Last updated 1/9/2023

colorbar.gif

Sexual dimensions of Islam and the Niqab
(Much of the contents of this article are sensitive and are not suitable for children)

colorbar.gif

Tweet Face
Islam is usually considered superficially by Western minds as a puritanical faith set on  ascetic practices like fasting, the strict segregation of women, and an excessive regard to female modesty.
Indeed in some respects, Muslims are to be commended for their emphasis on family life, the sanctity of marriage, the modesty of female attire, the censorship of sexual impurity, and some judicial punishments for sexual offenses (Job. 31.11).
Despite many serious and iniquitous abuses and a foul tendency to denigrate women (very evident in some Hadith literature), in some of these respects they represent a distorted reflection of scriptural requirements, ones which many foolish and forgetful Jews and Christians have neglected to their own eternal harm.

‏والحياء ‏ ‏شعبة ‏ ‏من الإيمان - modesty is a branch of faith (Bukhari, 1.2.8).

However this assessment neglects an important aspect of Islam. Like the fertility cults from which it draws some root, Islam contains a prominent and profoundly improper focus on the physical aspects of sexuality in its worship.

Our sexuality is a uniquely sacred Divine gift, mysteriously reflects the Divine image and essence (Gen. 5.1-2) and is one of the highest blessings given to mankind. It is sanctified and blessed within the covenant of matrimony and both defiled and accursed without it. The sacred scriptures abominate the error that sexual intercourse is in and of itself evil, in its lawful context (Prov. 5.19 inter alia). Sexual perversion is a direct result of Divine judgement for unbelief, and is not only an apt response, but bears mysterious parallel to creature worship (Romans. 1.24-28, esp v.27, 'a meet recompence').

Nevertheless, in spite its virtuous veneer and some real restraints and benefits, Islam emphasises sexuality in a manner that deeply derogates from its lawful place and function as the following short list demonstrates.

colorbar.gif
Minarets
Minaret  Minaret Minaret Minaret Minaret Minaret Minaret Minaret Minaret Minaret Minaret Minaret Minaret MinaretMinaret Minaret Minaret Minaret     MinaretThe latter image from here
Wroclaw's Islamic Institute's logo

colorbar.gif

Other aspects of worship
The Muslim prophet depicted (by Muslim artists) all in green, riding the female Buraq, top right (Miraj Nama, which is in the Bibliotheque Nationale)

colorbar.gif

The preferred titles of Deity

colorbar.gif

The Niqab
  Niqab    Niqab       Niqab    Niqab    Niqab  Dubious niqab 'matrimonial ad'   
Or this use of the Niqab (and Hijab) for enticing pictures in a 'matrimonial service' ad, which may be associated with trafficking.

It is a great tragedy that Islam has foolishly and cruelly mistaught its young women that what has long before been designed to enhance lust is somehow instead a remedy for it, and it is a significant root of hidden vice and abuse in Muslim societies.

colorbar.gif
Heightened level of sexual assault at Eid Al Fitr

See this wikipedia page for documentation of a perennial problem. Edward Lane also indicates debauchery was a regular occurrence around the festival in his day, 'Intrigues are said to be not uncommon with the females who spend the night in tents among the tombs'. (Modern Egyptians, vol.2. p.238, cited in Hughes, T.P., Dict. of Islam)

Islamic State has a highly developed theology of sacralised rape: 'He said that by raping me, he is drawing closer to God'; Rape "is 'Ibadah"  (عبادة). 'Having sex with her [a 12 yr old captive] pleases God'

The Ka'bah

But the most shocking aspect of Islam's focus on sexuality and the evidence for its rootedness in fertility rites has long been recognised to focus in the Ka'bah itself.

2 The feminine form indicates that the Ka'ba itself is addressed. (Ibn Ishaq's Sirat ar-Rasul, Pt .1.124., translated by Alfred Guillaume, published OUP Pakistan.)
Kaaba
Admire   Touch                 
Hughes

  #Here cited by T.P.Hughes. Dict. of Islam.

