The Problems Facing Modern Civilization

students on 32 campuses, Kentucky State psychologist Mary Koss found that 15% of all women reported experiences that met legal definitions of forcible rape. More than half those cases were date rapes. Andrea Parrot, a lecturer at Cornell University, estimates that 20% of college women at two campuses she surveyed had been forced into sex during their college years or before, and most of these incidents were date rapes. The number of forcible rapes reported each year — 87,340 in 1985 — is believed to be about half the total actually committed. Says Koss: “You’re a lot more likely to be raped by a date than by a stranger jumping out of the bushes.” Some feminists argue that the U.S. has a “rape culture” in which males are encouraged to treat women aggressively and women are trained to submit.19 Mr. Sri Prakash, former governor of Maharashtra, and India’s first High Commissioner in Pakistan, mentions in his memoirs that in 1947 he once asked an Englishman why his countrymen had such a low opinion of Indians. One of the things which the Englishman cited was the number of restrictions there were regarding marriage, which was totally alien to the European concept of the boy and girl choosing one another and then getting married. He obviously despised the “social shackles” which prevented this happening in India. When women’s liberation was launched, the demolishing of such “social shackles” seemed a very attractive idea. But when the lifting of restrictions on the degree of intimacy which could develop between the opposite sexes began to lead with increasing frequency to rape, the pendulum of opinion began to swing back in favor of traditional restrictions as being the healthiest social principles to follow. It has become all too obvious that the path of sexual freedom can lead society only to its own destruction. A HADITH The prevalent custom of dating, which permits unmarried boys and girls to meet and remain together unchaperoned for unlimited periods in complete seclusion, has been little short of disastrous in its consequences, thus illustrating the meaningfulness of the shari’ah in no uncertain manner. The following hadith, taking full account of the evil inherent in the situations arising from this custom, gives us a clear injunction prohibiting them: One who believes in God and in the Judgement Day ought not to stay with a woman in private while no mahram (i.e. a near relative with whom marriage is not permitted, e.g. brother, father, uncle, etc.) is with her, because in such cases the third is Satan.20 When an unmarried boy and girl meet alone, Satan immediately grasps this opportunity to tempt them. The presence of a third person, guarantees that such a meeting will not go beyond limits. THE IMPORTANCE OF VIRGINITY