Cassandra lives. No, I am not talking about the ancient Trojan prophet whose visions went unheeded and whom the Greek conquerors enslaved. This is another kind of Cassandra. Her visions of danger and doom concern what happens when an American woman marries an Arab and Muslim man. Cassandra herself was once married to an Arab Christian and, based on that experience has, so far, written two books: Escape from an Arab Marriage. Horror Stories of Women Who Fled From Abusive Muslims Husbands (2006) and Thirty Three Secrets Arab Men Never Tell American Women (2008). In the first book, she tells the stories of many American women who married Arab Muslim men and what happened to them.
The stories are gripping, terrifying, highly dramatic–and depressingly similar. At first, the men are utterly charming, generous, solicitous of their American girlfriend’s every need. After they are married to American citizens and can claim their own citizenship, they revert to form: Almost overnight, they become cruel, condescending, physically abusive, suspicious, insanely controlling, unfaithful, deceptive, and highly secretive. Look, she is not writing about the happy marriages; as her title suggests, she is writing about “abusive Muslim Husbands.” The need to balance everything out, to allow every point of view, will prove our undoing.
These are men who do not support their wives but expect their wives to support themselves, the household, and the children, even while they are pregnant or ill. And then, things always take a turn for the worse. This behavior accurately describes the family life of double honor murderer, Yasir Said, of Dallas, Texas. I have written about this case for PJM many times. See HERE and HERE for example.
Here’s what’s worse. These spoiled and pampered sons kidnap their American children, which forces their American wives to live in dangerous and unfriendly Muslim countries and households, (often with first or subsequent wives), and that’s if they’re lucky. Just as often, the American mothers may simply never see their children again. The American government, Embassies, and Consulates do not help such American citizen-hostages to return home. Once an American woman marries a foreign national, she and her children are no longer entitled to any American citizenship rights.
I know this is true because some of this also happened to me. Read HERE and HERE.
Custody of the children automatically belongs to the father and to his family. And the Arab and Muslim families routinely abuse the children just as they abuse their own children–only more so, because these are American children whose mothers are (unacceptably) Christian. And yes, Christians are hated and persecuted in Muslim countries. This is the truth, unpalatable as it might be.
In addition, according to Cassandra, recently, some members of Al Qaeda and of other terrorist groups have specifically come to America to gain American citizenship through marriage, create terror cells, brainwash their own American citizen children into jihad and recruit other Americans to Islamist jihad. Adam Gadahn of Oregon was apparently recruited this way by Hisham Diab, Sarrah Olsen’s Saudi husband. Olsen started calling the FBI in 1992, after her terrorist husband hosted the blind Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman (who is now in jail for having plotted against the World Trade Center), and Khalil Deck, who was arrested in Jordan while planning to blow up the U.S. Embassy.
The FBI did not take Olsen’s information seriously.
I can just hear the politically correct reader saying: C’mon, this can’t be true of every single Arab and Muslim man. Isn’t it unacceptably racist/colonialist to think this way? Isn’t this a form of intellectual profiling that leads directly to Abu Graib and Guantanamo? Doesn’t this play right into the allegedly fascist hands of American Homeland Security and Immigration Department racism?
Well yes, it could–but what if each and every story is true? What if what we in the West have finally begun to consider crimes (wife- and child-beating, incest, paternal non-payment of child support, child kidnapping, polygamous marriages arranged against a child’s will), are still normalized behaviors in the Muslim world? What if the truth itself is shameful and therefore offensive? Do we refuse to tell the truth? Refuse to hear it?
Many people do just that. And then there are the glorious, high-profile exceptions: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ali Alyami, Bat Ye’or, Andrew Bostom, Nonie Darwish, Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, Bassam Eid, Tareq Hegy, Ibn Warraq, Aaron Klein, Nancy Kobrin, Matthias Kunzel, Robert Spencer, Mark Steyn, Wafa Sultan. Although some on this honor roll are Muslims, ex-Muslims, and “people of color,” they too have been accused of “racism” and “reactionary conservatism” for daring to tell the truth about jihad, Islam/Islamism.
Yes, the stories are strong, horrifying, and therefore border on “offensive,” but they are also true stories. Cassandra is not a scholar. She is passionate and personal. The stories she tells are real page-turners. Some of the praise for her books borders on the fanatically patriotic and is slightly vulgar and hysterical. But authors are not responsible for their admirers. In any event, such a tone is still decibels below its Arab and Muslim propaganda counterparts. Although I flinch when reading it, perhaps such loudness may eventually serve the cause.
