Response to Juan Cruz

Submitted by Maryam (Australia), Oct 17, 2008 at 07:00

Juan,

As a muslim woman, I could not read your post and not reply. I take great offence when people like you make comments about us being oppressed. I find that the only people who oppress and degrade us are clearly very ignorant. We have had more rights than non-muslim women far before they did, we have always had the right to own businesses,property, inheritance, education, work, voting etc. far before western women. Muslim men are required to treat their wives with the utmost respect, kindness and fairness, but you never get to hear about how average Muslims live. I have seen many western men treat their wives and families terribly, there isn't a shortage of abusive husbands, alcoholic and drug addicts but that doesn't mean all men in the west are like this.

Sure there are some countries where oppressive behaviour may be more accepted, but you have to separate culture from religion, its not the same. Im sick of the stereotypes.

When you say we don't do enough to defend ourselves and we "let" the terrorists live among us - this is laughable!! We run COUNTLESS forums, campaigns, set up stalls, workshops, open up our mosques, hand out flyers, set up websites to DISPELL the myths about Islaam and terrorism, we are doing ALOT to try to defend ourselves, yet no one pays attention unless it is something negative!

There are NO terrorists living among us, there is never encouragement/endorsement of violence, we would NEVER accept that amongst our communities. We are only encouraged to be patient in these difficult times as the Prophet demonstrated.

PEACE.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".