In the Islamic  world women are lashed for adultery; little girls are denied education; female teachers are sacked or never employed; and where women are kept from elementary health care. Mohammed Omar, the Taliban leader, says that mingling men and women is Western and decadent, and leads to licentiousness. To call these views medieval is an insult to the Middle Ages. And yet they are held, with varying intensity, across the Muslim world.

 In Kuwait, the country for which we fought, they recently decided against giving women the vote. As one enlightened Kuwaiti MP, Ahmad al-Baqer, put it: "God said in the holy Koran that men are better than women. Why can't we settle for that?" The Kuwaiti tribunes later had a debate on the Sydney Olympics, in which a fruitcake called Waleed al-Tabtabaie called for the banning of women's beach volleyball, on the ground that it was "too sexy and indecent".

 In Kano, Nigeria, the Muslims banned female soccer. In Dhaka, Bangladesh, women have been banned

from working for NGOs. A Malaysian minister recently announced that any kind of skirt is an invitation to rape. Iranian magazines may not show unveiled pictures of Monica Lewinsky, or any other woman who has had sexual relations with President Clinton. The imam of a mosque in Fuengirola, Spain, one Mohamed Kamal Mostafa, has just published a handy guide to when and how you may beat your wife.

 Only hit the hands and feet, he says, using a rod that is thin and light. Of course, it's all grotesque. It's nutty. But these prejudices are so deeply held by Islamic fundamentalists that they will die to preserve them. Mohammed Omar says that "only ugly and filthy Western cultures allow women to be insulted and dishonoured as a toy". What he means is that only the West allows women to be treated as equals.