Note: This article is broken into three parts— A summary, and two details of New York Post articles where the information is from.
Summary
Huma Abedin is a devout Saudi-raised Muslim that has been Hillary Clinton’s top aide for decades, and she may be the future White House chief of staff. She is Clinton’s longest-serving and most loyal aide who started to work for her during Bill Clinton’s Administration, followed by in the Senate, and later in Obama’s State Department. She is now helping to run Hillary’s presidential campaign as vice chair.
During the time Abedin was working for Clinton, she also edited an extremist anti-women Islamic journal that her mother published which argued that working mothers shouldn’t be classified as families, it blamed women for being raped, and it rationalized domestic beatings.
Huma Abedin’s mother Seleha also translated and edited a book in 1999 which promotes stoning and lashing of adulterers, killing of apostates, required sexual submissiveness of women, female genital mutilation, and the right of women to “participate in fighting when jihad becomes an individual duty.”
In 1995, Abedin’s mother Seleha headlined a Washington conference lobbying against a UN women’s rights platform, saying it was a “conspiracy” against Muslims, also saying that men who beat their wives are “victims of a different kind, and they are simply taking [their frustrations] out on women.”
Despite Seleha’s extremist background, in 2010 Hillary Clinton visited a girl’s college in Saudi Arabia which Seleha founded and runs as the dean. While speaking to a roomful of girls at the school, Hillary said that Americans should stop stereotyping Saudi woman as oppressed and said not all women in America “go around in a bikini bathing suit.”
The next year, Clinton invited Saleha and the president of the Saudi school to Washington to participate in an Obama state department event for “leading thinkers” on women’s issues.
A spokesperson for the Clinton Campaign Nick Merril told the New York Post in response to its initial article that Huma Abedin didn’t actually do any work for the radical journal during her long tenure there (despite the fact that she was listed as an editorial staffer from between 19996 and 2008). However, Merril had no comment when asked if Clinton “regrets honoring the Islamist mother and bestowing legitimacy on her extreme views.”
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Following are points from the first New York Post article: “Huma Abedin worked at Muslim journal that opposed women’s rights”
— Abedin edited a radical Muslim publication “the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs” that was run by her mother that opposed women’s rights. The journal was founded and funded by the former head of the Muslim World League. Abedin worked for the journal from 1996 to 2008.
— Hillary Clinton listed as one of her biggest accomplishments on her website being her support for the 1995 UN Women’s conference in Beijing where she famously declared “Women’s rights are human rights,” which was a focal point of her Democratic convention this year.
— A year after Hillary made her proclamation at the Bejing woman’s conference, Abedin’s journal published an article entitled “Women’s Rights Are Islamic Rights,” which argues that only traditional couples with children should be recognized as families, and it also says that women wearing revealing clothing is an invitation for them to be raped by men.
— In another 1996 article, Abedin’s mother (who was the Muslim World League’s delegate to the UN conference) wrote that Clinton and other speakers were advancing a “very aggressive and radically feminist” agenda that was un-Islamic and wrong because it focused on empowering women, and she even rationalized domestic abuse as being a result of “the stress and frustrations that men encounter in their daily lives” and despite denouncing such abuse she didn’t think it did much good to punish men for it.
— The same 1996 article made the following statements: “Among all systems of belief, Islam goes the farthest in restoring equality across gender.” And, “More men are victims of domestic violence than women . . . If we see the world through ‘men’s eyes’ we will find them suffering from many hardships and injustices.”
— Abedin does not apologize for her mother’s views, and even made following statements in a recent profile in Vogue, “My mother was traveling around the world to these international women’s conferences talking about women’s empowerment, and it was normal.” [The Vogue article also referred to her mother as an “outspoken, much respected feminist.”]
— Abedin’s mother published a book in 1999 [called “Women in Islam: A Discourse in Rights and Obligations”] that was edited by her mother that justifies the practice of Islamic female genital mutilation and claims “man-made laws have in fact enslaved women.”
— In 2010, Abedin arranged for then-Secretary of State Clinton to speak alongside Abedin’s mother at an all-girls college in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where Clinton said that Americans have to get past “the stereotypes and the mischaracterizations” of oppressed Saudi woman, also assuring the audience of Burka-clad girls that not all American girls “go around in a bikini bathing suit.”
— At no point during Clinton’s visit to the Saudi Arabian college, which included a question-and-answer session, did she protest laws barring women from driving or traveling anywhere without male guardians, or any of the other extreme human rights violations that Saudi Women suffer under Sharia law that Abedin’s mother promotes.
— The article says, “If fighting for women’s rights is one of Clinton’s greatest achievements, why has she retained as her closest adviser a woman who gave voice to harsh Islamist critiques of her Beijing platform?”
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Following are points from the second New York Post article: “Huma Abedin’s mom linked to shocking anti-women book”
— Seleha Abedin is the mother of Hillary Clinton’s top aide Huma Abedin, and is the editor of a publication entitled “The Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs,” which opposes women’s rights as un-Islamic, arguing that Western “empowerment” of women does more harm than good.
— In 1999 Seleha translated and edited a book entitled “Women in Islam: A Discourse in Rights and Obligations,” which prescribes stoning and lashing of adulterers, the killing of apostates, required sexual submissiveness of women and female genital mutilation under Sharia law. The book does make an exception to the division of sexual roles, however: “Women can also participate in fighting when jihad becomes an individual duty.”
— On the back cover of the book Seleha says she is “pleased to launch” it as a part of a series on the “study of women’s rights in Islam,” which is sponsored by the International Islamic Committee for Woman and Child (IICWC), which Seleha founded and is a chairperson.
— The Cairo based IICWC which Seleha founded has advocated for the repeal of Egypt’s laws in favor of implementing extremist Sharia law which allows female genital mutilation, child marriage, and marital rape.
— Seleha is paid by the Saudi government to advocate and spread Sharia law in countries such as America.
— In 1995 Seleha headlined a Washington conference organized by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) to lobby against a UN women’s rights platform where she angrily argued that it runs counter is Islam and was a “conspiracy” against Muslims. Seleha called into question the provisions of the platform that condemned domestic battery of women, saying that men who serially beat women tend to be unemployed, making their abuse more understandable. She said “They are victims of a different kind, and they are simply taking [their frustrations] out on women.”
— Despite Seleha’s extreme anti-women views, in 2010 Huma arranged for the then-secretary of state Hillary Clinton to travel to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to meet with her and speak at a girl’s school she founded and runs as the dean. When speaking to a roomful of girls, Clinton said Americans should stop stereotyping Saudi woman as oppressed and said not all women in America “go around in a bikini bathing suit.” While there, Clinton formed a partnership with the college called the “US-Saudi Women’s Forum on Social Entrepreneurship, and promised to reverse post-9/11 curbs on Saudi student visas to America.
— Then the next year, Clinton invited Saleha and the president of the Saudi school to Washington to participate in an Obama state department event for “leading thinkers” on women’s issues, as revealed by internal emails released in response to a lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch.
— Paul Sperry is author of “Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington.”