The Naked Mage

Yeah, Amir, and I feel that you sand genie-worshippers are constantly looking for sticks to beat women with.

Assholes.

Born Free

I thought I'd seen the last of that site, thought it might have been shut down. This is where you learn what Young British Muslims really think about us, the ones who strive to be muslim and still enjoy the British "western" way of life were in the minority when I lurked there. Might still be but I will waste no more of my life finding out after the treatment I received there when I delurked.

Oh yes as an atheist, western, female I was given pure hell. Was I disrespectful??? NO I was not, didn't matter a jot. My views were not welcome even though I ended up defending some of them from a very rude American christian who was giving them shit over 9/11. There was even an attempted hack into our home server which backfired on them very badly I'm glad to say the little virus they tried sending was sent straight back where it came from.

No interest in debating any of them, of even talking with any of them. As close minded as those on the baptist board if not worse.

Quite the eye opener that site, was for me anyway in more ways than one.

DMB

I think the idea of a man or a family's "honour" being vested in the sexuality of his/its women is a very widespread idea that is not peculiar to any one religion. As I said above, it is to do with ideas about a woman's status as a free human being or something less.

It was an idea that flourished for centuries in Europe. To take one example, read the Webster's play The Duchess of Malfi (or better yet, see a performance of it). This is a story about an "honour" killing and is closely based on the true story of a real Italian Duchess of Amalfi. That play was written about 400 years ago, and there are examples of "honour" killings in southern Europe much later than that.

I don't know how it can be proved, but I suspect that this stupid idea of honour goes back at least to the beginning of civilisation, which seems to have had a lot to do with the control of women.

The fact that it isn't confined to islam, although it is in muslim societies that we meet most contemporary examples, suggests to me that religion is used as an excuse for this sort of behaviour. Certainly one can find justifications for almost anything in the holy scriptures of the monotheistic religions. (The devil can quote scripture for his own purpose, etc.) The scriptures are such a self-contradictory mishmash that in practice all adherents have to pick and choose which bits they think are authentic or important, or at least be told that by religious scholars, priests, what have you. Hence we see the current controversy within xianity about gays and even the horrible murders of a few gays, while a large number of believers don't make an issue of it.

I think the main thing is to give no quarter to the religious excuse. If someone kills a female in his family because of "honour", he is a murderer and should receive the usual punishment. If someone kills an abortion doctor because he hates abortion for religious or any other grounds, then ditto.

If we look away from murders for a moment, let us consider wifebeating. This is another formerly widespread practice that is still found among muslims and certain other cultures. Again, it is to do with the perceived status of women. I am sure wifebeating was once as common in America as it was in England, where a curious saying was current:
Religion has also supplied "justification" for wifebeating, but I doubt that it has much to do with the motivation.

Mughal

Are men and women equal in islam?


http://debate.domini.org/newton/womeng.html




http://www.hulchul.net/index.php?act=ST&f=8&t=46449&



http://www.faithfreedom.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7105

premjan

I don't think religions can give men and women equal rights.
only the law can do that.

Monkeybot

Indeed, that's what I'm inclined to think as well. In fact, one of the first things that sprang to mind after I read your post was the ancient Roman story of the rape of Lucretia. (Admittedly, she kills herself, but the idea of a loss of honor requiring death is strikingly similar.)

DMB

Yes, but if the law is the Shari'a, as normally interpreted, it won't.

Many muslim scholars have great difficulties with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which, while it no more provides all that is needed for law than the 10 Commandments so beloved of fundie xians, does give a good starting point for most non-muslims. An attempt was made to produce a Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights to get round their difficulties with the UDHR. It is a pale shadow of the UDHR and like many islamic pronouncements it contains contradictions and ambiguities.

I suggest that any attempt to base law for a modern state on the dogma of an ancient religion is going to produce grave injustices. The ancient dogma has to be stretched enormously to cover necessary branches of law covering such things as modern businesses.

MBS

I wish there was more information on the origins. I would guess that it served a purpose of preserving the family authority structure in patriarchal societies. It seems like the family was more of a political unit with its own sovereignty. With that, laws and political/human rights only applied to the male head of the household. The wife(s) and children were his property and he was the only one who could give them anything; they had no rights given to them by any larger political body. It seems like the father could do whatever he pleased with them, even kill them.

Look at the story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac. The bible never indicates that Abraham is doing something unlawful by attempting this despicable act. Pretty disturbing.

With the male children, at least they will eventually gain their rights when they are old enough to start their own family, but the women will always be second class humans in this system.

MBS

Obviosly not, in any of the abrahamic religions plus others.

The OT of the Bible obviosly has a similar attitude toward women, but why is it that even the most fundamentalist christians view the religios laws set by their holy book in a historical perspective, while muslims try to apply the Quran as law, ie Sharia?

I don't beleive that there was ever, at any time, a serious attempt to establish a Christian version of Sharia. Sure, there were Christain theocracies, but there was never the vast body of "legal study", like you see with the Quran.

Judaism also seams to have largely grown out of the idea of religious law, and is just as, if not more, politically secular than modern Christianity. The OT of the Christain Bible obviously doesn't contain all the original law, but the Jewish books certainly do. Why isn't there Jewish Sharia?

Is it Islam and Sharia that is holding the Muslim world back? Or is it that the cultural backwardness (i.e. lack of modern education) is keeping Islam narrow minded, preserving old customs and Sharia, when they should be reinterpreted/replaced?

DMB

This is an interesting question, on which whole books have been written.

Islam had its golden age at a time when civlisation was at low ebb in Europe. A time of tolerance, scholarship and flourishing arts was gradually shut down by puritans.

The islamist approach and enforcement of the Shari'a are a relatively modern phenomenon in some muslim countries. In my own lifetime I have seen countries where muslims took a fairly tolerant and laid-back approach overcome by extremism and narrowness.

Pakistan when it became an independent nation, although it was founded as a muslim state, had a good, secular constitution. This was overthrown by the dictator, Zia ul Haq, who instituted the Shari'a as the supreme law.

Of course, it helps if you have an ignorant and illiterate population. In recent decades, Saudi oil money has been used to fund a narrow and intolerant kind of islam in many poor countries. They built schools, but ones that mainly taught the koran.