For Muslims, Ramadan is a month of fasting, purification, study and prayerful reflection. And after two weeks of prayerful reflection, I have concluded there is no tragedy that has befallen Islam and the Muslim people of the world greater than the derogation of Muslim women. Why?
Two reasons:
- Because that abomination has made our communities, our faiths and our religion more vulnerable to catastrophe and less effective in meeting challenges for at least the last thousand years.
- Because we did it to ourselves.
Every Muslim will tell you proudly how Islam began as the most egalitarian of religions. From the Quran's declaration of the equality of all persons (male and female, regardless of race, creed or gender) under God's (thankfully merciful) judgment, through Muhammad's own egalitarian practice, that message is consistent throughout. He even worked for his first wife Khadija as her employee, made the woman Umm Waraqah one of Islam's first imams and told his followers to learn half their religion from his youngest wife Aisha, for Heaven's sake!
But let's all be honest for a change: Many Muslim men from the very beginning haven't been comfortable with the way Muhammad exalted women. Even Umar, our second Caliph, admitted he didn't like the way men's power over their wives was diminished. But when he tried to impose his own wishes −- by limiting the financial clout of Muslim brides -− one lone woman had the power to put him back in his place, by calling him back to the letter of the Quran's revelation and the example of Muhammad's exemplary Islam.
Now it's obvious that didn't last. However, instead of learning from our mistakes, most Muslims (both men and women, strangely enough) prefer to gloss over the profound difference between our bright beginnings and the state of Islam today. Few Muslims will even admit to Umm Waraqah (and when they do they get bogged down in mechanical issues over her authority to lead prayer for men, women or family members, either from in front or behind), or the fact that more than a dozen of Islam's most honoured early leaders were women, including Aisha.
Instead, for reasons that were primarily political, pertaining to the early disputes that began the Sunni-Shiite split,
Aisha's age of marriage to Muhammad was artificially diminished from 18 to less than 10, taking her authority with it. And Muslim men -− perhaps jealous of the marital authority of their Christian and Jewish compatriots -− adopted interpretations of Quranic revelations that gave women half the worth of Muslim sisters who lived before them. They ignored verses proclaiming that God even made men the way we are solely to make it easier for us to provide for our families, preferring interpretations that confirmed the male right to beat their wives at their own discretion. Despite the fact that, at least while Muhammad was alive, everyone knows that right was taken away.
No scholar worth his beard will deny these truths, even though most will quickly leap to defend those strange decisions that earlier scholars made. But the tragedy is this: Muslim men have been denied the wise council of Muslim women, when according to Allah that's something we need. According to the Quran, it's simple: to govern the world, our families and ourselves to the best of our abilities, men need women and women need men.
Thank God that's finally beginning to change. To me one of the most interesting (and exciting) aspects of the "Arab Spring" has been the leadership structure, so different from the patriarchal systems previously in place. It's decentralized, lead visibly by women and similar to the earliest days of Islam.
While others have noted the Arab Spring's longevity and focus, I know that wouldn't have surprised the first Muslims. Because Muslims then knew something that Muslims today are beginning to wake up to. The Muslim world is finally changing because Muslim women are waking up to the power and authority they really have under Muhammad's Islam.
Follow Dr. David Liepert on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/DrDavidLiepert
http://thegoodgarment.wordpress.com/tag/umm-waraqah/
This is because the Prophet and his companions visited her every Friday. And the story of her slaves echos the story of Adam and Eve.
This doesn't have a lot to do with what the (very good) article says -- but it is worth mentioning, just to represent the fact that Islam has some symbolic depth beyond the obvious social benefit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSCXntOmCl4
There is so much more online.
Also I have noticed that a lot of western men ( many here) are always worried about the Muslim women being oppressed. Many of them are, like the one's in Afghanistan but honestly I personally don't think those drug dealers and war lords follow real Islam.
Anyway getting back to the western men like Sarkozy, who wants to be our knight in shining armor and save Muslim women, Have they ever asked us if we want to be saved? Really find out if we want to be separated from Allah???
