The Ability to See the Signs of God

Say: "Praise be to God. He will show you His Signs and you will recognize them. Your Lord is not heedless of anything you do." (Surat an-Naml: 93) In today's society, people assess the Quran very differently from what is the real purpose of its revelation. In the Islamic world, in general, very few people know the contents of the Quran.Some Muslims often hang the Quran on the walls of their houses within a decorative cover and elderly people read it from time to time. They assume that the Quran protects those who read it from "misfortune and trouble".

According to this superstition, they consider the Quran a sort of amulet against misfortunes. The Quranic verses, however, inform us that the purpose of the Quran's revelation is entirely different from what is mentioned above. For instance, in the 52nd verse of Surah Ibrahim, God states: "This is a communication to be transmitted to mankind so that they can be warned by it and so that they will know that He is One God and so that people of intelligence will pay heed." In many other verses, God emphasizes that one of the most crucial purposes of the Quran's revelation is to invite people to ponder.

In the Quran, God invites people to reject blindly accepting the beliefs and values society imposes on them and to ponder by pushing aside all the prejudices, taboos and constraints on their minds.Man must think on how he came into being, what is the purpose of his life, why he will die and what awaits him after death. He must question how he himself and the whole universe came into existence and how they continue to exist. While doing this, he must relieve himself of all constraints and prejudices.

By thinking, while isolating his conscience from all social, ideological and psychological obligations, the person should eventually perceive that the entire universe, including himself, is created by a superior power. Even when he examines his own body or any other thing in nature, he will see an impressive harmony, plan and wisdom at work within its design.At this point again, the Quran guides man.

In the Quran, God guides us as to what we should reflect on and investigate. With the methods of reflection given in the Quran, he who has faith in God will better perceive God's perfection, eternal wisdom, knowledge and power in His creation. When a believing person starts to think in the way shown in the Quran, he soon realizes that the whole universe is a sign of God's power and art, and that, "nature is a work of art, not the artist itself". Every work of art exhibits the exceptional skills of the one who has made it and conveys his messages.In the Quran, people are summoned to contemplate numerous events and objects that clearly testify to the existence and uniqueness of God and His attributes.

In the Quran, all these beings that bear witness are designated as "signs", meaning "tested evidence, absolute knowledge and expression of truth". Therefore, the signs of God comprise all the beings in the universe that disclose and communicate the being and attributes of God. Those who can observe and remember will see that the entire universe is only composed of the signs of God.This, indeed, is the responsibility of mankind; to be able to see the signs of God... Thus, such a person will come to know the Creator who created him and all other things, draw closer to Him, discover the meaning of his existence and his life and so prosper.

Each thing, the breaths a human takes, political and social developments; the cosmic harmony in the universe, the atom, which is one of the smallest pieces of matter, is each a sign of God and they all operate under His control and knowledge, abiding by His laws. Recognizing and knowing the signs of God calls for personal effort. Everyone will recognize and know the signs of God in accordance with his own wisdom and conscience.Undoubtedly, some guidelines may also help.

As the first step, one can investigate certain points stressed in the Quran in order to acquire the mentality that perceives the whole universe as an articulation of the things created by God. God's signs in nature are emphasized in Surat an-Nahl:

It is He who sends down water from the sky. From it you drink and from it come the shrubs among which you graze your herds. And by it He makes crops grow for you and olives and dates and grapes and fruit of every kind. . There is certainly a sign in that for people who reflect. He has made the night and the day subservient to you, and the sun, the moon and the stars, all subject to His command. There are certainly signs in that for people who use their intellect. And also the things of varying colors He has created for you in the earth. There is certainly a sign in that for people who pay heed. It is He who made the sea subservient to you so that you can eat fresh flesh from it and bring out from it ornaments to wear. And you see the ships cleaving through it so that you can seek His bounty, and so that perhaps you may show thanks. He cast firmly embedded mountains on the earth so it would not move under you, and rivers and pathways so that perhaps you might be guided, and landmarks. And they are guided by the stars. Is He Who creates like him who does not create? So will you not pay heed? (Surat an-Nahl: 10-17)

In the Quran, God invites men of understanding to think about the issues which other people overlook, or just dismiss using such barren terms as "evolution", "coincidence", or "a miracle of nature".In the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the alternation of night and day, there are Signs for people of intelligence: those who remember God standing, sitting and lying on their sides, and reflect on the creation of the heavens and the earth:

"Our Lord, You did not create this for nothing. Glory be to You! So guard us from the punishment of the Fire. (Surah Ali-'Imran: 190-191)

As we see in these verses, people of understanding see the signs of God and try to comprehend His eternal knowledge, power and art by remembering and reflecting on them, for God's knowledge is limitless, and His creation flawless.For men of understanding, everything around them is a sign of this creation.

Source: Harun Yahya

Sex Education: An Islamic Perspective

Sex Education: An Islamic Perspective

Dr. Shahid Athar examines the issues.

"If you tell kids about sex, they'll do it. If you tell them about VD, they'll go out and get it. Incredible as may seem, most oppositions to sex education in this country are based on the assumption that knowledge is harmful. But research in this area reveals that ignorance and unresolved curiosity, not knowledge, are harmful. Our failure to tell children what they want and need to know is one reason we have the highest rates of out-of-wedlock teens pregnancy and abortion of any highly developed country in the world."What Kids Need to Know, Psychology Today, October 1986. Dr. Sol Gordon, Professor Emeritus, Syracuse University, and an expert on sex education

"Say: Are they equal those who know, and those who do not know?" (Quran 39:9).

"Blessed are the women of the Helpers. Their modesty did not stand in the way of their seeking knowledge about their religion" (Bukhari and Muslim).

Introduction
Although the Quran has placed so much emphasis on acquiring knowledge, and in the days of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) Muslim men and women were never too shy to ask him questions including those related to private affairs such as sexual life, for Muslim parents of today, sex is a dirty word. They feel uncomfortable in discussing sex education with their children, but do not mind the same being taught at their children's school by secular or non-Muslim teachers (of even the opposite sex), by their peers of either sex, and by the media and television. An average child is exposed to 9000 sexual scenes per year.

These parents should know that sex is not always a dirty word. It is an important aspect of our life. God Who cares for all the aspects of our life, and not just the way of worshipping Him, discusses reproduction, creation, family life, menstruation and even ejaculation in the Quran. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), who was sent to us as an example, discussed many aspects of sexual life including sexual positions with his Companions.

The main reason Muslim parents do not or cannot discuss sex education with their children is because of the their cultural upbringing, not their religious training. They are often brought up in a state of ignorance in regard to sex issues. As a result, they may not be comfortable with their own sexuality or its expression. They leave Islamic education to Islamic Sunday schools and sex education to American public schools and the media.

What Is Sex Education And Who Should Give It?
Is sex education about knowing the anatomy and physiology of the human body or about the act of sex or about reproduction and family life or about prevention of sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancy? Is giving sex ed equivalent to permission in engaging in sex? One sex educator at my son's school told the parents, "I am not planning to tell your children whether or not they should engage in sex or how to do it but in case they decide to do it, they should know how to prevent sexually transmitted diseases (STD), venereal diseases (VD), acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) and pregnancy."

The problem with this is that at the present time sex ed as taught in the public schools is incomplete. It does not cover morality associated with sex, sexual dysfunctions and deviations and the institution of marriage.

