Yesterday we celebrated the International Woman’s Day.

The following news article, once again, one cannot read without wondering and getting really upset. This is NOT Islam!
Saudis order 40 lashes for elderly woman for mingling
(CNN) — A Saudi Arabian court has sentenced a 75-year-old Syrian woman to 40 lashes, four months imprisonment and deportation from the kingdom for having two unrelated men in her house, according to local media reports.
According to the Saudi daily newspaper Al-Watan, troubles for the woman, Khamisa Mohammed Sawadi, began last year when a member of the religious police entered her house in the city of Al-Chamli and found her with two unrelated men, “Fahd” and “Hadian.”
Fahd told the policeman he had the right to be there, because Sawadi had breast-fed him as a baby and was therefore considered to be a son to her in Islam, according to Al-Watan. Fahd, 24, added that his friend Hadian was escorting him as he delivered bread for the elderly woman. The policeman then arrested both men.
Saudi Arabia follows a strict interpretation of Islam called Wahhabism and punishes unrelated men and women who are caught mingling.
The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, feared by many Saudis, is made up of several thousand religious policemen charged with duties such as enforcing dress codes, prayer times and segregation of the sexes. Under Saudi law, women face many restrictions, including a strict dress code and a ban on driving. Women also need to have a man’s permission to travel.
Al Watan obtained the court’s verdict and reported it was partly based on the testimony of the religious police. In his ruling, the judge said it was proved that Fahd is not Sawadi’s son through breastfeeding.
The court also doled out punishment to the two men. Fahd was sentenced to four months in prison and 40 lashes; Hadian was sentenced to six months in prison and 60 lashes. In a phone call with Al Watan, the judge declined to comment and suggested the newspaper review the case with the Ministry of Justice. Sawadi told the newspaper that she will appeal, adding that Fahd is indeed her son through breastfeeding…
Please read on the right Panel also my other topics, like Women and Islam.
In Islam there is a punishment for adultery which must be witnessed by four people, a practical impossibility. But even then it is not a death penalty, or corporal punishment:
“And as for those who are guilty of an indecency from among your women, call to witnesses against them four (witnesses) from among you; then if they bear witness confine them to the houses until death comes close to them or God opens some way for them.” (Q.4:15)
The punishment by flogging comes from the Hadith’s and as my readers must know by now, I am quite critical about them.
Therefore modern scholars argue that Islam does not favor a harsh punishment, which was practiced before Islam. Like stoning to death was common as it was in Christian Palestine, too. We all are responsible for our deeds on the last day, when our good deeds are weighed against our bad deeds. Grandma mingling with two boys who go shopping for her is not a grave sin, in my humble opinion (sorry my sarcasm, cannot help it!)
BUT: there is a hash punishment for accusing chaste women, and I wish these religious fanatics will get their share on the last day:
Qur’an 24:23: “Surely those who accuse chaste believing women, unaware (of the evil), are cursed in this world and hereafter, and they shall have a grievous chastisement.”
Qur’an 24:2-4: “Those who accuse married women of adultery, then fail to produce four witnesses, you shall whip them eighty lashes, and do not accept any testimony from them; they are wicked.”
Qur’an 33:58: “And those who speak evil things of the believing men and the believing women without their having earned (it), they are guilty indeed of a false accusation and a manifest sin.”
While reading this article I had to think of the gravest sins in Islam:
an invention (which is NOT based on the Quranic teaching) to the practice of faith is one of them.
I cannot imagine that God would not allow women to drive or grandma to send her neighbor’s boys for shopping or stopping by for a chat - a case like this, where she knows him all his life. In fact I believe the reason for not allowing women to drive has not so much to do with them but much more with men, who harass women – it is quite common in Saudi Arabia.
I pray to God to guide Muslims back to the right path!
HE gave us a free will and the ability think, and we should use that gift. Common sense is all I wish.
Salaam