W. Robert Godfrey

The mullahs used to climb up in those minarets before the day of public address systems, and they would call the faithful to prayer.

That's that chanting sound that echoes through the city, the call to prayer five times in the day.

The third pillar was giving alms to the poor.

The fourth pillar was fasting during the month of Ramadan, and the fifth pillar was the visit to Mecca.

So that was the foundation of the religion, and you see the simplicity of it.

But it was a religion, again from a Christian point of view, that was pretty hard on women, I think continues to be hard on women.

Divorce was easy for a man and almost impossible for a woman.

Polygamy was possible for a man.

He could have up to four wives, but women were not permitted to have more than one husband.

Women were to be veiled because women are so irresistibly alluring that they are forever contaminating men, and it's really their fault.

And so there are these, what we regard as oppressive dimensions of

of Islam, although I was intrigued.

We had a lecturer at our seminary who had been a Muslim, who had actually been a professor of Sharia law at a Muslim school in Africa.

and had memorized the Koran, could recite any part of the Koran you wanted recited in Arabic.

Because you can't really translate the Koran.

I mean, you can translate it, but translations never really count.

You can't have much assurance that a translation works.

Only the original Arabic text is authoritative.

And he said, Westerners often say, well, Islam is so difficult for women and so oppressive to women.

He said, the reason that Islam survives and flourishes is because the women support it so passionately.