One of the basic questions is, "Do children need sex education?" Do you teach a baby duck how to swim or just put it in the water and let it swim? After all, for thousands of years men and women have been having sex without any formal education. In many traditional civilizations, sex education starts after marriage and with trial and error. Some couples learn it faster than others and do it better than others due to difference in sexual perception and expression of one partner. In my opinion having a dozen children is not necessarily proof of their love. An appropriate and healthy sex education is crucial to the fulfilment of a happy marriage.

With regard to the question who should teach sex ed, I believe everyone has to play his or her role. Parents have to assume a more responsible role. A father has a duty to be able to answer his son's questions and a mother has the same duty to her daughter. We can hardly influence the sex ed taught in public schools or by the media, but we can supplement that with an ethical and moral dimension adding family love and responsibility. Apart from these players, some role can be played by Sunday school teachers, the family physician, the paediatrician and the clergy. Within a family, the older sister has a duty towards the younger one and the elder brother has a duty towards younger ones.

Sex Education In American Schools
Sex education is given in every American school, public or private, from grades 2 to 12. The projected 1990 cost to the nation was $2 billion per year. Teachers are told to give technical aspects of sex ed without telling the students about moral values or how to make the right decisions. After describing the male and female anatomy and reproduction, the main emphasis is on the prevention of venereal diseases and teenage pregnancy. With the rise of AIDS, the focus is on 'Safe Sex' which means having condoms available each time you decide to have sex with someone you don't know. With the help of our tax dollars, about 76 schools in the country have started dispensing free condoms and contraceptives to those who go to school health clinics. Very soon there will be vending machines in school hallways where 'children' can get a condom each time they feel like having sex.

The role of parents is minimized by American sex educators and sometimes ridiculed. In one of the sex ed movies I was made to watch a film called, "Am I Normal?" as a parent at my son's school. Whenever the young boy asks his father a question about sex, the father, shown as a bum and a slob, shuns him and changes the topic. Finally the boy learns it from a stranger and then is shown going into a movie theater with his girlfriend.

Sex education as promoted by some Western educators is devoid of morality is in many ways unacceptable to our value system. The examples of the teachings of one such educator are:

a. Nudity in homes (in shower or bedroom) is a good and healthy way to introduce sexuality to smaller (under 5) children, giving them an opportunity to ask questions. At the same time, in the same book, he also states that 75% of all child molestation and incest (500,000 per year) occur by a close relative (parent, step-parent or another family member).

b. A child's playing with genitals of another child is a permissible 'naive exploration' and not a reason for scolding or punishment. He is also aware that boys as young as 12 have raped girls as young as 8. We don't know when this 'naive exploration' becomes a sex act.

c. Children caught reading dirty magazines should not be made to feel guilty, but parents should use it as a chance to get some useful points across to him or her about sexual attitudes, values and sex exploitation, Like charity, pornography should start at home!

d. If your daughter or son is already sexually active, instead of telling them to stop, the parent's moral duty is to protect their health and career by providing them information and means for contraception and avoiding VD. Maybe this its true for rebellious teens and their submissive parents!

Educators like the one referred to above do not believe that giving sexual information means giving the OK for sex. I just wonder as to why some folks after being told the shape, colour, smell and taste of a new fruit, and pleasures derived from eating it, would not like to try it? These educators say that even if your child does not ask any questions about sex, parents should initiate the discussion using i.e. a neighbours pregnancy, a pet's behaviour, advertisement, popular music or a TV show. I wonder why these educators are obsessed with loading children with sexual information whether they want it or not.

The More They Know It - The More They Do It
Sex education in American schools has not helped decrease the teenager incidence of VD or teenage pregnancy. This is because it has not changed their sex habits. According to Marion Wright Elderman, President of the Children' Defense Fund, in a recent report, out of every twenty teens, ten are sexually active but only four use conceptions, two get pregnant and one gives birth. In 1982, a John Hopkins study found one out of every five 15 year olds, and one in three 16 year olds are sexually active. The incidence increased to 43% in 17 year olds. The Louis Harris poll in 1986 found that 57% of the nations 17 year olds, 46% of 16 year olds, 29% 15 year old were sexually active. Now it is estimated that about 80% of girls entering college had sexual intercourse at least once. Going to church does not help either. 1438 teenagers, mostly white, attending conservative evangelical church were sent questions about their sex life. 26% of 16 year olds, 35% of 17 year olds, and 43% of 18 year olds said they had sexual intercourse at least once. 33% that responded also said sex outside of marriage was morally acceptable.

Hazards of Early Sex
The health hazards of early sex includes sexual trauma, increase in incidence of cervical cancer, sexually transmitted disease and teenage pregnancy. We will take up each individually. A variety of injuries are possible and do happen when sex organs are not ready for sex in terms of full maturation. Some of these injuries have a long lasting effect. Cervical cancer has been thought to be related to sex at an early age and with multiple partners. Dr. Nelson and his associates in their article on epidemiology of cervical cancer call it a sexually transmitted disease,

Teenage pregnancy
About one million or more teenage girls become pregnant every year, at a rate of 3000 per day, 80% of whom are unmarried. Out of this I million, about 500,000, decide to keep their baby, and 450,000 are aborted. 100,000 decide to deliver and give the baby up for adoption. In 1950 the incidence of birth from unmarried teenagers was only 13.9%, but in 1985 it increased to 59%. It is a myth that teenage pregnancy is a problem of the black and poor. To the contrary 2/3 teens getting pregnant now are white, suburban and above the poverty income level. The pregnancy rate (without marriage) in 54,000 enlisted Navy women is 40% as compared to 17% in the general population.

What is the life of those who have teenage pregnancy? Only 50% complete high school and more than 50% of them are on welfare. They themselves become child abusers and their children, when grown up, have 82% incidence of teenage pregnancy. 8.6 billion dollars are spent every year for the financial and health care support of teenage mothers., The sexual revolution of the 60's has affected another dimension of health care. In 1985 alone, 10 million cases of chlamydia, 2 million cases of gonorrhoea, I million venereal warts, 0.5 million genital herpes and 90,000 syphilis were diagnosed. The plague of AIDS is adding a new twist to our fears. 200,000 cases have been diagnosed in the US alone, out of which 50% have already died. The disease is growing at a rate of one case every 14 minutes and so far there is no effective treatment. Father Bruce Ritter in New York, who operates shelters for runaway children, says the biggest threat to the nation's 1 million runaways is the threat of AIDS now.

Why do children get involved in sex?
There are many reasons why children get involved in sex. The most common is peer pressure. Their common response is "since everybody is doing it." One of the reasons is their desire for sexual competence with adults and a way to get ahead. Another common reason is their lack of self-esteem which they want to improve by becoming a father or mother. Sometimes it is due to a lack of other alternatives to divert their sexual energies. It could also be due to a lack of love and appreciation at home. Detachment from home can lead to attachment elsewhere. Sexual pressure on them is everywhere, at school from their peers, from the TV where about 20,000 sexual scenes are broadcasted in advertisement, soap operas, prime time shows and MTV. Music affects our sexual mood. It does so by activating melatonin, the hormone from the pineal gland in the brain which is turned on by darkness and turned off by flashing lights. It is the same gland which has been thought to trigger puberty and affects the reproductive cycle and sex mood.

