Your Oct 16, 2018 update about the Bayit Yehudi campaign

Submitted by Prashant, Nov 25, 2018 at 14:01

Dear Dr Pipes,

Marriages between non-Muslim women and Muslim/ME men is a popular topic on your forum. A lot of correspondents on your forum advise non-Muslim women to refrain from marrying ME men because these men, supposedly, are after these women's money or after the US green cards or some such thing. I do not think that even middle eastern men would like to marry any woman purely for money or green card because after you get the money or a green card, you are still stuck with a woman you do not love and probably with a few children on the side. The financial benefits of marrying a western women, are one of the conveniences that may come with such marriages and are not entirely bad. We all know that marriages are never entirely for love. So opposing marriages between western women and ME men based solely on this aspect is not justified. The marriage between non-Muslims and Muslims must be resisted for other reasons and these reasons are much worse than just green cards or financial greed.

In this context, I really admire the ad by Bayit Yehudi in Ramle. It is direct. It tells all of us that protecting our non-Islamic cultures and values is important. And it does not exaggerate the false reasons like greed of ME men of money.

Marriages into Islam should be discouraged primarily for one reason: Islam does not play a fair game. When your son or daughter marries into Islam they end up promoting a culture that is unfair by design. Do I need to give examples? I have given these examples tens of times on you site but I will repeat some of them again.

First of all, Islamic laws of marriages are fundamentally unfair. Forcing the non-Muslim partner into Islam for the marriage to be valid is unethical. Forcing the idea that the children of the marriage will be raised as Muslims is equally bad. The couple and their children should be encouraged to discover their spirituality as they stay married and grow. Hindus and Sikhs routinely marry each other without much acrimony in India. Marriages between Jews and Christians in the US often also fall in the same category.

Second, Islamic non-separation of Church and state is a flawed concept. When state does not draw a line between the matters of governance and matters of religion, it effectively forces a religion on some people. No man or woman who was lucky enough to be born outside Islam should promote this attitude of Islam unless he/she believes that individual freedom of thought is not important.

Thirdly, and very closely related to the second, Islam does not value women enough. The idea of a man being able to marry two or more women at the same time is cruel to the women and children and fundamentally challenges the basic idea of marriage in which a man and a woman combine to work for common good.

Finally, Islamic hypocrisy about democracy knows no bounds. All Islamic countries are theocracies by choice and no one loves democracy more than Muslims in non-Muslim lands. No one should promote this kind of hypocrisy if they have a choice.

Marriages between Islam and others must be opposed for such reasons and not because of the claim that people form some regions of the world are more greedy than others. That is why I admire the Bayit Yehudi's ad because it comes as close to the truth as possible without saying too much.

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