Islam and Peace

The idea that all religions preach peace is a myth; there isn’t much evidence to support it

In the primary texts of Islamic Sharia, there is no independent or direct punishment prescribed for rape; rather, rape is judged within the framework of adultery or zina, where the female victim must prove that she was subjected to forced intercourse — and the standard of proof is four adult, just male witnesses who directly observed the act. Since this is practically impossible, if the woman fails to provide such proof, she herself is accused of adultery, the punishment for which ranges from flogging to — if married — being buried up to the neck and stoned to death. For this reason, in many Islamic countries, raped women are afraid to even seek justice.

For the believing brothers: I know you will try to stretch two Hasan-grade hadiths — but even there, rape is punished under the zina framework, and in one case the rapist confessed himself, while in the other, four witnesses directly testified. The Prophet Muhammad even expected the man to deny the accusation and escape punishment, and told the woman that Allah would forgive her “sin of zina.”

In 2006, a 19‑year‑old Shia girl was abducted and gang‑raped by seven men while she was in a car with a male friend. Because she had gone out without her husband or a male guardian (mahram), and because she could not prove the rape through four adult male eyewitnesses as required by Islamic law, she was initially sentenced to 90 lashes. Later, when she appealed against this injustice and spoke to the media, the judges became enraged and increased her punishment to 200 lashes and six months in prison.

In Dubai in 2012, a British woman who went to report a rape ended up facing imprisonment for “illegal sexual relations.”

In Saudi Arabia, many Filipino and Indonesian domestic workers who reported sexual abuse by their employers were instead accused of “provoking” their employers. Indonesian worker Tuttil Tursilawati and Filipino worker Roselia Azmahul were even sentenced to death! Allegedly, they had “provoked” their employers into rape.

There are countless cases across Iran and many Middle Eastern countries where rape victims were punished because they could not produce four male witnesses to prove the rape.

Thirty percent of Bangladeshi women who go to Saudi Arabia as domestic workers return home pregnant. Many are forced into abortions; many are silenced through threats. Employers claim they “bought” these women, that their marriages back home are automatically nullified. If they refuse sexual access, they are denied food for days and subjected to severe abuse. Although Saudi Arabia abolished slavery in the 1960s, the mindset of keeping sexual slaves has not disappeared.

In all civilized legal systems of the world, killing a rapist in self‑defense to escape rape is lawful. But under Saudi law, that itself is a capital offense. Bangladeshi women are generally defenseless and cannot resist much. But some Filipino and Indonesian domestic workers, after being raped repeatedly for days, eventually killed their employers to escape further rape. The great Saudi state executed these women because they could not present evidence of rape — they did not have four male witnesses. In response, massive protests erupted across Indonesia and the Philippines, and their governments stopped sending female domestic workers to Saudi Arabia.

Some of the brave but unfortunate domestic workers executed in Saudi Arabia include —

Ruyati binti Sapubi: Executed by beheading in June 2011.
Siti Zainab: Executed in April 2015.
Karni binti Medi Tarsim: Executed in April 2015, just two days after Siti Zainab.
Tuttil Tursilawati: Executed in October 2018.

No matter how eternal, humane, or just you consider Islam to be, Islam does not recognize any morality, humanity, or rationality outside the Qur’an and Hadith; even if your personal conscience considers something humane, if it does not align with Islamic law, you have no right to speak against it as a Muslim. If you do, you become an apostate and are liable for the death penalty. Within the structure of Islam, questioning, doubt, or dissent is not acceptable; only by accepting everything without question can a person remain a Muslim.

People often say, “All religions preach peace” — but history and reality have repeatedly proven this claim false. Throughout human civilization, whenever religion has merged with state power, society has seen oppression, violence, division, and bloodshed; religious rule has never brought lasting peace. Like Islam, almost all religious structures contain barbarity, misogyny, intolerance, suppression of dissent, and the legitimization of violence in the name of “purity.” Europe, too, remained in darkness as long as it was under Church control — knowledge, science, and humanism could not flourish; the long nightmare of the Dark Ages was the result of religious rule. Today, the most peaceful, humane, and egalitarian countries share common traits: public disinterest in religion, weak religious authority, and the prioritization of human values over religious law. In other words, where religion’s influence is low, people are more free, safe, and peaceful — this is the harsh but clear lesson of history.