What is the true role of parents?
American educators are putting the blame for their failures (i.e. teenage pregnancy) on the parents. In fact in Wisconsin and many other states the grandparents of a baby born to a teenager are responsible for the financial support of the child. Remember parents are not needed if their teenage daughter needs contraceptives or abortion. Faced with such hypocrisy, the parents job is to instill in their teenagers mind what is not taught in sex ed classes, i.e. reason not to engage in sex, reason not to get pregnant, etc. At the same time, they should divert their energies to some productive activities like community work, sports, character growth, or Sunday schools. Another role of parents is to help their children make the right decisions.

In Islam anything which leads to wrong is also considered wrong. Therefore parents should control the music children are listening to or the TV program they are watching, the magazines they are reading, and the clothes (which may provoke desire in the opposite sex) they are wearing. While group social activity should be permitted with supervision, dating should not be allowed. When American teenagers start dating, sex is on their mind.

In fact during a recent survey, 25% of college freshman boys responded by saying that if they have paid for the food and the girl does not go all the way, they have a right to force her to have sex. Many of the rapes occur at the end of the date and are not reported. Anything which breaks down sexual inhibition and loss of self-control i.e. alcohol, drugs, parking, petting or just being together for two members of the opposite sex in a secluded place should not be allowed for Muslim teenagers. Kissing and petting is preparing the body for sex. The body can be brought to a point of no return.

In summary Muslim parents should teach their children that they are different from non-Muslims in their value system and way of life. Having a feeling and love in your heart for someone of the opposite sex is different and beyond control, while expression of the same through sex is entirely different and should be under control. Muslim children should be told that they don't drink alcohol, eat pork, take drugs, and they don't have to engage in pre-marital sex either.

Islamic Concept of Sexuality
Islam recognizes the power of sexual need, but the subject is discussed in the Quran and the saying of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in a serious manner, in regard to marital and family life. Parents should familiarize themselves with this body of knowledge.

Sayings of prophet Mohammed
1. "When one of you have sex with your wife, it is a rewarded act of charity." The companions were surprised and said, "But we do it purely out of our desire. How can it be counted as charity?" The Prophet replied, "If you had done it with a forbidden woman, it would have been counted as a sin, but if you do it in legitimacy, it is counted as charity."

2. "Let not one of you fall upon his wife like a beast falls. It is more appropriate to send a message before the act."

3. "Do not divulge the secrets of your sex life with your wife to another person nor describe her physical feature to anyone."

Concept of Adultery in Islam
God says in the Quran, "Do not go near to adultery. Surely it is a shameful deed and evil, opening roads (to other evils)" (17:32). "Say, 'Verily, my Lord has prohibited the shameful deeds, be it open or secret, sins and trespasses against the truth and reason"' (7:33). "Women impure are for men impure, and men impure are for women impure and women of purity are for men of purity, and men of purity are for women of purity" (24:26). Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), has said in many place that adultery is one of the three major sins. However the most interesting story is that of a young man who went to the Prophet and asked for permission to fornicate because he could not control himself. The Prophet dealt with him with reasoning and asked him if he would approve of someone else having illegal sex with his mother, sister, daughter or wife. Each time the man said 'no'. Then the Prophet replied that the woman with whom you plan to have sex is also somebody's mother, sister, daughter or wife. The man understood and repented. The Prophet prayed for his forgiveness.

Adultery is a crime not against one person but against the whole of society. It is a violation of marital contract. 50% of all first time marriages in this country result in divorce in two years and the main reason for divorce is the adultery of one of the partners. Adultery, which includes both pre-marital and extra marital sex, is an epidemic in this society. Nobody seems to listen to the Bible which says frequently, "Thou shall not commit adultery." The Quranic approach is, "Do not approach adultery."

What does it mean that not only is illegal sex prohibited, but anything which leads to illegal sex is also illegal? These things include dating, provocative dress, nudity, obscenity and pornography. The dress code both for men and women is to protect them from temptation and desires by on lookers who may lose self-control and fall into sin. "Say to the believing men that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that will make for greater purity, and God is well acquainted with all they do. And say to the believing woman that they should lower their gaze, and guard their modesty" (24:30-3 1).

Concept of Marriage in Islam
Islam recognizes the strong sexual urge and desire for reproduction. Thus Islam encourages marriage as a legal sexual means and as a shield from immorality (sex without commitment). In Islam the marriage of a man and woman is not just a financial and legal living arrangement, not even just for reproduction, but providing a total commitment to each other, a contract witnessed by God. Love and joy of companionship is a part of the commitment. A married couple assumes a new social status and responsibility for himself, his wife and his children and for the community. The Quran says, "Among His signs is that He created consorts for you from among yourself, so that you may find tranquillity with them, and (He) set love and compassion between you. Verily in this are signs for people who reflect" (30:21).

Sayings of prophet Mohammed
"Marriage is my tradition. He who rejects my tradition is not of me" (Bukhari, Muslim).
"Marriage is half of religion. The other half is being God-fearing" (Tabarani, Hakim).

In Islam there is no fixed rule as to the age of marriage. It is becoming fashionable for young Muslim men not to marry until they have completed their education, have a job, or reached age 26-30 or more. Similarly young Muslim girls say they want to marry after age 24. Why? When asked, they say, "I am not ready for it." Not ready for what? Don't they have normal sexual desire? If the answer is yes, then they have only one of the two choices a) marry or b) postpone sex (abstinence until they marry). The Quran says, "Let those who find not the where withal for marriage, to keep them selves chaste till God find them the means from His Grace" (24:33).

The Prophet said, "Those of you who own the means should marry, otherwise should keep fasting for it curbs desires" (Ibn Massoud). The Western reason for delaying marriage is different than ours. When I suggested this to one of my sexually active young female patients, she bluntly said, "I don't want to sleep with the same guy every night."

Role Of Muslim Parents And Muslim Organizations
I am not proposing that all Muslim youth be married at age 16. But I must say that youth should accept the biological instinct and make decisions which will help to develop a more satisfied life devoted to having a career rather than spending time in chasing (or dreaming about) the opposite sex. Parents should help their sons and daughters in selection of their mate using Islamic practice as a criteria and not race, colour or wealth. They should encourage them to know each other in a supervised setting. The community organization has several roles to play.

a) To provide a platform for boys and girls to see and know each other without any intimacy.

b) Offer premarital educational courses to boys and girls over 18 separately to prepare them for the role of father and husband and of mother and wife. The father has a special role, mentioned by Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), "One who is given by God, a child, he should give it a beautiful name, should give him or her education, and training and when he or she attains puberty, he should see to it that he or she is married. If the father does not arrange their marriage after puberty, and the boy or girl is involved in sin, the responsibility of that sin will lie with the father"

Marriage of Muslim girls in USA
the USAMarriage of Muslim girls in this country is becoming a problem. I was not surprised to read the letter of a Muslim father in a national magazine. He complained that in spite of his doing his best in teaching Islam to his children, his college-going daughter announced that she is going to marry a non-Muslim boy whom she met in college.
As a social scientist I am more interested in the analysis of the events. To be more specific, why would a Muslim girl prefer a non-Muslim boy over a Muslim? The following reasons come to mind:

- She is opposed to and scared of arranged marriages. She should be told that not all arranged marriages are bad ones and that 50% of all love marriages end up in a divorce in this country. Arranged marriages can be successful if approved by both the boy and girl. That is, they need to be a party to the arrangement. I am myself opposed to the blind arranged marriage.

