Islam, prostitution and compassion

There is a lot that could be said about that, ranging from grinding poverty to the concept of honour and the way in which abuse runs in cycles so the abused becomes the abuser.

After writing my feature for The Birmingham Post, I am struck by two very different approaches to Islam, which seem to relate to the problem.

Saira Ahmed, a Muslim who fled a forced marriage and ended up a prostitute, was brought up to believe religion was all about obeying rules, ones she could not ultimately keep.

Dr Wagiha Syeda, who runs a marriage clinic at Birmingham Central Mosque, focuses more on the heart and developing a spirit of compassion.

This tension between the laws and the spirit of the laws, is one I have encountered in different interpretations of Christianity and I would guess it runs through all religions to some extent.

And it is not unrelated to poverty. When you have to work every hour that God sends just to feed your children, attending to feelings is a luxury that can not be afforded in the bone-weary exhaustion.

Poverty is also related to the lack of education which means people are at the mercy of what their elders say about a faith and do not have the tools to engage with it for themselves. Without that engagement religion becomes a way of exercising control rather than setting people free.

I don't think it matters one jot whether someone is a Muslim, a Christian, an atheist or anything else. Poverty matters. Lack of education matters. And beating people into submission, for whatever the cause, matters very much indeed.

So does compassion, however it is cultivated.