The subhead of an article in India Today:
“When a woman goes swimming, as the word for sea is masculine, when “the water touches the woman’s private parts, she becomes an ‘adulteress’ and should be punished.”
– Summary of a report titled “The misguided Fatwas of the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafis”, as published in the Al Masry Al Youm.
That item is reported in other places, all apparently from the same source. Even Counterpunch reports it.
One currently ascendant Salafist group in Syria, among more than 1000 others competing for weapons and fighters, is “Daash”. The word is an acronym with its letters standing for “the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.” Daash appeared on the scene here recently, about a year ago and some local observers believe it arrived via Iraq with large amounts of funding from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey…
…
Some recently reported Salisfist practices spreading in Syria include, but are not limited to the following:
*Females in Daash controlled areas of Aleppo and elsewhere are being prevented from wearing jeans and sweaters and must wear only the Islamic dress Abaya and Barkaa while forbidden from putting on any make-up or now, as of two weeks ago, to even leave their homes without a male escort. Some women in parts of Aleppo and Raqaa now refer to their neighborhoods as Tora Bora, Afghanistan, given the similarities of repression between Taliban and Salafist treatment of women…
…
*No women’s clothing can be displayed in shop windows. Tailors shops must shut to men in the event of the women’s presence in the shop until she leaves.The Daash militia has long prevented women from seeking medical attention from male Doctors. Recently Daash has put into place prohibitions against women visiting doctors of either sex and it is not permissible for a woman to wear orthodontic devices such as teeth braces because straight teeth might attract men and in any case their bodies are under the stewardship of their husbands or fathers only.
*Daash has proclaimed that women who swim in the sea are in fact committing “adultery” — even if they wear a hijab because as with many other languages, Arabic nouns are gender specific, and “sea” is masculine and when the water touches the woman’s vaginal area she becomes an ‘adulteress’ and must be punished. Daash militias also forbid women from eating certain vegetables or even touching cucumbers, carrots or bananas, due to their phallic imagery, which may tempt women to deviate and it is also unacceptable for women to turn the air conditioning on at home during the absence of their husbands as this could be used as a sign to indicate to neighbors that the woman is at home alone and any of them could commit adultery with her.
You would think they’d have better things to do, wouldn’t you…But for some people there really is nothing better to do than devote your energies and attention and time to thinking up new ways to chivvy and bully and harass a person or set of people.
The Egyptian newspaper Al Masry Al Youm in its 11/15/13 edition reported that Daash variety Fatwas regard women as strange creatures created solely for sex. Daash considers the voices of women, their looks and presence outside of their homes an ‘offense” with some Salafists regarding women in general ‘offensive.’”
In other words women are basically just throbbing dripping vaginas that somehow can also walk and talk. What was Allah thinking?