That must make the women feel SO much better about it all.
This goes especially to Jan Allen since I engage in more discussions with him than anyone else.
Jan Allen, please forgive me if I sounded arrogant to you. It wasn't my intention, but if I did sound arrogant to you, I sincerely apologize to you.
Thanks,
If I may summarize your commentary, it would be this: educate yourself and you'll be more understanding and tolerant of others.
Sound advice. I admit that I've forgotten this many times.
Sadly, I fear the vast multitudes on both sides won't do it.
Those who find negative things about Islam and the Blessed One, they find them in the same Islamic sources in which there are a lot more positive things about them.
Yet, they pick the ones that seem negative to them and reject the ones that are positive.
So why do they believe in these sources?
If one trusts and relies on some sources to dig out dirt, then on what basis do they reject the same sources which paint a very positive picture of the Prophet and Islam?
What criteria do they employ to only believe in the negative things from these sources and reject the positive ones?
The fact of the matter is this: They don't see equilibrium in these sources and also the hierarchy of truth.
Until Muslims are willing to look skeptically and critically at their holy text, and non-Muslims are willing to temper their criticism with acknowledgement of the positive and insightful elements of the book, the war of words (and most unfortunately, blood) will continue.
"Whosoever is an adherent to one of the four Sunni schools (Mathahib) of Islamic jurisprudence (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi`i and Hanbali), the two Shi’i schools of Islamic jurisprudence (Ja`fari and Zaydi), the Ibadi school of Islamic jurisprudence and the Thahiri school of Islamic jurisprudence, is a Muslim. Declaring that person an apostate is impossible and impermissible. Verily his (or her) blood, honour, and property are inviolable..
..Acknowledgement of the schools of Islamic jurisprudence (Mathahib) within Islam means adhering to a fundamental methodology in the issuance of fatwas: no one may issue a fatwa without the requisite personal qualifications which each school of Islamic jurisprudence determines ..."
See http://ammanmessage.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=91&Itemid=74
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Jan Allen clarifies: "I am a critic of Islam concerned only with the effects of Islam on non Muslims."
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Fair enough!
You would still need to understand the overall message of the Qur`an to see how the areas you are interested in fits within its overall framework and worldview.
You would then study the interpretations and their applications of their understanding of Islam in the areas you are interested in so that you can point out if and how they are in harmony with the Qur`an or not.
You would then study the different streams within Islam and find out how they interpret and apply the teachings of their understanding of Islam in the areas you are interested in, and how they differ from each other and why.
You would then try to figure out the influences of these currents within Islam.
For example, have a look at the results of a most recent Gallop poll:
http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/pew_report
You will notice that the most-famous/infamous "Islamist" organizations in America have very low levels of support from the American Muslims.
In summary, you would still have to develop a much deeper understanding of what Islam's Source Book has to say about the issues you are concerned with and how the Muslims have implemented those guidelines.
Hope this helps.
Take care,
The thing is, the Qur'an is itself very clear that there are two purposes to studying it's passages, either to find peace, or to find conflict. It promises that those who seek it to find peace will do so, and those who study it to find conflict will also find that. So I'm afraid that Jan's intention inevitably predicts his conclusions.
The same pertains to the Christian Bible and the Jewish Torah and Talmud, as well as any other religious work: each contains passages which are alternately enlightening or enraging, depending on what you're looking for. Thankfully, all but a vanishing small percentage of Muslims study the Qur'an looking for anything other than peace with God and their fellow man. In fact, I think Muslims who do otherwise are actually outnumbered by the so-called "Islamophobes", and each group should probably take caution from the fact that each actually agrees with the other more than either should really be comfortable with!
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Indeed!
The Qur`an has outlined the inner state that is essential to understanding its message and benefiting from it.
Those who approach it to criticize it will find things to criticize for God's Mercy is such that it gives to people what they want and are looking for.
