Muslim cleric triggers outrage for blaming women for rape

Muslim leaders, women’s rights advocates and political leaders in Australia today condemned one of the country’s top Islamic clerics for comparing women who don’t wear head scarves to “uncovered meat” who invite rape.

The cleric, Sheikh Taj Aldin al Hilali, apologised for any offence he had caused in making the comments a month ago during a sermon marking the holy month of Ramadan, after they were printed today in a front page story in national newspaper The Australian.

Prime Minister John Howard and others denounced Hilali’s remarks as blaming women for rape, and there were growing calls for the cleric to quit or be removed from his high-profile role as mufti in the faith.

In a translation from Arabic by the newspaper, later verified by other media, Hilali was quoted as saying in the sermon: “If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside ... and the cats come to eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats’ or the uncovered meat’s?”

“The uncovered meat is the problem. If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred,” he was quoted as saying, referring to the head scarf worn by some Muslim women.

Australia’s Sex Discrimination Commissioner Pru Goward said Hilali’s comments encouraged rape and that Australia’s Muslims should force him to step down.

“This is inciting young men to a violent crime because it is the woman’s fault,” Goward told television’s Nine Network. “It is time the Islamic community did more than say they were horrified. I think it is time he left.”

Prime Minister John Howard said the comments were “appalling and reprehensible.”

“The idea that women are to blame for rapes is preposterous,” he told reporters.

Hilali also faced pressure from within Australia’s Muslim community, which numbers nearly 300,000 in a mostly Christian-heritage population of around 20 million.

“Whether he steps down or not, I think it’stime for Australia’s Muslim faith to have a religious leader who has a better understanding of Australian laws, Australian values, and the Australian way of life,” said Alia Karaman, a female member of a leaders’ group at a big mosque in Sydney.

Hilali issued a statement tonight saying The Australian had selectively quoted from the sermon, and that he was shocked at the reaction.

“I would like to unequivocally confirm that the presentation related to religious teachings on modesty and not to go to extremes in enticements,” the statement said.

“This does not condone rape, I condemn rape,” he said.

“Women in our Australian society have the freedom and right to dress as they choose, the duty of man is to avert his glance or walk away,” he said.

Asked if he would quit his senior post over the furore, Hilali told Seven Network television news today: “No, no, no,” as he lay on a couch, reportedly suffering asthma and heart problems.

The row comes during a heated debate in Britain about religious freedom centred around whether Muslim women should be allowed to wear veils. Similar passions raged when France banned head scarves and other religious symbols in public schools two years ago.

Hilali is the top cleric at Sydney’s largest mosque, and is considered the most senior Islamic leader by many Muslims in Australia and New Zealand, having been appointed mufti by Australia’s peak Islamic body.

He triggered a controversy in 2004 for saying in a sermon in Lebanon that the Sept. 11 attacks were “God’s work against the oppressors.” Hilali said later he did not mean that he supported the attacks, or terrorism.

Last year, Hilali travelled to Iraq to help negotiate the release of an Australian engineer, Douglas Wood, from kidnappers, winning public thanks from Wood’s family.

Hilali is an Egyptian-born Sunni cleric who has been a staunch critic of Australia’s alliance with the United States in the Iraq war.

The latest furore comes amid tense relations between Australia’s Muslims and the rest of the population following riots last December that often pitted gangs of white youths and youths of Middle Eastern decent against each other.

Howard offended parts of the Muslim community recently by singling out some Muslims as extremists who should adopt Australia’s Western liberal attitudes to women’s rights.

Many Muslims say they are increasingly treated with suspicion since the September 11 and other international terrorist attacks.

Waleed Aly, a member of the Islamic Council of Victoria state, said Hilali’s comments would result in more antagonism toward Muslims.

“I am expecting a deluge of hate mail,” he said. “I am expecting people to get abused in the street and get abused at work.”

Hilali was excluded from a government Islamic advisory council hand picked by Howard in the wake of the London transport bombings in July last year, which killed 54, in an effort to prevent home grown extremism.

After the attack, Howard accused Australian Islamic leaders of not doing enough to condemn extremism and has offered government money to train local imams and reduce dependence on migrant clerics.

The government has introduced a raft of tough new counterterrorism laws in response to the London attacks which some Muslim leaders say target their community.

Howard says some segments of the Muslim community are hostile to the Australian values and the government is proposing tighter citizenship rules by next year.