And yet one must be thankful for some mercies: in India, Muslim women do not live in a country in which the ulema have the power to enforce their decrees. In Saudi Arabia, in Pakistan since 1977 when Zia ul Haq promulgated the Hudood Ordinances, ... that power derives from and is conjoint with the power of the state.... In either event, the results are tragic. Several of the horrid cases have been much written about. Adultery and rape figured prominently in Zia’s Hudood Ordinances. For adultery, there had to be four, reliable, adult, Muslim, male eyewitnesses to actual, physical penetration—the stated purpose was to protect persons from being falsely accused. In several cases of women, in particular single, unmarried women, who had been raped and had become pregnant, the requisite eyewitnesses could not be produced. But their pregnancy was proof positive that they had had illegal sexual relations. And so, while they had been victims of rape, they became the accused—accused of zina, adultery: their charge that they had been raped became a confession of their having had illegal intercourse; and the fact that they were pregnant became proof positive. In a typical case, fifteen-year-old Jehan Mina was raped by two of her male relatives. She became pregnant. She was sentenced to 100 lashes. A higher court, out of ‘charity’, reduced the sentence to ten lashes. Thirteen-year-old Safia Bibi was blind. She was employed as a maid. Her employer and his son raped her. She became pregnant. The rapists went scot-free. She was sentenced to three years in prison, and thirty lashes— the flogging was limited to thirty lashes, the court said, out of leniency for her being blind. The case became a cause célèbre. Asma Jehangir, Hina Jilani and other human rights activists mounted a vigorous challenge. Pakistan’s Federal Court set the judgment aside—though it concurred that the evidence against the father and son was insufficient. And young Safia survived. But cases that are just as baseless and just as weighed against women, and the extreme fear they generate, have continued—under ‘laws’ that range from rape to divorce to blasphemy. At one time, it was reported that almost 70 to 80 per cent of undertrials languishing in Pakistan’s jails were women who had been charged with offences of this kind.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "And yet one must be thankful for some mercies: in India, Muslim women do not live in a country in which the ulema have the power to enforce their decrees. In Saudi Arabia, in Pakistan since 1977 when Zia ul Haq promulgated the Hudood Ordinances, ... that power derives from and is conjoint with the power of the state.... In either event, the results are tragic. Several of the horrid cases have been much written about. Adultery and rape figured prominently in Zia’s Hudood Ordinances. For adultery, there had to be four, reliable, adult, Muslim, male eyewitnesses to actual, physical penetration—the stated purpose was to protect persons from being falsely accused. In several cases of women, in particular single, unmarried women, who had been raped and had become pregnant, the requisite eyewitnesses could not be produced. But their pregnancy was proof positive that they had had illegal sexual relations. And so, while they had been victims of rape, they became the accused—accused of zina, adultery: their charge that they had been raped became a confession of their having had illegal intercourse; and the fact that they were pregnant became proof positive. In a typical case, fifteen-year-old Jehan Mina was raped by two of her male relatives. She became pregnant. She was sentenced to 100 lashes. A higher court, out of ‘charity’, reduced the sentence to ten lashes. Thirteen-year-old Safia Bibi was blind. She was employed as a maid. Her employer and his son raped her. She became pregnant. The rapists went scot-free. She was sentenced to three years in prison, and thirty lashes— the flogging was limited to thirty lashes, the court said, out of leniency for her being blind. The case became a cause célèbre. Asma Jehangir, Hina Jilani and other human rights activists mounted a vigorous challenge. Pakistan’s Federal Court set the judgment aside—though it concurred that the evidence against the father and son was insufficient. And young Safia survived. But cases that are just as baseless and just as weighed against women, and the extreme fear they generate, have continued—under ‘laws’ that range from rape to divorce to blasphemy. At one time, it was reported that almost 70 to 80 per cent of undertrials languishing in Pakistan’s jails were women who had been charged with offences of this kind." in the context of "Arun Shourie - The World of Fatwas Or The Sharia in Action (2012, Harper Collins)" to mean that wisdom is timeless.