A recent conference pointed up the problem of the treatment of women in Islam:

“The keynote speaker, Syrian-American psychiatrist Wafa Sultan, an outspoken critic of Islam, described an “honor killing” of a young Middle Eastern woman that occurred with the help of her mother. In a later exchange, another participant, Libyan journalist Sawsan Hanish, argued that it was unfair to single out Muslim societies, since women suffer violence and sexual abuse in every society including the United States. Sultan pointed out a major difference: In many Muslim cultures , such violence and abuse are accepted and legalized.”

These problems are not the exclusive province of women in countries dominated by Islam. The treatment of American Muslim women presents similar difficulties. Many European nations with Muslim minorities report honor killings of women who are raped, by husbands, brothers, fathers, et. al.

“Not long after I picked up the free Saudi book, Mahmoud Shalash, an imam from Lexington, Ky., stood at the pulpit of my mosque and offered marital advice to the 100 or so men sitting before him. He repeated the three-step plan, with “beat them” as his final suggestion. Upstairs, in the women’s balcony, sat a Muslim friend who had recently left her husband, who she said had abused her; her spouse sat among the men in the main hall.

At the sermon’s end, I approached Shalash. “This is America,” I protested. “How can you tell men to beat their wives?”

“They should beat them lightly,” he explained. “It’s in the Koran.”

He was doing the dance.”

I continue to wonder why American feminists are not more outspoken in their condemnations of Islamic traditional treatment of women, which is horrendous by nearly any standard. Is more feminist ink spilled on the Southern Baptist church than on Islam? It’s difficult not to suspect that conflicting imperatives (of being “for” women but also “for” multiculturalism and “against” the evil fascist regime of Bush) have caused a certain paralysis of rhetoric.

The irony: no more “anti-choice” regime is possible than a state ruled by Sharia, where the women and their abortionists are simply to be killed.