Imam Convicted for Advice on How to Beat Wives.
I offer this as an example of how the modern, secular West misunderstands the purpose and nature of religious texts other than its own. The imam's teachings would have been a substantial modernization from what his readers might themselves independently interpret the Qur'an to allow (or command). In the absence of such interpretations, Spanish muslims are forced to examine difficult passages in their religious teachings without the perspectives of professional scholarship, which Christians and Jews were never required to do. If they had, the Western world would be a lot more brutal today.
Would the Spanish court also have imprisoned the rabbis and priests who were forced, over time, to deal with and rationalize the Bible's difficult texts apparently condoning
rape,
mass murder,
mass infanticide, and
child abuse?
