I have some questions regarding a woman’s place in Islam, in light of your earlier post on that topic:
In the event of a divorce, what is a Muslim woman’s rights to care and custody of her children?
So why are there some Muslim countries in which a woman cannot hold office? Are Muslim women generally extended the vote?
What does this mean, “not so experienced in practical life as man”? How is the lesser valuation of a woman’s testimony justifiable in modern countries where women participate equally in public and private life as men?
This rationale doesn’t make sense to me. Regardless of whether a woman lives a secluded, wife-and-mother-based life at home, or an outside, professional-job-holder life outside, how is she more or less forgetful than a man? And how does a lack of experience lead one to make errors in what one has witnessed?
It is my understanding that she is not merely voluntarily “exempted” from religious duties at such times, as she is involuntarily excluded from full religious participation when menstruating, pregnant, or shortly after childbirth. Is this incorrect?
How does veiling add to any of these things?
Assuming a woman is behaving circumspectly and appropriately, why is it incumbent upon her to cover herself head to toe to present a man’s inappropriate thoughts?
[quote]
The veil which she must put on is one that can save her soul from weakness, her mind from indulgence, her eyes from lustful looks, and her personality from demoralization.
[quote]
Why is a woman’s soul particularly suceptible to weakness, her mind to indulgence, and her personality to demoralization? How is this view of a woman’s frailties consistent to deeming them equal to men? To me, there is a fundamental disconnect between “protecting” a woman, or “saving” her, by imprisoning her in a head to toe garment that impedes her freedom of movement and therefore inhibits what those jobs, tasks, and activities she can participate in.
Why is a woman’s integrity, morals, and character more in need of safeguarding than a mans?
I appreciate your attention to these questions. As a Christian woman, I frankly have trouble understanding how any woman not raised in a restricted Muslim household would agree to put herself in head-to-toe purdah.
Be that as it may, I don’t think those scholars think that that deity is the god of Abraham, at least as far as Muslims are concerned, and therefore not people of the book.
You’d think so, but historically at least it hasw been a much debated and rather open question. This verse in particular has tended to muddy things:
*022.017 YUSUFALI: Those who believe (in the Qur’an), those who follow the Jewish (scriptures), and the Sabians, Christians, Magians, and Polytheists,- Allah will judge between them on the Day of Judgment: for Allah is witness of all things. PICKTHAL: Lo! those who believe (this revelation), and those who are Jews, and the Sabaeans and the Christians and the Magians and the idolaters - Lo! Allah will decide between them on the Day of Resurrection. Lo! Allah is Witness over all things. SHAKIR: Surely those who believe and those who are Jews and the Sabeans and the Christians and the Magians and those who associate (others with Allah)-- surely Allah will decide between them on the day of resurrection; surely Allah is a witness over all things. *
Combined with verses that seem to acknowledge that the ‘people of the Book’ can reach heaven, this has led some ( by no means all ) authorities to take rather broad views. Certainly Umar added Zoroastrians to the list of protected peoples pretty early ( the “Magians” above were Zoroastrians ). In India:
*Whether the polytheists who confronted the Muslim conquerors within the Indian subcontinent could be classified as ‘people of the Book’, might appear at first sight to be a moot question. But in fact Baladhuri’s Futuh al-Buldan, one of the principal sources for the Muslim conquest of Sind in the early eighth century, tells us that the Arab general Muhammed b. Qasim treated the idol-houses (budd) on a par with Christian churches, Jewish synagogues, or Zoroastrian fire-temples. The term dhimmi was extended to embrace Hindu princes and their people who submitted and offered tribute, so that we read of the acceptance of dhimma status by the inhabitants of Dvarasmudra in 711/1311-12, the ruler of Tilang in 718/1318, and the rai of Nagarkot in c. 766/1364-5. The list of those prepared to recognize the Sultanate’s Hindu subjects as dhimmis includes not merely Hasan-i Nizami, Juzjani, Afif, Ibn Mahru, Abd al-Hamid Ghaznawi and the anonymous author of the Sirat, but also Barani, who as we shall see was by no means well disposed towards even the submissive infidel, and the supposedly uncompromising Tughluqid Sultan Firus Shah in his Futuhat, drafted originally as an inscription and hence for public consumption. Even the legal text of Firuz Shah’s reign includes several refernces to dhimmis, by which it clearly means Hindus.
That the Indian polytheists who submitted to Islamic rule qualified, therefore, as ‘protected peoples’ seems to have won acceptance among a fairly wide spectrum of the educated Muslim community within the subcontinent…*
From The Delhi Sultanate: A Political and Military History by Peter Jackson ( 1999, Cambridge University Press ).
That describes the Delhi state - in the Mughal period, equally or even more explicitly “Nasirean” ethics ( after Nasir al-Din Tusi, a 13th century theologian who proposed the concept of an ideal society ruled over by a philosopher-king that included diverse social and religious elements ) prevailed at least down to the reign of Auranganzeb/Alamgir. Nasir’s rather theological opposite number, Ibn Taymiyya ( from which the fundamentaliswt Wahhabis and Deobandis derive their inspiration ), didn’t get any traction in India until the 17th and 18th centuries with the writings of Sheikh Ahmad Sirhindi and Shah Wali-Allah. And of course echoes of that theological divide continue down to this day.
