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In the U.K., a matchmaking site offers to help male Muslims who may be seeking as a “first wife” women who are both virgins and under the age of 35, two characteristics that the website assures customers make the best “first wives.” Furthermore, it offers advice on how to make a wife “behave” and not “disobey” her husband, by beating her, albeit “lightly” at first, and if she remains disobedient, then gradually increasing the force used to make her behave. A Muslim feminist, Khadija Khan, some time ago denounced the dating website; you can read about her condemnation here.
Khadija Khan has launched a scathing attack on a Muslim dating website, condemning it as “wild, humiliating, disgraceful” and “an affront to women’s dignity.”
The Culture Editor at A Further Inquiry told GB News that the site represents “religious misogyny in its most blatant form”.
True, it does represent “religious misogyny.” And it does not “misrepresent” it, as some apologists for Islam might claim. The dating website is fully in accordance with orthodox Islam. Muslim men like their wives, and especially their first wives, to be virgins (it’s only the white English girls whom Muslims in the U.K. love to thoroughly debauch) when they marry them. Muslim men, of course, are free to have, at any time, all the sexual partners they wish. Different strokes, it seems, for different folks.
Females and males are treated differently in Islam. It is Khadija Khan who pretends, or more likely has convinced herself, that what she abhors is not the “real Islam.” But a Muslim woman’s testimony is worth half that of a Muslim man. A Muslim daughter normally inherits half of what a Muslim son inherits. A Muslim husband can divorce his wife merely by uttering the triple-talaq; a Muslim woman can divorce her husband only after complicated and often expensive proceedings. A Muslim man can marry up to four wives; a Muslim woman must be content with one husband. Finally, a Muslim man is allowed to “beat” his wife — albeit “lightly” at first — if he even suspects her of disobedience. Khadija Khan, though furious, refuses to attack the source of the misogyny she detects at the dating site and so energetically deplores— the texts and teachings of Islam itself.
The controversy centres on NikkahGram, a UK-registered Muslim matchmaking service that advertises virgin brides and polygamous marriages.
The site, which has been operating since 2023, describes itself as a service for Muslim men seeking a “shy, untouched spouse” and those wanting multiple wives….
In helping men to find more than one wife, NikkahGram is encouraging the violation of English law, which prohibits polygamy. It advises men practicing polygamy not to let the authorities know, but to keep such information within the community of believers.
Khan told GB News: “It’s wild, humiliating, disgraceful. It’s an affront to women’s dignity.
“Whatever this site is promoting, it’s not just misogynyit’s religious misogyny in its most blatant form. We are condemning these things because we find them abhorrent, appalling, and fundamentally opposed to gender equality.
But what Khadija Khan thinks should be banned is allowed in Islam. Will you forthrightly denounce an Islamic practice — polygamy — as “not only against British law but an affront to the dignity of women”?
“However, we need to understand that this website claims it is promoting religious values, and that what they are doing is in line with their religious beliefs. We need to look deeper into this issue.
“Under the pretext of religious freedom, certain sections of society have been given far too much leeway to live according to their cultural and religious belief soften in direct disregard of the law of the land, British values, and fundamental human rights principles.
Khadija Khan has dared to say it: some of the “cultural and religious beliefs” of “certain sections of society” (i.e., Muslims) are indeed in “direct disregard of the law of the land” and of “fundamental human rights principles.” She is calling for those who violate British law to be sanctioned — no doubt she wants NikkahGram banned from the Internet.
Khadija Khan calls for preventing Muslims from fully putting into practice their religious beliefs, blasting the religion’s inherent misogyny in allowing plural wives, and in permitting men to “beat their wives,” as Qur’an 4:34 says, if they even suspect them of “disobedience.”
The question is: will she now dare to say flat-out that those “religious beliefs” are not some “wild” heterodoxy, but standard Islam? Will she say that Muslims living in the U.K. must conform to its laws, and therefore cannot practice polygamy? Will she say that Muslim husbands have no right to physically discipline their wives, as that is contrary to British law, whatever Qur’an 4:34 says? Will she, finally, come out and say that whenever the Sharia — the Holy Law of Islam — conflicts with British law, it is British law that must prevail? Does Khadija Khan dare to defy the enforcers of Islam, whose treatment of apostates can be deadly?
Over two months have passed since Khadija Khan made these statements, and she has done none of those things.