The problem is not that Jan, or I, or any other critic - either of the Qu'ran or the Bible - finds passages that are morally reprehensible. After all, I don't follow any of them to define my thoughts and actions as a human being.
The REAL problem is that countless believers have used those sacred texts, and the various commentaries upon them, to actually define their thoughts and actions. Some of them have found inspiration to be compassionate and wise, but far, far too many have found inspiration to be hateful and violent.
The biggest critics of Christianity should be Christians. That actually happened after WW2, when Christian theologians finally accepted accountability for two millenia of anti-semitism, and recognized it as the great causal factor behind the Holocaust.
In the same way, Muslims need to be the biggest critics of Islam - decrying religious statism, and calling their brethren around the world to abandon barbarianism completely in their religion.
You are a fine person, but you are not my teacher. I am the only one who selects teachers for me. If I require your assistance, I will certainly ask for it.
I am not presently asking for assistance. I am making statements I believe to be true and relevant to the conflict we are all involved in.
Your role as interlocutor is to respond to my assertions and to make your own counter assertions.
That's how respectful debate between equals proceeds. If that is impossible for you, I will understand.
How can you critique something you have not tasted?
Islam, like other sacred (ie, divine) traditions, are transformational paths, which must be experienced and tasted before one can pass a judgment on it, like a food critique, who must taste a food before he can critique it.
Otherwise, the critique is remote and superficial.
But even for a remote and superficial crique of a food (tradition in my symbolism) to be educated, one needs to fully understand its ingredients and how they interact with each other.
I see a lot of missing components in your critique, which make your critiques imbalance and incomplete.
P.S. I do not consider any discussions I have with another commentator to be a "debate". Rather, I consider them "discussions". And one of the reasons for presenting a list of references for you is that they elaborate and elucidate my perspectives.
1. Seyyed Hossein Nasr
2. William Chittick
3. Shaykh Fadhlalla Haeri
4. Kabir Helminski
5. ibn Arabi (His writings are generally a commentary on the Muhammadi Model)
6. Rumi (His Mathnawi is generally considered to be a commentary on the Qur`an)
7. Frithjof Schuon
8. Martin Lings
9. Rene Genon
10. Amin Ahsen Islahi (Whatever English translation of his works is currently available).
11. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf (but with a grain of salt)
AUTHORS JAN ALLEN SHOULD STAY AWAY FROM
1. Daniel Pipes
2. Steven Emerson
3. Pam Geller
4. Tarek Fateh
5. Irshad Manji
6. Robert Spencer
7. Salim Mansur
8. Stephen Schwartz
Who exactly do you think you are?
While the voices of those who are hostile to Islam, secular Muslims (an oxymoron), radical Muslims, the so-called Fundamentalist Muslims, are heard, rarely do we hear the voices of Traditional Muslims, as defined by the school of Transcendent Unity of Religions, who are universalist, that is, they find the Truth in all traditions.
His point was:
Jan already holds the view espoused by the anti-Islam authors in the "stay away from" section -- and those views are quite problematic, in that they criticize an "Islam" that seems only to exist in the minds of those authors, and others who think like them.
The suggested reading section of Tolerant's list consists of authors of traditional Islam - a view that speaks to both the structure of Islam, as well as its deeper teachings, and so, is much more reflective of the views held by most Muslims, around the world.
One of the biggest issues here is that many people see Muslims and Islam as consisting only of literal, dogmatist teachings and views, which not only isn't true, but those views are reflective of a small minority of Muslims. Tolerant's views are far more mainstream, and therefore representative.
