80 Lashes for Christine Ford?

by Gary Fouse

As things now stand, I am still supporting the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court unless convincing corroboration comes forth for the accusations of Christine Blasey Ford. It is not that I disbelieve her; it’s just that I need to see proof.

With that in mind, I now turn to yet another ugly turn of events. Now we have the Muslim angle, put forth by Zaid Shakir, who is the co-founder of Zaytuna College, located just outside the gates of UC Berkeley, the first Muslim college in the United States. (Another co-founder is UCB professor Hatem Bazian, a radical Palestinian who, in turn, is co-founder of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and American Muslims for Palestine, which gives SJP much of its funding to use tactics of bullying, disruption and intimidation on US campuses for which they are famous.

But back to Mr Shakir, who you may remember as having presided over the funeral services for Mohammed Ali. Shakir has his own take on the credibility, or lack thereof, of Ms. Ford. He invokes that cute little part of the Koran which dictates what happens when a Muslim woman accuses a man of rape. Unless she can produce four witnesses, she must be lashed 80 times for adultery. Here you can read the report by the Clarion Project.

“As for Dr. Ford’s accusations, they cannot be used as evidence against Judge Kavanaugh. That is so for a number of reasons. I will confine myself to those which are rooted in Muslim teachings. We read in the Qur’an, ‘Those who bring charges of sexual improprieties against chaste women, then fail to come forth with four corroborating witnesses, lash them eighty times and never again accept their testimony. Such are truly corrupt’ [verse] 24:4…We do, however, demand that she [Dr. Ford] produces corroborating witnesses. Were she to do so we would say she has a legitimate claim which we could support and rally behind. Since she has not we silently avoid voicing any opinion on the issue and if we do speak we do so with a skeptical voice. Other than that we can pray for her and urge her to be patient.”

What better argument against the implementation of sharia law in the West? This is why (along with several other reasons) we see many states enacting laws that keep out foreign influences from their respective state laws. In the absence of witnesses, there are several other ways to prove rape, including DNA, other forensic evidence, confession, videotape, incriminating admissions to others etc. In the case of a false charge of rape, our justice system provides penalties for that as well, but without lashing.

Of course, you won’t see the MeToo movement or other feminists rush to condemn Shakir, much less the Koran. The entire subject of the abuse of Muslim women within that society is taboo. They would rather join forces with the likes of Shakir and fight “Islamophobia” rather than speak out against this outrageous belief and Shakir’s invoking of it.

Do I believe Ford? I don’t know. I sympathize 100% with rape victims and think that rapists should be locked away for a few decades. In the absence of proof, I would rather give the benefit of the doubt to the accused. But if we ever made sharia the law of the land, what rape victim would ever dare come forward?