Cassandra has chosen to self-publish (XLibris) because she needs to remain anonymous and wants to control the editorial content. Cassandra urgently wants to warn naive American women away from marriage to Arab and Muslim men. I beg everyone to read the stories and make up their own minds. In a recent email to me, she writes:
“In a nutshell, what I want to do next is to be instrumental in turning the tide against Muslim terrorists and help eradicate their agenda forever in the U.S. and then the rest of the world.”
A worthy and difficult goal.
I will be writing about this again. And, let me recommend two other books which are due out much later this year. Dr. Nancy Kobrin’s book The Sheikh’s New Clothes: The Naked Truth About Islamic Suicide Terrorism and Nonie Darwish’s new book about women living under Shari’a law Cruel and Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Sharia Law. They are fitting Cassandra-like companions.
Will contemporary Westerners pay attention to these new Cassandras or will they refuse to listen to them until we have been conquered?
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19 Comments
1. Nancy Kobrin, Ph.D.:First off I wish to publicly thank you Phyllis for all your ongoing support of my forthcoming book and work. What Cassandra has to say is a crystallization of what we see and know about domestic violence. I draw this parallel not because you don’t know this but most especially because you know this and have limited space to address this. We in the West do not want to “go there” because it is pervasive bad behavior which perpetrators and abusers get away with every day while for the abused and victimized denial slowly melts away into a surreal sense of reality. Bravo that you have written about Cassandra’s work and kudos to her for taking the matter up. No one single woman or man can do it all to expose such appalling and crazy-making - lethal behavior. But it is the key factor in the war on terrorism - one that demands understanding.
Jun 20, 2008 - 12:00 pm 2. tarek Heggy.:This brilliant article sheds light on one of the most backward cultures on earth today, i.e. the Arab culture with regard to “women rights and women status”. It is so sad that most of the Arab societies intellectuals do not pay any attention to this black facet of the Arab culture. Where on earth the main demand of the feminine movement is to convince the government (of Saudi Arabia) to allow women to drive cars !!! Tarek Heggy.
Jun 20, 2008 - 1:08 pm 3. Nabil Ahmad:If Muslim men were such lousy husbands, Islam would have collapsed a long time ago.
I’ve heard of Arab/Muslim men being bad husbands towards their wives who happen to be white American women.
Now what percentage of these marriages turns out to be as bad as you describe? I happen to be a lifelong Muslim (but not an Arab) who got married while I was in my 30s, to a Muslim woman from the same country as that of my parents and only a few years younger than I am (she was around 30 at the time).
Truth be told, too many people nowadays get married for all the wrong reasons and don’t think things through (“I’ll change him/her for the better”, “I’ll get the Green Card and then be free”, “I’ll convert him/her to a Muslim/Christian later”, “he/she’s so hot!”). Marriage is a binding, legal contract in the eyes of God and the state that is supposed to be the equivalent of a lifelong commitment based on the desire of mutual love, sacrifice, support and honor and the desire to procreate and support a family, through good times as well as bad times. If either the husband or the wife is not willing to follow through on the requirements of a marriage, then he/she should not have gotten married in the first place. I see a correlation between the abuse that certain Arab/Muslim men subject their wives/children to and the 50% divorce rate in this country between all married couples in general.
And as far as “honor killing” is concerned, I found nothing in the Qur’an that supports it. On the contrary, there are passages in the Qur’an that gives a severe warning against slandering innocent women with regard to their honor. A simple accusation of adultery against a woman without being able to back it up with witnesses and/or evidence in itself is a punishable crime, even if the accused woman was guilty. And if there was only one witness against the woman, and the woman could swear before a judge four times that she was innocent, she would go free and not be punished at all.
Now why is it that “Muslim fundamentalists” would disagree with me in regard to the above paragraph and insist on carrying out “honor killings” aimed exclusively against women and girls? I have a simple answer: Fools are leading other fools out there. No one challenges the “official” interpretations of the Qur’an and Sunna, even if they’re wrong. And personally, I have no sympathy for fools and have no need for fools who claim to be the “guardians of Islam and the Holy Places”. And I don’t care if they all convert to Christianity tonight. As far as I’m concerned, they give Islam a very bad name by being the savages that they are and by turning what was becoming a worldwide civilization (the old Arab/Muslim civilization) into a dysfunctional and nihilistic backwater. They should be grateful to the USA…perhaps the USA will re-civilize the place in a way that the UK and France was unable to do less than 100 years ago.
