If you or someone you know is anti-Islam, Why?
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Anonymous
I agree 100% with you that facts and education are important, and I have posted at least twice over the past few days that non-Muslins should read the Quran. I, a non-Muslim, have read the Quran front to back. I don't want to speak for others who seem frustrated with Muslima and the other PP. My personal concern is that Muslima and the other PP are misrepresenting facts. As a researcher, I live for facts, and since I know many of the facts they're misrepresenting, I have come on these threads to argue. So for example, Muslima claimed that "Islam offers asylum to captives" and this led to dozens of pages about how Muslim soldiers are often given female captives to rape, per the Quran. There is the other Muslim PP's continuing insistence that there are more Muslim converts than immigrants to the US, and when she produced her own numbers for 100,000 immigrants/year and 25,000 converts/year and still continues to insist that converts outpace immigrants, I think what you're seeing is massive frustration for what are perceived to be dishonest debating tactics. I could go on, for example about Muslima's broad statements that "Islam offers new rights to women," which seems to beg for elaboration, but maybe you get the point. Here's an important distinction. Muslima and the other PP make their statements as if they're representing all Islam. They are absolutely entitled to their own versions of Islam. In fact, one of the Muslim posters rejects shariah. That's fine! But to claim "Islam does this" when millions of Muslims across the world don't do that, and thousand of respected Muslim jurists around the world take a different view, seems problematic. |
Anonymous
Nope, not true! Non-muslims are stuck with Islamic inheritance laws! Just a note to the people reading this- these "Islam" threads are chock full of misinformation. The rest of your post is similarly ridiculous. I'm sorry, the year is 2014, not 1014. You cannot place all of your assets in jewelry. Please tell me you know that when you walk out of the store with a bauble, it loses more than half its value (like a car!). And you keep making assumptions about this story- that the husband is Muslim-nope, that he thinks his family will take care of his wife-nope, that they have choices about what country to live in- not really, not everybody is a rich European/American like yourself. |
Anonymous
Sorry, this makes no sense. Islamic inheritance laws do not apply to non-Muslims. What religion is the husband? Are you telling me the laws of the country apply Islamic inheritance laws to Christians? Whatever religion is the husband, there are ample ways in which he can provide for his wife. Gift everything to her now, transfer the assets abroad, convert assets into cash and put into the wife's account, etc. It's not a no-option situation, even if he's Muslim, which you say he isn't. |
Anonymous
Yes, they do! Islamic inheritance laws do apply to non-Muslims in the country in question. |
Anonymous
What country? Why can't he transfer the assets to her? |
Anonymous
First, when I came in you had pointed out that your friend's husband was Christian. I am married to an Arab Christian and lived in the Middle East. So I made it my business to know how the laws of personal status worked. You didn't read the post carefully enough. Christians in Arab countries are not subject to inheritance laws administered by Islamic courts. There are subject to the inheritance laws of their church. These are the same as the Islamic inheritance laws--BUT the state does not force the churches to do this. The churches could change the inheritance laws applicable to Christians any time they wished but they continue to follow the approach set down in the Koran because it is so embedded in the culture. Again, the Christian churches in the Middle East are not required to follow Islamic inheritance--they choose to do so because it is embedded in the culture. There are strong expectations that male relatives will support female relative (whether Muslim or Christian), so it is a safeguard against penury, but human nature is human nature and so many will not follow through on the support. If the woman makes this known, the male relative will get a bad reputation. That was very bad for him long ago when everyone knew each other in their village or small neighborhood within the city, but those social constraints are going fast and men are pretty free today to be as jerky as they please to their female relatives. And you clearly know nothing about buying gold in the Middle East. Bracelets, rings, etc are sold by the weight--there is a very de minimis add on for craftsmanship. So no, jewelry in the Middle East does not lose half its value when you step out the door. It is a reliable store of value for millions of women across the Arab world. And I did not suggest she place all her assets in gold--I suggested a foreign bank account as an alternative. I find it interesting that you are so quick to accuse others of being so full of misinformation, when your information is so questionable. Really have no idea what point you are trying to make with this story of your friend--am beginning to think it was made it up to make some obscure point. |
Anonymous
Egypt, and sorry, I don't know every detail of their personal finances. |
Anonymous
