Be Wary of Racism and Islamophobes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Muhammad's first wife was able to get rich, run her own business, hire workers, propose marriage to the poor, much younger man of her choice and marry him - all in pre-Islamic Arabia. Hardly the land of darkness you describe.

Which is why she is talked about so much, it was not common at all.

That's your theory. My theory is that she's talked about so much because she was the Prophet's wife. If she was eighteen, poor and placed into this marriage by her parents, she'd still be talked about just as much.

We have no evidence her example was uncommon.

Here is what Khadija's example tells us about women's opportunities in pre-Islamic Arabia:

- women could be rich
- women could run a business
- women could live without a husband
- women could hire workers for their business using their own judgment
- women could identify men they were interested in marrying, and propose to them
- forty-year old widows with multiple kids weren't considered unmarriageable (would you like to be a forty-year old with three or four kids looking to get married in, say, Pakistan or Bahrain or Indonesia today?)
- women received dowries from their husbands.

Days of darkness? Really?

I was going to write that, you beat me to it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pp, if the Prophet questioned a man before taking the oath about illegitimate children, the man would need to know with certainty which illegitimate child was his. Given that adultery and fornication were common pre islam, tell me how the man would know which children were his.

Shouldn't a man who fathered an illegitimate child with a married or unmarried woman be made to claim paternity of the illegitimate child?

Does the fact of fathering an illegitimate child disqualify you from converting to Islam, as it would the woman who bore the child?

What happens to the child in these cases?

Seems like both the man and the woman should have to swear, if establishing paternity is really so important.

Tell me how the man would know which child was his if men and women were fornicating and engaging in adultery at the time. There was no DNA testing then.

You can not hold a man financially respinsible for a child without knowing with certainty it is the man's biological child. There was no proof back then.

The man would know IF he slept with women other than his wife, and therefore had a shot at illegitimate children.

To turn this around - how would women know whose child it was if they were fornicating and engaging in adultery all the time? If you sleep with two men around the same time, you don't ACTUALLY know whose child you are carrying.

But remember, though, we only have the Muslims' word that Arabia before Islam was a dark place.

If a woman knew she was sleeping around, she would know at least that her children may not be her lawful husband's. And when coming to the Prophet to take the oath, she should not lie and say with certainty that they belonged to her husband because that would hold him financially responsible for them. The man could not say with certainty whose child was his. The woman can, however, say with certainty that the children belonged to her. And the Prophets tribe, or the islamic state, would provide for the children.

Women weren't asked to say whose children were her husband's and which were her lover's. They were asked to pledge they will not do it IN THE FUTURE.

Sometimes women would lie and they were asked not to lie.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
If a woman knew she was sleeping around, she would know at least that her children may not be her lawful husband's. And when coming to the Prophet to take the oath, she should not lie and say with certainty that they belonged to her husband because that would hold him financially responsible for them. The man could not say with certainty whose child was his. The woman can, however, say with certainty that the children belonged to her. And the Prophets tribe, or the islamic state, would provide for the children.

A man could still be asked if he potentially had illegitimate children because then men who were faithful to their wives would be weeded out.

But it's all irrelevant because the pledge they were asked to make was forward-looking and concerned events of the future, not of the past.

A man could be asked that but why? If he could not prove which child he fathered, why ask??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Sometimes women would lie and they were asked not to lie.

Then why weren't men asked not to lie? Didn't men lie too, sometimes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
If a woman knew she was sleeping around, she would know at least that her children may not be her lawful husband's. And when coming to the Prophet to take the oath, she should not lie and say with certainty that they belonged to her husband because that would hold him financially responsible for them. The man could not say with certainty whose child was his. The woman can, however, say with certainty that the children belonged to her. And the Prophets tribe, or the islamic state, would provide for the children.

A man could still be asked if he potentially had illegitimate children because then men who were faithful to their wives would be weeded out.

But it's all irrelevant because the pledge they were asked to make was forward-looking and concerned events of the future, not of the past.

A man could be asked that but why? If he could not prove which child he fathered, why ask??