Another source that goes into this, especially the Nasirean impact, is The Languages of Political Islam: India, 1200-1800 by Muzaffar Alam ( 2004, University of Chicago Press ).
I’m starting to think that this thread should’ve been called Ask The Guy Who Might Stop By Every Couple Days To Vaguely Answer 1 Or 2 Random Questions.
I wonder if the women would agree with that statement…?
And yet, later on you say that she does NOT have equal responsibilities in regards to financial matters, and as for the civil affairs issue, I deal with that later with the relevant quote.
Yet it’s OK for her to receive less than someone else when her husband dies?
And yet, we see women systematically marginalized and excluded in many modern muslim socieites such as Saudi Arabia.
From my viewpoint you sure have a peculair viewpoint on “fair”.
What about women who are the sole support of their families, without husband, brother or son but perhaps an ailing mother, several sisters, and a few nieces and daughters? Sounds to me like they’re SOL under this system.
Oh, really? When I was on my own I didn’t consider my rent and food to be “luxuries” but “fiscal responsibilities” equal to that of any man. I had no idea I was living in “high luxury”.
In other words, women are the perpetual wards of a male under this system and are thus never truly adults. What do you do with women with no male relatives? Put them in foster care? Find another family to adopt them? Force them to get married to a man, any man, to conform to the rules?
Right, because, despite being “equal” to men, women don’t get to own anything or accumulate enough wealth to pass it on to anyone else… or am I misunderstanding something here? A wealthy woman isn’t able to leave her money/possessions to another woman?
Ah, it’s worse than I thought - women without relatives aren’t put into foster care, they become inmates at state orphanages.
So… if a woman without father or brothers becomes widowed she is not allowed to support her two daughters? What do you, take the kids away and give them to someone else? Or are they just left to starve? If their own mother isn’t responsible for them who the hell is?
Bullshit. If she does the same work and gets less pay that’s not equal, plain and simple.
In other words, women are considered too stupid and naive to take care of their own affairs - even when educated to the equal of men.
In my country we give women a role to play in civil life by allowing them careers, the right to vote, hold public office, and otherwise gain that experience in civil life that, apparently, your culture systematically deprieves them of.
So if she never has children, what? She’s screwed?
How nice. How do you measure love in such a fashion, and how do you enforce that particular rule?
We don’t have dowries where I come from. In fact, a lot of people where I come from see that as a buying and selling of women, as if they were property.
What if her husband is disabled? Do they just get to starve, or, if she goes to work does she get equal pay since she is now supporting a family?
But since it’s OK to pay her less for work and give her a smaller inheritance it probably doesn’t amount to much anyway, right?
Again, women are seen as incapable of taking care of themselves.
And if that “honor” isn’t intact apparently a large number of Muslims in the world think it’s OK to kill her - even if the Bad Thing that happened was not her fault but rather the criminal act of a man.
But apparently women of any station are somehow not fit to stand shoulder to shoulder with a male pauper. Ah, yes, another fine example of equality.
You can’t simply stand further apart?
Excuse me? I am not in the habit of wearing attire that simply falls off my body because I moved. Seeing what some muslim women are forced to wear I can’t imagine this being likely for them, either.
In my culture, the only people who hide their faces are those who are ashamed of themselves, such as criminals. Why do you force your women to conduct themselves as if they are ashamed of their bodies and faces? Why do you obligate them to act guilty by hiding their faces?
So says a man… do the women really agree?
But despite her “equality” her female status is used to justify depriving her of equal pay, equal freedom of movement, equal civil rights and participation, equal weight of testimony in court, equal inheritance, equal right to do something as simple as showing her face in public…
So women are equal until it’s inconvenient for men. I see.
Then you are operating under a different definition of “a degree (of advantage as in some cases of inheritance) over them” than most user of English.
Prove this. Because from what I’ve seen, that’s exactly what this is - a dominance of men over women.
Of course, since as you have plainly stated several times your religion mandates my death I suppose you could just disregard everything I say. I will also admit it accounts for considerable bias and hostility on my part, but then I am not disposed to feel good towards people who have no qualms in stating their God requires my death. The only peace Islam offers me is the peace of the grave, so don’t expect me to embrace that fate with open arms.
Once a long time ago I was tempted by Sufism, by a guy from Poole.
I’ve never looked into the Koran, but occasionaly asked people about it.
eg: ex Indonesian ambassador to Germany, ‘alcohol is not wrong outside a mosque’
Recent: cornershop guy checking on his mobile for the pub for ‘breaking Ramdan’, the answer was it used to be allowed, but Mahommed got pissed of with too many people being drunk.
Less recent: The selfish ba*tards streaming out of the Domes on the Mount, where I live you pass around joints, they did not.
This lad really alarmed me, he actually seems to believe the cr*p he is spouting.
