Don’t. Personal comments don’t belong in this forum in any case, and given the broader context of your arguments, you are the last person in this discussion who should be throwing around terms like this. Knock it off.
Nice diversion. I hear they sometimes drink alcohol too, I suppose that is halal now.
I did not intend the term to offend, I apologize if it did. That video is hot!
Absolutely. There is no question that the majority of reforms that Mohammed brought to society by improving the lot of women tended to be rejected or re-interpreted away by the earliest groups who heard his word in the Arabian desert and surrounding regions.
You need to go repeat this while looking in a mirror.
Anyone who makes references to “the Sharia” as if there was only one law that was codified and held to identical interpretations throughout the Muslim world either needs more education on the topic or needs to stop ignoring what he knows in order to parrot other Islam bashers. Sharia is not a monolithic single set of laws, but a series of legal philosophies, all rooted in the Qur’an, but often having widely differing interpretations. To make the claim that something “is the Sharia” without explaining which thread of Sharia it is and who embraces it is to play games with the word.
Actually, I am surprised that you were only able to find six nations. I have already acknowledged that misogyny is pretty rampant throughout the MENA region, (which, not coincidentally, includes every one of your examples). It is a big deal. However, despite your dancing, it is not Muslim, per se. I do not see your examples from Turkey, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Bangladesh. I do not see legitimate reports of it being widespread in France, Germany, or Dearborn, MI.
You want to take a terrible phenomenon that occurs in one set of closely related cultures in one portion of the world and use it to condemn a set of beliefs that extend to far greater reaches of the world without ever supporting that phenomenon. Your poor logic and clearly biased approach to the topic is simply not persuasive.
cite? for both the claim that he improved the lot of women and that these improvements were rejected? You are aware that several of the pagan religions Islam replaced worshiped goddesses, aren’t you? There are arguments to be made that Islam made improvements to the lives of 7th century women, but it is certainly not an established fact like the traditional and mainstream understanding of Aisha’s marriage. Islam codified into law that women’s testimony was worth less than a man’s, that she was less intelligent, that her husband was commanded to strike her for disobeying, and that prisoners of war could be sold and/or raped.
I did, Hamza Yusuf, for one. You hand-waved the possibility that he is an influential Muslim away as somehow not being credible, obviously without even trying to find out for yourself.
Pakistan is not in the ME.
How can you see evidence of people, in the case of Saudi an entire body of jurisprudence, themselves attesting that Aisha’s story is the reason that they justify this, and then…I just don’t get it.
Those are non-Muslim countries and a few of the more secular Muslim countries. Harmful ideologies do not have the same harmful effects on all societies, any more than harmful pathogens have the same effect on all animals or areas of an animal or ecosystem. “Hey look, most of his body is resisting the staph infection, it must not be harmful to human flesh, or the patients face would be rotting off as well as his fingers.”
And as far as Dearborn goes, that is in America, and our Muslims are awesome. That does not mean that their religion isn’t terrible, just that they manage to be awesome in spite of it.
Nigeria and Pakistan are not in the same portion of the world except on this map.
Your cognitive dissonance is off the charts!
It’s nice to finally see people talking frankly about Jesus/Father/Ghost.
If you are not aware of the rules that Mohammed established regarding such matters as the right of women to inherit and manage wealth and to be secure in their ownership of it, then you are far too ignorant of real Islam to continue this discussion.
Worshipping goddesses does nothing to establish or protect a woman’s place in society or her person.
I made no statement that dismissed Yusuf’s possible influence. I noted that influence is relative to the group being influenced and that his influence does not seem to extend outside his group.
You later made a claim about “Sharia” declaring something as if there was only one Sharia–which there is not.
meh M.E.N.A. is always defined extending as far as Iran and sometimes as far as Afghanistan. Pakistan borders Afghanistan. The basic culture of the rural clans that inhabit those regions tends to share a lot of the same qualities. Similarly, Nigeria is close enough to M.E.N.A. that its political conflicts have encouraged interventions by ideologues from M.E.N.A. I am perfectly willing to modify my statements to say “M.E.N.A., Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nigeria.” (And you still only found six countries.)
Clearly, you do not get it. You look at a specific set of interrelated cultures that includes one terrible phenomenon, note that they have the same religion, ignore the fact that more than twice as many people of the same religion, (and a great number of people of the same religion in the region being discussed), do not promote or accept that practice, and declare the religion “bad.”
I look at a cultural phenomenon that extends through the same region and beyond it to include peoples of other religions, note that the number of adherents to that one religion who do not support the practice outnumber those who do by more than two to one, and draw the conclusion that it is not the religion that promotes the phenomenon.
Is there any cite in this thread to show that any country currently under Sharia law condemns and/or holds illegal marriages to females under the age of 16?
Is there any cite in this thread that shows that current religious practices among any Muslims in countries currently under Sharia law accept or condone marriages to females under the age of 16?