Because it's a forward-looking pledge. You could, for instance, ask men to comply with all the rules women were asked to comply with - not to lie, not to steal, not to fornicate etc. There are no verses to indicate that happened.

Women, too, had no way of proving whose child was whose. A woman could easily pretend her lover's child was her husband's. All they had to go by was honor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What was the analogous pledge for men? The shahada? With the shahada, you're definitely giving your allegiance to Mohamned as God's messenger. But women pledged to adhere to rules.

The oath was a pledge for proper conduct AND allegiance to Muhammad. You could not avoid infanticide, fornication, adultery, etc and yet betray the Prophet but still be within the permissible boundaries of the oath.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
If a woman knew she was sleeping around, she would know at least that her children may not be her lawful husband's. And when coming to the Prophet to take the oath, she should not lie and say with certainty that they belonged to her husband because that would hold him financially responsible for them. The man could not say with certainty whose child was his. The woman can, however, say with certainty that the children belonged to her. And the Prophets tribe, or the islamic state, would provide for the children.

A man could still be asked if he potentially had illegitimate children because then men who were faithful to their wives would be weeded out.

But it's all irrelevant because the pledge they were asked to make was forward-looking and concerned events of the future, not of the past.

A man could be asked that but why? If he could not prove which child he fathered, why ask??

Because it's a forward-looking pledge. You could, for instance, ask men to comply with all the rules women were asked to comply with - not to lie, not to steal, not to fornicate etc. There are no verses to indicate that happened.

Women, too, had no way of proving whose child was whose. A woman could easily pretend her lover's child was her husband's. All they had to go by was honor.

Exactly, women had no way of proving who fathered their children so it was important they not say their children belonged to their lawful husbands.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Sometimes women would lie and they were asked not to lie.

Then why weren't men asked not to lie? Didn't men lie too, sometimes?

I think theres a piece you are missing. Engaging men in the same discussion is futile because men have no way of saying which children they fathered. As much as you may think equality needed to be imposed here, you can not because its clear which woman is the mother but unclear as to which man is the father.

Think of the conversation:

Muhammad: did you father any illegitimate children?
Man: maybe, I might have. I have no idea which child though.


Then what?!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
If a woman knew she was sleeping around, she would know at least that her children may not be her lawful husband's. And when coming to the Prophet to take the oath, she should not lie and say with certainty that they belonged to her husband because that would hold him financially responsible for them. The man could not say with certainty whose child was his. The woman can, however, say with certainty that the children belonged to her. And the Prophets tribe, or the islamic state, would provide for the children.

A man could still be asked if he potentially had illegitimate children because then men who were faithful to their wives would be weeded out.

But it's all irrelevant because the pledge they were asked to make was forward-looking and concerned events of the future, not of the past.

Thats a bit silly. There were thousands of people dispersed between Mecca and Medina, and these cities are hrs apart today BY CAR. How do you propose this plan would work?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

PP, I think I have clarified a lot. If you still do not understand, it might be time to simply say its not worth it for you to invest so much of your precious time to trying to figure Islam out! It makes sense to the millions of women that practice it, and thats all that matters.

I will try to answer your questions later tonight if no one else attempts to. It seems for every one question answered, you have ten more related and unrelated questions. I have never known anyone who disrespects a religion so much to invest so much in trying to understand it, and yet so unwilling to contact a scholar.

I think that every answer you gave made so little sense and had so many holes that additional questions to expose them simply asked themselves.

I will be a judge of what's a good and not good use of my precious time. I did not solicit your advice on that.

I have no doubt that it makes sense to women who practice Islam. If you simply left it there, I would have applauded you. But you started from the position that it should make sense to everyone. That's how the whole 45 pages came to be.

I fully believe you've never met anyone like me. That's because you've never known a non-Muslim who knows so much about Islam, is still not enamored by it, and can challenge your claims so successfully. Mind you, I'm not trying to understand Islam any more than I already do, and I certainly don't think you're the person to advance my understanding. I understand and know about it as much as any Muslim does; I just don't feel about it the way they do.

Oh I know you did not solicit my advice. I am giving it anyway.

