Good grief. That’s not my story at all. What is your story?
The extract from the Koran I cited illustrates how Mohammed, rather than advocating violence towards women as is widely claimed, actually introduced new laws and controls to address existing problems of mistreatment of women (not just wives, but the mistreatment of females in general --from infants to mothers and widows-- though the particular passage quoted refers specifically to wives).
I am sure you have been down this road before Jojo, since I have seen you make a few other suspect comments on the topic of Islam. Ancient paternalistic Abrahamic cultures – and that includes all the people of the Book – carried various insitutionalized items of female oppression and subservience: items of culture that were accreted in emerging religions to various degrees. Thus a literal reading of, for example, the Bible would be quite shocking to a modern feminist, what with man being the head of his women and god being the head of man, the sub-standardizing characterization and legacy of Eve/womankind, and several other examples of stark inequality that can translate as direct sanction for men to oppress women. That is to be expected since both testaments, among other scripture, are in fact the results of paternalistic cultures.
The thing to note about Islam is that it actively sought to reverse or mitigate a number of items of the paternalistic cultures (and by extension religions) found in or near Arabia at around Mohammed’s time – thus, rather than continue to give men a free hand to beat their women as was the custom in many paternalistic cultures, the Koran instructs followers to approach the problem more sensibly, to dicuss, issue warning and wait before even thinking about beating, and when resorting to beating never to do so with violence, anger, hate, spite, etc., which represent, of course, some of the emotional basis for domestic violence. A distinct improvement in the social climate at the time, I’m sure you will agree, where any man who became angry could lose his temper and beat the hell out of his wife.
So, obviously, we have to look at such an item in historical context. Today it sounds ridiculous to hear that a man may beat his wife if there is a problem and she disagrees with him and does not heed his warnings, but that’s only because many societies have eliminated or reduced several paternalistic tendencies in the intervening centuries, thus removing the original problem that the Koran addressed. Unfortunately many cultures, among them several found in the Middle East but in general ranging the entire globe, have not reached quite the same level of sexual equality and enlightenment that European culture attained in the last century or two – a fairly recent development and one that I am confident will be matched by most or all cultures eventually, even, loosely speaking, retrograde ones in such respects as Saudi Arabia, who actually use Islam to subjugate women.
The problem is compounded by the existence of and varying reliance on the Hadith. However several items in the latter are disputed, most are hotly debated, and some are even suspect; regardless they are considered secondary to the Koran.
I won’t defend those who use the Koran or Islam as a basis to brutalize women. It is obviously an inexcusable practice. I will repeat that those folks almost certainly do so for cultural or personal reasons rather than strictly religious ones, since women’s rights are laid out and safeguarded in the Koran more specifically than in any other religious text I have come across. Those brutalizing and oppressing women while using as justification the Koran or Islam would do well to ask themselves why the religion clearly grants women some remarkably advanced social, property, and financial/economic rights and status on one hand, but then seems to permit men to beat them or, as another example, cover them up from head to foot.
Well, as I have explained the beating part is not quite the spirit or meaning the Koran was written to convey. And the practice of covering up women is not a religious one but one of cultural variance (Islam asks both men and women to dress with modesty, not to cover women from head to toe). An attentive reading of the Koran will in fact yield several counts in which God unequivocally reproaches those who consider women as inferior creatures. In that sense the assertions of piety of those who do for their own reasons wish to view women as distinctly inferior would seem to be nothing more than a forced excuse to engage in such behaviour – forced much in the manner of sick “religious” justifications broadcast to justify events like 9/11 and other suicide bombings.
I see. You are warned about personal attacks in this forum, and you respond with two posts dedicated solely to off-subject whining and more infantile personal attacks. Both complaints and personal attacks belong in the Pit. If you want to engage in some, feel free to proceed there and let me know, however it is highly unlikely that you will find it a satisfying experience. And, I assure you, I have indeed been quite even-handed with you, mainly because I don’t by any means think you are here to spread nonsensical rubbish as some others do – and, frankly, I don’t by any means disagree with everything you had to say. Your views become open to attacks much fiercer than those I have issued the moment you hit the submit button; so if you think I have insulted you directly --which I haven’t-- take it up with the moderators or resort to the Pit.
I’m not going to respond directly to Abe’s post, for as usual while not complete bereft of reason they’re filled up with misunderstandings and faintly veiled insults.
We have now moved quite a while from the original OP. I take it everybody agree that no-one, regardless of religion or culture, should not get off easy for committing heinous crimes, such as honour killing, genital mutilation, etc. Going on the discussion seem now to be about if “honour killing”, female genital mutilation, terrorism, etc. can be called Islamic.
**Culture and religion. **
Religion is viewed through cultural goggles. Of course not all and every angle can be taken on the religious texts (I have already written that, outside the lone crackpot, it’s unlikely that persons that hold there are multiple gods would call themselves Moslems), but there are wide margins to operate within. Which portion of the texts are ignored and which are emphasized as well as how they are interpetrated is largely a matter of culture (as well as personal preferences, social position, etc.). Christianity (on average etc.) in Bogotá is much different from Christianity in Helsinki. Islam in Riyadh is much different from Islam in Sarajevo. Anyone arguing to the contrary in general are not arguing from a base of logic but from faith.
Islam and honour killing and genital mutilation
To address the (new) topic; is it fair to say that specifically honour killing or genital mutilation (both violence against women) can be called an Islamic practise? It is my contention that it is fair, if it can be shown that a sizeable number of Moslems believe so themselves. A thing is Islamic if enough Moslems claim it to be. This is a matter of definition, all I have written hinges on this, if someone disagrees with that definition of course he’ll disagree on the conclusions. While going on my definition I have shown that many Moslems believe honour killing is prescribed in their religion. I have show many Moslems believe genital mutilation is prescribed in their religion. I have shown high placed Judges, say honour killing is according to Islam. I have shown Imams saying genital mutilation is according to Islam. What I’m not claiming is that it’s an Islamic practise for all Moslems. I’m not going to go through all my posts, but if someone had such a perverse interest, I think he’d find that I have nowhere written “Islam honour killing” or “Moslem honour killing”, I think I have been careful to write “interpretation of Islam”, “some Moslems” etc. throughout. What I’m saying is merely that some people take portions from their religions texts to find strength, or reason, to commit heinous crimes.
The Koran and Hadith.
I have not tried to go into the Islamic texts themselves, since I believe it is unnecessary to show that some hold it to be an Islamic practice. However as an aside, I’ll put forward these things for discussion:
There is no denying there is a basis for extremely misogynistic interpretation of the Islamic texts. I’m in no way saying that is the only interpretation, or necessarily the most obvious interpretation. But it’s there, for anyone wishing to take it. To this can be added this quote (from already cited source):
I’ve often heard the argument that Islam was progressive on the treatment of women when it was formulated, perhaps so. But a thing that was progressive 1300 years ago won’t normally be considered terrible progressive today. And if someone, as indeed many do, argue the texts should taken literally without regard to their historical or cultural origin, much of what was progressive in the year 700 is downright oppressive today.
Some Moslems apparently point to this verse in the Koran for grounds, a bit weak but it does advocate physical violence against disobedient women (in all three versions): “As to those women on whose part ye fear disloyalty and ill - conduct, admonish them, refuse to share their beds, beat them", the Koran, chapter 4, verse 34 This seems mostly to be taken so he should only beat her lightly, leaving no permanent marks or something, still physical violence.
Apparently now the Islamic sect Hizb al-Tahrir (in Denmark also known for passing out leaflets calling for the killing of Jews) support honour killing on the grounds that “someone killed protecting his honor is deemed a martyr.” Of course Hizb al-Tahrir are extremist most Moslems would consider maniacs - still they’re Moslem extremists.
I’ve been told that all four traditional schools of Islamic law agree that death is the correct punishment for any apostate. If that is true, it seems to me that this can easily be used as reason for “honour killing”, e.g. if the father deems the daughter is leaving the faith (by expressing her sexuality, having a Christian boyfriend, etc.), it is his duty to kill her.
Islam and interpretation
Islam is no different from any other religion. If it is to be discussed, is must be analysed in historical, cultural and social perspectives. We can’t take it on its own word. For arguments sake, if for no other reason, we must assume the Koran is not the word of God. I’m not sure Moslems would be surprised to hear I think Islam can have many and contradictionary interpretations seeing as I’m a non-believer destined for grievous punishment, but they’d probably disagree. But since religion is based on faith and not logic, that is not something that bothers me a great deal. I don’t know if Abe or Tamerlane call themselves Moslems, Bibliovore does apparently, however it’s not easy to discuss these things with faithful Moslems, whom would mostly believe the Koran is perfect. But since I believe Allah is a pixie in the sky I have no problem with saying the Koran, like the Bible etc., contains many inaccuracies, portions in conflict with each other, contradictions, wrong observations and descriptions, errors, changes and evolvements (from historical earlier texts), etc. or indeed that Mohammed is not God’s prophet and the Koran is not the word of God but a cocktail of texts written or assembled by mortals with their feet solidly planted in their cultural world.
What is a Moslem
This has much to do with definitions. To me, a Christian is someone who classifies himself as Christian, a Moslem someone who classifies himself Moslem. So when you argue that a group which themselves say they’re Moslems are not Moslems, it tastes like a contradiction of terms to me. Further, religion is about faith and belief, not logic – i think you’re trying to use logic to prove a point that lies outside the domain of logic. As for “heretical belief”. Such a thing doesn’t exist, nobody has a heretical belief. Of course some people believe others have a heretical belief, but nobody believe they themselves have a heretical belief.
**Unsubstantiated thoughts, which I’d like someone knowledgeable inputs on: **
Unlike Christians which has been forced to come to terms with many different sects, I have often gotten the impression that Moslems hold that there are not many different branches of Islam (the Sunni and Shia being mere minor differences), but only one big greater-Islam as Abe has it. Perhaps that’s one of the problems. If a Mormon in Utah is accused or polygamy and child marriage or a Jehovah Witness in Copenhagen accused of child abuse when refusing blood transfer, other Christians would not normally feel slighted on their religion. But when someone say some Moslems hold “honour killing” to be an Islamic practice, many people automatically see it as a critique of all Islam. When, as I have it, it is only a critique of the forms of Islam that condone “honour killing”
Focus on Islam
Abe has accused me of focusing unseemingly on Moslems and the Middle-East. He seems to be unaware of the title of this thread (Muslim “honor killings” …) or the OP which was all about Islam and the Middle-East. It wasn’t me who wrote the OP, if Abe has a problem with its focus I suggest he direct his grievances to bri1600bv, meanwhile concentrating on Islam and the Middle-East means staying on-topic. Moreover, as I stated in my initial post, “honour killing” where I’m at only occurs among immigrants with Middle East and Moslem background. Also again I’ll just repeat my initial observation; that in my opinion, whether the murders are based in religion or in culture is quite besides the point when addressing the original OP of whether they should be given special considerations.
Cites Honour Killing
I think cites from Amnesty International is as good as it gets. So when Amnesty International reports that the miserable position of women in Pakistan in general and honour killing in particular are among other things the result of “tribal and Islamic law”, “Islamisation of law” and “Islamic provisions (as interpreted in Pakistan)”, it’s good enough for me.
*Genital Mutilation. *
I’ll just introduce some recent cases from Denmark. Three Imams (Mustafa Abdullahi Aden, Muhamoud Sheik and Muhammed Daher) for the four larges cities in Denmark have recently gone on public record, newspaper and radio, with their view that female circumcision is according to Islam, even an Islamic religious duty, and consequently advised their “flocks” to circumcise their daughters.
These are not lone crackpots, but learned Imams. Educated men that have studied the holy Islam texts, respected in the community for their religious knowledge. But to be fair what they seem to be advising is not the more intrusive infibulation (removal of the clitoris, labia minora and labia majora, leaving a small opening for the passage of urine and menstrual blood) but the smaller sunna female circumcision (removal of “just” the clitoris and perhaps the labia minor). Still a despicable practice.
Misogynous interpretation of Islamic texts
Koran:
“Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are obedient[…]” Vers. 34
“4.11-12. A male shall inherit twice as much as a female”
Hadiths:
“The woman who dies and with whom the husband is satisfied will go to paradise.”
“A wife should never refuse herself to her husband even if it is on the saddle of a camel.”
“If anything presages a bad omen it is: a house, a woman, a horse.”
“Never will a people know success if they confide their affairs to a woman”
Saying of Mohammed:
“Women are deficient in intelligence and religion” (Vol. 2:541)
“Never will succeed such a nation as makes women their ruler”
“Ask the opinion of your wives, but always do the opposite”
Ayatollah Khomeini:
“Eleven things are impure: urine, excrement, sperm…non-Moslem men and women…and the sweat of an excrement-eating camel.”
“It is better for a girl to marry in such a time when she would begin menstruation at her husband’s house rather than her father’s home. Any father marrying his daughter so young will have a permanent place in heaven.“
Rafsanjani, the Iranian President and Mullah:
“Justice does not mean that all laws should be the same for women and men…The differences in body, height, sturdiness, voice, growth, muscle quality, physical strength, perseverance in the face of disasters and resistance to disease in women and men show that men are stronger and more capable in all these areas… Men’s brains are larger… These differences affect the delegation of responsibilities, duties and rights!”“
The fact that I think Khomeini was a stupid prick and all Moslem I have talked seemed to think likewise, doesn’t negate the fact that he was the religious leader in Iran and had a great following.
