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This is why many Muslim men don’t honour their wives. Allah himself said in Quran 4:34 that Muslim men are permitted to beat their wives. And Muhammad also said that a man will not be asked why he beat his wife. In other words, you can beat your wife and not be questioned about it. Sunan Abi Dawud 2147. You can imagine the kind of mentality this creates in a man who believes he can treat his wife anyhow and still have a justification for it. As an ex-Muslim, let me tell you something. If the Lord had not saved me, this mentality would have gradually become part of me. I grew up among people whose treatment of their wives was something I watched with my own eyes. Men shouting at their wives, insulting them, humiliating them, sometimes even disgracing them in front of their own children. And this was not something I saw in just two or three families. No! It was something I kept seeing. You move to the next house, the same thing. You go to another community, the same story. It was becoming a pattern. And what makes it even more disturbing is that some of these men are the very people who are learned in the Quran. Yet it is disheartening to see how they treat the women they married,because the Quran supports domestic violence. Unlike what the Bible teaches, that husbands should love their wives just as Christ loved the Church and gave himself for her (Ephe 5:24 ) In Islam, I saw a mentality where women were made to feel inferior, where a man’s authority was more important than his wife’s dignity. Sometimes I even wonder whether having multiple wives contributes to this attitude. When a man has three or four wives, does he still see each of them as someone special, or does he begin to see them as women who must compete for his attention? You find the women struggling to win their husband’s favour, while the man sits comfortably like a king. He knows they are competing for him, and sometimes he takes advantage of that position to treat them anyhow. And the funny thing is that these women will come out and pretend everything is fine. They will tell you their marriages are wonderful, even when they know exactly what happens behind closed doors. Some have simply become used to it. I am not saying there are no good Muslim marriages. Of course, there are. But my point is this: when you see a Muslim marriage where the husband genuinely respects his wife, loves her and treats her properly, don’t automatically assume that this is what Muhammad’s teachings have produced. Sometimes, these men are simply choosing to treat their wives better and refused to follow what the Quran and Muhammad teaches. And growing up as a Muslim, our Mallams used to teach us something very disturbing. They taught us that we have the keys to our wives’ paradise. That we determine whether our wives will enter paradise or not. Can you imagine what happens when you put that kind of belief into the mind of a man who already thinks he is superior to his wife? Every little disagreement, he will remind her that he holds the key to her paradise. So she must listen. She must obey. She must do whatever makes him happy. And some men use this very teaching to manipulate, beat and maltreat their wives. May God have mercy! And to Christians who are planning to marry Muslims, please, know these things before you make that decision. Don’t enter a marriage simply because you are in love. We say these things not because we hate Muslims. No! They are the very people we love, and that is why we cannot keep quiet. We must continue to reach out to them with the truth, whether that truth is painful to hear or not. Love does not mean hiding the truth just to make people comfortable. Sometimes, the truth hurts, but it is necessary because it is only through the truth that people can be set free. As Jesus said in John 8:32, “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”