The Burden of Islamic Law Weighs Heavy on Saudi Arabian Women

by Obi Akwani, MGV Editor

January 9, 2008

In many Muslim societies -- in Pakistan, Indonesia, northern states of Nigeria, and especially in Saudi Arabia -- the Islamic legal system called Sharia can be especially harsh on women. The case of Amina Lawal, the Nigeria woman who had a child outside wedlock and was, in 2002, sentenced to death by stoning under Sharia several years ago stands out.

Lawal was the second and most famous in a series of such cases in Nigeria to grab international attention, after several states in the northern part of Nigeria began adopting the Sharia legal system from 1999. The first was a woman by the name of Hajara Ibrahim. Since 2004 fewer such cases have been brought forward to the courts in Nigeria.

The women caught in the web of the Sharia legal system are often doubly victimized, especially when their case is related to sex. This double victimization is a basic characteristic of all the cases -- from Amina Lawal and Hajara Ibrahim, to the most recent case of a young Saudi woman.

The unnamed Saudi woman, addressed simply as the "Qatif Girl" by the press, was gang raped by at least seven men in 2006. The Qatif girl was 19 years old at the time and married. Her rapists were eventually convicted and sentenced to prison terms ranging between two and nine years.

For her ordeal, the Qatif girl was sentenced to receive 90 lashes of the cane; and after she started speaking to the press, the sentence was increased to 200 lashes -- for trying to influence the court through the press. She received the caning because, according to the Sharia law, she had put herself in a state of 'khalwa' or in "retreat with a man who was not a relative."

The Qatif girl's saving grace appears to be her husband who, even though she had feared to let him know what had happened to her, did eventually come to know. Her rapist, convinced that they had ruined the girl, spread rumors of what they had done to her. They expected her family to reject her; and her brother did.

"My brother hit me and tried to kill me," the Qatif girl said.

But her husband acted in a way that is rather unusual for a Saudi man. He stood by his wife. Four months after the rape he instituted a law suit against his wife's rapists. But the trial and publicity took its toll. She was unable to continue her studies and the lawyer, Abdul Rahman Al-Lahem, who fought the case for her had his licence taken away by the authorities.