A well-known Egyptian Salafi preacher, Ahmad Mahmoud Abdullah, known as “Abu Islam,” posted an online video on Wednesday on his private television channel in which he said the women protesters who were raped and sexually harassed in Cairo’s Tahrir Square got what they deserved. He called them “crusaders” who “have no shame, no fear and not even feminism.”
Abu Islam continued: “They tell you women are a red line. They tell you that naked women — who are going to Tahrir Square because they want to be raped — are a red line! And they ask Mursi and the Brotherhood to leave power!”
He stated that the women were not assembled to protest, but instead wanted to be raped:
They have no shame, no fear and not even feminism. Practice your feminism, sheikha! It is a legitimate right for you to be a woman. And by the way, 90 percent of them are crusaders and the remaining 10 percent are widows who have no one to control them. You see women talking like monsters … You see a woman with this fuzzy hair! A devil! Devils called women. Learn from Muslim women, learn and be Muslims. There are Muslims and Muslimix.
“Muslimix” is apparently Abu Islam’s term for liberal Muslims.
The fury Abu Islam engendered by his outburst burst forth on Twitter. Several responses bitterly denounced the preacher:
Abu Islam [says] most of those raped are crusaders and the rest are widows; [statements] of a psychopath.
When will you Egyptians kill Abu Islam? We do not need more [idiots.]
There are no insults that can describe (these statements.)
Abu Islam has been accused of defaming Christianity before, but no action has been taken. With his son, he tore and burned a Bible when there were protests last year against the film mocking Mohammed that was mistakenly regarded as responsible for the Benghazi attacks.
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