There is some evidence Mohammed also followed the same procedure with Ayesha - 'Narrated 'Aisha: Do you make us (women) equal to dogs and donkeys? While I used to lie in my bed, the Prophet would come and pray facing the middle of the bed. I used to consider it not good to stand in front of him in his prayers. So I used to slip away slowly and quietly from the foot of the bed till I got out of my guilt.' Why else would he direct his prayers toward the middle of her bed? Bukhari .1: 486 (cf. Sahih Bukhari 1.490, Sahih Bukhari 1.493, Sahih Bukhari 1.498)

Nor is it surprising that during both pre- and post-Hijra times, many worshippers, both male and female, were compelled to circumambulate the rock naked - revealing its potent, longstanding association with fertility rites. (Ibid. 1.128).
According to Ibn Ishaq, it was not until 9 years after the Hijra that Muslims finally banned the practice (Sirat ar-Rasul 922).

It is likely that Surah 7.26-7 was revealed to stop Muslim emulation of this nakedness at the Kaaba.
 
يَا بَنِي آدَمَ لَا يَفْتِنَنَّكُمُ الشَّيْطَانُ كَمَا أَخْرَجَ أَبَوَيْكُم مِّنَ الْجَنَّةِ يَنزِعُ عَنْهُمَا لِبَاسَهُمَا لِيُرِيَهُمَا سَوْآتِهِمَا ۗ إِنَّهُ يَرَاكُمْ هُوَ وَقَبِيلُهُ مِنْ حَيْثُ لَا تَرَوْنَهُمْ ۗ إِنَّا جَعَلْنَا الشَّيَاطِينَ أَوْلِيَاءَ لِلَّذِينَ لَا يُؤْمِنُونَ وَإِذَا فَعَلُوا فَاحِشَةً قَالُوا وَجَدْنَا عَلَيْهَا آبَاءَنَا وَاللَّهُ أَمَرَنَا بِهَا ۗ قُلْ إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يَأْمُرُ بِالْفَحْشَاءِ ۖ أَتَقُولُونَ عَلَى اللَّهِ مَا لَا تَعْلَمُونَ
O ye Children of Adam! Let not Satan seduce you, in the same manner as He got your parents out of the Garden, stripping them of their raiment, to expose their shame: for he and his tribe watch you from a position where ye cannot see them: We made the evil ones friends (only) to those without faith. When they do aught that is shameful, they say: "We found our fathers doing so"; and "Allah commanded us thus": Say: "Nay, Allah never commands what is shameful: do ye say of Allah what ye know not?"

Even today, Muslims avoid wearing stitched underclothing under the Ihram, the grave cloth like coverings worn during the circumambulation of the holy stone.

Joint worship of the Ka'bah by both polytheists and muslims is confirmed by Bokhari (Book 23, 1021 et al), probably on another highly singular occasion when an early version of Sura An-Najm was recited.


A central thread at the heart of Islam is the worship of the womb. It is a grievous sin anticipated in the prophetic writings 1,400 years B.C., 'Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female,' Deuteronomy 4.16.

Perhaps it hearkens back to Ishmael's prolonged submission to his divorced Egyptian mother, Hagar. A resonance which the orphaned prophet must also have known in his own life.

This focus on the fertility cult is all the more extraordinary and paradoxical given the Greek philosophical anti-anthropomorphism inherent in Islam's doctrine of the sterile nature of God.
It is blasphemously removed from the true character of the sacred Name, who forged man male and female to express the Divine image (Gen 5.1-2). 'In the thing wherein they dealt proudly he was above them.'

colorbar.gif
Islam doubly fulfills the ancient apostolic description,
'Turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.' Jude 4.

colorbar.gif

Ibn Arabi, the famous Sufi mystic, wrote 8 love poems addressed to the Ka'aba, in a piece called the Taj ar-Rasa'il and wa-Minhâj al-Wasâ’il, The Crown of Epistles and the Path to Intercessions. It is replete with mystical imagery and symbolism. However the fact remains he addresses the Ka'aba as a personal intermediary to God and as female.

A sympathetic commentator summarises:
'What, moreover, is the meaning of the amorous relationship between the Shaykh al-Akbar Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi and this seductive, threatening, feminine mineral being, which appears before him in this way in the coolness of a moonlit night?'
The poetry becomes quite erotic and I won't repeat it here.
colorbar.gifcolorbar.gif


colorbar.gif
Home
Theology   Ministry of God's Word
Evolution    Rome     EU
Writings for Rabbinics
Islam / The Satanic verses
The land of Israel
Christian hatred of the Jews
Evangelical Apostasy
colorbar.gif