Jun 20, 2008 - 3:11 pm 4. Nabil Ahmad:One more thing…
The reason Islam has survived to this day is that there are enough of us who are truly civilized and would love for it to advance further, but not at the expense of Western Civilization (which again owes much to the civilizations of the past: Greece, Rome, Hebrew and Arab among others). Truth be told, we are one big human family that descended from Adam and Eve. When one civilization falls, we all fall.
So what’s keeping us back? Hamas, Hezbollah, Al-Qaida, corrupt leaders in Muslim countries, and ignorance in general. I see Islam as a great gift from God, but all gifts from God must be used wisely, otherwise He may just take it back from us…
Jun 20, 2008 - 3:17 pm 5. BL:Chesler, in her modesty, fails to mention the over 40 years that she has cogently and rationally fought to tell the truth about a woman’s right to be treated fairly, humanely and justly risking get personal and physcial peril. To her credit, she always, unselfishly, promotes the efforts of her sisters and brothers in arms. I hope her readers seek out the important works of the authors she mentions. But lest we forget, she continues to offer us all a wealth of information, herself. Bravo, Dr. Chesler. You are, not just a national treasure, but an international one. Keep pushin’ on, without you, I fear truth will be compromised and barbarianism furthered.
Jun 20, 2008 - 4:16 pm 6. Dr S McCosker:Islam is a failure: moral, social, political and ecological. Islam exists, sure…but in a continuous state of collapse, oscillating between ferocious top-down despotisms, and chaos; Muslim countries (oil states excepted) are poorer than most others; the life-expectancies and literacy rates of women in Muslim countries are lower than those of women in non-Muslim countries, even when one compares third-world Muslim country A with third-world NON-Muslim country B.
Perhaps ‘Nabil Ahmed’ would like to explain to us the meaning of Quran 4: 34, which permits a man to punish his wife by beating her, if he merely FEARS that she may in future disobey him. He’s permitted a pre-emptive strike, so to speak. There is an awful lot of evidence that lots and lots of Muslim men take this scripture to heart and carry it out. And would Nabil Ahmed care to explain why, in the early 1990s, British police discovered that, in Britain, women married to Muslim men were EIGHT TIMES more likely to be killed by their spouses, than any other women in Britain?
And perhaps he’d like to explain the story of Mohammed’s marriage to six year old Aisha, and bedding of her at nine, and the fact that in quite a few Islamic countries this ‘holy’ example set by the meshuggana ‘prophet’ is followed by men, today? Men who marry little girls of eight or nine or ten or eleven - and have sex with them?
And would he like to explain why, under sharia, women’s testimony is automatically discounted in cases of rape and men’s is accepted…such that the rape victim, or another woman who saw the rape happen, cannot testify against the rapist, and all the rapist, being a man, has to do is to deny it, or to claim he was seduced, to get off scot free (whilst the woman, his victim, may be flogged, imprisoned, or even executed, either formally by order of the court, or informally, by her own family?).
There probably are, by the grace and mercy of YHWH, some men within Islamised societies who, being gifted somehow with a miraculous measure of empathy and intelligence, transcend the surrounding toxic culture and behave lovingly and kindly toward their wives, mothers, daughters and sisters. Perhaps the existence of such rare men, here and there, their humanity overcoming what I will call ‘the Islam’, is all that has prevented Islamised societies from falling wholly into the abyss. But Islamic culture does not support such rare men; it is suffused with suspicion of, and violence toward, women, and gives men an absolute power over women, that enables every imaginable form of abuse to proliferate. ‘All power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely’.
Jun 22, 2008 - 2:54 pm 7. jim:Once an American woman marries a foreign national, she and her children are no longer entitled to any American citizenship rights.
Jun 23, 2008 - 6:47 am 8. Francis O Mara:um i dont know who came up with this bs but its not true she has to volentaraly renounce her American citizenship rights.
and some country’s ie Canada don’t require this when they become canadain citizens
It is amazing but when it comes to Muslim violence against women and children, you will always find people, like Mr Ahmed whose only concern is to: ensure that it not linked to Islam.