- Muslim boys are not available to her to make a choice. While parents have no objection or cannot do anything about non-Muslim boys with whom she talks or socializes at school or college for forty hours a week, she is not allowed to talk to a Muslim boy in the mosque or in a social gathering. If she does, they frown at her or even accuse her of having a loss character. As a Muslim boy put it, "If I grow up knowing only non-Muslim girls, why do my parents expect me to marry a Muslim one?"

- Some Muslim boys do not care for Muslim girls. On the pretext of missionary work after marriage, they get involved with non-Muslim girls because of their easy availability. Muslim parents who also live with an inferiority complex do not mind their son marrying an American girl of European background but they would object if he marries a Muslim girl of a different school of Islamic thought (Shiah/Sunni) or different tribe like Punjabi, Sunni, Pathan, Arab vs. non-Arab, Afro-American vs. immigrant, or different class, Syed vs. non-Syed. Both the parents and the body should be reminded that the criteria for choosing a spouse that was given by the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) was not wealth nor color but Islamic piety.

- She may have been told that early marriage, that is, age 18 or less, is taboo and that she should wait until the age of 23 or 25. According to statistics, 80% of American girls, while waiting to get settled in life and married, engage freely in sex with multiple boyfriends. However, this option is not available to Muslim girls. Every year nearly one million teenage girls in this country who think that they are not ready for marriage, get pregnant. By the age of 24 when a Muslim girl decides that she is ready for marriage, it may be too large for her. If she reviews the matrimonial ad section in Islamic magazines, she will quickly notice that the boys of the age group of 25 to 30 are looking for girls from 18 to 20 year age group. They may wrongfully assume that an older girl may not be a virgin.

Thus, unless these issues are addressed, many Muslim girls in the US may end up marrying a non-Muslim or remain unmarried.

Curriculum For Islamic Sex Education
Islamic sex ed should be taught at home starting at an early age. Before giving education about anatomy and physiology, the belief in the Creator should be well established. As Dostoevsky put it, "Without God, everything is possible," meaning that the lack of belief or awareness of God gives an OK for wrongdoing.

A father should teach his son and a mother should teach her daughter. In the absence of a willing parent, the next best choice should be a Muslim male teacher (preferably a physician) for boys and a Muslim female teacher (preferably a physician) for a girl at the Islamic Sunday school.

The curriculum should be tailored according to age of the child and classes be held separately. Only pertinent answers to a question should be given. By this I mean that if a five year old asks how he or she got into mommie's stomach, there is no need to describe the whole act of intercourse. Similarly it is not necessary to tell a fourteen year old how to put on condoms. This might be taught in premarital class just before his or her marriage. A curriculum for sex ed should Include:

a. Sexual growth and development
* Time table for puberty
* Physical changes during puberty
* Need for family life

b. Physiology of reproductive system
* For girls- the organ, menstruation, premenstrual syndrome
* For boys- the organ, the sex drive

c. Conception, development of fetus and birth

d. Sexually transmitted disease (VD/AIDS) (emphasize the Islamic aspect)

e. Mental, emotional and social aspects of puberty

f Social, moral and religious ethics

g. How to avoid peer pressure

Sex Education after Marriage
This essay is not intended to be a sex manual for married couples, although I may write such someday. I just wanted to remind the reader of a short verse in the Quran and then elaborate. The verse is, "They are your garments, and you are their garments" (2:187).

Husbands and wives are described as garments for each other. A garment is very close to our body, so they should be close to each other. A garment protects and shields our modesty, so they should do the same to each other. Garments are put on anytime we like, so should they be available to each other anytime. A garment adds to our beauty, so they should praise and beautify each other.

For husbands I should say that sex is an expression of love and one without the other is incomplete. One of your jobs is to educate your wife in matters of sex especially in your likes and dislikes and do not compare her to other women.

For wives I want to say that a man's sexual needs are different than a women's. Instead of being a passive recipient of sex, try to be an active partner. He is exposed to many temptations outside the home. Be available to please him and do not give him a reason to make a choice between you and hellfire.

From the book: Sex Education: An Islamic Perspective (Edited by Shahid Athar , M.D.)
Shahid Athar M.D. is Clinical Associate Professor of Internal Medicine and Endocrinology, Indiana University School of Medicine Indianapolis, Indiana, and a writer on Islam.

Islam, Culture and Women

Islam, Culture and Women

by Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood

How can anyone justify Islam's treatment of women, when it imprisons Afghans under blue shuttlecock burqas and makes Pakistani girls marry strangers against their will? How can you respect a religion that forces women into polygamous marriages, mutilates their genitals, forbids them to drive cars and subjects them to the humiliation of "instant" divorce? In fact, none of these practices are Islamic at all. Anyone wishing to understand Islam must first separate the religion from the cultural norms and style of a society. Female genital mutilation is still practised in certain pockets of Africa and Egypt, but viewed as an inconceivable horror by the vast majority of Muslims.

Forced marriages may still take place in certain Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities, but would be anathema to Muslim women from other backgrounds. Indeed, Islam insists on the free consent of both bride and groom, so such marriages could even be deemed illegal under religious law. A woman forbidden from driving a car in Riyadh will cheerfully take the wheel when abroad, confident that her country's bizarre law has nothing to do with Islam. Afghan women educated before the Taliban rule know that banning girls from school is forbidden in Islam, which encourages all Muslims to seek knowledge from cradle to grave, from every source possible.

The Koran is addressed to all Muslims, and for the most part it does not differentiate between male and female. Man and woman, it says, "were created of a single soul," and are moral equals in the sight of God. Women have the right to divorce, to inherit property, to conduct business and to have access to knowledge. Since women are under all the same obligations and rules of conduct as the men, differences emerge most strongly when it comes to pregnancy, child-bearing and rearing, menstruation and, to a certain extent, clothing. Some of the commands are alien to Western tradition. Requirements of ritual purity may seem to restrict a woman's access to religious life, but are viewed as concessions. During menstruation or postpartum bleeding, she may not pray the ritual salah or touch the Koran and she does not have to fast; nor does she need to fast while pregnant or nursing.

The veiling of Muslim women is a more complex issue. Certainly, the Koran requires them to behave and dress modestly - but these strictures apply equally to men. Only one verse refers to the veiling of women, stating that the Prophet's wives should be behind a hijab when his male guests converse with them. Some modernists, however, claim that this does not apply to women in general, and that the language used does not carry the textual stipulation that makes a verse obligatory. In practice, most modern Muslim women appreciate attractive and graceful clothes, but avoid dressing provocatively.

What about polygamy, which the Koran endorses up to the limit of four wives per man? The Prophet, of course, lived at a time when continual warfare produced large numbers of widows, who were left with little or no provision for themselves and their children. In these circumstances, polygamy was encouraged as an act of charity. Needless to say, the widows were not necessarily sexy young women, but usually mothers of up to six children, who came as part of the deal. Polygamy is no longer common, for various good reasons. The Koran states that wives need to be treated fairly and equally - a difficult requirement even for a rich man. Moreover, if a husband wishes to take a second wife, he should not do so if the marriage will be to the detriment of the first. Sexual intimacy outside marriage is forbidden in Islam, including sex before marriage, adultery or homosexual relationships. However, within marriage, sexual intimacy should be raised from the animal level to sadaqah (a form of worship) so that each considers the happiness and satisfaction of the other, rather than mere self-gratification.