WORST BOOKS ON ISLAM: http://www.scholarofthehouse.org/woboonisidby.html
GENERAL BOOKS ON ISLAM: http://www.scholarofthehouse.org/geboonisre.html
BOOKS ON THE BLESSED ONE: http://www.scholarofthehouse.org/boonprmureby.html
BOOKS ON THE QUR`AN: http://www.scholarofthehouse.org/booksonquran.html
QUR`ANIC COMMENTARIES/TRANSLATIONS: http://www.scholarofthehouse.org/neentrofqure.html
Also, Shaykh Fadhlalla Haeri's commentaries on various Surahs
BOOKS ON ISLAMIC JURISPRUDENCE: http://www.scholarofthehouse.org/boonisjureby.html
FULL LIST: http://www.scholarofthehouse.org/rere.html
Thanks,
Our Ocean sea food and other species are getting depleted because of mass industrial fishing methods just to feed their insatiable appetite. Those all you can eat buffet is a good example of a society total disrespect and appreciation of earth resources, where food are wasted like no where else on the planet.
The toxic and waste that are dump in the ocean and lakes are all manifestation of what western societies demands to fulfill their craving for easy living at any expense.
The destruction of the rain forest are directly link to the human way of living, especially in the West. Not to mention the extinction of species and other wild-life, are all directly link to people from these so-called "Western Enlighten" world.
We see recently another form of your so-called western enlighten at Wall street where the motto is grab as much as wealth for your and your family and the rest of Americans could have the crumbs.
Please keep your self-indulgence and gluttony life-style and let us Muslims fast through this special month of Ramadan to appreciate what the Creator has provide us on this planet and remember those who are in need.
However, your phrase, "Western Enlightenment", is in need of further elucidation, in that by "West" we mean an ideology and not the geographical direction.
The ideology of "West" or "Westernism" has yieled communism and secularism and biological evolution, which have relegated man from a heavenly being to a mere biological animal and taken the Divine out of his life.
This has had a terrible consequence on the traditional societies and the environment, for Western man wants to control and subjugate nature, rather than relate to it in a Pontifical manner.
Occidentalism is the hatred of all things from the Western liberal democratic tradition, especially capitalism. An Occidentalist is a person who believes that Western democracy and imperialism are the same thing, there is nothing good in Western culture and that all other cultures should oppose Western culture.
"The loathing of everything people associate with the Western world, exemplified by America, is still strong, though no longer primarily in Japan.
It attracts radical Muslims to a politicized Islamic ideology in which the United States features as the devil incarnate. It is shared by extreme nationalists in China, and other parts of the non-Western world.
And strains of it also crop up in the thinking of radical anti-capitalists in the West itself. To call it either right-or left-wing would be misleading. …
We cannot simply lump leftist enemies of “U.S. imperialism” together with Islamist radicals. Both groups might hate the global reach of American culture and corporate power, but their political goals cannot be usefully compared.
Symptoms become interesting only when they develop into full-blown disease. Not liking Western pop culture, global capitalism, U.S. foreign policy, big cities, or sexual license is not of great moment; the desire to declare a war on the West for such a reason is."
Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit, Occidentalism, p.5
How would you explain the American invasion and occupation of Iraq?
Do you consider the Western response to the evil acts of 911 to be proportionate and just?
Do you think that the drone strikes are fueling radicalism amonsts the Muslims or are reducing it?
There are people in the West who have stereotyped and demonized the East, especially things that are Islamic, and
there are people in the East, especially Islamic countries, that have stereotyped and demonized the West.
This has to stop.
Only love, peace, mutual respect, and justice can remedy this.
What is needed is for people from the East and West to work together for that goal.
We human beings have wreaked a lot of havoc on this planet, and it needs to stop.
When I see images of starving people, I cry for them, but I also see how humanity is spending gazillions and gazillions of dollars on military, money that could have been spent on ridding poverty.
My technique for building bridges and creating love, peace and harmony is to focus on the self, and rid it of the lower and negative qualities, such as selfishness, self-ego, anger, feeling of revenge, lack of compassion and mutual respect and love, etc., so that it reflects the higher qualities, which are the opposite of these lower ones.
- They talk about how there are many different currents in Islam, and not all are toxic
- They talk about how scholars have somehow squared the circle, resolving the cognitive dissonace any decent human being feels reading toxic verses from one's holy texts and commentaries.