Ok. Just a few Abes: “Do you have an argument to do so with?” *
You might read the rest of the paragraph before concluding I had no arguments. E.g. I disagree because such a conclusion would necessitate that you resort to biology for explanation, which you have not adequately done, and which I find unreasonable since one would be forced to conclude “honour killings” are to be found in all cultures, in all times and in all places. But I’m not going to go further since this is a very big issue to explore in itself, and also off-topic. Also I find your non-sequiteur (“We can safely infer that male oppression probably has very similar causes everywhere, since the same factors keep popping up”*) so simplified and pathetic stupid it hardly demands a response.
*“So, to go back to a previous example, when we talk about slavery in the US, for example, do we refer to it as Christian slavery or simply as slavery?” *
Like your other argument with the abortion bombers, I have no problem in referring to it as Christian slavery if a large number of the slave owners found reason in their religion. And, to the point where you can call me Christian, will feel no slight to my religion in the least – because I know they in such a case would have had a drastically different interpretation of the Bible that I would have.
“(and tend to justify everything they do as Islamic anyway!). Muslims eat, therefore eating is a Muslim practice.”
(Pretty condescending anyway!) A better analog would be: Muslims don’t eat pork because they say it’s part of their faith, therefore not eating pork is a Muslim practice. And neither does the fact that shunning pork spans both religion and culture and probably precedes both Islam and Judaism make it any less a Moslem practice.
Mohammed didn’t do anything, God did it. Why didn’t God tell people to stop hitting women altogether?
…and I’ve yet to receive a satisfactory answer to this from anyone, muslim or otherwise.
Suspect? Nah, I’m just very, very direct. I hate waffle.
Agreed.
The Bible is not the Qu’ran. You can’t compare them. The Qu’ran purports to be the direct word of God.
Distinct improvement in the social climate of the time maybe, but I’m afraid this argument doesn’t work for this reason:
The Qu’ran is the direct word of God valid for all time and Mohammed is the last prophet. Since the Qu’ran is valid for all time then that means that it is as valid for the 7th century (when it was written) as it is for the 21st century and the 25th century and the 30th century.
The difference between the Bible and the Qu’ran is that it is possible to consider the Bible in terms of the times it was written and to extrapolate a modern message from that. You can’t do this with the Qu’ran.
If the Qu’ran states that a disagreement with your wife may be resolved first by talking, then by separation and then by beating then that is what it means. For all time.
It’s true that there are some parts of the Qu’ran that may need to be taken in context eg the bit about slaying the infidels. This sentence is a specific instruction relating to a specific battle. The “beat your wife” bit though is just a general instruction on how to treat your wife, it is not time-specific.
It is a general instruction to the faithful on the correct time to beat your wife.
The whole idea of beating your wife is offensive not just for the obvious reasons but because it implies that the husband is always in the right. What if the two have an argument but the wife is in the right? She gets beaten anyway simply because she is continuing to argue (as is to be expected since she is in the right in this instance).
Says who? If we are going to reduce the Qu’ran to historical context, there won’t be much left.
Exactly, so the Qu’ran hasn’t removed the problem. Time and the evolution of society has removed the problem. So what was the point of the Qu’ran then? The problem would have gone away anyway.
Remember the Qu’ran comes from God so why didn’t God just lay out the perfect way to conduct a marriage straight away rather than give us some vague hints suggesting when a good time to beat your wife might be?
God knows everything so He knew there would come a time when beating your wife would be seen by most societies as unacceptable. Why didn’t God speak to us (in the future) rather than just to the people who were around at the time?
It would make more sense to speak to the people of the future since there are a lot more of these people than there are people of the current time (7th century).
And, of course, it is a complete coincidence that these societies use islam to subjugate women? Islam has nothing whatsoever to do with it?
I think not. Why didn’t God say “Don’t beat women, period”?
Also, if I may suggest, I think you are applying a degree of revisionism to this. One of the reasons islam appealed to the North Africans in the first place was precisely because it enshrined the place of women as inferior. Women never counted much above slaves anyway in North Africa before islam. Islam enshrined this view by effectively saying “Treat them well but never forget they are your inferior”
This argument that I hear increasingly that islam gave women rights and equality gets way, way overplayed. It did give women certain limited rights but it also gave women the status of second class citizens and elevated this status to the position of Holy Writ so that it could never change.
It all depends on how you look at it.
Agreed. All the more pity then that it’s the Qu’ran and not the hadith that officially subjugates women.
Inexcusable yes, but it’s not a complete coincidence.
That’s because other religious texts don’t make a big issue out of it. I wish the Qur’an hadn’t, then we wouldn’t have half this trouble. Women would have slowly gained rights as societies progressed. Instead women now have to fight not only inherent male chauvinism but also religious dogma.
A double whammy, if ever there was one.
Yes good question. Maybe it’s because islam is a load of cock?
Says you. How do you know what it was meant to convey since you are not God?
Agreed.
And many more counts where God unequivocally states that women are inferior creatures.
Winston, I’ll let Abe or others deal with your points but Khomeini came to power (I think) more because he was the focal point of the anti-shah movement than for any religious sway he held over people.
“Misunderstandings” you haven’t highlighted and “veiled insults” you haven’t cited – and if you wish to play the innocent then I’ll cite two insults of yours for every one you claim I have issued. And to think that you accused me of having a thin skin. If I wanted to insult you, WinstonSmith, while keeping within the rules of this forum mind you, you would definitely know it.
I don’t think this has been in serious contention for some time, we are in agreement there. There is no basis in even the loosest cultural relativism to permit immigrants in Scandinavia or anywhere to perform honour killings --unequivocally a crime of murder.
Exactly. They aren’t, as I have argued from a qualitative standpoint. The examples cited, e.g., female circumcision, simply illustrate how cultural practices can easily be mistaken for religious ones, or at the most, be adopted under the veneer of “religion” by certain cultures – making them still a cultural affair.
Yes. Thus we have honour killings both among Christians as well as Moslems on opposite sides of the planet, in those cultures that promote this practice. Religion used as justification for horrible actions. A story as old as religion itself.
Which is precisely what happened, I disagree with your definition. Your identification process of what constitutes a Muslim and especially what constitutes a Muslim practice is a valid starting point but simple in the extreme when taken as sole primary criterion, as you seem to insist on. It fails to take into account the problems of heretical belief and the varying distinctions between culture and religion in certain practices already painstakingly outlined, inasmuch as they are possible to distinguish (and in the case of female circumcision and honour killing they have already been shown to be distinguishable). It’s a system that can easily lead to bigotry, as noted earlier.
This too I acknowledged. However I go back to my question, how many is many? What is “sizeable”? You have shown a few such cites, all of them confined to narrow cultural bands involving Pakistan, Jordan, and Kurdish populations. I further asked what the hell the point is of referring to a practice as “Islamic” when it is clear that it’s not an Islamic practice, and is indeed practiced outside of Islam as well as in it – and not originating from religion dogma.
One of the arguments that can be made using your excessively simplified labelling process is that Christianity is a religion of violent aggression – an argument being propagated by some terrorists and one that I don’t believe in, but one we could conceivably justify using your system. The latest example of Christian aggression is the war in Iraq. The US population is 84% Christian, and its leader considers himself a very religious person acting out the will of god, fighting evil, etc. The US population solidly supported their President (probably because he duped them, but never mind). The decision to invade Iraq, seeing as how other justification has been found to be rather weak, is necessarily a Christian one because a sizeable number of Christians endorsed their leader on his holy mission.
That’s nonsense, of course, many other factors come into play – factors one ought to consider before delivering a verdict.
Indeed, that is what I have argued since my first post. However the above doesn’t make acts of terror “Islamic” in nature. Nor does it make honour killings or female circumcision “Islamic” either. It simply points out that in some areas such practices pose a problem, among some Muslims as well as other religious backdrops. As I have argued extensively, Islam is not the common denominator, originator, or predictor for honour killings, terrorism, or female circumcision. These practices are shown to crop up on cultural bases, not necessarily religious ones. That religion is being hijacked to justify such acts is deplorable and shameful, but that does not make the questionable acts Islamic in any way except according to your limited definition, which I have challenged.
Perhaps you missed it the first few times I said this, but the above is by no means exclusive to Islam, it’s a paternalistic cultural tradition incorporated in the religions of the people of the Book; it’s, at the most, an Abrahamic thing. See my previous reply to Jojo on this point, as well as the rest of my posts. Compared to the Testaments and even later writings, the Koran is distinctly more advanced and egalitarian in its treatment of women. Distinctly.
This quote is ignorant and biased, not to mention that it’s simply an unsupported assertion I have already addressed, in different form. Veiling and female circumcision are not traditional Islamic gender practices, they are cultural in origin and in occurrence. At the very most, you could say that they are paternalistic and mysoginistic tendencies finding expression through the manipulation of a religion that actually advocates female equality on more counts than not. They are religious contradictions, flat-out oxymorons of forms of extremism.
True. Particularly true among extremists. No one is saying there are no problems. All I ask is that before you assign a broad label to a practice, you first consider its logical and religious compatibility. Or, even better, you could avoid the use of broad labels in those cases where more stringent labels are required – that’s the difference between describing al-Qaida as “Islamic terrorism” or (e.g.) “a militant form of Islam propagated by al-Qaida as a creed of violence and terror”. Why do that, why assume the burden of extra words to explain what we mean rather than use a brief and facile term? To avoid confusion and misunderstanding, of course.
Apostasy is a sensitive and controversial topic, a convoluted concept usually considered more complex than your presentaton above, but I’ll give it a quick treatment as I understand it since I know you can’t get enough of my writing.
Apostasy is usually justified primarily by a single Hadith that says “kill those who renounce their religion”, and which illustrates perfectly how problematic and suspect the Hadith can be. This particular tradition of the Prophet was reported by only one person, which is usually insufficient (according to Islamic law) to warrant the punishment of death – corroboration is an important factor in Islamic jurisprudence, and a number of Hadith are suspect and in some cases even contradictory to Mohammed’s previous teachings. There is no clear historical record of death due to apostasy I am aware of during Mohammed’s time, so that is no help either. In the Koran there is no mention I remember advocating death for those who convert from Islam. Assuming that the passage of the Hadith was transmitted accurately from Muhammed, it has been argued that this Hadith refers to Muslims who commit acts of treason, such as declaring war (ideological or not) on Islam and so forth
Mahmud Shaltut and Mohammed Sayed Tantawi are modern and well respected Islamic scholars (as opposed to local religious community leaders) who have considered the problem of apostasy. They (and other prominent Islamic scholars of past ages) agree that apostasy is a serious sin, but not one that mandates death – a passage in the Koran regarding “those who believe and then disbelieve” states clearly that “Allah will not forgive them nor guide them nor guide them on the way”, (sura 4-137) suggesting god and not man is the arbiter of such transgressions.
Now, I am not an Islamic scholar, but it doesn’t take one to see that the question lies far from the simplicity of mandated death suggested in your quote. If we relate this to honour killings I don’t think we fare very well:
It is most certainly not. Even Sharia, as harsh as it has been known to get in certain circumstances, cannot justify such an action of lawless vigilantism and filicide, both specifically forbidden in Islam. And having a Christian boyfriend or expressing sexuality is not a renunciation of Islam – if anything it is a renunciation of culture, in those parts where the culture would apply in the first place. To be sure there are nutcases who will claim that it is all about Islam, and it deserves death, etc., but let’s try get away from the wackjobs while discussing this subject.
I am not Muslim, nor is Tamerlane to my knowledge. Not that it matters.
Islam is, in my view, social engineering on an unprecedented scale. That is no reason to treat it with disrespect, so I try to be careful with it as with most religions, even though I don’t have time for the beliefs of any of them. Assuming you are Christian – and the natural bias in your prose suggests you are the product of a Christian society – what ground could I possibly gain by claiming that military aggression is a Christian trait? Or that terrorism and abortion-clinic bombing are Christian practices just because a few advocate them as such? And, further to making such claims, would you not feel it is inappropriate for me to state pre-emptively that arguments to the contrary are “bollocks” or “bullshit”, that those who think differently are misguided/ignorant/wrongheaded, etc.?
Let’s go back to this unfounded and irritating statement:
Let’s leave aside the personal validation you tend to throw in your prose, which is a mater of style and choice. Let’s leave aside the part (repeated at least half a dozen times) in which you claim that anyone who does not believe X must be “wrongheaded” or similar. What’s left? Not much.
OK so far. But is it correct to say that a Muslim practice is a practice practiced by just any Muslim? The problem is with your definition of honour killings and so forth as Muslim practices, even though Islam is a much less successful predictor of such practices than cultural background. “Some Muslims practice honour killings/female circumcision” is not the same thing as “honour killings/female circumcision are Muslim practices”. On one hand you have a correct statement that is not loaded, although it is still open to misinterpretation by the obtuse. On the other you have a wrong and misleading assertion that is certain to lead to bigotry – and one, by the way, that is frequently employed by bigots on these boards.
Obviously. That’s not the point though, heretical beliefs are not dictated by the opinion of the person holding the belief, but by an analysis in context of the belief and the religion it purports to uphold.