Contrary to Christianity, Islam does not regard marriages as "made in heaven" or "till death do us part". They are contracts, with conditions. If either side breaks the conditions, divorce is not only allowed, but usually expected. Nevertheless, a hadith makes it clear that: "Of all the things God has allowed, divorce is the most disliked."

A Muslim has a genuine reason for divorce only if a spouse's behaviour goes against the sunnah of Islam - in other words, if he or she has become cruel, vindictive, abusive, unfaithful, neglectful, selfish, sexually abusive, tyrannical, perverted - and so on. In good Islamic practice, before divorce can be contemplated, all possible efforts should be made to solve a couple's problems. After an intention to divorce is announced, there is a three-month period during which more attempts are made at reconciliation. If, by the end of each month, the couple have resumed sexual intimacy, the divorce should not proceed. The three-month rule ensures that a woman cannot remarry until three menstrual cycles have passed - so, if she happens to be pregnant, the child will be supported and paternity will not be in dispute.

When Muslims die, strict laws govern the shares of property and money they may leave to others; daughters usually inherit less than sons, but this is because the men in a family are supposed to provide for the entire household. Any money or property owned by women is theirs to keep, and they are not obliged to share it. Similarly, in marriage, a woman's salary is hers and cannot be appropriated by her husband unless she consents.

A good Muslim woman, for her part, should always be trustworthy and kind. She should strive to be cheerful and encouraging towards her husband and family, and keep their home free from anything harmful (haram covers all aspects of harm, including bad behaviour, abuse and forbidden foods). Regardless of her skills or intelligence, she is expected to accept her man as the head of her household - she must, therefore, take care to marry a man she can respect, and whose wishes she can carry out with a clear conscience.

However, when a man expects his wife to do anything contrary to the will of God - in other words, any nasty, selfish, dishonest or cruel action - she has the right to refuse him. Her husband is not her master; a Muslim woman has only one Master, and that is God. If her husband does not represent God's will in the home, the marriage contract is broken. What should one make of the verse in the Koran that allows a man to punish his wife physically? There are important provisos: he may do so only if her ill-will is wrecking the marriage - but then only after he has exhausted all attempts at verbal communication and tried sleeping in a separate bed.

However, the Prophet never hit a woman, child or old person, and was emphatic that those who did could hardly regard themselves as the best of Muslims. Moreover, he also stated that a man should never hit "one of God's handmaidens". Nor, it must be said, should wives beat their husbands or become inveterate nags.

Finally, there is the issue of giving witness. Although the Koran says nothing explicit, other Islamic sources suggest that a woman's testimony in court is worth only half of that of a man. This ruling, however, should be applied only in circumstances where a woman is uneducated and has led a very restricted life: a woman equally qualified to a man will carry the same weight as a witness.

So, does Islam oppress women? While the spirit of Islam is clearly patriarchal, it regards men and women as moral equals. Moreover, although a man is technically the head of the household, Islam encourages matriarchy in the home. Women may not be equal in the manner defined by Western feminists, but their core differences from men are acknowledged, and they have rights of their own that do not apply to men.

English convert to Islam, Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood, is the author of over thirty books on Islam and other subjects.

Email: Ruqaiyyah@aol.com

Website: http://members.aol.com/Ruqaiyyah

Pursuing the MillenniumJewish Fundamentalism in Israel

By David Hirst From Nation Excerpted from The Gun and the Olive BranchFebruary 2, 2004

In the minds of many Westerners, Muslim fundamentalism has replaced communism as perhaps the greatest single “threat” to the existing world order. From this perspective the Palestinian intifada becomes just another episode in a “clash of civilizations.” For them, there is an intrinsic link between Palestinian “terrorism” and, say, the al-Qaeda bombing of an American warship off Yemen. Almost totally absent from such arguments is any inclination to examine Jewish fundamentalism, or so much as to ask whether it, too, might be a factor in the conflict over Palestine, one of the reasons why it seems so insoluble.

[David Hirst contributes to the Guardian, the Christian Science Monitor, the Irish Times, the St. Petersburg Times, Newsday, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Beirut Daily Star. He is the author of Sadat, a study of the late Egyptian president who once denounced him over the airwaves. Hirst has been banned at various times from visiting Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. He lives in Beirut. This essay is excerpted from David Hirst’s The Gun and the Olive Branch, recently re-released by Nation Books.]

There is, in fact, a great ignorance of, or indifference to, this whole subject in the outside world, and not least in the United States. This is due at least in part to that general reluctance of the mainstream American media to subject Israel to the same searching scrutiny to which it would other states and societies, and especially when the issue in question is as sensitive, as emotionally charged, as this one is. But, in the view of the late Israel Shahak, it reflects particularly badly on an American Jewry which, with its ingrained, institutionalized aversion to finding fault with Israel, turns a blind eye to what Israelis like himself viewed with disgust and alarm, and unceasingly said so.

American Jews, especially Orthodox ones, are generous financiers of the shock troops of fundamentalism, the religious settlers; indeed a good 10 percent of these, and among the most extreme, violent and sometimes patently deranged, are actually immigrants from America. They are, says Shahak, one of the “absolutely worst phenomena” in Israeli society, and “it is not by chance that they have their roots in the American-Jewish community.” It was from his headquarters in New York that the Lubavitcher Rebbe, the late Menachem Schneerson, seer of possibly the most rabid of Hasidic sects, the Chabad, gave guidance to his many followers in both Israel and the United States.

The ignorance or indifference is all the more remiss in that Jewish fundamentalism is not, and cannot be, just a domestic Israeli question. Israel was always a highly ideological society; it is also a vastly outsized military power, both nuclear and conventional. That is a combination which, when the ideology in question is Zionism in its most extreme, theocratic form, is fraught with possible consequences for the region and the world, and, of course, for the world’s only, Israeli-supporting superpower.

Like its Islamic counterpart, Jewish fundamentalism in Israel has grown enormously in political importance over the past quarter-century. Its committed, hard-core adherents, as distinct from a larger body of the more traditionally religious, are thought to account for some 20 to 25 percent of the population. They, and more particularly the settlers among them, have acquired an influence, disproportionate to their numbers, over the whole Israeli political process, and especially in relation to the ultra-nationalist right, which, beneath its secular exterior, actually shares much of their febrile, exalted outlook on the world. It is fundamentalism of a very special, ethnocentric and fiercely xenophobic kind, with beliefs and practices that are “even more extremist,” says Shahak, “than those attributed to the extremes of Islamic fundamentalism,” if not “the most totalitarian system ever invented.”

Like fundamentalism everywhere, the Jewish variety seeks to restore an ideal, imagined past. If it ever managed to do so, the Israel celebrated by the American “friends of Israel” as a “bastion of democracy in the Middle East” would, most assuredly, be no more. For, in its full and perfect form, the Jewish Kingdom that arose in its place would elevate a stern and wrathful God’s sovereignty over any new-fangled, heathen concepts such as the people’s will, civil liberties or human rights. It would be governed by the Halacha, or Jewish religious law, of which the rabbis would be the sole interpreters, and whose observance clerical commissars, installed in every public and private institution, would rigorously enforce, with the help of citizens legally obligated to report any offense to the authorities. A monarch, chosen by the rabbis, would rule and the Knesset would be replaced by a Sanhedrin, or supreme judicial, ecclesiastic and administrative council. Men and women would be segregated in public, and “modesty” in female dress and conduct would be enforced by law. Adultery would be a capital offense, and anyone who drove on the Sabbath, or desecrated it in other ways, would be liable to death by stoning. As for non-Jews, the Halacha would be an edifice of systematic discrimination against them, in which every possible crime or sin committed by a Gentile against a Jew, from murder or adultery to robbery or fraud, would be far more heavily punished than the same crime or sin committed by a Jew against a Gentile—if, indeed, the latter were considered to be a felony at all, which it often would not be.