Is there any cite in this thread that shows that current practices of modern Muslims living in countries currently under Sharia law accept or condone not allowing marriages to females under the age of 16?
Just curious.
I ask because I read this thread to post #42 and the piling-on by the Mods seemed to be quite over-excessive and not at all on a par with what is allowed to be said against any other religion.
There seems to be a knee-jerk defense against not only the history of Islam, but also any questioning of the actual practices of Islam in today’s world that is not on a par with the way that any other religions are defended.
Please cite.
Post 123 Sharia Law has led to the legislation of child marriage in 6 countries.
Post 90 No religious justification for child marriage: Saudi cleric
In this case a cleric is proclaiming that Aisha’s story does not justify child marriages, in Saudi this is unusual enough to be newsworthy.
Dude is citing youtube as his scholarly source and, when called on it, points to wikipedia instead. There isn’t enough of a dogpile going on.
I am aware that Islam encoded into law a system still in use today in which women are entitled to smaller portions of inheritance. There were arguably some improvements made, but this is not an established fact like the age of Aisha’s rape in the traditionally accepted account of her life.
It is easy to imagine why a society that reveres female deities might value women more highly and treat them with more respect than an ideology that proclaims hell to be full of women because they are deficient in intelligence and religion. And ungrateful. That would be an interesting discussion, but a different one than the one you are dodging.
This is meaningless babble. He is referenced in an article on Huffington Post, which is the only source you have cited so far.
I made a claim about sharia after giving an example of an influential Muslim’s version of it.
What do you call the region of the world that includes both Nigeria and Pakistan?
…and Wikipedia points to:
To add on to what you’re saying, he also insists that this must be a mainstream belief by repeatedly citing a hadith from Sahih al-Bukhari which says she was nine, while ignoring that other hadiths found within Sahih al-Bukhari completely contradict this claim
Er… yes, many Islamic scholars say beer is perfectly halal.
They argue that the portion of the Quran you’re alluding to refers only to wine.
In fact, AFAIK, the Muslim Brotherhood, has not tried to ban the sale of beer in Egypt, a country where it’s readily available.
I’d recommend actually doing research on this region and culture you seem to despise rather than relying on youtube and wikipedia.
That’s nice.
So, how many Islamic scholars have weighed in on this exact issue? You’re making grand, sweeping claims for what is the “traditional and mainstream” view, and I want to see how traditional and mainstream it is. That doesn’t mean pointing to a couple of sources that happen to agree with what you want to promote.
I’m perfectly fine with your saying, “Hey, at least some sources seem to be saying this wife was only nine and that’s really troubling. The more widespread and accepted this belief is and the more defended it is, the more troubling it is!” But you aren’t saying that. You are declaring that it’s completely understood, completely accepted, completely mainstream, completely traditional, that every Muslim (though you backed off this one finally) agrees with your favorite sources, that there is no contradiction, that this is a major consideration for everyone, that it’s been the subject of sufficient scholarship to be not longer a controversial point, that it’s a major theological point, that Muslims take hadiths as infallible, that contradictory hadiths should be read how you want them to be read, and that your word and youtube are enough information to make everyone else outraged, shocked, and alarmed.
I think you think you are coming across as an expert, or at least a gifted amateur, in history and/or theology and really… no. You aren’t.
The Muslim Brotherhood are not in complete control, and are not stupid enough to try to immediately institute every one of their long term goals. That does not change the fact that consumption of alcohol is generally considered haram. I think there are a lot ofquestionable things that the brothers allow or participate in.
I’d recommend you actually doing research rather than relying on an implicit assertion that a Western raised and educated sociology professor employed by the state of California has much credibility or influence in the Muslim world.
It’s really not that hard to figure out. I am saying that this is the traditionally accepted view, and the mainstream view. Not that there aren’t other minority opinions.
To a majority of Muslims the Bukhari and Muslim hadith collections are second only in importance to the Koran. There is a system in place for determining the authenticity of these, and there are no more authentic hadiths than these. The fact that the narration in her voice makes a positive assertion of her age makes that the official version of the story. The scholars in question are the collectors of those hadiths, the most respected of all to Sunni Muslims.
You don’t have to be an expert historian to ascertain or explain basic biographical facts about historical figures or religious icons, even contentious ones.
You are the one ignoring the accepted refutation of the revisionist claim you got from the UCSB sociology professor.
Religious narrations do not need to be absolutely internally consistent to have commonly agreed upon interpretations anyway.
Huh?
What UCSB Sociology professor are you referring to?
Also, please give me the name of the Islamic scholar as well as the appropriate cite to prove it, who claimed that Aisha was vastly more than ten years younger than her sister Asma, did not participate in the battle of Uhud, and was not born before the call.
There are plenty of hadiths which contradict the idea that Aisha was nine when she and Muhammad were married.
Only someone so intellectually incurious that they relied on wikipedia and youtube would be ignorant of them.
BTW, continuing to insist that you are presenting the mainstream view of most Muslims does not mean that you are correct or convincing.