The differences in belief are important because Islam generally eschews reliance on a central clergy. Schisms do appear consistently throughout history, but the primary one between Sunni and Shia is probably the one most in evidence, and the oldest. Both Sunni and Shia recognize a) the five pillars b) the unity of Islam regardless of variations. However Shias emphasize the fourth and last caliph, Ali, over most other aspects of the religion. There are slightly different practices for worship, and Shias rely primarily on the Hadith of Ali and to a lesser extent Fatima as opposed to the other companions of the Prophet. There are some differences in worship, but probably the most striking (to me) is that Shia Islam, after centuries bereft of leadership, developed a centralized clergy of sorts that consisted of a council of 12 Islamic scholars, the Ulema, who then elect the supreme spiritual leader: the Ayatollah. The ayatollah came to be seen as an infallible holy guide, much like the Pope in Catholicism. The most famous ayatollah was no doubt the rabid Khomeini.
That’s the most famous and obvious split, but there are several more. And not all of them are accepted as Islamic. You will of course remember the disdain and anger that the Taleban’s brand of Islam engendered among other Muslims and Muslim governments. A sect arose in India in the 19th Century called Ahmadiyyah, which held that its founder was the avatar of a Hindu god, the reappearance of the prophet Muhammed, and a manifestation of the Christian messiah Jesus in the Second Advent – something in there for everyone. There was a further split in the group, and today one branch – the Ahmadis – are considered Muslim by other Muslims; the larger group, known as Qadiyanis, are often not viewed as Muslim owing to separatist traits and the insistence that the founder of Ahmadiyyah be considered a prophet (when Islam, of course, insists that Muhammed is the last of the prophets).
So yes, this kind of thing is a clear problem. Are Qadiyanis, or the Taleban for that matter or a number of other groups Muslim simply because they claim to be? Are their practices Muslim simply because they seek and torture justification out of their religion? A religion may and always will be interpreted to mean almost anything.
The above is indeed offensive, though I don’t expect you to realize that immediately given your lack of information regarding the sects and schisms of Islam. The examples above are clearly not applicable. To claim that refusing blood transfers to a dying child is a Christian practice is ridiculous; to claim that polygamy is a Christian practice is equally ridiculous. Such statements are bound to be offensive to the majority of religious Christians, for obvious reasons – but look, you employed the terms “Mormons” and “Jehovah Witness” instead of “Christianity”. You avoided an unfair generalization by not ascribing the questionable traits/beliefs of a few to the many of a much larger group. Now is it really that unreasonable to ask the same for religions other than the set you grew up with? Especially when it comes to particularly unpleasant topics that could load the minds of simpletons and ignoramuses and provide ammunition for bigots?
You’d be settling for a simplistic and rather ignorant presentation of the facts then, and one that AI reports is held “by some”. But let’s see what in fact AI was talking about when they referred to the above items. In the light of the arguments already provided and of the lack of material substantiating the claim that honour killings are actually an Islamic phenomenon, I’ll let you follow up on this.
And their arguments could be shot down by a six year old, since they consist of empty assertions that are textually and logically incompatible with primary Islamic resources, but are in line with ancient cultural expectations that predate Islam. Scary.
Er, no. Being an Imam is no guarantee of intelligence and learning – and boy do I know about that on a personal level, having argued with a few such august “holy” personages. Being respected is often, much like politics, an item of propaganda: stir the people the right way, tell them what they want to hear, and you will be respected. I don’t know the fools in question, nor do I care to, but from their output I would wager they are yet more reactionary idiots. I’ve noticed that two things tend to happen when people emigrate to substantially different cultures: either they are absorbed syncretically in the new culture and evolve modified habits accordingly, or they feel their sense of cultural and religious identity is threatened, and as a result they deliberately bolster cultural and religious traits in defence. Sounds like the second is happening with those imams you cite.
Certainly that is one item from the Koran that could be misinterpreted as misogynistic, though it actually isn’t. We know it really refers to the breadwinner of the family taking proper care of his charge, don’t we? Here is a more elegant translation by Yusuf Ali: " Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has given the one more (strength) than the other, and because they support them from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient, and guard in (the husband’s) absence what Allah would have them guard." (4-34).
I suspect that you might see this a cause for misogynistic interpretation more than warranted. Keep in mind that Judaic and Christian traditions afforded women no right of succession to the family estate – in fact, women were sometimes considered part of the property being transferred in inheritance. Islam granted women all sorts of rights, including property and inheritance rights practically unheard of before, at least a thousand years before the notion started spreading in Europe and 1300 years before they became accepted fact. So, why does a woman inherit only half? The Koran sets out a number of reasons that become clear should one actually read the entire book, or at least the whole Sura:
Men are obliged by the Koran to bear larger financial burdens than women. 2) A bridegroom must provide his bride with a significant marriage gift, though a bride has no such obligation. 3) The maintenance of the family, including property, spouse/s, children, etc. are the responsibility of the husband; women are not obliged to contribute in this regard, though they may if they wish. 4) The woman’s property (whatever it is) belongs to her and her alone, even including regular earnings; she may do with it as she wishes. (relevant passages in the Koran: 4-7,4-11,4-12,4-176).
Today, with more women entering the workforce than ever before and earning a wage just like men, the inheritance law sounds sexist, but in spirit it is just the opposite: it was meant to offset the financial burden of men and to avoid gender conflict, thus to contribute to a happier household and society. Fascinating, IMO.
The Hadith and Saying of Muhammed of your next example are cited rather haphazardly, I can’t even tell where they are from. To give you an idea of how complex the situation is, take a look at the work involved in evaluating the Hadith: The Science of Hadith. To continue:
They both sound just fine to me, particularly the second one, although from a religious point of view I could question the first – where are they from?
Categorical assertions of misogyny, yes, unless they are humorous statements. The same goes for the others, with which I am not really familiar. This I must address:
Typical nonsensical output of that fucking bigoted idiot, and there is a lot more where that came from. Supposedly one, just one, of the Prophet’s several wives (out of 12) was a virgin. And his first wife was a woman several years his senior to which he was faithful until she died in her sixties, thus casting some doubt that Muhammed’s message involved the taking of prepubescent girls. Khomeini is expressing the hang-ups, insecurities, and problems popular in paternalistic societies and projecting them trying to use religion, conveniently forgetting the example set by his own prophet. And don’t forget that the concept of women as impure is a Judeo-Christian tradition that was much mitigated (not exacerbated) by Islam – just goes to show how little Khomeini understood his own faith, and how hard he fought for social retrogression in a number of areas.
Although Rafsanjani is correct in all but one or two of the arguments above, it would be useful to know what his thrust is and what he is saying in the conclusion. The final sentence is a bit vague to address without more information, but it’s not necessarily wrong: for women childbirth is a responsibility and maternal leave is a right, while immediate physical protection is, if anything, a husband’s duty.
Well, the way I remember it, I made a previously supported statement that was in fact a summary of an entire argument that you didn’t address. Your response to my claim was:
Perhaps you will notice that was not an answer. It was, at most, a footnote. The first sentence expresses only denial. The second sentence is an OK proposition, but you’ll note that I have in fact posited physical differences as one of the bases for the abuse of women (indeed, that is simply logical – if women weren’t different from men then they wouldn’t be women and they probably wouldn’t be the target of abuse towards women). The third sentence is without discernible meaning. Hence my reply, abbreviating your quote.
That’s a sizeable fallacy, and a statement in gross disregard of varying level of paternalism across cultures.
No, more likely it’s simply beyond your comprehension or ability to respond at the moment and you choose to call it pathetic and stupid because you have nothing else to offer, because you are irritated, and you feel you must validate yourself. Work on it, it’s actually a good hypothesis.
“You Christians, you should really stop letting your children die as a result of primitive superstition against blood transfusions or vaccinations”. Acceptable to address all Christians for the practice of some Christians, and practices that are rooted in stupidity at that, rather than religion?
That’s an entirely different analogy that doesn’t address the fallacy suggested by my original example. However this analogy has issues as well: is not eating pork necessarily a Muslim practice? Would you refer to someone you just met and whom you notice doesn’t eat pork as Muslim without more information?
Or you display an unreasonable unwillingness to consider an answer satisfactory unless it meets your narrow preconceived notions. For example, this is the thread I had in memory when I made my comments. No doubt you hold some sort of opinion regarding your position in that thread, but let me assure you it was a poor position if it was a position at all.
And? Can you show how these three sentences are linked in any way, but preferably logically? The closest you come to it is here a bit later on:
Which is nonsense based on the argument that the Koran is final revelation and thus it’s an entirely closed matter. Final revelation is certainly what the Koran purports to be, but we don’t have to accept such claims in order to study any aspect of it we wish. Besides, analysis of the Koran is in fact a discipline in Islam – finding out how the text applies to different situations and different eras.
No, reread my previous reply to you because I have addressed this already. The Koran doesn’t say beat your wife end of story; it says that before you beat her (and then only lightly) you must take certain precautions to ensure that you are acting in the right and without malice or other harmful sentiment. No doubt everyone would be much happier if the Koran said don’t beat wives at all, of course, however 1) Koranic instructions are a distinct improvement in the historical situation, and 2) an unprejudiced reading of the Koran will result in more passages than not establishing the rights of women, so it would be illogical and in direct contradiction to the Koran to take this passage as licence to abuse women when the book, overall, seems to indicate the opposite.
As the head of the family the man --like most other religions-- is the one obliged to be the one to restore order and settle disputes, but you make it sound like the Koran instructs to beat all disobedient women as a matter of course – I don’t see how.
What are you talking about? What is this categorical nonsense?
The Koran improved the status of women in Arabian society. To suggest that time would have taken care of the problems is quite ridiculous considering that these problems still happen around the globe today. Female infanticide, bridal kidnapping, the routine abuse of women, in recent times we have seen such practices as far away as China or Brazil (and, to a lesser extent, even in European/American socieities), which means time did not, apparently, remove the problem. The Koran addressed such issues and provided direct instructions on how to minimize them. Are you claiming that Koranic instructions had no impact on the treatment of women in pre-Islamic Arabia? Or are you saying that the attempt to establish women’s rights shouldn’t even have been made?
My own response is because there is no deity, there is only a large-scale endeavour in social engineering – but of course a religious person would disagree. I must question the relevance of discussing the Koran solely as a religious text and the literal word of God when we are in fact looking heavily towards historical contexts and social paradigms. By the way, your above argument can be applied to any religion for just about any topic.
Inasmuch as Islam is a patriarchal product, inasmuch as Islam is (as I have argued extensively) often used in order to emphasize paternalistic traits of culture, then you could say Islam has something to do with it – however if you followed the discussion so far you would have a number of arguments to address before coming out with the above question and implied statement. Culture versus religion.
Islam doesn’t “enshrine women as inferior”, that is simply nonsense. Some interpretations of Islam among particularly paternalistic and misogynistic cultures may take such an approach, but more as an item of culture than religion. And I’d like to hear a bit more concerning the assertion about the spread of Islam in North Africa, which thus far sounds like bigoted hogwash.
Remind me, hopefully with some relevant citations, how did it do this? And, if it did, how do you view the status granted to women by Islam when compared to other religious systems of the time? Please also do the same for this unsupported assertion:
I’d like to start seeing some evidence for these bold statements.
I suggest a reading of other religious texts as well as the Koran is in order, to see what big deal other religions did in fact make of this matter contrary to your opinion. Islam’s granting of women’s rights was a direct response to 1) the status quo in pre-Islamic Arabia and 2) the lack of such provisions in Judaism and Christianity, which provided bases for Islam. Such progress they made in thousands of years that not until fairly recently historically speaking did European women enjoy the same theoretical rights as women under Islam.
Cultural predisposition is what opens one up to abuse of the Koran or of Islam (or anything else), rather than Islam being innately misogynistic or whatnot. That’s what we’re arguing.
Not really, though your argument certainly is. The foolish and bigoted reduction you propose above, which nicely avoids the real issue, simply indicates why no one has ever given you an answer on Islam that you find “satisfactory”.
A rather closer, more informed, and more attentive reading of the Koran, along with adequate background knowledge of the issues involved and of the ground already covered by centuries of study.
Perhaps, rather than hand-wave vaguely we could have some substance out of you? You will note I have discussed a number of Koranic passages as they were brought up. Perhaps you could show some of these unequivocal “many counts” you are talking about, so we could examine them. And we may then compare them to Islam’s closest relatives, to see what role culture and other factors may have to play in the present status of European women (and mainly Christian derivatives) versus MENA (or Islam, though it’s not clear how you distinguish the two when it comes to negative influences).
Narrow and pre-conceived? Might I suggest that people who live their lives and organise their countries according to the dictats of one book are the narrow ones?
And I have no pre-conceived notions. All my notions are amendable providing I see sufficient justification. It’s the religious people that have pre-conceived notions.
Dunno what position you are talking about. I said islam seemed pretty inflexible, Tamerlane pointed out that it can change and sometimes does and that there is no such thing as one true islam. Interpretations vary widely. I agree with everything Tamerlane said but despite all that, islam still says you can beat your wife. Women still have a pretty oppressed role within islam (far as I can see).
If it can change (as Tamerlane says) then that’s good. But I still wish it would change itself out of existence - and it can take all the other organised religions with it on the way out.