All forms of “idolatry or idol-worship,” but especially Christian ones (for traditionally Muslims, who are not considered to be idolaters, are held in less contempt than Christians), would be “obliterated,” in the words of Shas party leader Rabbi Ovadia Yossef. According to conditions laid down by Maimonides, whose Halacha rulings are holy writ to the fundamentalists, those Gentiles, or so-called “Sons of Noah,” permitted to remain in the Kingdom could only do so as “resident aliens,” obliged under law to accept the “inferiority” in perpetuity which that status entails, to “suffer the humiliation of servitude,” and to be “kept down and not raise their heads to the Jews.” At weekday prayers, the faithful would intone the special curse: “And may the apostates have no hope, and all the Christians perish instantly.” One wonders what the Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons think of all this; for it is strange, this new adoration by America’s evangelicals of an Israel whose Jewish fundamentalists continue to harbor a doctrinal contempt for Christianity only rivaled by the contempt which the Christian fundamentalists reserve for the Jews themselves.

Fundamentalists come in a multitude of sects, often fiercely disputatious with one another on the finest and most esoteric points of doctrine, but all are agreed on this basic eschatological truth: It is upon the coming of the Messiah that the Jewish Kingdom will arise, and the twice-destroyed Temple will be reconstructed on the site where the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosques now stand. One school of fundamentalists, the Hanedim, believes that the Messiah will appear in His own good time, that the millennium, the End of Days, will come by the grace of God alone. The Shas party is their largest single political component. Their position has in it something of the traditional religious quietism, which, historically, opposed the whole idea of Zionism, immigration to Palestine and the establishment of a Jewish state.

The other school, less extreme in outward religious observances, is more so, indeed breathtakingly revolutionary, on one crucial point of dogma: the belief that the coming of the Messiah can be accomplished, or hastened, by human agency. In fact, the “messianic era” has already arrived. This messianic fundamentalism is represented by the National Religious Party, and its progeny, the settlers of the Gush Emunim, or Bloc of the Faithful, who eventually came to dominate it. Its adherents are ready to involve themselves in the world, sinful though it is, and, by so doing, they sanctify it. Except for the symbolic skullcap, they have adopted conventional modern dress; they include secular subjects in the curricula of their seminaries.

According to the teachings of their spiritual mentor, Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook, the Gush, or at least the rabbis who lead it, are themselves the collective incarnation of the Messiah. Since, in biblical prophecy, the Messiah was to appear riding on an ass, he identified the ass as those errant, secular Jews who remain in stubborn ignorance of the exalted purpose of its divinely guided rider. In the shape of those early Zionists they had, it is true, performed the necessary task of carrying the Jews back to the Holy Land, settling it and founding a state there. But now they had served their historic purpose; now they had become obsolete in their failure to renounce their beastly, ass-like ways—and to perceive that Zionism has a divine, not merely a national, purpose.

The mainstream secular Zionist leadership had wanted the Jewish people to achieve “normality,” to be as other peoples with a nation-state of their own. The messianics—and indeed, though for emotional more than doctrinal reasons, much of the nationalist right—hold that that is impossible; the Jews’ “eternal uniqueness” stems from the covenant God made with them on Mount Sinai. So, as Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, a Gush leader and head of a yeshiva that studies the ancient priestly rites that would be revived if and when the Temple were rebuilt, put it, “while God requires other, normal nations to abide by abstract codes of ‘justice and righteousness,’ such laws do not apply to Jews.” Since Zionism began, but especially since the 1967 war and Israel’s conquest of the remainder of historic Palestine, the Jews have been living in a “transcendental political reality,” or a state of “metaphysical transformation,” one in which, through war and conquest, Israel liberates itself not only from its physical enemies, but from the “satanic” power which these enemies incarnate. The command to conquer the Land, says Aviner, is “above the moral, human considerations about the national rights of the Gentiles in our country.” What he calls “messianic realism” dictates that Israel has been instructed to “be holy, not moral, and the general principles of morality, customary for all mankind, do not bind the people of Israel, because it has been chosen to be above them.” It is not simply because the Arabs deem the land to be theirs that they resist this process—though, in truth, it is not theirs and they are simply “thieves” who took what always belonged to the Jews—it is because, as Gentiles, they are inherently bound to do so. “Arab hostility,” says another Gush luminary, Rabbi Eliezer Waldman, director of the Kiryat Arba settlement’s main yeshiva, “springs, like all anti-Semitism, from the world’s recalcitrance” in the face of an Israel pursuing “its divine mission to serve as the heart of the world.”

So force is the only way to deal with the Palestinians. So long as they stay in the Land of Israel, they can only do so as “resident aliens” without “equality of human and civil rights,” those being “a foreign democratic principle” that does not apply to them. But, in the end, they must leave. There are two ways in which that can happen. One is “enforced emigration.” The other way is based on the biblical injunction to “annihilate the memory of Amalek.” In an article on “The Command of Genocide in the Bible,” Rabbi Israel Hess opined—without incurring any criticism from a state Rabbinate whose official duty it is to correct error wherever it finds it—that “the day will come when we shall all be called upon to wage this war for the annihilation of Amalek.” He advanced two reasons for this. One was the need to ensure “racial purity.” The other lay in “the antagonism between Israel and Amalek as an expression of the antagonism between light and darkness, the pure and the unclean.”

For the Gush, there is a dimension to the settlements beyond the merely strategic —the defending of the state—or the territorial—the expansion of the “Land of Israel” till it reaches its full, biblically foretold borders. Settlements are the citadels of their messianic ideology, the nucleus and inspiration of their theocratic state-in-the-making, the power base from which to conduct an internal struggle that is inseparable from the external one—the intra-Jewish struggle against that other Israel, the secular-modernist one of original, mainstream Zionism, which stands in their path. The Gush must make good what Rabbi Kook taught: that the existing State of Israel carries within itself “the Kingdom of Israel, the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth; consequently, total Holiness embraces every Jewish person, every deed, every phenomenon, including Jewish secularism, which will be one day swallowed by Holiness, by Redemption."

It goes without saying that the Gush consider any American-sponsored Arab-Israeli peaceful settlement to be a virtual impossibility; but furthermore, any attempt to achieve that impossibility should be actively sabotaged. For them, the Oslo Accords, and the prospect of the “re-division” of the “Land of Israel,” was a profound, existential shock. It was, said Rabbi Yair Dreyfus, an “apostasy” which, the day it came into effect, would mark “the end of the Jewish-Zionist era [from 1948 to 1993] in the sacred history of the Land of Israel.” The Gush and their allies declared a “Jewish intifada” against it. The grisly climax came when, in the Ramadan of February 1994, a doctor, Baruch Goldstein, Israeli but Brooklyn-born-and-bred, machine-gunned Muslim worshippers in Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque, killing 29 of them before he was killed himself. This was no mere isolated act of a madman. Goldstein was a follower of New York’s Lubavitcher Rebbe. But what he did reflected and exemplified the whole milieu from which he sprang, the religious settlers, and the National Religious Party behind them. There was no more eloquent demonstration of that than the immediate, spontaneous responses to the mass murder; these yielded nothing, in breadth or intensity, to the Palestinians’ responses to their fundamentalist suicide bombings, when these first got going in the wake of it. Many were the rabbis who praised this “act,” “event” or “occurrence,” as they delicately called it. Within two days the walls of Jerusalem’s religious neighborhoods were covered with posters extolling Goldstein’s virtues and lamenting that the toll of dead Palestinians had not been higher. In fact, the satisfaction extended well beyond the religious camp in general; polls said that 50 percent of the Israeli people, and especially the young, more or less approved of it.