These responses miss the basic point - a point that we must make to religious apologists, and specifically Muslim apologists, over and over again.
To borrow from Churchill: Secular, pluralistic, democratic societies are the worst form of government ever invented - except for all the others.
As long as we have explicitly religious nations - in this case 60 (count 'em 60) Islamic nations with a combined population of 1.5 billion people - the toxic expression of Islam will continue. The misogyny, the homophobia, the xenophobia, the persecution of the other - all will continue to be a plague upon this tiny earth we all share.
The "good" Muslims will not prevail. When religion has state power, those religionists who are hungry for power will end up having it. And then they will inevitably smash an Orwellian boot into the faces of those who do not.
When an overwhelming majority of Muslims embrace the values which emerged in the Western Enlightenment then they themselves will throw off the shackles of Islamic Statism once and for all
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This is a fact!
Anyone who does a scholarly and objective study of the Islamic universe will see it clearly that the world of Islam has never been monolithic since the Blessed One left this realm of existence.
So the existence of multiple currents is a fact and only those will attribute it to the "apologists" who don't realize their own lack of knowledge.
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"...reading toxic verses from one's holy texts and commentaries."
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Classifying them as "toxic" or seeing them encompassed within the Mercy, Love and Justice of the Divine Reality is a matter of one's perspective and whether or not they conform to one's own world's view and how one sees the Reality.
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"When religion has state power, those religionists who are hungry for power will end up having it."
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Not if they are Qur`anically qualified, that is, they reflect the higher qualities of the self, eg. compassion, selflessness, humility, justice, forgiveness, mutual respect, love, peace, etc.
But if those who are in-charge of our affairs reflect the lower qualities of the self, such as self-ego, arrogance, revenge, anger, lack of compassion and mutual respect, etc., they will wreak havoc.
[Continues]
Tolerant: This is a fact!
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I know it is a fact, and I agree it is actually a true fact.
But it is not the critical fact, when it comes to the concern I and so many others have about Islam.
I am speaking to a CORE BELIEF in the Muslim mindset that a religious state is a good idea.
I say it is NOT a good idea. It is a TERRIBLE idea. It is, in fact, the worst possible idea for Muslims, just as it was the worst possible idea for Christians for many centuries.
I say that the Archimedes Lever that will both change Muslim societies so that they are not hotbeds of misogyny, of homophobia, of repression of the other - and will also change the western response to such societies - is the abandonment of this one idea by the majority of the world's 1.6 billion Muslims.
Muslims really have two choices: Either abandon the idea of a religious state, or abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
Tolerant, I await your response to this statement. And I wait as someone who is assuredly NOT an Islamophobe. I would be perfectly happy to have Muslims as next door neighbors and friends, and a mosque in my own neighborhood.
The Blessed One has made it clear that those who WANT power are the least qualified for power.
So even to have the desire for power (which is a sign of arrogance) disqualifies a person to govern our affairs as far as the original teachings of Islam are concerned.
I bet you didn't know that.
So, based on that, none of those people who are running the affairs in the Muslim countries are qualified for their jobs.
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As a matter of fact I did know that, Tolerant - because you have said it a number of times in these forums.
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Tolerant: So, based on that, none of those people who are running the affairs in the Muslim countries are qualified for their jobs.
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You make my point as well as I ever could.
As long as you have a religious state, rather than a secular, pluralistic democracy - religious despots will arise.
Sure, you may get an occasional good guy (or gal) in there. But inevitably - INEVITABLY - there will be regression back into deep and pervasive religious darkness for that society.
As I have said many times, this is not just a Muslim problem. Historically it has been just as much a Christian problem. And if the whackadoodle Christian dominionists who are currently slavering over the thought of Backmann or Perry as president ever get their way, we would have the same exact problems here again.
To use your own sort of religious language, religious statism is a tool of Satan, that enslaves those who embrace it. It enslaves the oppressor, and it enslaves the one who is oppressed.
