It’s a good thing the world is filled with so many leftists. Otherwise, how would we know not to believe our lyin’ eyes? How would we know that rationality and common sense are passé, not to mention racist, sexist, and “Islamophobic”? How would we ever come to realize that coming to an understanding of reality isn’t a matter of observation and rational thought, but of believing what leftist leaders tell us, or else face the prospect of professional and even personal ruin?
And so thank God, or Gaia, or the Great Unknown Whomever, for Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who is the leader of the France’s biggest far-left party, La France Insoumise (LFI). Mélenchon is 74 years old and has never once wised up, having been a leftist ever since his youth in the Trotskyite movement. In his latest flight of fancy, Mélenchon said in a video that began circulating widely Friday that Muslim women are free, and by contrast, Christian women are the ones who are oppressed.
No, this is not a parody. Mélenchon asserted that “Christianity is patriarchal, and women have to cover up and submit to men. In Islam, women submit to God only, therefore, their veil represents freedom and dignity.”
What can be said in the face of wisdom such as that of the great Jean-Luc Mélenchon? One possible response, although it is wildly unpopular on the left, where Mélenchon lives, is to provide the facts that counter what he is claiming. Far from saying that women should submit only to Allah, the Qur’an teaches that women must submit to men.
Many critics of Judaism and Christianity will rush to point out that the Bible says that as well, but the Qur’an goes farther, teaching that men are superior to women, and that men should beat those from whom they “fear disobedience”: “Men have authority over women because Allah has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because Allah has guarded them. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them” (4:34).
The Qur’an also likens a woman to a field (tilth), to be used by a man as he wills: “Your women are a tilth for you, so go to your tilth as you will.” (2:223) It declares that a woman’s testimony is worth half that of a man: “Get two witnesses, out of your own men, and if there are not two men, then a man and two women, such as you choose, for witnesses, so that if one of them errs, the other can remind her” (2:282).
The Qur’an also allows men to marry up to four wives, and have sex with slave girls also: “If you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly with the orphans, marry women of your choice, two or three or four; but if you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly, then only one, or one that your right hands possess, that will be more suitable, to prevent you from doing injustice” (4:3). Those who “your right hands possess” are infidel women taken as spoils of war (33:50) for use as sex slaves (4:24, 23:1-6). The Qur’an also allows for marriage to pre-pubescent girls, stipulating that Islamic divorce procedures “shall apply to those who have not yet menstruated” (65:4).
The Muslim book likewise rules that a son’s inheritance should be twice the size of that of a daughter: “Allah directs you as regards your children’s inheritance: to the male, a portion equal to that of two females” (4:11).
Related: UK Gets Tough on Crime, Jails Man for Desecrating a Qur’an
Then, in a famous hadith, Muhammad is depicted as saying that hell is filled mostly with women, because they are deficient in both intellect and piety:
Narrated Abu Hurairah that the Messenger of Allah delivered a Khutbah [sermon] in which he exhorted them, then he said: “O women! Give charity for you are the majority of the people of the Fire.” A woman among them said: “And why is that O Messenger of Allah?” He said: “Because of your cursing so much,” meaning your ungratefulness towards your husbands. He said: “And I have not seen any among those lacking in intellect and religion who are more difficult upon people possessing reason and insight than you.” A woman among them said: “And what is the deficiency of her intellect and religion?” He said: “The testimony of two women among you is like the testimony of a man, and the deficiency in your religion is menstruation, because one of you will go three or four days without performing Salat.” (Jami al-Tirmidhi, 5.40.2613)
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, of course, doesn’t know any of that or care about it. All he wants to do is lessen the suspicions of the native French population toward the Muslim migrant newcomers. If women suffer as a result, that’s just the price of leftist hegemony. And for a lifelong leftist, that’s worth any price.
