The Terror of Islamic Jihad and Female Enslavement

"ISIS recruiters offer (but don’t deliver) a stark alternative to the discrimination they describe. They promise a future where women hold a valued place of honor, where they’ll be 'lionesses', playing a foundational role in building the so-called caliphate. This often means being wives and mothers — but not always. Women are recruited to be informants and enforcers of ISIS rules. Recently, European observers have even noticed an uptick in female recruits who use the language of women’s rights — dignity and autonomy — to talk about their part in actually carrying out terrorist plots."
Heather Hurlburt, director, New Models of Policy Change initiative, New America's Political Reform program. Jacqueline O'Neill, president, Inclusive Security. Vox

"In our Breaking the ISIS Brand—the ISIS Defectors Interviews Project we were privileged to listen to (with Dr. Yayla and Dr. Shajkovci) to female and male defectors and returnees who described the roles of women in ISIS. Women (and men), who join ISIS are promised purpose, significance, dignity, prosperity and important roles in the organization and the chance to build an alternative to the existing world order which is sold as a utopian future. While its hard for Westerners to understand why women would join such a misogynist organization, we must grasp the hard facts that foreign women who join go to live under the so-called Islamic Caliphate do so for a multitude of reasons: to embrace traditional lifestyles; to follow what they believe is the “true” Islam; and to fight back against what they have come to believe are global injustices, as claimed in the terrorist narrative that Muslims, Islamic lands and even Islam itself is under attack by the West. They also go for adventure; romance; believing that they will be given significant and purposeful roles and even prosperity—including homes and cars. A Belgian female defector told me a few weeks ago that she was even promised diamonds and nurse’s training if she married someone she’d never met and traveled to Syria. Of course neither materialized."
Anne Speckhard, Ph.D. 

"In many Islamic countries, child marriages are common practice. Girls far below the age of puberty are often forcibly married to older persons (sometimes in their 50s and later) for various personal gains by the girls' guardian or with the intention to preserve family honor by helping her avoid pre-marital sex. Pedophilic Islamic marriages are most prevalent in Pakistan and Afghanistan, followed by other countries in the Middle East and Bangladesh.^[1][2] This practice may also be prevalent to a lesser extent amongst other Muslim communities, and is on the rise among the growing Muslim populations in many non-Muslim countries, such as the United Kingdom^[3] and the United States.^[4]"
Wiki Islam Contemporary Pedophilic Islamic Marriages

A new study produced some interesting insights into the Islamic and Arab minefield of relations between the sexes within a pervasive culture of misogyny upheld by the Koran and by tribal heritage and custom whereby women are held to be inferior to men and are to be guided in all aspects of life by the men in their lives; fathers, uncles, brothers, husbands; secondary appendages useful for sex and absolutely required for the perpetuation of the tribe or the clan. Not to be seen in public other than in the company of a male relative, and at all times covered by an all-encompassing burqa.

None of that is new, and the custom travels well. In diverse countries of Europe in particular and occasionally in North America women are guided by the convention of Islamic societies that they must be 'modestly' garbed so that not an inch of skin is recognizable to the stray eye. Their own eyes should be all that is visible, with a niqab drawn over their faces. In North America it is more common to see the hair only covered with a hijab, or headscarf. Women's purpose is to provide sex, to bear children.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has deviated from this norm. While still prizing women as possessions for sex and childbearing, they also prescribe for women to become familiar with some aspects of terrorism, mostly for the purpose of carrying out suicide attacks voluntarily, guided by the same Koranic scriptures that enjoin to jihad. The difference being that for women who martyr themselves through violent terrorism the reward of nubile virgins in Paradise is not theirs; it is restricted to male martyrs who have earned that heavenly privilege.

The only surviving terrorist of the massacre that took place in Mumbai when the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba in collaboration with Pakistan's Interservices Intelligence Agency sent a terror group into Mumbai, India's centre of commerce, to unleash mass violence, related his reason for joining Lashar to become part of its murderous enterprise. Was it for jihad, he was prompted by his interlocutors? "Well, my father wanted me to join so my brothers and I could get married", he responded astonishingly. Astonishing that is, to the Western mind.

The Associated Press: A Saudi man buying a wedding dress in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

The Islamic terrorist-producing societies conventionally pay bride price as an ingrained custom. One 'buys' a wife. And young men wishing to marry must have the financial wherewithal to enable that marriage. According to researcher Valerie Hudson at Texas A&M's Bush School of Government and Public Service, half the countries of the world practise bride price in marriage contracts; roughly 75 percent of the world population lives in those distinguished countries. Bride prices appear to be on a steady increase from Sudan to Nigeria and throughout the Middle East.

Young men of modest means seek any type of employment, including terrorist attacks that will be well compensated in theory, to raise the funds to enable them to 'buy' a wife through 'bride price'. For those men whom the injunction through the Koran to honour their obligation to Islam by being faithful to jihad is reason enough to involve themselves in terrorism, it is the promise of the leisure and honour in the hereafter that motivates them to dedicate their lives to jihad for Islam.

In a very real sense there is a reflection of this in the Palestinian Authority commending and honouring Palestinians for reacting to the campaign to 'resist' the 'occupation' and martyr themselves for the Palestinian 'cause' of what they claim is justice in regaining the land they claim that Israel has taken from the Arabs. Anyone who visits raging violence on Israeli Jews can be guaranteed hero status, and whether they die or are taken prisoner they and their families can look forward to generous monthly pensions for their lifetimes.

In Saudi Arabia, as an example, rehabilitation programs for extremists include the government paying the bride price for those extremists held to have been reformed, after they graduate from the programs meant for their rehabilitation. As for the women who are bought in this way, some are of the opinion that being paid for entitles their husbands to beat them and it also justifies marital rape. She has the status of a sex slave, she is the property of the man who paid the bride price.

It is an old pattern in tribal societies, one furthermore patterned in Islam, on the Prophet Mohammad's own example, including the taking of multiple wives and the marriage to underage girls. Women may wear seductive-appearing gowns and dresses but only for their husband's delectation; in public whatever she may wear in the discreet sanctuary of the home they share must be screened by a garment covering her from head to toe.

Grooms take part in a mass wedding ceremony in Riyadh, on June 24, 2008. Governor of Riyadh Prince Salman and a local group organized a mass wedding for about 1,600 couples to help young people who are unable to afford expensive ceremonies because of the rising cost of living. The government has recognized that marrying men is an effective strategy to stabilize the country and preserve national security.  Credit:Ali Jarekji/Reuters