At Fort Bliss and Fort McCoy, Afghan Refugees Are Acting Like Afghans

by Robert Spencer

They didn’t leave Afghanistan very long ago, and so it is understandable that some of the newly arrived Afghan evacuees would be acting as if they were still there. But some recent incidents once again spotlight the fact that to bring in large numbers of people with a radically different culture and sharply divergent standards of behavior is unwise, and is only going to mean strife in America’s future.
 
El Paso’s KFOX14 reported Friday that “officials with Fort Bliss said a female soldier was assaulted by a group of Afghan refugees who are being housed at the Doña Ana Complex in New Mexico.” Officials at Fort Bliss issued a statement saying the usual blather: “We can confirm a female service member supporting Operation Allies Welcome reported being assaulted on Sept. 19 by a small group of male evacuees at the Doña Ana Complex in New Mexico. We take the allegation seriously and appropriately referred the matter to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The safety and well-being of our service members, as well as all of those on our installations, is paramount. We immediately provided appropriate care, counseling and support to the service member. Task Force-Bliss is also implementing additional security measures to include increased health and safety patrols, additional lighting, and enforcement of the buddy system at the Dona Ana Complex. We will cooperate fully with the FBI and will continue to ensure the service member reporting this assault is fully supported.”
 
Great. But health and safety patrols might not be all that is necessary. What may be needed is a thoroughgoing evaluation of the values, attitudes, and assumptions of the Afghan refugees. That is clear from another recent incident in Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, involving two other Afghans, Bahrullah Noori and Mohammad Haroon Imaad.
 
The Justice Department announced Wednesday that a federal grand jury in Wisconsin charged Noori with “attempting to engage in a sexual act with a minor using force against that person, and with three counts of engaging in a sexual act with a minor, with one count alleging the use of force.” Imaad was charged with “assaulting his spouse by strangling and suffocating her.”
 
The Justice Department said nothing about how both men, as well as the fellow at Fort Bliss, were just following religious and cultural norms that other Afghan refugees are likely to follow as well, or about the implications of that fact for the entire Afghan refugee resettlement project.
 

 
Noori’s victims, according to the indictment, “had not attained the age of 16 years and were at least four years younger than the defendant,” who is 20. No one in the establishment media will dare to talk about it, but the fact is that in the culture in which Noori was raised, an unmarried girl who is 16 is getting a bit long in the tooth.
 
And it’s not just Afghanistan: child marriage has abundant attestation in Islamic tradition and law. Turkey’s directorate of religious affairs (Diyanet) said in January 2018 that under Islamic law, girls as young as nine can marry. Ishaq Akintola, professor of Islamic Eschatology and Director of Muslim Rights Concern, Nigeria, said in 2016: “Islam has no age barrier in marriage and Muslims have no apology for those who refuse to accept this.” Dr. Abd Al-Hamid Al-‘Ubeidi, Iraqi expert on Islamic law, said in 2008: “There is no minimum marriage age for either men or women in Islamic law. The law in many countries permits girls to marry only from the age of 18. This is arbitrary legislation, not Islamic law.”
 
Dr. Salih bin Fawzan, prominent cleric and member of Saudi Arabia’s highest religious council, declared in 2014 that there is no minimum age for marriage in Islamic law at all, and that girls can be married “even if they are in the cradle.” Pakistan’s Council of Islamic Ideology has ruled that “Islam does not forbid marriage of young children.”
 
These authorities say these things because hadiths that Muslims consider authentic record that Muhammad’s favorite wife, Aisha, was six when Muhammad wedded her and nine when he consummated the marriage: “The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death)” (Bukhari 7.62.88).
 
Marrying young girls was not all that unusual for its time, but because in Islam Muhammad is the supreme example of conduct (cf. Qur’an 33:21), he is considered exemplary in this unto today.
 
And regarding spousal abuse, the Qur’an teaches that men are superior to women and should beat those from whom they “fear disobedience”: “Men have authority over women because Allah has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because Allah has guarded them. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them.” (4:34)

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