My hope is that you, and countless other sincere peace-loving Muslims like you, will come
The result of that dualism is that one can make a reasonable case for or against equal women’s rights from the Koran--as we see Muslims do all the time. Christians do the same with the Bible.
However, when the focus changes to Islamic jurisprudence that has gained scholarly consensus--Sharia law--the picture is quite different, and much worse for women, as this debate in Tunisia shows:
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/08/201181617052432756.html
Claiming that "Islam" says this or that is useless in debate unless an authoritative interpretation of the Koran is cited. Otherwise, the debate becomes a series of conflicting Koranic quotes.
The exceptions to that reality are those Muslims who reject Sharia law as authoritative in their practice of Islam--the Koranists.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Non-Quranic-Hadith-Based-Islam-is-a-PROBLEM/133590996653846
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No, it's not.
There are methodologies Muslim scholars have devised over the course of history to resolve these seeming contradictions.
The continuity of the Sunnah (as opposed to Hadith), also clarifies and resolves these apparent conflicts.
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Especially about gender roles and equity for women.
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All of these are interpreted based on context: a) Textual context as well as b) historical context.
With proper contextualization, one can develop a deeper and better understanding of these issues.
Islam does not consider man and woman to be equal. It recognizes their biological differences and how they represent the different aspects of the Reality metaphysically and theomorphically.
For example, while in man, God's majestic qualities are pre-dominant, in the female, God's Mercy, Love and Nurturing qualities are pre-dominant.
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"Claiming that "Islam" says this or that is useless in debate unless an authoritative interpretation of the Koran is cited. Otherwise, the debate becomes a series of conflicting Koranic quotes."
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Another aspect is that there are multiple currents within Islam. These currents are based on the methdologies they have developed to interpret the Islamic sources.
Jan Allen continues to present his ideas without bothering to study deeply and reflect upon the several references I have presented to allow him to broaden his understanding and appreciate the Traditional Islam, which has its roots in the Islamic scripture and the Prophetic Model.
[Continues]
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That's one way to put it. Here's another:
"Men are in charge of women by [right of] what Allah has given one over the other and what they spend [for maintenance] from their wealth. So righteous women are devoutly obedient, guarding in [the husband's] absence what Allah would have them guard. But those [wives] from whom you fear arrogance - [first] advise them; [then if they persist], forsake them in bed; and [finally], strike them. But if they obey you [once more], seek no means against them. Indeed, Allah is ever Exalted and Grand."
Koran 4:34
On the other hand:
[3:195] Their Lord responded to them: "I never fail to reward any worker among you for any work you do, be you male or female - you are equal to one another. Thus, those who immigrate, and get evicted from their homes, and are persecuted because of Me, and fight and get killed, I will surely remit their sins and admit them into gardens with flowing streams." Such is the reward from GOD. GOD possesses the ultimate reward.
[4:124] As for those who lead a righteous life, male or female, while believing, they enter Paradise; without the slightest injustice.
Deep dualism.
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The so-called Koranists are largely considered as a non-Traditional and even deviant sect, for their rejection of the Prophetic Model, whether it be the "Sunnah" or "Hadith".
Their brand of Islam is rejected by an overwhelming majority of the Muslims.
But even they do not reject the Shari'ah. They just derive it from the Qur`an only rejecting all other sources of Islam.
So I am shocked that a knowledgeable person like Jan Allen would think that the Qur`anists reject the Shari'ah Law.
Shari'ah, which is diverse, is an integral part of Islam. It is the outer code of Islam and determines the outer forms and practices for the Muslims, such as the 5-daily prayers, and many other aspects.
What Jan Allen doesn't acknowledge is that without accepting this outer form of Islam, the Shari'ah, a Muslim is not a Muslim, whether he/she be a Puritanical, Moderate, Traditional or Sufi Muslim.
ALL, and I repeat ALL Muslims must accept and follow the Shari'ah based on their needs and requirements and the laws of the land.
Many, many things are no longer applicable, simply because of the needs and requirements of the contemporary world.
[Continues]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Iran