Thus Is It Written

The nature-endowed authority granted to
each of us by virtue of our humanity
and our cognitive potential to exercise
free will is no mere trifle to be carelessly
abandoned for much depends on what and
how decisions are made for there is no
action without reaction and consequences
can be dear on those occasions when fate
fails to play out anticipated outcomes
and the role of those who forfeit sympathy
in the greater interest they believe of
obedience to an all-powerful deity and
the somewhat less powerful but yet fully
demanding patriarch whose possession
of his womenkind is absolute. Women
cringe at the unthinkable for it is denied
them in the Koran that they may think
themselves free and endowed with basic
human rights owing allegiance to none
but themselves. Compliant, they accompany
their men in jihad for thus it is ordained
they must tend to his needs while he is
engaged in the pursuit of growing Islam
a sacred tradition of trust and belonging.
Now that these women enslaved to a
brutal ideology are being judged their
punishment is as harsh as those meted out
by their husbands to those taken in a quest
to subdue, conquer and butcher, jihad
demanding no less of their martyrs and
revenge wreaking no less on their acolytes.