By Nonie Darwish
In response to the news story, we posted from the Orlando Sentinel: “Judge: Rifqa Bary will go back to Ohio,” we received this comment from a Muslim blogger:
She lied about her parents. Not only that, but contributed to an unnecessary culture war that could have been taken care of privately without the involvement of anti-Muslim pundits.
This is the typical blame the victim response prevalent in Muslim culture which demand secrecy and keep tragedy within the family or within Muslim society. Sharia demands execution of those who defame Islam and that could be just exposing what is going on inside Muslim culture to non-Muslims. Thus, Muslims deal severely with those who cry for help publicly since they have violated basic Sharia principles to never complain or criticize Islam or your own Muslim parents and community. The only thing Islam accepts is blaming non-Muslims especially the West and Israel. Muslim society, even women, often blame the victim, even raped girls, instead of looking within Islam to see what really happened and if there is an underlying religious problem that needs correction. But since Sharia Law is final, cannot be rectified or moderated, Muslims were trained to blame the victim since blaming Islamic law is equal to blaming Allah. Thus, we see such comments that blame Rifqa by calling her a liar and also for discussing this publicly and not (privately). I have been told the same thing over and over again. When I speak on college campuses Muslim students who agree with many things that I say, but the one thing they always say is “Why don’t we discuss this privately, because we do not want the haters of Islam to hear that”…That is the problem with Islam. That young fragile girl, Rifqa Bary will be torn to pieces by Muslims if she is ever returned home. Under Islamic law, she has not only committed the ultimate crime in Islam, apostasy, but worse, she has made it public. The one thing Muslim culture hates is exposure of the dark side of Islam.
