ISLAM AND RAPE
There was a brief flurry of outrage at the report that the “Caliph” of the Islamic state had repeatedly raped American aid worker Kayla Mueller before she finally died in an attack against IS targets. The New York Times devoted a lot of space to what it called the “theology of rape” that is an integral part of the doctrine and practice of the “Caliphate.”
The Times story suggested that the systematic use of rape was of relatively recent vintage for IS, but the violent treatment of women by radical Islamists is nothing new. It ranges from rape and honor killings to beating, to formal, legal definition of women as inferior beings.
Some years ago, I worked on a story about the daughter of a Palestinian immigrant in St. Louis. It will turn your stomach like that of Kayla Mueller will.
Rape, honor killings, and the oppression of women are not limited to Islamist men. But the systematic use of rape certainly seems more common to them than to any other contemporary group. Why?

