Rating 5 out of 5 (Extraordinarily platitudinous)

Everywhere I go, people always ask about women in Islam. They go on and on and on about it. I mean, honestly, anyone would think there were some sort of divine injunction to beat women up, or treat them like property, or give them fewer rights than men. It's just ridiculous! As Professor of Islamic Studies and Public Understanding and Director of the Centre for the Study of Islam, University of Glasgow, let me just assure you that there are some lucky women in Islam, like me for example, who live in countries where we can do pretty much anything a man can. It's really just a cultural thing and not really anything to do with Islam (which is merely a complete way of life). And besides, lots of women like wearing a bag over their head and being beaten by their husbands and not being allowed an education, so the ones that don't like it don't really matter.

You see, what Islam does is give people hope. Naturally non-muslims don't have any hope, but Muslim women, being muslims, can live in hope of an afterlife, where they don't have to wear bags over their heads, or get beaten up, or live in ignorance. They just have to be one of 72 virgins that services some random bloke as often as he pleases - but with no bags!

Now that British schoolchildren are to be given lessons in how to respect women, we see that violence against women is just as prevalent here as elsewhere. Men are just naturally brutes. The difference here is that men are violent to women through stupidity and ignorance. They really haven't been told how to do it properly. Without a faith like Islam and a holy book like the Koran to guide them, I can't see how lessons on violence will make much difference.

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