The “Jewish intifada” also turned on other Jews. Yigal Amir, who assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in November 1995, was no less a product than Goldstein of the milieu from which the latter sprang. As in other religious traditions, the hatred Jewish fundamentalists nurtured for Jewish “traitors” and “apostates” was perhaps even greater than it was for non-Jews. Rabin, and the “left,” were indeed traitors in their eyes; they were “worshippers of the Golden Calf of a delusory peace.” And in a clear example of their deep emotional kinship with the fundamentalists, Sharon and several other Likud and far-right secular nationalist leaders joined the hue and cry against Rabin and his government of “criminals,” “Nazis” and “Quislings.” Declaring that “there are tyrants at the gate,” Sharon likened Oslo to the collaboration between France’s Marshal P鴡in and Hitler and said that Rabin and his foreign minister, Shimon Peres, were both “crazed” in their indifference to the slaughter of Jews.

The struggle between the religious—in its fundamentalist form—and the secular, between ancient and modern, ethnocentric and universal, is a struggle for Israel’s very soul. The Gush settlements are at the heart of it. The struggle is intensifying and is wholly unresolved. The fundamentalists can never win it; they are simply too backward and benighted for that. But, appeased, surreptitiously connived with, or unashamedly supported down the years by Labor as much as by Likud, they have now acquired such an ascendancy over the whole political process, such a penetration of the apparatus of the state, military and administrative, executive and legislative branches, that no elected government can win it either. Meanwhile, they grow increasingly defiant, lawless and hysterical in pursuit of the millennium.

The Zionist-colonial enterprise has always had a built-in propensity to gravitate towards its most extreme expression. And what, with the rise of the Begins and Shamirs, the Sharons and now a new breed of super-Sharons, has been true of the whole is bound to be even more true of its fanatical, fundamentalist particular. Its latest manifestation is the so-called “hilltop youth”; these sons and daughters of the original, post-1967 settlers, born and reared in the closed, homogenous, hothouse world of their West Bank and Gazan strongholds, surpass even their elders in militancy. In keeping with time-honored, Sharon-approved Zionist tradition, they have taken to seizing and staking out hilltops as the sites of settlements to come, and, in every neighborhood they claim as their own, they forcibly prevent the Palestinians from harvesting the fruit of their ancestral olive groves. There is surely worse—much worse—to come.

A Qur'an-only Feminist

A Qur'an-only Feminist

Some Critical Fact-Finding Reflections on Riffat Hassan's "Women in Muslim Culture: Some Critical Theological Reflections"
by GF Haddad

One of the objectives of anti-Muslim crusaders is to promote the dismantlement of the Sunna as the second source of Islam so as to clear the field and improve chances in the onslaught on the Qur'an. In this effort they readily collaborate with the stray sects such as the "Qur'an-only" that originate in India and Pakistan. If one of the latter happens to be a feminist then so much the better. This is the case with Ms. Riffat Hassan, author of "Women in Muslim Culture: Some Critical Theological Reflections," one of the essays in _Muslim-Christian Dialogue: Promise and Problems_, edited by M. Darrol Bryant and S.A. Ali at Paragon House. (The "promise" in the title apparently encourages the Christians while the "problems" apparently plague the Muslims.)

Riffat Hassan's writing is a string of superficial indictments and factual inaccuracies. It is disturbing that she casts herself as a defender of Muslim women's rights. From the start, her bombastic outrage reads like the caricature of a feminist. "The Islamic tradition has, by and large, remained strongly patriarchal until today.... Until now the majority of Muslim women, who have been kept for centuries in physical, mental and emotional bondage, have accepted this situation passively." Such poor writing evidently appeals to certain presses but it is definitely not the stuff of truth and right on behalf of the weak and the oppressed.

She finds the rate of literacy of Muslim women, "especially those who live in rural areas where most of the population live ... amongst the lowest in the world." It is probably truer that the poor rural Muslim woman on average lives in better material conditions than her non-Muslim counterpart.

She claims that "Muslims, in general, consider it a self-evident truth that women are not equal to men." The answer is, Islam is one thing, Muslims another - as every convert will tell you. Islam questions such chauvinism more critically and consistently than Christianity and Judaism. However, Ms. Hassan's problem is not so much with Muslims but with Islam itself.

"Among the 'arguments'," she says, "used to overwhelm any proponent of gender equality, the following are perhaps the most popular: that according to the Qur'an, men are qawwamun (generally translated as "rulers" or "managers") in relation to women." I checked. Of Pickthall, Yusuf Ali, Palmer, and Dawood, none translates qawwamun as "rulers" or "managers".

"According to the Qur'an, a man's share in inheritance is twice that of a woman." This is because a Muslim man goes through life obligated to spend on his dependents and others while a Muslim woman goes through life without any such obligation.

"According to the Qur'an, the witness of one man is equal to that of two women." In certain spheres only. In other spheres, their witness is equal. This is an example where the Sunna is indispensable - for Ms. Hassan's own benefit - to expound the Qur'an.

"According to the Prophet, women are deficient both in prayer... and in intellect." But the "deficiency in prayer" is purely quantitative - no daily prayers during menses - like saying their bodies weigh less. For the "deficiency in intellect" read unconcern for ratiocination, while men are deficient in intuition. So was each created.

Ms. Hassan, a Pakistani, praises herself as "the only Muslim woman in the country who had been engaged in a study of women's issues from a nonpatriarchal, theological perspective." In other words, by a free-wheeling self-teaching method naturally cut off from stodgy, patriarchal Islamic tradition. The fruits of such study on display in her article are less than impressive.

Take, for example, her "three theological assumptions on which the superstructure of men's alleged superiority to women has been erected... 1) that God's primary creation is man, not woman, since woman is believed to have been created from man's rib, hence is derivative and secondary ontologically."

Is this assumption not reversed for all time with the first child born of a woman and so until the end of time? Hence Allah commands respect of the wombs second only to Himself. Furthermore, Allah explicitly minimizes the creation of Mankind in the Qur'an in comparison to the cosmos, not to mention the Throne. The above reasoning is therefore false and its premise weak.

"2) that woman, not man, was the primary agent of what is generally referred to as 'Man's Fall' or man's expulsion from the Garden of Eden, hence 'all daughters of Eve' are to be regarded with hatred, suspicion and contempt"

This is the reading in Judeo-Christianity exclusively. In the Qur'an, the responsible party is identified time and again as Adam, upon him peace. Nor do expressions such as "daughters of Eve" have any place in Islam.
"and 3) that woman was created not only from man but also for man, which makes her existence merely instrumental and not fundamental."

If this were true it would follow that she is unaccountable, which is not the case. On the contrary, the utilitarian aspect is reciprocal as explicited by the Qur'an and not a unilateral proposition as misrepresented above. Man and woman's existence are both instrumental to each other and fundamental in themselves.