My sentences were a response to you when you said:
Which is all very interesting but what does the bible have to do with anything? You were comparing the bible to the qu’ran but we aren’t talking about the bible, we’re talking about the qu’ran and it’s alleged divine origin.
And in any case they are both completely different things. One is a group of stories, the other presents as the direct word of God speaking in the first person.
There’s a difference because, in the bible, God is one stage removed from us. In any case we’re not talking about the bible.
I don’t think it’s an entirely closed matter. It’s open to interpretation, of course. However why does it need interpreting? If it comes from God then it should be perfect. We shouldn’t need to change it.
If it comes from God, why does it tell us to beat our wives?
Great. I wish them luck. I’m not sure they have much to work with though, much latitude in interpretation.
Oh well that’s wonderful then. Everything’s hunky dory, just peachy.
Ensure you are acting without malice while you kick the shit out of her.
And beat her lightly?
How the fuck do you beat someone lightly? Why beat them at all (lightly or otherwise)?
Maybe so. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but we aren’t living in the 7th century any more and haven’t for some time.
Hmm… we’ll get to this.
I don’t think the qu’ran instructs men to beat all disobedient women as a matter of course. I would imagine that the vast majority of muslim men would not dream of hitting their wife.
I don’t like it because it gives them the right to hit women, even if they never actually utilise this right. By giving them the right to hit women it reinforces the idea that the woman is a mere chattel, inferior in status.
You seem to be trying to reduce all the nasty bits to historical context, while keeping the nice bits.
Whilst enshrining their second class staus.
The position of women in Europe and America is much better than it used to be. And yet Europe and America have never followed the qu’ran. So it seems that the lot of women has improved in places where the qu’ran has never been read. Therefore the qu’ran has nothing to do with the improvement in the treatment of women.
I’m saying that women’s rights would have improved anyway, or they wouldn’t. Whatever. We don’t live in pre-islamic Arabia, we live now. I couldn’t give a shit about pre-islamic Arabia.
Well, at last. This is pretty much all I’m saying too. Except, I think there might be a deity.
That’s all I’m interested in because that’s how the people who believe it see it. And it’s the people who believe it who we have to live with.
I agree but this is a dry and dusty topic suitable, maybe, for a University degree course.
Next time you are face to face with a devout muslim, try arguing historical contexts and social paradigms and see how far you get.
Since neither you nor I believe that islam comes from God, could you tell me where you think it does come from? Could you tell me which parts of islam are not cultural, in your opinion? Where do these parts come from?
This is from The White Nile by Alan Moorehead. This is a passage describing the work of the christian missionaries in Africa. It was written in 1960 so some of the language sounds a bit dated but it’s interesting:
Why do you keep banging on about other religious systems when we’re talking about islam?
You want to see evidence of women being treated unfairly in islam? How about you stop talking about how islam in the 7th century was better than pre-islam and start talking about today?
The “beat your wife” provision is still there, the “women are your fields” stuff is still there, the polygamy provisions are still there, the marriage and divorce provisions are still there, there still ain’t much in store for women in islamic heaven. The qu’ran and hadith still seem to preach that men are the more “holy” and more “worthy” of the two sexes - check this out.
Then there are the more nebulous things that aren’t written down. The social pressure to conform that seems to be more pervasive in some islamic societies, the brotherhood concept, the apostacy stuff.
Possibly but then what is islam if not arabic cultural norms encoded into a religion?
I’m not really interested in a comparative religion course or in how islam affected 7th century arabia. If islam came from God then it should be equally as relevant to me in 21st century Europe as it was to a 7th century arab. Unfortunately, it’s not since so much of it seems to be either time-specific or culture-specific.
Just as an interesting little test for you. Can you cite me one teaching contained within islam that is actually unquivocally good? Just one. And it must be unique to islam - a new teaching that didn’t exist before islam.
The pillar of charity doesn’t count because islam didn’t invent the concept of charity, that existed anyway.
The granting of women’s rights doesn’t count, either, because women in Europe and America have attained equal rights and they managed this without the benefit of the qu’ran. So the qu’ran can’t have been responsible for this which means it may have happened anyway in the middle east, with or without islam.
Remember God wrote the qu’ran so it should be full of unequivocal, inarguable good teachings. Can you name me just one?
when you become a citizen or resident of this country, you agree to follow those laws. Murder is murder as far as we are concerned, and if Muslims want to be able to have the honor killing option open to them, they should stay where it is legal. Im all for cultural respect. I do not beleive that Muslims should be made to blend seamlessly with our Judeo-Christian values. That being said, Freedom or Religion does not translate into “Freedom to kill that woman because the llama made of lettuce that you worship and lives in your ear said so”
oh and which religions fall under the umbrella of “freedom of religion excused killings”? What about the “I just made up this religion of kill all the people i dont like” religion. You can follow it if you want to. So does it count? You can worship the rotten head of lettuce in your refrigirator. Does that count? Your religion is protected and valid as long as it does not interfere with others rights to be happy and, you know, BREATHE.
A simplistic and narrow minded anti-religion interpretation with a focus on antipathy for Islam. I’ll let the preconceptions you expressed in the other thread speak for themselves rather than argue them here, where you have given us plenty more to ponder.
Fine, but we’re not here to argue about the merits of religion in general.
No. We’re talking about a holy book similar to others and the ways in which it is used and regarded. If you think that that alone is not reasonable grounds for comparison to its closest organic relative, the Bible, I’m afraid the argument won’t get very far.
Further, it makes the simplest sense to look at Islam’s historical neighbour to view in context some of these evils you repeatedly allege but seem unable to handle more concretely.
Really? Did you ever happen to open either the Koran or the Bible and actually read them? As it happens they both purport to be the word of God, and both are handed down by prophets – in the case of the Bible many prophets, in the case of the Koran one primary prophet drawing upon the word of an angel and the work of other past prophets. God does not speak in the first person in the Koran appreciably any more than he does in the New or Old testaments. And the revelation is not direct, as it happens it was the angel Gabriel who dictated to Mohammed, as the story goes.
So my previous comments stand.
I wonder if you are being deliberately simplistic here. Every religious text needs to be interpreted to some degree. As simple a commandment as “thou shalt not steal” needs to be interpreted for crying out loud – what exactly consists of stealing? What if something was mine to begin with but was stolen, can I steal that? Are there exonarating circumstances for stealing? Even if the word of god is perfect and untouchable, as some Biblical literalists also claim, you can’t rule out intepretation. You can, however, rule out a religiously invalid interpretation that says “go forth and abuse women to your heart’s content” when in fact justifying such a statement would require some serious twisting of the religious text.
It doesn’t tell us to beat our wives.
I am rather tired of responding to this kind of intellectually bankrupt stupidity Jojo. Let me answer it this way: how do you beat a child lightly? You may spank him. You may even hit him symbolically. Does it mean you “beat the shit out of him”? Of course not, that is just an exaggeration you are employing as a cheap rhetorical device to redefine the argument on your terms. It’s not going to work. I am not here to answer stupid questions, particularly not from someone who only demonstrates intent to denigrate religions in general and one in particular.
Finally a semblance of an argument. Fair point Jojo, but one I have already addressed. I have explained the background involved behind the whole beating thing, yet you repeatedly insist on brushing historical context aside in your little quest, and you insist on an ultra-literal reading of the text, except in those portions where you add your own convenient additions (such as “beating the shit out of her”).
That one passage in the Koran, which I have gone over and over, may be used to suggest that a woman is deserving of inferior treatment. Of course, such a view would be in direct contradiction to several other passages I have quoted, and it would therefore seem more logical to treat the passage as I have attempted to. Repeating that this passage represents an amelioration in the status of women rather than licence to abuse them will likely be useless, since you seem incapable of appreciating the value of such a statement.
Instead let me ask you whether we consider children as chattels. We feel free to beat them lightly when they misbehave, but that doesn’t in any way mean we don’t consider children as important or even more important than ourselves.
Start citing rather than equivocating and twisting responses directed to you, or your output will continue to be garbled.
This based on a half paragraph quoted earlier, that one single passage in the Koran “enshrines” second class status according to you? Sorry, you’ll need an argument before that can be bought by anyone. I have challenged you on this matter how many times now?
The improvement in status of women in European and derivative societies is a recent phenomenon, as we hopefully recognize. It’s got a history behind it and it’s largely not a religious matter; it’s a result of feminist movements that emerged in relatively recent times. It is very true that in relatively recent times the progress of feminism in Europe (and derivatives) has overtaken the progress made elsewhere; and it is also true that in some nations where Islam is dominant there has been retrogression in the status of women – I have discussed as much a number of times without need for your simplistic and false summations. What you need to do is explain by what sick and perverted “logic” you reach the conclusion of the paragraph quoted above.
Heck, are you able to juggle multiple factors in your mind, or must everything boil down to a convenient simplistic rationalization? What if factors other than just Islam are involved in the status of women you decry? (which is what I was arguing last week)
And I don’t give a shit about your feeble and reductionist arguments, Jojo. I haven’t addressed such deliberate stupidity in quite some time. Of course, I may be ignoring the possibility that you are simply devoid of any historical sense, and that you think the here and now is all that matters, but fortunately other people have a higher regard for knowledge and context than you do – not just historical context either, context is any circumstances relevant to something under consideration, be it history, culture, or even neighbouring influences. Thus when one makes the categorical claim that Islam “enshrines” the status of women as second class, one would expect to see at least an item or two of evidence to support such assertions rather than deliberately silly and simplistic interpretations of one passage taken out of context.
You have failed to demonstrate knowledge of the Koran and of Islam as regards textual and historical matters, and you have conveniently sought to redefine the terms of the discussion in order to avoid any subject except the most fundamental literalist reading of the book – a book you don’t even appear to know! That approach is more fundamentalist than most of the fundamentalists I have met.
It’s a topic you studiously avoid. Whether because you think it’s “dry and dusty” or because you know nothing about it, the end result is the same: you refuse to debate it.
Quite far, actually, since I have actually done this a fair bit and you almost certainly haven’t. “Devout” does not mean “ignorant” or “incapable of open discussion”, and that goes for any religion.
Strictly from a scholarly point of view, Islam comes primarily from Judaism and Christianity, as I have mentioned – just as Christianity is a development from Judaism, Islam is the next main iteration of Abrahamic monotheism. It was a unification and re-engineering of Arabian societies under Mohammed, employing some remarkably advanced social devices and mixing liberally from the two other religions – that’s as likely a reason to explain why in Islam you have, for example, the classic Judaic “eye for an eye” (which was superseded in Christianity) or the injunction against eating pork, but also a prophecy involving the return of Jesus at the end of the world (just like in Christianity). Indeed, the Jesus of Islam and Christianity differs mainly on the issue of divinity, with Muslims believing that he was a great prophet and born from a virgin at the will of god, but not in fact an actual deity himself.
At a certain point – let’s call it the inception point – a number of cultural and religious traditions coalesced to form Islam. Thus, while some aspects of the Koran are practical, some are philosophical, some are dedicated to such things as commerce or social behaviour, I have a hard time not viewing most of them as religious because they are stated right there in the holy book as a religion. However that does not mean that all subsequent additions and especially accretions are also necessarily religious.
Ah, this book. A collection of classic accounts of exploration that are a good and entertaining read, but written for mass audiences, written to titillate rather than provide historical accounts or reliable information. A book that treats Africans in general as backwards primitive savages, Islam as a loose religion not demanding of any effort or honesty (unlike, surprise surprise, the Christianity of the writers), and its audience as historically uneducated. Somehow I am really not surprised you have brought this forward, Jojo. The other points of view you have espoused also seem to come from equally questionable sources of historical information.
By the way, the book has a somewhat archaic style because it is based on accounts from the end of the 19th century, and Moorehead deliberately imitates their style. Do you have a real cite for the assertion I originally challenged, or are you happy with this?
Context. Even religions don’t exist in vacuum.
I have. You, on the other hand, haven’t talked about any such topic meaningfully, and I’ll thank you if you would finally start with some items of substance rather than alluding vaguely to alleged wrongs.
I see, more casual passing mentions to counter the in-depth treatments I have put forward so far.
Yes, a pathetically obvious propaganda piece clumsily authored by an intellectual midget, posted on a site that seems dedicated to denouncing Islam, and not written with even the most rudimentary appreciation for cultural versus religious differences. All this tells me is you had better do some serious reading rather than wallow in the biased and obsolete materials provided so far.
Some are accretions that are by no means universally accepted in Islam, in fact frequently challenged. “Pressure to conform” is a meaningless term in a discussion of a religion, since there is always such pressure where religion is involved. Apostasy already discussed. Brotherhood concept is closer to the universal love espoused in Christianity and is written down – I don’t see what is nebulous about it.
If anything, Islam is a rejection or strong modification of Arabic cultural norms – pre-Islamic Arabian cultural norms to be precise. Influences from Judaism and Christianity suitably modified and coded into a religion for the peninsula. Rather different from your account. My original statement quoted above still stands.
All your arguments thus far indicate that a comparative religion course is precisely what you need, and badly. The above quote is a rehash of the earlier simplistic complaints, so my previous writings address that adequately.
