The Gates of Heaven Lie Beneath their Mother’s DEAD Feet

There is a popular ideology in Islam borne of a phrase attributed to Muhammad (whose second wife was named A’isha):

The gates of heaven lie beneath the mother’s feet.

Such a conflict in practice, though, being a female and a Mother in a Muslim country… scorned chattel on one hand, venerated on the other.

If you’d like to debate with me on this point, consider that women in Saudi Arabia are not allowed to drive, limiting their movement and daily activities significantly. In some Middle Eastern countries, a woman who is raped can be murdered to protect the “honor” of her family. I find these belief systems abhorrent (and these are not my trump cards).

And it is telling that, in Yemen, a Mother can be saved from the clutches of capital punishment by her children. It further illustrates the conflict females experience.

Leaving a Mother’s pardon up to her children seems noble.

After all, what child, would willingly allow her own Mother to die when she has the power to save her?

Why, though, if society is willing to leave this monumental decision up to children, can grown men and grown women not be granted this power? Are they incapable of rational thinking? Less capable, perhaps, than the children they leave the decision with?

Put another way, a woman can murder her husband for no reason and get away with it if one of her children asks for a pardon?

What remedy does a Mother in Yemen have if her husband molests his daughter?

Most likely, he is her sole source of financial support. Where would she go with 7 children knowing she has no means to survive? Who protects the children when a parent violates that child? What remedy does the daughter have? If she killed her own father, would she face death also? Who would pardon her?

How many children must a woman have to guarantee her own life when she lives in Yemen and murders her husband for molesting their seven year-old daughter?

With seven children, boys and girls, you’d think a woman stands a fighting chance.

Not A’isha Al-Hamzi. She was executed – shot dead by firing squad – this past Sunday in Yemen, found guilty of murdering her husband in 2002 whom she accused of molesting their 7 year old daughter.

And not one of her children could or would come forward (although it was reported the Prosecutor himself asked the children to come back to pardon their mother).

Shame on you, Yemen, for showing the world how “the gates of heaven lie beneath your Mother’s feet.”

Rape, molestation and child sexual predators are real and are as prevalent in your society as in any other (perhaps even more so). Killing the accusers does not eradicate the problem; it simply shuts her up and rewards the perpetrator so you can go back to business as usual, pretending these atrocities do not happen. And in this case, leaves seven children without their Mother.

Rest in peace Aisha. I would have killed the son of a bitch also.

Reference: The Yemen Post