If violence and honor murders has nothing to do with Islam, why then has it not been eradicated during the 1350 years of it existence? The fact is, Islam attacks the human dignity of women, giving divine sanction not only to violence against women, but also to their sexual exploitation and slavery. It would also seem, that the position of women was far superior before the advent of Islam. Mohammed’s first wife was a prominent business woman while his youngest wife was a 6 year old child, who was at the time just a further addition to his already existing harem of about 15 women.
Jun 23, 2008 - 10:07 am 9. Leah:That bit about a woman losing all her American citizenship rights when she maries a foreigner is complete and UTTER CRAP. I have no idea who came up with that but it’s completely untrue. It is impossible for an American to be stripped of citizenship- he/she must specifically renounce it to lose it. Stupid. Don’t believe that. I’m married to a foreigner myself and I live in Africa with no fear for my citizenship whatsoever.
Aug 6, 2008 - 8:20 am 10. Cate:The same sort of things happen everywhere in the world. WOmen and children get beaten, treated like subhuman, cheated on, killed… We just happen to hear only the bad with an Arab (Muslim or not) males. Sure…some are awful and have some rights to make them more of a pain. A whole stinkin lot of American men are too even with no rights to back them up. If you looked up “Man kills wife” online…reading only American sourses…would it only return 1 hit? Try looking up all of these claims…you will find it millions of times all over American as well. I feel we need a new book people. One that would include my story. As I am a “white” American female who has found, married, and had 2 children with the love of my life who I came to Jordan to marry. He is now an American citizen, and surprise…we still have a better relationship than ALL of my friends and family members. He does not say one unkind thing to our children, or put harmful hands on them, or me. I have never been more loved, respected, cherished, and happy. I’m NOT saying it has to be an Arab man for anyone else to find that. I am saying we hear all of the horror stories, and not much else. My husband has MANY friends. Friends married to other Arab females, and to females from other countries. Of them all…only 1 of the wives is in a bad situation, and again…that’s better than the odds of my American friends. My husband’s family has accepted me 100% and I have not lost all of my rights…though I do have to be honest and say there are certain things the AMerican embassy wouldn’t help me with…such as taking our children out of the country w/o his permission. But you know what….if you live in America, and have children….try taking them out of there w/o the Father’s permission. You WILL have to have it to get them a passport or papers from court saying it is impossible, for example…due to death. WHile I am so sorry for anyone who has bad experiances with a spouse. Especially if you are far from “home” WHy can’t we also be informing people that this is not what everyone goes through.
Aug 29, 2008 - 12:08 am 11. Mary:The problem with American women marrying
Sep 4, 2008 - 6:37 pm 12. Mary:these men is that these men are more devoted to their religion and life style than they are to America or its customs. In my opinion
Islam is at fault It is a cult. If people would use their heads islam would not survive. Their is a bible verse that sums it up so well…..I put before you life and death choose life. The bible also says The devil comes to rob, steal destroy and kill… That sounds like Islam to me. In my opinion islam robs people of Gods blessings, it destroys people by choosing death and well its easy to see why it kills. In my opinion get rid of islam and get rid of thses peoples problems Sorry but islam is definitely a plan of chossing death in my opinion.
Cate
Sep 4, 2008 - 6:44 pm 13. Mary:How could you speak for other families you know that you really dont know what anyone is going on behind closed doors so you can only speak for you. Typical arabs if their happy everyone arab is happy! You know if they are not happy they are not going to tell you and have it all over the mosque….Please cate get real
Nabil
Islam only survives in my opinion because of ignorance and the other reason it survives is because it was forced on people. With out violence islam waould never survive
Sep 4, 2008 - 6:47 pm 14. Arab Man:For God Sake! I’m Arab and i don’t want to marry an american woman neither want to deal with an american one, I don’t want to visit america i don’t want to deal with an american person in my life, but for god sake, till when my ear should keep buzz everyday as someone from the USA talking about me and other arabians, my message to you: LEAVE US ALONE DON’T COME TO OUR COUNTRIES DON’T DO ANY RELATIONS TO US, NEITHER DIPLOMATICS NOR ANYTHING ELSE, DON’T BRING ANY AMERICAN PERSON TO OUR COUNTRIES, AND IN THE SAME TIME YOU ARE FREE TO DEPORATE ANY ARABIAN PERSON FROM THE UNITED STATES TO ANYWHERE ELSE, JUST LEAVE US ALONE LIVE YOUR LIFE AND WE WILL LIVE OUR LIFE, AS IF WE LIVE IN 2 DIFFERENT PLANETS, DON’T KEEP ANY AMERICAN PERSON IN ANY ARABIAN COUNTRY AND DON’T KEEP ANY ARABIAN IN THE USA, FAIR ENOUGH NOW?? JUST LEAVE US ALONE, LEAVE US ALONE, LEAVE US ALONE, LEAVE US ALONE, LEAVE US ALONE, LEAVE US ALONE, LEAVE US ALONE, LEAVE US ALONE, LEAVE US ALONE, LEAVE US ALONE, LEAVE US ALONE, LEAVE US ALONE, LEAVE US ALONE, LEAVE US ALONE, LEAVE US ALONE, LEAVE US ALONE, LEAVE US ALONE, LEAVE US ALONE, LEAVE US ALONE
Sep 15, 2008 - 12:31 am 15. Lora:These stereotypes are so extreme. My husband is a Shiite Kuwaiti with a doctorate and he has a heart of gold. I would go to the end of the earth for him. His whole family are just loving, moderate, intelligent people.