Define your terms more precisely, or quit this infantile nonsense. I have spent pages trying to explain to you advantages (comparative and non) of Islam, while you have only attempted to smear an entire religion for no apparent reason. Now you whine about wanting “just one” example of something which I have been providing since I entered this thread, when you haven’t provided squat other than biased nonsense and vague allusions.
It’s reasonable grounds for comparison if you want to engage in a comparative religions study. If, on the other hand, you happen to be a christian then the qu’ran means nothing. If you happen to be a muslim then the qu’ran is everything.
Uh?
I bow to your expertise but last time I looked the qu’ran is entirely God speaking in the first person whereas the bible is God speaking to other people and them subsequently relating the story to us.
Well Gabriel is a supernatural link between Mohammed and God. I think we can safely say that Gabriel relayed the message intact.
I always try to be deliberately simplistic.
God doesn’t seem to be a very good writer then if he says “beat your wife” but he didn’t really mean it. If a text comes from God then it should be perfect, it shouldn’t need tortuous interpretation in order to figure out what the heck He was talking about.
Doesn’t it? What about that bit where it says “beat your wives”?
You’re doing well, Coll had usually given up by now.
Are you suggesting that God wants us to spank our wives?
No my argument is:
Who is the man to decide when a grown woman needs spanking or chastising? She’s not a child.
Don’t worry, I dislike all religions equally. I only pick on islam because 1) it presents an easy target 2) it’s so big 3) at it’s extremes it’s positively dangerous and 4) they all seem to believe it so unquestioningly (which implies brainwashing to me - certain levels of unquestioning belief make me feel uncomfortable)
You’re suggesting we should ignore it? Why did God write it then if we were supposed to ignore it?
I’m not convinced it did represent an amelioration in the treatment of women. You seem to be saying that before islam men just proceeded straight to the beating without talking to them first.
I don’t agree. I think men probably did talk to them first same as they do now, same as they ever did.
Women aren’t children.
You said that the qu’ran was responsible for women attaining equality. I said that women have attained equality in places where the qu’ran has never been. So it seems that those women (the European ones) didn’t need God in order to attain equality.
Therefore it is possible for women to attain equality without the qu’ran therefore the qu’ranic provisions regarding women are unnecessary. Why then did God give us them since a) they didn’t
work and b) in parts of the world where women have attained equality the qu’ran had nothing to do with it?
I am able to juggle multiple factors but I prefer simplicity - to cut to the chase.
There are other factors involved, of course, but we’re talking about islam. Let’s take the factors one at a time.
Historical context is all well and good but I don’t want to be a prisoner of history. Just because people used to do X back in the dark ages doesn’t mean we have to do it now.
The difference between you and me could be that you just want to understand things whereas I would like society to change them. You are saying we’ve reached this particular point in history because of x,y,z reasons. Well great but where do we go from here?
Hey, don’t blame me. I didn’t write the book. I’m just a disinterested observer.
Because I don’t think it really gets you anywhere.
And on some of the events in his life such as the crucifixion.
I accept all that but are you saying it’s wrong in relation to how the Africans viewed islam and women?
Good, I hate to disappoint.
I haven’t used any sources of historical information. I refuse to do that, remember?
(I thought we’d finally established that)
Yes that site is dedicated to denouncing islam (it’s written by ex-muslims) but it does have the advantage of conveniently packaging groups of arguments all in one place. I never read it myself except when I find myself arguing with people like you.
Not really. The brotherhood concept creates an “us” and “them” situation. To be in the brotherhood you must be a muslim, if you are not a muslim then you are outside the brotherhood. The exact opposite of christian universal love, in fact.
I knew you would refuse to answer that question. You’re good at waffle but not so good at answering direct questions.
Well, take comfort - you’ve lasted longer than coll ever did, he would have blown a fuse by now, purple with apoplectic rage.
Yes that is my definition, and I do insist to take it as the sole criterion, since I can find none other that can be used. The fact is that any other definition, as I see it, would demand that there exists an objectively correct and wrong answer. Tamerlane though relying solely on self-identification was taking relativism too far. Now, you might imagine, I’m not much for cultural relativism in general, but I do think religion poses a special case. One may point here or there in the religious texts and believe something has been proved, when in effect nothing has or can ever be proved, and anyway proof is wholly besides the point – when, as I’ve already written, religion, for the believer, is matter of faith not logic. There is no definite, final answer to anything in religion, and none can say what’s right and what’s wrong – this is a matter entirely between you and your God (and I do think this is heavily flavoured by the protestant culture, if not religion, in which I grew up).
Finally I don’t remember you have put up a definition yourself. Not a thing I necessarily hold that against you; not all complex phenomenons can have a single definition – sometimes we’ll have to work on an ad hock basis (which is pretty much what my definition is). But if you’d put forward a suggestion for a better definition, we can have a look at it.
I already answered that somewhere up there: “So what is a considerable number? Well I don’t know, but a percentage of either Jordan or Pakistan will do.”
First, it’s not clear, since that’s what we’re discussing. Second, many things that are considered a Moslem practice is also practiced outside Islam (pork). Third you say it’s not a religious dogma, others clearly claim otherwise (and again we’re back to definitions).
We’ve been over these parts two times already (abortion bombers, slave owners) Again you’ll note that what’s being discussed is not Islam, but some Moslems interpretation of Islam. If you argue that some Christians have an interpretation of Christianity as a religion of violent aggression – you’d be quite correct in my opinion. To get a bit beyond this point in the discussion, I put forward the notion that many of the problems arise from the insistence of many Moslems as seeing all of Islam as a one, and not as a bunch of sects and different schisms with radical different interpretations (as Christians, dragging their feet, have been forced to with Christianity). Which leads Moslem A to the faulty conclusion that his faith is being criticised when in fact it’s only Moslem B’s faith that’s being criticised. E.g. It must be possible to criticise Islam in one version, without criticising other versions of Islam, or the “whole” of Islam.
As for your latest example of Christian aggression. I’m not going to go into it, because apparently we have radically different views on this issue, differences which lies wholly outside this thread. Undoubtedly you could have found an example to illustrate your point everybody could have agreed with, why choose one so controversial? It seems to be a setup for thread derailment and very counter productive to the discussion at hand.
I question whether it’s possible to hijack a religion (basically because there is no religion, only a number of sects that for convenience is filed under the same category). And I know you have challenged the definition, but until a better one is proposed we’ll be forced to work with what we have.
Perhaps, but the subject is Islam, and misogynistic interpretation of the Islamic texts; we both agree that it’s possible?
Which I gladly would if I thought I used a broad brush – but I do not think I do. It’s is you who keep bringing in the whole of Islam, when I’m only addressing the subset of Moslem that interpret Islam in such and such a way. In any case I do not insist on calling it Islamic, for me this whole mess only started as a challenge to the categorical denial that it can be called Islamic at all. And you will remember I though it besides the point whether it was Islamic or not when addressing the original OP (i.e. you can call it Smurfish for all I care; it’s still rotten).
It matters for the reasons that I put up. That if we are to discuss Islam in its cultural, historical, etc. perspectives and in its many varied interpretations, then a believing Moslem would have difficulties going there because he would as a matter of doctrine believe the Koran is perfect. For the record I was raised in an atheist home, but admittedly in a national culture heavily influenced my Protestant tradition. Today I’d classify myself under some form of Agnosticism or Deism.
In turn I’d challenge this on the basis that such a project would seem to demand premeditation on behalf of its founders. Which may be true in some details, but overall I’d find a very big fish to swallow. But for the record I find many admirable aspects of Islam and Christianity and other religions (but admittedly Christianity lies my heart the closest), just as I find other aspects I find despicable – such as honour killing, female genital mutilation, witch burning, abortion bombing, etc.
You and me both. I was addressing the categorical denial that X or Y is not a thing or Z religion – when that’s a thing of faith alone.
Moslem is as Moslem does. If the same Moslems claim the practise is a thing of their faith, it is fair to say that it is a Moslem practise for that Moslem. All we’ll be doing is taking his word for it. Which is why your first analogy about eating was a strawman, and the second with pork better summed up my position.
A response to be expected from someone displaying the skills you have put in evidence. At least the concepts I was discussing with WS were related to the OP. Why don’t you go create your own happy little thread and piss all over religion in there, eh? Maybe you’ll even attract the kind of simplistic and ignorant attitudes you seem to favour.
I’m skipping ahead liberally throughout this reply, because I wager you are the only one deluded by your posts, but especially because you have already been provided with adequate responses.
Heh, we can safely say that the prophets and apostles of the Bible also relayed the message intact – after all they were divinely inspired and the Bible is as holy a book as the Koran. In fact, in many respects the Bible really is very similar to the Koran – both seem to share a lot of the same material, both are the word and will of god. Even adopting an ultra-literalist take as you insist on I fail to see your point. Is the Koran, according to you, supposed to be somehow more reliable than the Bible because it’s based mainly on one prophet drawing upon the experiences of many??
That explains everything. Everything. And the sad thing is that you don’t understand why such an attitude is undesirable (not to mention unacceptable for informed debate).
He is more virulently allergic to stupidity and illogical unsupported arguments than I am, and I am by no means immune. You’re giving me a horrible metaphorical rash with the attitudes and arguments you put forward.
The man is the head of the household, according to the Koran (and Christianity too). It is his duty to keep things running smoothly. Should the integrity of the household be compromised, it falls to the man to set matters straight or ask for matters to be set straight. This does not suggest the man is infallible, and in fact there are Koranic warnings against thinking in such manner. The example of spanking a child was a response to foolish questions such as “how do you beat someone lightly” and other dishonesties.
Now, in terms of context – that thing you dislike so much – one would have to read the rest of the Koran to understand how women are viewed, rather than rely on prejudice and poor information about one passage among thousands others. One would also want to look at historical and social context in order to broaden one’s vision and hopefully clarify trends, though I expect this more from scholars rather than the adherents of a religion. I have explained this point before, and I have even pointed out how this head of household provision may indeed be interpreted as unfavourable in certain cases. Now you show, and it’s about time you did, how this passage and others of the Koran “enshrine” the abuse and inferior class of women.
All four points (or three, since number 1 isn’t valid but would seem to be the conclusion of such a list) may be applied to any religion as easily as you applied them to Islam, further suggesting that you simply have a problem with religion in general and your cultural bias drives your specific problem with Islam. All doctrine involves a degree of brainwashing. All believers believe, and many believe unquestioningly. Could that be something common to human systems of belief rather than something particular to Islam?
Here the deficiency in your knowledge of the history of this region is glaring. Arabia prior to the advent of Islam was a loose collection of tribal cultures that, although consisting of different tribes and ethnic groups, were generally lawless. The only law that well and truly existed in the land was the law of might, and as a consequence women would have been at the mercy of men, who are physically stronger. The structure of each tribe relied on the war skills of its members, and therefore women were sidelined. Rights such as divorce, choosing a marriage partner, and inheriting family property did not apply to women, as previously mentioned. Female babies were not assumed to have the right to live, but could be put down because male children were seen as preferable (this still happens in China, though the government deemed it a crime, and in other places). There were some reasons for this lack of equality: females were perceived as less productive and less honourable than males; further, should a daghter be captured by another tribe in conflict, as was customary, shame was thought to descend upon the father and his family – through no fault of the hapless victimized daughter, but there you have it. (Compare this particular item of pre-Islamic family shame by extension with the shame cited as reason for honour killings, and tell me if you see similarities. Now, given the lack of provisions for honour killings in Islam, I would say this is more proof that we are dealing with a cultural phenomenon).
Such issues were enough of a problem to merit direct mention in the Koran and emphasis from the prophet. Women before Islam were afforded no rights and were indeed second class citizens in Arabia as well as in the neighbouring (Christian and non) regions and other places, making the problem widespread to say the least.
The above is ignorant, Jojo, and I’m being charitable here. You are insisting, for the third message in a row if I am not mistaken, on a fallacy that wants to restrict advocacy of sexual equality to the Koran, for purposes so strange I have difficulty putting them in words. Well, it may come as a surprise to your absurdly reductionist point of view, but it’s entirely possible for women’s rights to be advocated or preached by more than one source, at different times in history, in completely different places, and with different results. A rudimentary knowledge of the subject is required to avoid making ridiculous assertions.
No, I’d say based on our exchanges that you prefer absurdly simplistic interpretations because then little knowledge is required of you to distort and ignore arguments, and because absurd simplicity permits you to play dumb in order to prove, fallaciously, points that would thus far appear to be supported mainly by bigotry and/or poor information.
You might start by educating yourself on topics such as the history of feminism and women’s rights rather than relying entirely on your instantaneous misconceptions, many of which are and have been easily disproved. Once you actually understand something – understand, not think you know a little about – then you can talk with some credibility about change. Until you demonstrate some understanding or even willingness to understand, the only thing your output is likely to change is informed people’s opinions of you – for the worse.
Because it doesn’t get you anywhere in your anti-religion/anti-Islam rant. And that in turn is because you demonstrate poor knowledge of such matters, and are unable to make effective use of them.
Good that you accept the criticisms I levelled at the questionable source of your information. Now you could do something unprecedented, you could make a point supported by a reliable cite and a logical argument rather than imply vaguely about something you know little of and expect others to do the work. But yes, I reject as foolish and sweeping the statement you made regarding “Africans” and adoption of Islam; I also reject the rather racist characterization of Africans found in Moorehead’s book. And by extension how they responded to Islam. Again: got a better source?
