiences and generalizations may apply to certain hillbilly elements of the Muslim world, but this is because of their hillbilly-ness, not their Muslimness.”
You see anything self-contradictory in a sentence about the evils of generalizations and blaming things on “hillbilly elements”? So we switch from bigotry against Muslims in general to bigotry against people from certain socioeconomic categories?
In the popular slang sense I’m using it, “hillbilly” just refers to socially backward, anti-intellectual people, nothing more. Such people can be of any socioeconomic category, as far as I know. Apologies to Cletus Spuckler and to anyone who uses the term in some other manner.
“hillbilly” is a vicious ethnic slur — which has historically been used against mountain people sitting on land rich in natural resources. E.g., people from Appalachian coal-mining areas were so labeled right when Big Coal was building it’s mechanisms for massive & often illegal land grabs. It has implications of genetic inferiority, violence, ungovernability, stupidity. It works well to discredit people who are trying to fight back. It is, however, one of the few ethnic slurs that is still acceptable among middle class city folks (especially on coasts)…More at link to amazon.com
First, this does indeed seem an odd inclusion on MW site. Anyone in the editorial wing care to elaborate if this is a new thematic area? I didn’t know that MW was now covering the vagaries of UK Muslim life? May I pitch an article on the hot debate as to whether the Muslim Council of Britain should in fact be sending a delegation to the Islamic Economic Forum in Malaysia this year, given the recent budget cuts… no?
Just as an addendum I’d like to say that the joys of my US Muslim education involved no slaps, no punches, no hammers, only a modicum of tribalism and unsatisfying didactic argumentation and disdain for critical thinking that I hear about from friends who recount their Sunday school days, or those of Hebrew school. And of course there were ‘better’ joys, like friendship, etc., and some tasty meals.
No offense Theodore, but I think this is the wrong venue for your musing. Wa Allah hu Alam.
I’m sure it goes without saying that no British parent of any other religion would receive a life sentence in similar circumstances!!!
The crime is one thing. The possibility that similar crimes have not been reported is another. One crime is a single, non-societal, event. Cover-ups become societal.
Think of the scandals we know of: Catholic clerics abusing kids in their care, sports figures, ditto, orthodox Jewish folks trying to keep crimes out of the police-courts. Different tribes: tribe of Catholic clergy, tribe of sports coaches, tribes of orthodox Jews. All trying to keep away scandal by hiding crimes.
This beating Muslim kids for not learning seems to me to be something else — a VERY old-country hang-over which is not accepted in USA, UK, but might (for all I know) be perfectly fine in other cultures. Please remember that in ancient Rome. a man could beat or even kill slaves, maybe his wife and kids too (not sure), and until 100-200 years ago, in USA-UK law, “A man and his wife are one person and the husband is that person” — so we shouldn’t come down TOO hard on people whose cultures have not [yet] made the transitions some of us have made.
“— so we shouldn’t come down TOO hard on people whose cultures have not [yet] made the transitions some of us have made.”
I guess I was under the mistaken impression that people who lived in
“Pontcanna, Cardiff, south Wales” would be under British Law. But maybe all the scimitars scare the Bobbies away.
Yeah, this article is insane.
“With this in mind, I see no compelling reason for handing the bereft Sara Ege a custodial sentence. The loss of her child is punishment enough.”
Bats*t insane.
I can actually understand Theodore Sayeed’s disagreement with sentencing this woman to a prison term.
The concept of guilt and shame as sufficient and adequate punishment is not new, nor is it unique to Sayeed. In fact, such a concept has long been an intrinsic part of other cultures and religions with the utilization of conciliation committees throughout Africa.
Case in point was the civil war in Sierra Leon. After the war, and after entire families were destroyed, the offenders stood in front of the community in which they lived and asked their victims and the victims’ loved ones for forgiveness.
In some cases the victims forgave their attackers, in others they demanded retribution and the community allowed that.
In addition, Sierra Leoneans do not believe in banishment or imprisonment because every member of society is part of the collective human capital.
Westerns have a hard time understanding that concept. In fact, Sierra Leone had no prisons until British Colonialism took over the country.