Did you really think I was under the impression people were enamored with Islam? Yes, Muslims generally are, but nonMuslims. As much as Muslims would like to dispel myths and do whatever necessary to create a more harmonious environment for themselves, I am not interested in impressing others. I am very secure in my faith.

As for your knowledge, sorry, but its google knowledge. You can not read the Quran in the language it was revealed and this prevents you from fully understanding verses you are confused about. Yet you refuse to contact a scholar to seek help.

For example, you insisted the oath administered to women was biased and discriminatory toward women because it was not administered to men. But I provided you with the sura/verse that showed men took the oath too. If you read the Quran, you would have known about that sura/verse already.

Another example, you asked why women were asked about illegitimate children but not men. Because women were sometimes putting responsibility on their lawful husbands and this was unfair given that paternity could not be determined. Asking men would result in no information because there is no way to conclude their paternity. This knowledge comes with common sense.

You also concluded Islam never established voting rights but Ash Shurra did. You did not know that either because you either never read that sura or did not understand it. You also did not know the language used in the verse was plural, referring to both male and female.

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing when you act as if your knowledge is complete. You need to study the Quran in Arabic and study the tafsir and then you could have saved 45 pages.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What was the analogous pledge for men? The shahada? With the shahada, you're definitely giving your allegiance to Mohamned as God's messenger. But women pledged to adhere to rules.

The oath was a pledge for proper conduct AND allegiance to Muhammad. You could not avoid infanticide, fornication, adultery, etc and yet betray the Prophet but still be within the permissible boundaries of the oath.

Then why weren't men asked to promise they won't do any of this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Sometimes women would lie and they were asked not to lie.

Then why weren't men asked not to lie? Didn't men lie too, sometimes?

I think theres a piece you are missing. Engaging men in the same discussion is futile because men have no way of saying which children they fathered. As much as you may think equality needed to be imposed here, you can not because its clear which woman is the mother but unclear as to which man is the father.

Think of the conversation:

Muhammad: did you father any illegitimate children?
Man: maybe, I might have. I have no idea which child though.


Then what?!

Actually, there's a piece YOU are missing. That piece is that the pledge was forward-looking. It did not ask women to prove they haven't done it in the past. It asked women to promise not to do it in the future. So yes, equality can be easily imposed here, and the conversation would have gone like this:

Man: Hello Muhammad, I'd like to join your tribe.
Muhammad: Sure. Do you promise not to lie, not to steal, not to fornicate and not to father children out of wedlock?
Man: Sure, sounds doable.
Muhammad: Come on in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
If a woman knew she was sleeping around, she would know at least that her children may not be her lawful husband's. And when coming to the Prophet to take the oath, she should not lie and say with certainty that they belonged to her husband because that would hold him financially responsible for them. The man could not say with certainty whose child was his. The woman can, however, say with certainty that the children belonged to her. And the Prophets tribe, or the islamic state, would provide for the children.

A man could still be asked if he potentially had illegitimate children because then men who were faithful to their wives would be weeded out.

But it's all irrelevant because the pledge they were asked to make was forward-looking and concerned events of the future, not of the past.

Thats a bit silly. There were thousands of people dispersed between Mecca and Medina, and these cities are hrs apart today BY CAR. How do you propose this plan would work?

Easy. Ask men who wanted to join the tribe to promise that they won't father children out of wedlock. What's distance got to do with it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Did you really think I was under the impression people were enamored with Islam? Yes, Muslims generally are, but nonMuslims. As much as Muslims would like to dispel myths and do whatever necessary to create a more harmonious environment for themselves, I am not interested in impressing others. I am very secure in my faith.

As for your knowledge, sorry, but its google knowledge. You can not read the Quran in the language it was revealed and this prevents you from fully understanding verses you are confused about. Yet you refuse to contact a scholar to seek help.

I can't read the Quran in the language it was revealed. You mean like 95% of Muslims out there? You know perfectly well Arabic speakers are a minority among Muslims, and Quranic Arabic readers are a minority among Arabic speakers. Why pick on me?

