In London, a man named Sunny Islam has been jailed for sexually assaulting at least four women over the course of several months, all because he wanted to "teach them a lesson" for being out too late alone. One of his victims was just 15. Sunny Islam insists that he's a practicing, observant Muslim and I believe him -- this sort of sexual assault is consistent with how some other Muslims have sought to punish women for getting out of line.
At Woolwich Crown Court, Judge Patricia Lees sentenced Islam to a minimum sentence of 11 years before he is considered for parole. She told him: "The nature and extent of these offences drives me to the conclusion that you represent an extreme and continuing danger to women, particularly those out at night."
Judge Lees said: "You told her you were going to 'teach her a lesson'. Those words are a chilling indictment of your very troubling attitude towards all of these victims. You seem to observe women out at night as not deserving respect or protection."
Source: The Telegraph
Since Muslims say they "respect" women and that the heavy restrictions placed upon them by Islam are designed to "protect" them, it might appear as though such sexual assaults are completely inconsistent with the principles being espoused. But they aren't, really, because underlying those principles is something even more fundamental: a dehumanization of women which inculcates in men an almost total disregard for the interests or dignity of women.
The dehumanization of any group is almost inevitably followed by violence towards them. Quite often that's one of the purposes of the dehumanization, too. Once dehumanized, a group cannot make any claims on being treated with dignity, being treated as equals, having real rights at all, etc. Of course they will experience violence -- physical, mental, psychological, and sexual.
Not all Muslim men rape, obviously, and few would come right out to say that it was a good thing for these women to be raped. But how many have said or thought something along the lines of "she was asking for it" when a woman was assaulted after being out late? How many have engaged in such "blaming the victim" rhetoric?
When you blame the victim, the perpetrator is (at a minimum) blamed less, and perhaps not blamed at all. Once you have fully adopted the perspective that the victim deserves blame, how much more of a step is it to conclude that the perpetrator deserves praise? And from there, how much more of a step is it to become the perpetrator yourself?
This isn't a problem unique to Islam. However, the greater extremes to which Islam can currently go to dehumanize and oppress women probably makes the problem worse in Islam than in most other religions.
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