My first husband was from rural TN. He was so abusive and mean, it’s a wonder he didn’t kill me. For those who were disappointed with a Moslem/Arab husband, did you get to know his family? Did you take it slow? Were you objective? Can you honestly say that you never saw evidence that he or his family were poor, uneducated, unreasonable, backwards, biased or mean-spirited? If he had opportunities back home, or marketable skills, he wouldn’t have needed marriage for a green card. So you married an opportunist? Someone who couldn’t produce his family for inspection? These are red flags. If you divorce a Moslem or Arab, and you say the marital failure was because he was a Moslem or an Arab, I say you’re ignoring your flawed selection process and next time you’ll marry a loser from a different culture because you haven’t learned anything.
Oct 5, 2008 - 11:44 pm 16. Lora:Furthermore, it’s taken all my life to understand my own Bible, so when non-Moslems quote the Quoran piece meal, sorry if I’m not convinced that’s the reason for domestic violence among Moslems. What matters is not what leaders of either religion wrote centuries ago, but what we do in society today. Following the same flawed logic, would you attribute misogyny by Western men to the following verses? Of course not. Both books should be understand within their historical contexts. Appreciate the greater message instead of quoting tiny excerpts to support a twisted point.
Oct 6, 2008 - 12:50 am 17. Tonya:I Corinthians 11:5-10 “And any woman who prays or proclaims God’s message in public worship with nothing on her head disgraces her husband…A man has no need to cover his head, because he reflects the image and glory of God…a woman should have a covering over her head to show that she is under her husband’s authority.” Ecclesiastes 7:26, “I found something more bitter than death–woman…” verse 28, “…I found one man in a thousand that I could respect, but not one woman.”
I Corinthians 14:35, “…It is a disgraceful thing for a woman to speak in a church meeting.”
I Timothy 2:11-15 “…Women should learn in silence and all humility. I do not allow them to teach or to have authority over men; they must keep quiet…And it was not Adam who was deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and broke God’s law. But a woman will be saved through having children.”
Well said Lora,
I am also married to a MUSLIM/ARAB man, who has never laid a finger on me or my children. His family has been very kind and accepting of my WHITE/CHRISTIAN self. I have been to his country and CAME BACK with my kids and him as well. I do admit that these cases exist and I feel bad for these women, but there is CHRISTIAN pastors and preachers who molests kids in the church, there are others who beat their wives, cheat on their wives, and whatever else..so why people only want to single out MUSLIM or ARAB men…has anyone paid attention to events that happened right here in AMERICA where the WHITE women were living in these polygamy compounds being cut off from the rest of society being forced to married and so forth by WHITE AMERICAN MEN who claimed to be MORMON. My point is why just single out one Race of people, or religion. My friend it extends to all RACES, CULTURES, COUNTRIES, and RELIGIONS.
Oct 7, 2008 - 9:40 am 18. Tonya:Mary
you said to Cate
“How could you speak for other families you know that you really dont know what anyone is going on behind closed doors so you can only speak for you.”
Maybe you should practice what you preach
Oct 7, 2008 - 9:46 am 19. Alistgirl:Most of these comments remind me of racists comments made about blacks while I lived in the South as a child. All of you pretty much sound cultually encapsulated and uneducated. Just because someone is Muslim does not mean he or she is a terrorist, a wife-beater or a bad person. OMG! I really don’t believe that you people believe this garbage that you put out there. Please, go and love your brothers and sisters. Shalom!
Oct 15, 2008 - 3:16 pm