I don't need to contact a scholar because the verses are clear on their face. You insist that scholars are necessary because you think they can spin the verses to make them look better. I, on the other hand, accept that if a verse sounds bad, then it IS bad, and no amount of scholarly acrobatics will make it better. I too am secure with this understanding. I don't want to give out my age, but my knowledge of Islam was complete way before google appeared, and the existence of google, as much difference as it made to the universe, made absolutely no difference to my understanding of your religion.

Anonymous wrote:
For example, you insisted the oath administered to women was biased and discriminatory toward women because it was not administered to men. But I provided you with the sura/verse that showed men took the oath too. If you read the Quran, you would have known about that sura/verse already.

I didn't say it was discriminatory because it was not administered to men. I said it was discriminatory because there is no evidence men were asked to comply with any of the rules women were. And that IS discriminatory. The verse you cited didn't indicate men were asked to promise anything like the women were before they took that oath. But then again, I accept that Islam is discriminatory toward women in some regards. I don't need to hear a scholar pontificate about how it really isn't, and if it, then it's a good thing - which is the gist of 99% of scholarly commentary that exists.

Anonymous wrote:
Another example, you asked why women were asked about illegitimate children but not men. Because women were sometimes putting responsibility on their lawful husbands and this was unfair given that paternity could not be determined. Asking men would result in no information because there is no way to conclude their paternity. This knowledge comes with common sense.

That oath was forward-looking, and if women were asked not to have illegitimate children as a condition of joining Medinans, then men could have easily been asked the same thing. That verse looks in the future, not the past.

Anonymous wrote:
You also concluded Islam never established voting rights but Ash Shurra did. You did not know that either because you either never read that sura or did not understand it. You also did not know the language used in the verse was plural, referring to both male and female.

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing when you act as if your knowledge is complete. You need to study the Quran in Arabic and study the tafsir and then you could have saved 45 pages.

Yusuf Quaradawi studied the Quran in Arabic, and so did Bin Baz, and so did Ibn Taymiyyah, and your understanding of Islam couldn't be further from theirs. We all know you pick and choose your tafsirs and your scholars. I note, again, that most Muslims never study Quran in the language it was revealed - why don't you go pick on them?

I also need to address one more thing - not for you, but for the benefit of others reading this. The institution of scholars in contemporary Muslim world, to the degree it has developed, is a complete scam born out of nothing but the desire for job security. Islam was revealed to a largely illiterate population. It was meant to be a code of simple rules that can be understood by anyone, not exclusively King Abdulaziz University graduates. If a rule in the Quran sounds simple, then no matter how awful it sounds to a non-Muslim, guess what, it really says what it means to say, and no amount of scholarly commentary can change that. It can tell you why Muslims think it has to be that way, but if it doesn't make sense to you, then then reason is that it really doesn't make any sense. Scholars are unnecessary to understand most of the Quran, and it's a great credit to the skill and sophistication of the scholar marketing machine that some scholars out there have jobs and TV shows because women aren't capable of deciding whether they are allowed to change clothes in the room where they think a male jinn lives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Sometimes women would lie and they were asked not to lie.

Then why weren't men asked not to lie? Didn't men lie too, sometimes?

I think theres a piece you are missing. Engaging men in the same discussion is futile because men have no way of saying which children they fathered. As much as you may think equality needed to be imposed here, you can not because its clear which woman is the mother but unclear as to which man is the father.

Think of the conversation:

Muhammad: did you father any illegitimate children?
Man: maybe, I might have. I have no idea which child though.


Then what?!

Actually, there's a piece YOU are missing. That piece is that the pledge was forward-looking. It did not ask women to prove they haven't done it in the past. It asked women to promise not to do it in the future. So yes, equality can be easily imposed here, and the conversation would have gone like this:

Man: Hello Muhammad, I'd like to join your tribe.
Muhammad: Sure. Do you promise not to lie, not to steal, not to fornicate and not to father children out of wedlock?
Man: Sure, sounds doable.
Muhammad: Come on in.

That was already happening with men. Prophet Muhammad use the oath all the time for men. This was discussed about two pages ago.