I meant when Mohammed first started it. In his own lifetime it changed to a non-peaceful religion. I thought I made that clear in my comment, but obviously not. Sorry.

Wait … it was originally a religion of peace? So, the wars Mohammed fought were peaceful ones? I think too many people died to call it that.

It was originally a religion of peace, and if all of the followers of Islam stuck with what Muhammad taught re peace in his early days, everyone would be a lot better off. However, as so often happens with a religion, as he obtained more followers the power that resulted made him more aggressive. He then moved and taught that his followers should take over the world by whatever means necessary.

Further, no matter what anyone says, I cannot accept in any circumstances that men and women are equal in Islam. Women do not have equal rights to men. Just look at inheritance law for a start. The weight of a woman’s testimony in court being considered half that of a man’s is particularly galling.

There is no religion in which men and women are equal, and in the vast majority it’s women who are the second-class citizens. Some are improving, but that’s because of the influence of secular morality and wouldn’t be happening if the religions were left to their own devices.

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Many are still forced to comply with restrictions by other community members re dress, behaviour, schooling, marriage etc. Tens of thousands are even still forced to undergo FGM. Everything from forced hijab to honour killings still occurs.

I suppose. But what issues do Muslim women have in the West? Issues unique to other women and women of colour? And what can we in the West do to help?

There is prejudice against Muslims in the West. That doesn’t mean we should ignore the issues in Islam in the West. Muslim women in the West have just as much right to live whatever life they want as their non-Muslim sisters. We should not ignore the issues many of them face in their own communities because of fear of encouraging Muslimophobia. As an analogy, imagine if nothing was ever done to help people of colour for fear of encouraging racism?

What helping actually does is make more people aware of the issues and increases understanding and support. These days, for example, a lot more people are supportive of marriage equality than even ten years ago. Talking about the issues same-sex couples face didn’t increase bigotry towards them, it reduced it. Phobias come from fear, which comes from lack of knowledge and understanding. At the moment there are a lot of people who think all Muslims are extremists. Talking more will mean more understand they’re just like the rest of us in terms of the range of personalities etc.

Agreed most (all) religions are sexist. But, major issues, such as ones shown in your maps and statistics, occur within countries that incorporate religion into their political and legal systems. This is the major issue. Similar to the time when most Western countries incorporated Christianity into their political and legal system e.g. homosexuality and womens sexual rights. And even further back, when superstition enabled the legal hanging of any woman accused of being ‘witches’ (which was an inherently sexist practice).

And, as these nations naturally evolved into more scientific rather than religiously structured societies, the law, politics, social attitudes and moral consciousness progressed. I believe, just as the West has recently (only a century since the womens vote in UK) become legally and socially less sexist, so will the Middle East through social and sexual liberations. And yes, these are already occuring, such as the ‘riots’ in Egypt 2011 and many new womens rights organisations opening in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and other nations of the Islamic-geopolitical states.

So, yes there is a huge problem of sexism in Islam, but the women that experience misogyny worst, are those whom live in countries where religion runs state politics and law. These are the nations and the women whom we should be focusing on. And, as people of the West, we should try our best to allow the social progression of each country to occur, without bringing the issue of Islamophobia to further oppress the Mulsim women of the West.

And since men are scared shitless of the power of women, any religion that wan’t patriarchal is not at all likely to be adopted by the “powerful” in society. (Similarly, if Christianity didn’t endorse slavery, it would never have become the state religion of Rome and would therefore never have become a major religion.) Control of women seems to be a corner stone of all religions.

You make a good point. There is nowhere that sexism is abolished, and those who are anti-Muslim use it as an excuse to abuse all Muslims. Of course, not all Muslims are sexist. However, There is a huge problem with sexism in Islam.