You think you’re being funny, but this is tragic – not just for you and me, but for these message boards. No wonder you have a warped view of Islam in particular and religion in general if you embrace such wilful ignorance – you are pandering to your preconceptions rather than challenging them. Hit the history books, and follow that up with an overview of comparative religion. Do that, and I think you’ll be surprised reading some of your own assertions in this thread.
And you actually have used one source of historical information, albeit a poor one that is more entertainment than historical treatise.
By “People like me” surely you mean those making the effort to proceed from an informed position and actually addressing the materials as opposed to hand waving like third-rate prestidigitators and claiming the appearance of “arguments” by magic? I suggest more scholarly or at least objective sources for information about topics on which you know little. If I didn’t know Christianity sufficiently to discuss it, would I want to get my information from a web site consisting mainly of the rantings of angry and bitter ex-Christians busy throwing mud at their ex-religion? Would I want to rely publicly on an essay written so poorly that it should cause mortal embarrassment to the author, were he able to comprehend the elementary mistakes he makes and how evident his bias is? Of course not, I would see that kind of approach as rather counterproductive. I’d look for a bit more objectivity, if not in the author then definitely in the material I am examining. And particularly for the purposes of this thread, I would look for awareness of distinctions between cultural and religious items where possible.
I said the concepts were similar, not that they were identical. And they are – certainly the “universal love” in Islam is properly confined to the unity of Islam though provisions are made for other faiths (other than, obviously, polytheistic/pantheistic beliefs, which are considered taboo), whereas in Christianity the concept is almost entirely open-ended (though woe be to witches and certain other groups). Funny, though, how in both Islam and Christianity you will find “us and them” problems to remarkably similar degrees. Such problems result from the tribal instincts of humankind, tendencies that some people actually work hard to reduce, whereas others like you happily make ridiculous claims without a second thought to the possible consequences.
Put your money where your blathering mouth is. Discuss examples in a pseudo-intelligent and semi-thorough manner at the very least, and I will reply on those and other issues as long as my taxed patience lasts. Let me repeat what I said earlier: “you whine about wanting “just one” example of something which I have been providing since I entered this thread, when you haven’t provided squat other than biased nonsense and vague allusions.”
The one waffling here is you, Jojo, with your refusal to cite anything better than two biased sources (one an entertainment book, the other an angry subjective rant on a Web site equally as dubious as SecularIslam). Do you really want me to explain why your request was stupid to the point of inadmissibility? Shall I really detail why your infantile and self-serving calls of “it doesn’t count” are hardly acceptable outside of the sandbox?
No I don’t understand why simplicity is undesirable but I think this may be a philosophical difference between us. The fact that you don’t understand why simplicity is desirable explains everything I need to know about you.
Your first paragraph is an answer to the question you pose in the second paragraph.
You answered your own question! Cool, I love it when people do that - less work for me to do.
Agreed. It’s just that the number of muslims who are unquestioning seems to be very high (almost every one I meet) compared to the number of christians, jews, sikhs, hindus etc who are unquestioning.
But I accept this is just anecdotal and you may have had a different experience.
All of this may well be true but it bears no relation to what I was talking about.
What I am talking about are simple relations between men and women. Men have might, it is true, but women have their own weapons which they still use today to devastating effect.
Within the confines of a relationship there are only two people - the man and the woman. Their whole world revolves around this relationship almost to the exclusion of everything else. The two get to know almost everything about each other. They begin to define the world in terms of each other.
I find it hard to believe that the relationship between a man and woman has changed all that much in the 1400 years since pre-islamic arabia.
The arabians may have been primitive by our standards but they were still human. All I’m saying is that arabian men probably, even back then, argued with their wives before they hit them. Much as men who hit their wives do today.
I also find it hard to believe that the introduction of a religious code makes all that much immediate difference to the way men act ie violently inclined men will always be violently inclined men (unless they reform). Non-violently inclined men will always be non-violently inclined men.
You seem to be suggesting that men were knocking their wives around left, right and centre and then the quran came along and they suddenly saw the light and stopped. I don’t think it was all quite as clear cut as you’re making out.
I love you too, sweetie.
Why did you put the word Africans in inverted commas?
What are your thoughts on “Asians”? Or “Europeans”?
That “faith freedom” site may well be bitter but I personally am glad that sites like it exist in the world. There are plenty of anti-catholic sites out there, for example. All religions should have their anti-sites but particularly islam because wholesale criticism of islam is pretty much banned in muslim countries, far as I’m aware.
Muslims are too precious about their religion. Islam is big enough to take care of itself, they shouldn’t fear criticism. The guy who runs that site, Ali Sina, is anonymous because he would be in grave danger if his identity was known.
By the way, I understand that in the 70s a group of muslim dissidents took over the mosque in Mecca and began burning copies of the quran - do you have any information as to who these people were and what their agenda was?
(This is an honest question, I just wondered)
I understand what you are saying here but I don’t agree with you. Whilst it would be nice if we all lived together happily side by side, I think we can also profitably discuss our differences. So we all understand where we are coming from.
Only a week or so ago I was discussing islam with a (moderate) muslim, he said to me:
“If you only understood islam properly, you would become a muslim yourself”
This is not a completely uncommon belief among muslims - that if only people understood islam more, they would see the light and convert. Those muslims who hold to this belief appear to have no notion that people may disagree pretty strongly with almost everything about islam - it’s beliefs, it’s philosophies, it’s rules, it’s dress codes everything.
They seem to think that the only problem is that people don’t understand it enough. They need to be disabused of this notion in the same way we disabuse other religious people of the notion.
The problem could stem from the fact that they aren’t exposed to enough criticism from within their own circles. Criticism of islam by muslims is seen as bad form, borderline apostacy/treachery. Such criticism is not tolerated by family members, by society or by governments. Free thought gets stifled.
They can live like this if they want to, I don’t really care. But don’t expect me to silently sit by and watch. I have too big a mouth and I hate to see people so obviously being shafted by a religion. I feel their pain, I feel sorry for them almost, if you like. But, don’t worry, I do my bit for inter-religious relations. I know stacks of muslims and I get on great with all of them and they seem to like me. Hmm…life’s weird sometimes.
I asked you one really simple question:
Tell me one teaching you like in islam (a currently relevant teaching, please don’t waffle on about pre-islamic arabia for three pages).
And you couldn’t answer the question.
I could give you some teachings I like in islam eg interest, I hate interest. I could be persuaded to the islamic view on interest.
Another one - respect between family members. I once met one muslim guy I know standing out in the rain smoking a cigarette rather than going into his kitchen where all his mates were. I asked him why he was standing in the rain, he replied it’s because his brother was in the kitchen and it’s considered rude to smoke in front of his brother (or another family member).
I don’t know if this really is an islamic teaching or just a cultural thing but still the respect shown was nice.
See, I’ve come up with two. You couldn’t even name one.
Well, Jojo, you dug a nice hole for yourself with the nonsense about desiring to be deliberately simplistic. That’s an admission of wilful ignorance, and, ironically, it does indeed simplify things.
More like no work for you at all, since you haven’t done any yet in this thread. I am asking you to demonstrate how that passage “enshrines” anything, and I asked you to use real arguments this time rather than evasive bullshit or conveniently unsupported conclusions.
Contrary to your uninformed assertions, the many hundreds of millions of abused women around the world (as many as one in three globally) hardly think their “weapons” are “devastating”, according to Ending Violence Against Women, a report from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and the Center for Health and Gender Equity. A write-up from ABC News can be found here and should be rather easier to read than the several pages, figures, charts, and tables in the report that I know you would otherwise just skip.
Violence against women is a serious problem. It’s not going to go away until we look at the real causes and stop making scapegoats out of religion – and, of course, until those so inclined stop twisting religion to justify their domineering and misogynistic tendencies.
What you find hard to believe is not the height of relevancy, given the lack of understanding you have exhibited over such topics, and of course the corresponding lack of supported arguments you have made. Is there anything more substantial than culturally biased wild guesses and conjecture that you would like to bring to the table?
I’m not going to address this kind of dithering, but I will point out that you have no problem at all claiming that Islam “enshrines” and encourages behaviour such as the abuse of women, a conclusion you base on a couple of ambiguous passages that you do not understand, on highly biased rants masquerading as essays, and on vague reports of cultural practices falsely assumed to be religious. That sort of sloppy evidence is no problem for you to accept. But when something in the Koran, the primary source, is spelled out clearly as prohibiting the abuse of women and encouraging respectful treatment of them, you pull out idiocy such as that quoted above and claim it wouldn’t have had a significant effect anyway. Talk about double standards.
Besides, the introduction of religious code certainly seems to have reduced alcohol consumption, why not other behaviour?
I knew you would ask. Africa is a continent made up of 54 (or so) countries, with a population of roughly 800 million people, and representing about 13% of the world. The racist and bigoted crap you quoted from White Nile, sadly your only real cite of substance in this discussion, treats Africans as a homogenous culture of primitive tribesmen incapable of intellectual sophistication and so forth.
My thoughts are that I wouldn’t dream of being so careless as to say that a religion spread here or there because of whatever physical, mental, and cultural traits I may ascribe to “Asians”, which would be a gross generalization. That is simply racist and ignorant. And “Europeans” too, for that matter, though it is somewhat easier to discuss in terms of “Europeans” given the integration, size, history, and proximity of various European cultures; still, you’ll find rather sizeable differences across the board between, say, Scotland and Greece.
So you actively seek bigoted and selective bullshit citations in order to validate your own preconceptions? Wilfully obtaining information on such topics from a web site like the one you chose to link is every bit as as bad as getting information from hate groups. You’re wallowing in bias and managing to amplify it at the same time. Don’t you get suspicious when you read items such as “if we let Islam grow in the West, Muslims will eventually take arms and will take away our freedom”?
Criticism of Islam is not very easy to come by in predominantly Islamic countries, but A) this has quite a bit to do with repressive government attitudes, and B) there is plenty of valid criticism out there that does not require you to resort to bigoted material like that of Ali Sina, who may or may not be an ex-Muslim but is most certainly bigoted. As I said, try look for more objective information and people might take your comments more seriously. I earlier mentioned Mahmud Shaltut and Mohammed Sayed Tantawi as prominent and highly respected Islamic figures that have spoken out against some controversial topics such as apostasy; though, of course, you will find the most honest critics will be those scholars able to present their criticisms objectively without unnecessarily denigrating or exalting – because they are trained to do so and/or because they assume a neutral stance towards the matter.
No wonder, with the kind of bigotry he spreads the guy does much more harm than good and is too damn simple-minded to realize it (he may also be an evil fuck out to disparage). If this guy isn’t fundamentally stupid, he must have his own dirty little agenda, since he goes as far as stating that things like the Bali bombing are representative of Islam (perhaps he missed the choruses of condemnation for such atrocities and instead focused only on the fanatics, a popular tactic among bigots). I also agree that, on the whole, Muslims tend to be somewhat too protective of their religion, but that is an entirely different discussion and one that must also involve geopolitical influences that caused the “fundamentalization” of Islam in recent times – things such as external influences, colonialism, cold war power plays, etc.
For what it’s worth, killing those you disagree with on the basis of religion is certainly not something particular to Islam, and this would be especially obvious to a student of history.
Well of course. But try to leave unsupported bigoted assertions out of it.
I’m quoting this in its entirety because it describes exactly the practice of witnessing: talk about how great your god is, and then expect people to understand his greatness and convert their opinions instanter. Nothing quite as annoying as witnessing. Anecdotally, I have been badgered by more Christians than Muslims on this topic, by a very large margin. there is no shortage of witnessing on these boards either. I would say the main difference is that witnessing is a religious institution in many sects of Christianity, but somewhat less institutionalized across Islam. Again, we are not talking about a fault of Muslims here, rather a question related to theistic belief.
Not so much among moderates, where discourse is accepted in spite of some sensitivities. Of course, it’s not moderates who make the headlines and gain notoriety, it’s fuckheads like ayatollah Khomeini, bin Laden, and other extremists.
No, you simply couldn’t read it. Nevermind, I have encountered this denial before. Here, loosely speaking, is a summary of some items Muhammed instituted:
Equality of all believers regardless of race and class
The rights to life and property
Removal of interest
Abolition of the practices of vendettas, personal justice, and vigilantism, replaced with emphasis on systems of justice or judgment by Allah
Improved treatment of women as full human beings entitled to rights and political voice, and not as second class citizens
Institutionalized charity (alms for the poor)
Codified inheritance laws to prevent rampant abuse of deceased’s porperty (laws that also take account of women, and prevent women from being treated as inheritable property)
I have outlined teachings considered to have significant social impact – there are other key teachings of course, such as the keystone belief in one god without idols or symbols, but in terms of social models the above are of special impact. I have discussed a number of these items repeatedly in this thread, so it’s rather silly for you to keep claiming that I am not answering the question when this whole thread is a set of answers. I won’t even get into your entirely arbitrary pre-emptive disqualification of answers you thought I may give, that is a tack I dismiss out of hand.
Interest is valid, though of course the charging of interest has both advantages and disadvantages. Your treatment of the matter however is cursory, to say the least. In terms of context, which is always useful, Muhammed had some background in mercantilism and learned some of his merchant skills from his first wife Khadijia – 15 years his senior and the very first convert of Islam.