Ms. Hassan calls the creation of Eve from Adam's rib a "myth... obviously rooted in the Yahwist's account of creation in Genesis." "It has no basis whatever in the Qur'an, which describes the creation of humanity in completely egalitarian terms."

It is true that the Qur'an describes the creation of humanity in egalitarian terms but untrue that the creation of Eve from Adam has no basis in the Qur'an. The basis is the verse { O mankind! Be careful of your duty to your Lord Who created you from a single soul and from it created its mate and from them twain hath spread abroad a multitude of men and women.} 4:1. So the Qur'an speaks very clearly of the creation of a single soul, then from it its mate, then from the couple a multitude.

As for the "Adam's rib" hadiths in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim "which Sunni Muslims [rightly] regard as the two most authoritative Hadith collections, whose authority is exceeded only by the Qur'an," these hadiths have ironclad chains of transmission. It is not only unlikely but simply impossible for a hadith master today to declare any of them weak, let alone someone, such as Ms. Hassan, who is devoid of even a student's qualification in hadith. Yet she rules - without the least basis - their chains of transmission to be weak and avers that their content contradicts the Qur'an when it is in fact supported by verse 4:1!

Hence none of those hadiths, contrary to Ms. Hassan's wild assumptions, are questioned by the scholars as contradicting the Qur'an at all. To insist that they do is to bury one's head in the sand and complain that the night lingers for too long. And this is precisely what she does: Why do these hadiths "still continue" - in her words - "to be a part of the Islamic tradition"? She concludes: "This is due certainly, in significant measure, to the fact that they are included in the Hadith collections by Muhammad ibn Isma'il al Bukhari (810-70) and Muslim bin al-Hallaj." [sic]

Ms. Hassan continues on her myth-debunking quest, "There is, strictly speaking, no 'Fall' in the Qur'an." But the Fall of Adam, Eve, and Satan from Paradise is mentioned in five verses in the Qur'an: 2:36, 2:38, 7:13, 7:24, 20:123.

Muslims rely on hadiths to "vent their misogynistic feelings," hadiths such as: The Prophet said, "After me I have not left any affliction more harmful to men than women." But did not Allah Most High also say: { O ye who believe! Lo! among your wives and your children there are enemies for you, therefore beware of them.... Your wealth and your children are only an affliction} (Qur'an 64:14-15)?

Of course the famous hadith of the female dwellers of Hell is brought up in which the Prophet said: "I had a chance to look into Paradise and found that the majority of the people were poor; I looked into the Fire and there I found the majority constituted by women." She leaves out the continuation which states: "women who were ungrateful. They are ungrateful to their husbands and are ungrateful for the favors and the good done to them. If you have always been good to one of them and then she sees something in you not to her liking, she will say, 'I have never received any good from you."

The context of this authentic hadith is never misogyny but the blame of avarice and ingratitude as the Prophet was addressing a group of Muslim women clad in gold jewelry while he was encouraging them to participate in jihad with their financial support. The hadith actually begins, "Give alms!"

Another hadith is cited in which the Prophet said: "The world is sweet and green (alluring) and verily Allah is going to install you as viceregent in it in order to see how you act. So avoid the allurement of women: verily, the first trial for the people of Isra'il was caused by women."

The continuation of this hadith in Musnad Ahmad was not cited. It states:
"The Prophet then told the story of three Israelite women. Two were tall and noticed, the third was short and went unnoticed. She took to wearing wooden high heels and a ring she stuffed with the best and most fragrant musk. Whenever she passed by a group or a gathering she would open it and let its fragrance exude."
Ms. Hassan then adduces the Qur'anic verses that mention men as the "Qawwamun" of women (4:34) and men's "degree of advantage" over them (2:228).She cites their popular interpretations as examples, similar to the use of hadith in her view, for sexist promotions of "the alleged superiority of men to women which permeates the Islamic tradition."

She does not seem to know that that very tradition identifies the context in each of these two verses as denoting superiority of men in *maintenance* and *financial responsibility*. Imam al-Sha`rani said, "If the man does not work and support his wife then he loses that degree."

She complains that "It is difficult to overstate the negative impact which the popular Muslim understanding of the above verse has had on the lives of Muslim women." If even an educated Muslim misunderstanding of the Qur'an such as her own article has a negative impact, then why expect any better of popular misunderstandings?The Qur'an was sent for understanding, not ignorance nor manipulation.

Ms. Hassan then switches back to a hadith which, she claims, "is often cited to elevate man to the status of majazi khuda (god in earthly form)." Majazi means figurative or metaphorical. But it can easily be seen that there is nothing in the hadith to suggest such a pagan incarnation even metaphorically.

The hadith in question is: "If it were permitted for one human being to prostrate to another I would have ordered the woman to prostrate to her husband." This is an authentic hadith narrated from over ten Companions from the Holy Prophet . No misinterpretation, however misconceived, can change that fact.

Yet Riffat Hassan protests noisily: "A faith as rigidly monotheistic as Islam which makes shirk or association of anyone with God the one unforgivable sin, cannot conceivably permit any human being to worship anyone but God"! But the hadith of prostration is not about worship. Nor are the verses of Yusuf's brothers' prostration to him, nor those of the prostration of the angels to Adam.

Hassan continues: "This hadith makes it appear that if not God's, it was the Prophet's wish to make the wife prostrate herself before her husband. ... How such a hadith could be attributed to the Prophet who regarded the principle of Tauhid (Oneness of God) as the basis of Islam, is, of course, utterly shocking."

Unless Riffat Hassan is more knowing of the wish of God than His Prophet, it remains clear that the Prophet was speaking of respect precisely in light of God's Law despite her own implicit protestation of knowing better. Yet, to this observer at least, it is clear that Ms. Hassan has a problem with the Qur'an regardless of the Hadith. The Hadith is only used as a scapegoat, { while that which their breasts hide is greater} .

What is "shocking" is Hassan's unfamiliarity with the explanations of the verses and hadiths she brings up. One looks in vain for even rebel originality behind her solipsisms - "in my view" and "in my judgment." What views and what judgments? To make up for an underaverage grounding in the sources and methodologies of Islam?
Such writers are at home mostly away from the serious study and service of Islam and Muslims. They are unexceptional accidental Muslims in the pursuit of originality in places where one-eyed opinions about Islam can still be king. They slap together some career with marketable rewordings for successful trends, such as "the importance of developing what the West calls 'feminist theology' in the context of the Islamic tradition is paramount today in order to liberate not only Muslim women, but also Muslim men, from unjust structures and systems of thought which make a peer relationship between men and women impossible.... Such participation is imperative if Qur'anic Islam is to emerge in Muslim societies and communities."

What about the brave Muslim women of learning and piety who have been fighting for Qur'an and Sunna Islam to emerge in Muslim AND non-Muslim societies? Did they all miss the point? Or are they all traitors? The writer of "Women in Muslim Culture" should have shown far more familiarity with the history in her own title and less indulgence in facile phrases. She should be ashamed of her protestations of justice in light of her unrelenting misrepresentations of the Qur'an and Sunna.

Wala hawla wala quwwata illa bilLah.

Hajj Gibril

GF Haddad ©

Me.

As time goes by, and more and more advance we have become of ourselves I find it funny how there are people who go lengths to manipulate and deny what the Truth have been given to us.

So it is perhaps with Allah's blessing that i put up blog to copy paste things that I find interesting and perhaps a ways to clear some muddy understandings.