Since I saw this thread I have been thinking
I have a distinct aversion to people that want to kill me
and unlike many people I was brought up by WWII remnants
Strictly speaking, since there is only one God, any worship is worshipping Him. The problem Jews and Muslims have is with the form of worship - namely, the idolatry.
Geez, I’m not a Muslim but even I can see what a bogus cheap shot this is.
We’ve seen women systematically marginalized and excluded in ALL societies pretty much since the invention of static agriculture; there is nothing unique about Muslim countries in this regard and it’s pretty obvious that when it comes to oppressing women, religion seems to matter little. Before we Westerners get too comfortable in the saddle of that high horse, let’s remember that less than a century ago women couldn’t vote in our countries, either - a period of time that constitutes a burp in the grand scope of human affairs. Christian countries have a fine history of genocide and oppression.
But “Christian countries” at least western countries are way beyond where they were a hundred years ago with regard to women. And western countries are way beyond Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has managed to acquire all the modern benefits from western societies yet their women are still stuck in the 7th century. Cheap shot indeed.
NSmasta - Maybe instead of quoting scripture from the Quran you can tell us what you personally believe and why you do or do not believe that way. Reading from the employee handbook does not mean I blindly follow it.
Complete bullshit and you know it. We’re not talking about 100 years ago; we’re talking about today. No one on this board was alive 100 years ago and can’t very well apologize for what happened back then. Conversely, no one on this board would allow the kind of barbaric treatment of women that is the status quo TODAY in many muslim countries including SA.
Those are very interesting sources, thanks for posting them Tamerlane.
My questions are:
Don’t they presume Hindu submission to Islamic rule in order to qualify? What about the independent Maharashtrian kingdom organised under Shivaji Bhosle, who threw off Mughal rule? Wouldn’t the Hindus under such a kingdom still be shirk?
Are there any modern schools of thought that consider Hindus “people of the book”? As an Indian with many Muslim friends I have yet to hear one express the belief that Hindus are anything other than “shirk” (sorry, I don’t know how to spell it). I appreciate that there might have been splinter groups three hundred years to four hundred years ago that debated whether or not Hindus were entitled not to be massacred, but I have yet to hear of a modern source stating that we’re anything other than hell-bound.
Originally, certainly. It was kind of de rigeur you submit to be ‘protected’ ;). As frontiers became more flexible, accomodation more attractive, the wooing of Hindu princes more important, I believe it came to be more a general concept. Hindu nobility almost always formed a major section of the lesser nobility and gentry of ostensibly Muslim states and winning new political adherents in the name of territorial expansion often trumped religious conservatism.
Indeed India is unusual in the extraordinary amount of syncretism that arose between Islam and Hnduism. Out and out syncretic faiths like Sikhism are only the most obvious manifestation of this. Sufism for example, much as the idea was resisted ( and often still is ) by the Sufis, was undeniably heavily influenced by Hindu mysticism. And in went in the other direction as well - Stewart Gordon in The Marathas, 1600-1800 ( 1993, Cambridge University Press ) notes that there is considerable evidence that many Hindus regularly prayed at the shrines of Muslim Pirs ( saints ) - the Sufi concept of Brotherhood and personal achievement having great resonance with some Hindus as a critique of the concept of caste. In the bhakti movement in particular ( which predated Islam ), which often challenged Brahminical orthodoxy, there was a number of attempts to bridge even the liturgical gap between Hindu and Muslim.
Maybe to Alamgir, a notorious conservative in such matters, quite distinct from his forefathers ( or his elder brother Dara Shikoh, who made a Persian translation of the Upanishads and clearly considered Hindus and Muslims to both worship the same God - sadly he lost the civil struggle with his bigoted brother ). But even Alamgir’s orthodoxy didn’t compromise practicality. To counter Shivaji he enlisted Maratha nobles ( many of them with personal rivalries with the Bhonsles ) by the boatload - 96 were listed as amirs in the second half of his reign, comprising 16.7% of the total nobility, though they proved to be of dubious loyalty. Numbers courtesy of The Mughal Empire by John F. Richards ( 1993, Cambridge University Press ).
So to is Shivaji’s Hindu orthodoxy exaggerated - he patronized a number of Muslim scholars who served him in an official capacity as judges and he recruited Muslim troops ( for example one group consisted of 700 Afghan mercenaries ).
The interpenetration of the Muslim and Hindu worlds was at the time pretty damn extensive at most levels of society.
I’m pretty sure at least some of the Indian branches of the Naqshbandi Sufis do. One of their most important 18th century saints considered the Vedas to include revealed truths, making them ‘people of the Book’. Even beyond that I have no doubt that many other moderate Muslims ( including other Indian-saturated Sufi orders ) would also agree with such thoughts, but I couldn’t even guess as to numbers and proportions.
However certainly one shouldn’t ever assume that a particular member of a particular sect or brotherhood is automatically liberal. Mullah Omar of the Taliban was also once a Naqshbandi ;). But his brand of noxious Deobandism suffused with Wahhabi tidbits and backwoods Pashtunwali could hardly be considered friendly to any non-Muslim.