There’s an interesting Cracked article entitled “5 Ridiculous Things You Probably Believe About Islam“, and while I thought it fair to point out religion hasn’t always been a gigantic problem for this world, it fundamentally glosses over the fact in many parts of the world, the dangerous combination of faith and tradition leads to the suppression, torture and murder of women. It’s true Christianity, on a whole, has been more cruel and oppressive than Islam in the past. But abuse, scandal and the maltreatment of minorities and females is something inherent to most religions. It’s part of their very “DNA”.

What frightens people about Islam is the West seems to have no affect on modernizing Muslim’s attitudes about women and their right to choose how to live their own lives. Take Afshan Azad, a sexy 22 year old actress who appeared in the Harry Potter movies: when it was discovered by her family she was dating a Hindu man, she was beaten and called a prostitute until finally being threatened with death for the “crime” of shaming her family.

The reason for the assault, apparently her association with a Hindu young man, that apparently being disapproved of by her family who are Muslim.
‘Specifically she spoke not only of assault but also threats to kill, made jointly by her father and brother.’

Afshan and her family are British citizens, but seems not to matter to her brother and father, who feel compelled by their tradition to murder a girl who has chosen to date outside of her family’s faith. And while it can be argued that this tradition is far older than Islam, the fact it maintains itself is a direct consequence of the extreme conservative nature of Islam. It doesn’t matter at one time Muslim scholars were the most educated and progressive in the world: that time has passed, and the religion has never transitioned into the modern world. I think the guys over at Cracked should have watched this debate before writing their article.