omg, calm down. I am pointing out that Islamic inheritance laws suck. All laws based on religion suck, but Islamic laws are particularly misogynistic. Further, I am not talking about rich people, I am talking about a person with a little bit of money, and an apartment in a building that is all her husband's family. They're not going to sell the apartment to a stranger because people with family property don't like to do that for safety and other reasons. Probably when he passes, someone in his family will take the apartment and that is the end of that. And she'll have basically nothing, and I am not privy to all of the financial decisions that led to that, good or bad. I don't know every tiny detail about their decision making process, I just know that it is a shitty situation for everyone. And I am from the middle east and I know nobody that puts a substantial amount of assets into gold because that is just pure stupid. |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
| Anyone wanting to know Sharia for real, and not just trust crap they read on the web should buy Umdat Al Salik. Read it and then come to your own conclusions. It is the Sunni manual of Sharia. |
Anonymous
Yes, the laws suck for women, and all Arab women, however subconsciously know that. But they have a plan to get around them. Their biggest guarantee of financial security is having a son. That is why they all want boys. When my first born was a son, my DH's female relatives told me how lucky I was because that ensured the money would go to me--not literally, but because Arab women have an extraordinary hold on their sons (guess why?), it would be the same as having the money come to me. Believe what you want, but many Arab women would much rather get a gift of jewelry they never wear from their husbands than a new living room set--the former is 100 percent hers and immediately transferable to cash and the other isn't. My DH's female relatives were all shocked my husband had never bought jewelry for me--they viewed this as a wife's absolute right. I once had a discussion with one of my DH's female cousins (bear in mind everyone here is Christian) about the inequities of the inheritance laws and she was quick to point out that they were correct because if the widowed wife remarried then all the money would in effect go to her new husband, who would of course not favor the children of her previous husband, leaving them bereft. (Said with a straight face--the chances that a widow with children actually find someone who wants to marry her are actually very slim in Arab countries.) I once had a conversation with a very rich Muslim woman, whose family was fairly reliably said to go through $60,000 a month on basic household expenses--keeping up the house, paying servants, food, etc. I was in the US at the time and she was faulting me for working (instead of staying home with the children all day). I told her that if, God forbid, something happened to DH, my work could support my children without reliance on anyone else. Her response? You westerners are so materialistic. She was dripping with expensive jewelry--I was way too stunned to respond. There are ways around the Koranic based inheritance laws the churches also have adopted. But you seem stuck in your friend shouldn't have to do those things, she should have the inheritance by right. Maybe so, but the Egyptian churches are not changing their inheritance laws anytime soon (though, unlike the Islamic courts, they could). She and her husband need to get busy on those work arounds now instead of bemoaning the unfairness of it all. That her husband hasn't already done something along these lines tells me he is simply relying on his family to do the right thing. |
Anonymous
PP there are a couple of islamophones on these Islam threads that are hell bent on vilifying Islam. Even if you provide the hard proof, which a few of us already have, she goes back reiterating the same objections the next day. Her intent is not to learn the truth, it's to spread hate. |
Anonymous
You forgot to add "christianevangelicalcrusader." fingers getting tired? |
Anonymous
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Well that explains that--thanks. I just got into these discussions late last night so am not familiarf with the cast of characters.
The PP keeps insisting Islamic inheritance law have been imposed on the Arab Christian community when they have not. The Christian community could change the laws that apply to them but haven't chosen to do so. (Perhaps not unrelated to the fact that all the powers that be in the churches are male, and Islamic inheritance laws favor males.) PP appears to keep insisting Islamic law is imposed on Christians to re-enforce her anti-Islamic point of view In my own view, the Islamic inheritance laws are disadvantageous for women, but only in comparison to 21st century Western standards. They were a model of women's rights for their time, and indeed were very favorable to women compared to the laws that prevailed in much of the West even into the 20th century. I appreciate this history, but the world has moved on. The biggest weakness of Islam in my view is the belief that the Koran is immutable and everything in it must be followed slavishly for all time and in all places. This was not actually the view of earliest Islam, which certainly saw the need to adapt to different cultures and societies and evolve over time. Unfortunately, Islam became stuck in time around the 11th century when it was seen necessary to stop evolution in thought to prevent the proliferation of Islamic sects (something we've become used to into Christianity and have actually come to welcome as a positive development to keep the established sects honest and relevant). |
Anonymous
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In Iran,
Article 881 - An unbeliever (Kafir) does not inherit from a Muslim and if there is a Muslim among the unbelieving heirs of a deceased unbeliever, the unbelieving heirs do not receive inheritance regardless of their priority over the Muslim in class and degree. |