Not in itself Islamic, depending on what you are talking about. While Islam definitely advocates respectful behaviour, smoking in front of other people is considered rude in many parts of the world for the reasons that smoke stinks and is bad for the health, not really on religious grounds. But certainly Islam encourages the deepest respect and love for family, and this translates into tight family bonds. The fourth commandment in the Bible is of course “honour thy father and mother” – the same material is in the Koran, and interestingly it mentions the ordeals of childbearing for women: “And We have enjoined on man (to be good) to his parents: in travail upon travail did his mother bear him, and in years twain was his weaning: (hear the command), Show gratitude to Me and to thy parents” (31:14 tr. Yusuf Ali). Also, a Hadith attributes to Muhammed the saying, “Paradise lies under the feet of mothers” (this may be seen as a challenge to the patriarchal warlike backdrop of pre-Islamic Arabia, where might of arms and male experience conferred rights and status and where women were thus sidelined).
Their agenda was the same as that of Osama bin Laden today. The extremists who took over the Grand Mosque in Mecca in November 1979 were the ideological descendents of the Ikhwan, a group of radicals that make Wahabbis look like moderates. Wahabbism was the product of the collaboration of a religious leader (al-Wahab) and the founder of the royal house of Saud in the 19th century; this early Wahabbism version of Islam was radical and almost universally rejected by other Muslim states for its extremes. The Ikhwan arose from Wahabbism in the early 20th century, essentially as a militant group fighting for the house of al-Saud, who itself was Wahabbist. However, when in the 1920s the Saud movement became both a mighty state and the holder of the holiest city in Islam (Mecca), the Ikhwan – essentially a group of fanatical desert warriors – became unacceptable even to the Wahabbist house of Saud, who were forced to rein them in lest they bring disaster on the new kingdom (traditionally, Wahabbism was hostile even to other forms of Islam). Civil war resulted, which Saud eventually won in the '30s.
The Ikhwan, defeated, were no longer able to uphold their vision of Islam. The version of Wahabbism of the house of Saud was, though still radical, somewhat better suited to communicating with other human beings, and was reformed into a somewhat milder version that became the official religion of the kingdom. This was both good and bad news: good, because the Wahabbism of the Ikhwan was utterly and insanely fanatical; bad, because Saudi Wahabbism was definitely better, but still unequivocally extremist. The defeated Ikhwan movement survived on the fringes and grew back some muscle in the following decades as the rulers of the Saudi kingdom were seen as ever more corrupt and arrogant.
Who cares, you may ask? Well, Bin Laden, the Taleban, and similar assholes care. The extremists in Mecca in 1979 cared enough to take over a holy site at gunpoint. Both bin Laden and the Taleban are/were leading exponents of the Ikhwan movement – a movement, by the way, that was encouraged and manipulated by external forces (US) to oppose (under the guise of Jihad) the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Ikhwan extremists in 1979 stormed and violently took over Mecca’s Grand Mosque, protesting against the Saudi government, opposing all Western influence, and calling for the expulsion as infidels of the current rulers. The standoff lasted about two weeks IIRC, before the Ikhwan were brutally defeated and captured. As a matter of interest, a contingent of French anti-terrorist experts were granted special permit to enter parts of Mecca closed to non-Muslims, in order to help put down the militants.
Some details about the Mecca uprising can be found over here, and are put in context of the events of 2001 in Afghanistan. As for Osama bin Laden, he wants a return to the former glory of the Ikhwan; he also wants to take over all of Saudi Arabia, throw out the al-Saud family, set up a Taleban-like state, boot all foreigners or at least Westerners out of the country, and similar pleasantries.
I do not recall that the Islamist militants burned copies of the Koran in 1979, or ever. That is rather unthinkable for any Muslim, especially the extremist variety, because all printings of the Koran are considered holy objects.
Afraid not. You see, you don’t understand what I mean when I talk about simplicity. Perhaps you never will, it’s just the kind of person you are. You like to complicate things, I like to simplify things. I’m not talking about ignorance, I’m saying gather as much information as possible and then simplify it as much as you can.
I prefer my approach but I don’t think you even understand what I’m talking about. Never mind.
Of course violence against women is a serious problem but again you misunderstand me. Are you saying that prior to islam every single male in arabia used to beat up their wives? That there were no non-violent relationships?
Domestic violence is a huge problem but I would think that in the majority of relationships it doesn’t happen.
I seem to recall that anyone caught brewing alcohol received 80 lashes. So people gave up alcohol because there was no alcohol around. Besides domestic violence is a different kettle of fish because it takes place behind closed doors - it’s not something that can be enforced.
You seem to be labouring under the delusion that I agree with or believe everything (or anything) that gets said on that site. You were asking me about how islam denigrates women, I linked you to a page that had a whole boatload of criticisms and now you’re getting all upset about it.
Presumably these people want to reform islam (or reinterpret it) but not get rid of it. Faith freedom wants to get rid of it. Different agendas.
Agreed but they also have a different agenda to faith freedom. They are neutral, FF are anti.
I find it interesting to read all of the agendas - pro, neutral and anti and make my own mind up. You seem to be suggesting I should only read agendas that are either pro or neutral.
Neutral is best of course for getting the facts without embellishment but you also need to read pro and anti to get the full story.
For example, suppose you wished to study the nazis. You would read neutral history books but you may also need to read Mein Kampf to understand fully what made them tick. And then you may also need to read some anti-nazi writings to get the full picture.
I don’t really see it like that. He doesn’t like islam and has a lot of criticisms of it so he puts all his views on a website and invites people to come on and prove him wrong. What’s the problem?
Comparing it to a hate site shows you are getting hysterical about it. Islam is an ideology. Like any ideology, it has advocates, detractors and neutrals.
If we were talking about communism and I linked you to an anti-communism site in order to show you a group of arguments against communism, would you call that site a hate site?
I actually asked you to tell me some teachings you liked not to list me some things islam did but anyway…
1 - note it’s only equality of believers, the brotherhood
2 - uh? Right to life? You think islam granted people the right to live? In any case not currently relevant since codes of law exist which do all this stuff. In fact, English common law was around before islam and that covered most of this stuff anyway (and did it better)
3 - check but, as you mentioned earlier, interest may actually be necessary for an economy to work.
4 - not currently relevant. People in arabia would probably have worked out some system of justice by now so these vendettas would no longer happen
5 - not currently relevant. Women have rights aplenty these days in non-muslim countries. Islam doesn’t currently play any big role in the guarantee of womens rights. At least not a role that couldn’t be played just as well by a civil legal code
6 - charity existed anyway but I agree islam did institutionalise it.
7 - Not currently relevant. If islam hadn’t been invented then the people of arabia would probably have worked out some other legal system by now to deal with this.
See, I asked you for currently relevant things. I didn’t ask you to tell me about situations where islam improved the previously existing situation. Maybe islam did improve the situation in 7th century arabia from what it was like before but we don’t live in 7th century arabia, we live now.
No Jojo, the issue is pretty much closed because after several days you still haven’t demonstrated a real argument, relying instead on shuffling around shifting, undefined points only you can see clearly. You are (simplistically) waffling vaguely while arbitrarily gainsaying almost anything I put forward that doesn’t agree with your wilfully biased views and stated double standards. Such shortcomings in this debate are rather obvious and already pointed out. I must rely on the hopefully greater intelligence of anyone who might be reading this far in the thread – I wager that all but those with such shallow awareness of Islam, MENA, and history as you have displayed will be able to recognize the fallacies that are integral to your arguments. After several incitements, you still refuse to seriously address the arguments and materials: you prefer to defend your reliance on racist and thinly disguised hate material (just two highly dubious cites, supplemented by hand waving, arbitrary denial, and extremely vague references).
Too bad you have repeatedly failed to demonstrate the kind of objective approach that a real student of history or religion would consider necessary in order to evaluate evidence and sources. Too bad that your points of view and your cites are considered poor by any scholarly or even lay standards for the purposes of this discussion. Too bad that the arguments you bring forward are frequently rigidly anti-Islam (or sometimes anti-religion in general, but generally inapplicable) rather than valid supported positions, anti or pro or neutral as the case may be. There’s a difference between taking an anti-something source into valid consideration, and relying primarily on angry rants that will not be seriously considered by those with a modicum of information and awareness. In terms of obtaining background and information, reading Mein Kampf (to use your example) is not at all similar to supporting one’s arguments with the help of neo-Nazi web sites; for information on Nazism, one consults real sources and real scholars --perhaps even Nazi historians-- not bitter anonymous fools who make elementary mistakes in their rhetoric and whose agenda is advocating hatred (of a world religion in the case of sites like SecularIslam and FF, of ethnic/religious groups in the case of neo-Nazis).
Do you seriously think I would be saying something as stupid as the deliberately simplistic and misrepresenting interpretation you provide above? Do you not see how idiotic such a reduction of the argument is? Can you not read simple text, but must you reduce everything to simplistic absurdity?
A classic example of the Jojo Technique: make a hare-brained assertion in the hope that most people won’t bother stooping to such stupidity; when the assertion is disproved by real citations and real argument, commence waffling and shuffling around the point, then issue another hare-brained assertion that must fail to address the original point. Repeat ad nauseam until everyone with good sense has fled the vicinity.
Well of course if one in three women suffers abuse world wide, the majority of women (two out of three) will not be in the abused set. Where’s the relevance to the argument? I demonstrated that the abuse of women is still in this day of (comparative) enlightenement and law a serious widespread problem; I argued thus to counter the assertions you made with no backing at all other than your ignorant “guessing” and hand waving about pre-Islamic Arabian women not really being abused and so forth, which in itself is highly suspect considering that I outlined the state of pre-Arabian society for your edification and mentioned the systems of values more or less in place in those tribal societies. You aren’t providing arguments, just one infinite chain of ignorance, infinitely renewable. And that in turn is made possible by a deliberately simplistic take on things, which allows you to reduce anything to absurds.
The items I provided in my list are not reasonably addressed by your disqualifications. The list, by the way, consisted of some socially relevant principles advocated by Islam, and not as you claim of just “things islam did” – I stated as much in the previous post. Your number 7 response is such a flagrant appeal to “what if” ignorance that upon reading it it’s a wonder my allergy hasn’t swelled up my throat and suffocated me outright. Your number 2 response is an excellent example of why a deliberately simplistic approach is at the most a euphemism for a wilfully foolish point of view: if (for example) the Codex of Hammurabi predates some of the same basic items of the original foundations of English common law, does that invalidate the progress made by the inhabitants of the emerald isle?? Does the fact that the wheel was invented independently in more than one place in any way detract from each instance of invention/development? Does the fact that Plato discussed some similar concepts of divinity as those in the Upanishads render null the powers of reasoning displayed by either one? Does the fact that American civilizations started building pyramids after the Egyptians invalidate either accomplishment? Of course not, this is why your argument is deliberately simplistic nonsense that is always convenient for bigoted positions, and that’s why I find your ad hoc denials repellent.
Given your lack of real arguments, if you want to continue with your childish denials and misrepesentations the Pit is where I could give you the kind of discussion you and the ignorant bullshit you insistently hand-wave deserve. This is a forum for factual debate, not for your distortion and avoidance techniques.
And I am confident he was right. As I said earlier, your sole criterion is not a bad place to start – but to go farther you’ll need to introduce more sophistication in the method. This may indeed be a fundamental difference in Weltanchauung.
There are something like 1.3 billion Muslims around the world. Referring to “Islamic terrorism” and leaving it there (which I don’t claim you necessarily do) is not only misguiding and uninformative, but also a disservice to the great majority of Muslims who aren’t involved in terrorism. However a simple qualifier or two, such as sectarian identification (e.g. Wahabbist) or level of ideological extremism (e.g. violent fundamentalism) can go a long, long way to making things clearer under all possible points of view. This was my original thrust.
Actually religion can be a matter of faith and logic – at least according to many religious people I have argued with, and to an entire slew of writers in the theology/apology section of the library. I’m not sure if there is a religion where everything and anything may be justified; every religion and sub-religion has some central tenets that define it. Thus my discussions of various sects as well as the problem of heretical belief in the last post I addressed to you.
The problem is that “a percentage” can be anything from zero or an infinitesimally small number to 100%. And 20% of Pakistanis will not equal 20% of Muslims, which does not equal 20% of fundamentalists, or Sunnis, or Wahabbists, or what have you.
No enduring provision whatsoever has been shown so far in this thread for honour killings in Islam, whereas there are clear instructions not to eat pork. In addition to that, since Islam explicitly forbids private or vigilante justice as part of its central tenets (summarized in Mohammed’s last sermon IIRC), and since among world religions Islam is (I daresay) unique in safeguarding the safety and the rights (and honour) of women, it would seem to me that honour killings are necessarily unIslamic. Add to that the fact that honour killings crop up on a cultural basis, so calling them “Muslim honour killings” ignores all honour killings that are not perpetrated by Muslims (again, my thrust is that this is misleading and could easily suggest to people that this practice is one of the tenets of Islam, which it certainly isn’t).
