"Sex Jihad" or Sexy Hoax

A controversial Diesel jeans ad denounced as Islamaphobic by some, as seen in lower Manhattan Sept. 29, 2013. MICHELLE SHEPHARD/ TORONTO STAR

 

It was a sexy sex scandal and like anything shocking these days, it instantly went viral.

Tunisia's Interior Minister Lotfi Ben Jeddou claimed women are flocking to Syria to wage "sex jihad." Ben Jeddou made the audacious statement to Tunisia's members of the National Constituent Assembly on September 19, alleging that these women would leave home to have "sexual relations with 20, 30, 100 militants" fighting the regime loyal to President Bashar Assad in Syria. Many would return pregnant.

Various media outlets reported that this idea of "sex jihad" is backed by hardline Salafist clerics. Misogynist edicts are not uncommon in some circles (look no further than Saudi Arabia's top conservative cleric, Sheik Saleh Saad el-Leheidan, who said Friday in endorsing a ban on female drivers, that women will damage their ovaries should they drive) but the most commonly cited reference for "sex jihad" points to a fatwa reportedly issued by Saudi cleric Mohammed al-Arefe - which he denies making.

Further, there are no credible interviews with Tunisian women who were on their way to Syria or had returned pregnant.

So why would Tunisia's interior minister make such a claim, if not true? Foreign Policy Magazine's David Kenner points out that Ben Jeddou campaigns against extremist Salafi groups. "Suggesting that Tunisian Salafi women are sleeping with dozens of Syrian rebels could be another way to discredit them" Kenner writes.

Sometimes when a story is so hard to believe we think, you just can't make this stuff up. Sometimes, however, it appears you can.

Michelle Shephard is the Star's National Security correspondent and author of "Decade of Fear: Reporting from Terrorism's Grey Zone." She is a three-time recipient of Canada's National Newspaper Award. Follow her on Twitter @shephardm