In your previous post you quoted a whole bunch of items that you said were supportive of the practice of honour killings, and I examined them one by one, not finding a single valid religious encouragement of this despicable practice. There is nothing I am aware of in Islam that supports honour killings, which is the whole point here. If some ignorant misogynistic asswipe comes along and says that it is mandated that men kill the women who they think offend their honour, well I can show once again how said asswipe is motivated by widespread cultural factors that are much older than religion, rather than by religious commandment.
Yes, I agree there but I think that my original objection was more to the nomenclature of these general phenomena than interpretation.
The thing is I wouldn’t want to. Overall, Christianity consists of religions of peace rather than aggression, and I say that in spite of two thousand years of atrocities committed in the name of Christ, frequently by primary exponents of Christianity such as the Catholic church. To make this kind of judgement we look at the original scriptural material, as well as its context – the word of god if you will. We look at the “living” religions as they are practiced, and for that we must look at ideogical schismatics and their logical compatibility to the central tenets allegedly set forth by Christ. Killing and torturing were not advocated by Christian doctrine (at least, not so much in the New Testament, maybe a little bit in the Old one), so when we examine certain objectionable incidents we find out that the underlying causes of such horrors as abortion clinic bombings, slavery, and witch-hunts, are not in fact religion per se, but the results of intolerance, greed, paranoia, etc. as previously discussed. Religion is used as an excuse, but that doesn’t mean we have to buy into the criminals’ game and accept that the causes of such horror were indeed religious.
Well, sects exist and are recognized as distinct in Islam, I have discussed a few of them. The issue may indeed be the unity of Islam, which entreats all Muslims to consider other Muslims as members of their own family, as long as whatever sect they belong to is accepted as Islamic (e.g., Tamerlane mentioned the Nation of Islam, I earlier mentioned the Qadiyanis, who are not normally considered Muslim, the various challenges the Taleban’s madness received from Muslim states, and more recently the Ikhwan). I am not Muslim, thus I am not part of the unity, yet I find it somewhat inappropriate when people insist on referring to honour killings or terrorism as Muslim phenomena. As I find it inappropriate to hear that refusing a blood transfer or medical treatment to a dying child is a Christian practice – it’s deranged insanity justified by religious belief, and nothing more. It’s no better than the standard excuse “God told me to do it” that is ascribed to some murderers.
I have successfully discussed the Iraq situation here quite frequently since before the war started, and you could say I know a thing or two about it; the point was to pick a current example that would be recognizable to you as clearly fallacious – but that doesn’t stop it from being propagated and picked up when religion is used to justify division and opposition. It’s easy for fanatics to rage against Christian/Western aggression against Muslims; it’s much harder to squash such ignorance. And eliminating the real causes of such behaviour has thus far proved utterly impossible.
Yes indeed. However I could show how, depending on interpretation, misogyny is a central tenet of Christian texts from original scripture all the way up to Thomas A and beyond to current versions of Christianity. That’s why I don’t consider interpretation any kind of smoking gun in this debate.
I think I acknowledged this, a week or two ago.
Indeed. However that would not necessarily stop inquiry from taking place, and in fact (anecdotally speaking again) some of my most fascinating discussions on Islamic theology have been with Muslims that would be considered unequivocally devout.
There are various valid theories, and some do involve some degree of premeditation. At any rate, the Koran and Islam did not appear overnight, the period of revelation is thought to be roughly 23 years (610-622 CE or thereabouts). This is plenty of time to craft a powerful socio-religious tool like Islam, particularly since in some passages Muhammed specifically mentions practices that he wants to put an end to (I may have to hunt for the cites). It’s really not that big a fish to swallow, in fact I’d consider it the leading contender assuming a non-literal reading of the faith.
Atrocity in the name of god does not necessarily mean that god/religion mandates atrocity. Female genital mutilation, as discussed, has nothing to do with Islam – rather, some partiarchal misogynistic cultures (which happen to be Muslim and non) insist on monopolizing sexual pleasure and activity as the domain of the male, which is just another form of controlling and oppressing women – a sad, still global trend. If anything, Islam is against such practices – though of course you refer to the suspect interpretation of some Muslims, and I prefer to refer to the central core of Islam itself.
I have argued this already: if “Moslem is as Moslem does”, then eating is a Moslem practice, since all Moslems eat. This is obviously intended as a fallacy: eating, a bit like genital mutilation and honour killings, is not restricted to Islam but occurs all over the place, and is not demonstrably mandated by Islam. That’s what the fallacy was meant to point out. These problems are much greater than, and not confined to, the Islamic world.
[sub]PS: if you quote another poster using the QUOTE code, you don’t need to insert quotation marks around the text being quoted.[/sub]
ok Abe, I don’t want you to make yourself ill. I know that I can be quite annoying to argue against (you’re not the first person to notice this). I think I tend to spin arguments off into unexpected directions. Maybe I’m not explaining myself very clearly. I’ll give it one more try and I’ll try to be as clear as possible. If you don’t feel like responding then fine.
You say:
The wheel was a great invention and we still use it today, so it’s currently relevant.
I will give you some examples of things that have come from religions that are currently relevant:
Sikhism - Sikhs believe that all religions are equally valid. This idea is unique to sikhism and it’s still applicable today as much as it ever was, currently relevant
Christianity - Love thy enemy. Uniquely christian and currently relevant
Buddhism - it is wrong to kill any living thing for any reason. Uniquely buddhist and currently relevant
Hinduism - we all originated from God and, when we die, we once again become part of God. Uniquely Hindu and currently relevant.
You’ll notice that all the above are philosophies rather than actual rules as such.
The things you mentioned in your list don’t fulfill the criteria because either:
they aren’t unique to islam (they existed in other places in the world). Inheritance laws, for example, or laws preventing vendettas is fine but the idea of having laws wasn’t a new idea. It didn’t start with islam.
or
they aren’t currently relevant. Giving women rights, for example, is a historical thing. It improved the situation for women back then but doesn’t mean much now.
What I was looking for are ideas that are unique to islam and still have relevance today. Islam has lots of rules, lots and lots of rules, but what are the philosophical bases underpinning these rules?
eg muslims are told they mustn’t eat pork. OK, fine but why not? They must pray five times a day. Fine but why? They must do this, they must do that. Why?
Because they have been told to?
Sikhs believe that all religions are equally valid. This is quite a nice teaching and I can see that if everyone believed it then it could help to reduce friction in the world.
If we leave aside all the rules in islam for the moment, what philosophies are there? The main philosophy in islam seems to be “Obey these rules”. Rules for their own sake.
For example, the reason given for the alcohol rule is that alcohol befuddles your brain. If your brain is befuddled then you cannot appreciate God. Appreciation of God is most important during prayer. Prayer must be done five times a day and the first of these prayers is quite early. Your brain would still be befuddled by the alcohol.
So the banning of alcohol rule is connected to the prayer rule. The alcohol rule is secondary, the prayer rule is primary. The secondary rule is there in order to trigger the primary rule. But why is the primary rule there?
Rules for the sake of rules rather than rules in pursuit of some greater philosophical objective. What are the philosophical objectives of islam?
To submit to the will of allah as revealed in the holy book. In other words to follow the rules. The rules are there in order to ensure compliance with the rules. Sufiism seems to be an attempt to break out of this mould. I don’t mind following rules as long as I understand why they are there but I, personally, don’t follow rules that are just ends in themselves.
Maybe I’m still making no sense. No matter since I doubt anyone’s still reading this thread apart from me and you. And maybe even you have given up by now. Maybe I’ll carry on this thread for a while just talking to myself.
Still, no hard feelings Abe. I don’t really disagree with anything you’ve said in this thread, I was just trying to widen the discussion. Unsuccessfully, since all I’ve done is piss you off. Maybe I won’t post to any more religious threads (or any more threads at all in fact) since I always seem to end up pissing people off. This isn’t deliberate, honestly. I just ask what (to me) are genuine questions. Oh well.
Well, Jojo, your criticism that some items aren’t unique to Islam or new is not a valid objection, as I pointed out in my previous message (we certainly don’t dismiss American pyramids simply because they were not the first, or because no one builds pyramids any more).
In the specific example of Islamic inheritance laws, you have (for the first time I can think of) the introduction of a system that prevents women from being sidelined in considerations of family fortunes, that prevents women from being handled as transferrable property, and that still persists today. Both novel and unique, though I don’t consider either novelty or uniqueness crucial qualifiers for aspects of religion that are socially or philosophically relevant.
This is why it pays to nurture a sense of history. You can’t expect to take a narrow snapshot of a situation and base a categorical judgment on a narrow view of time. Islam providing women with rights is as remarkable for society as anything in history I am aware of – particularly because we are talking about societies with strong patriarchal and misogynistic traditions, whose two other main religious manifestations were in fact more patriarchal and misogynistic in fundamentals than Islam.
Egypt’s “heretic” ruler Akhenaten, or Amenhotep IV, whose wife was the famous Nefertiti, could well be the first monotheist we have record of. He opposed the custom of accepting and worshipping many gods, fairly swept them away where he could and replaced them with his cult of Aten, or Aton. Does that mean the three main types of monotheism later set forth by Judaism, Christianity, and Islam aren’t worthy of consideration, just because one temporary monotheist Egyptian culture preceded them?
After Muslims conquered Spain in 711 CE, Christian persecution of Jews was greatly alleviated. The Golden Age for Spain involved an efficient Islamic Caliphate in which both Jews and Christians were granted rights to their own courts, rights to their own property and safety thereof, and exemption from military service. Science, philosophy, and the arts flourished. For centuries Jews and Christians in Moorish Spain lived in religious freedom, to the point that the period was called the Golden Age of Judaism – funny it should occur under Islam, eh? Is this achievement of civilization invalidated by the fact that the Romans had earlier done something similar, though perhaps not as thorough, with their own empire? Of course not, and even though the Roman Empire is long gone we recognize its values and legacy. There seems to be inordinate trouble recognizing corresponding values in Islam though, and mainly for reasons of prejudice and bias, or simply the refusal to acknowledge such items; however also due to the increasing problems of fundamentalism and bad public relations moves like sweeping condemnations uttered by a loud minority. One such keystone moment came when Asshole Khomeini issued an edict for the death of author Salman Rushdie and his publishers in 1989; the edict was backed by the Iranian prime minister Hussein Mousavi, who granted Hezbollah the right to take action against the alleged blasphemers should the the opportunity arise. In my opinion that one particular item of ignorance and idiocy on Khomeini’s (and advisors, since in all likelihood Khomeini never even saw a copy of the book) part provided the equivalent damage to Islam’s image of a hundred fanatical suicide bombers.
If you read the Koran you would no doubt find something to work on to correct this perceived lack. There is some sort of stated rationale for most instructions in the Koran – if you think Islam consists of a lot of rules and nothing else then my previous responses to you were on target and this is a question of ignorance of the subject matter. Certainly those passages of the Koran I have quoted seem to provide logical reasons for the instructions provided. However I must note that submission is a central theme in Islam, and it’s not surprising that there should be instructions for the faithful to demonstrate such submission. Just as love is a central theme in Christianity and Christians are called upon to demonstrate love.
I forgot to mention an important item in my previous list: Islam as a religion and a community is wide open to everyone regardless of race, gender, and previous belief.
Something equally important that I have mentioned at some point in this discussion is the exoneration of guilt and impurity of women granted by Islam. In previous Abrahamic traditions, “Eve’s sin” was the curse conferred upon humanity by the duplicitous nature of woman, exemplified by the first woman, Eve. The Testaments are frankly replete with this kind of misogynistic content, which is largely cut down in the Koran. In Islam, this sin is not the responsibility of woman but, since the transgression was committed by both Adam and Eve together, males and females alike share the responsibility and the burden. Women daughters are not to be considered a shame (do you need a statement of philosophy behind that?), and the birth of a daughter is not an impure or undesirable thing.
This question is inadmissible because it doesn’t just apply to Islam but to every religion, yet here again you package it as if this is a particular issue with Islam. Why is codified worship there in any system of belief, bar perhaps Buddhism? To honour God of course, and to commune with him, to become closer to him, etc. To become a better (religious) person. And so forth – no doubt a religious person will be able to give you a more thorough answer, but since I am not the type to pray I will keep this short.
There is a great tale of the Mullah Nasrudin, a popular figure in Arabic folklore, which addresses this same topic of prayer. Loosely paraphrased from memory and collected in The Exploits of the Incomparable Mullah Nasrudin by Indries Shah. Nasrudin is in his garden one day, liberally sprinkling bread crumbs around his property, making sure they are abundant by the windows and doors of his house. A friend passing by says, “Mullah, why are you sprinkling bread crumbs in your garden?” The Mullah replies, “I do thus to keep the tigers away.” The passer-by is then forced to observe, “But Mullah, there aren’t any tigers in these parts at all.” And Nasrudin replies, “Yes, as you can see this is an effective method.”
An implied meaning (there are usually a few meanings behind such tales) of this jocular didactic tale is, of course, that ritual helps to keep the tigers of the mind at bay. In the case of Islam, splitting one’s day into five different prayer times is bound to address those Muslims whose adherence to the Prophet’s teachings is less than perfect, or those tempted to do evil, etc. Prayer is a regular time to meditate and offer homage to god, and an exercise from which to draw strength and resolution. Nothing substantially different from other faiths, it seems.
However this all seems to be drifting distinctly off-topic, as we are no longer discussing items even loosely related to honour killings.