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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
Khadija was an Arab woman.
Khadija was a rich businesswoman. 
Therefore, all Arab women are rich businesswomen.

This is a faulty logic example not even fit as an LSAT test question.

Surely, you can reason better than that.
[/quote]
Nope, it's not faulty logic.  Just because you've miscast it, it doesn't make it faulty.  This is how it goes:

Khadija was a rich businesswoman who owned money and property, hired her own workers, and made her own decisions on whom to marry.

Where there is one, there sure were others.

Is there evidence that Khadija was an exception rather than a typical case?

Therefore, the claims that all women in jahiliya had no rights and were treated like objects are counteracted by at least one example.  Some were.  Some weren't. Perhaps it wasn't a bad bad place that Muslims say it was, and clearly not for ALL women.

It also negates the oft-repeated claim that "Islam granted women property rights" since women owned property long before Islam came on the scene.

In addition, we have Quranic testimony that women in jahiliya were given dowries.

[/quote]

Please read The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Violence. The authors, Juergensmeyer, Kitts, and Jerryson are American scholars or professors in religious study. They state that in early 7th century Arabia there were numerous societal abuses such as female infanticide, bodily abuses, abuse of the poor, orphans, and the marginal but the revelations from Muhammad were clear, incontrovertible challenges to the societal norms of Mecca and these social abuses. They prohibited female infanticide and many other kinds of abuses.

Read also the Oxford Islamic Studies, http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t243/e370, which states:

"Before the rise of Islam in the early 600s, Arabs lived in a traditional, patriarchal (male-dominated) society. Men regarded women as their property, to be married or divorced at will. No limitations on polygyny existed. Women generally did not have a say in the choice of a husband. Once married, they lacked financial security, as the groom's dowry was paid directly to the bride's male relatives. Female infanticide (the killing of baby girls at birth) was common."

It distinguishes this period of jahiliyah, the time before Islam, with the status of women after Islam:

"With Islam, the status of women improved considerably. The Qur'an and the sunnah emphasized the spiritual equality of all Muslims. Islamic law recognized a woman's right to choose her own marriage partner, and it set limits on the practice of polygyny. A man could have as many as four wives, if he could provide for and treat them equally. Islamic regulations also defined marriage as a contract between a man and a woman or a man and a woman's legal guardian (wali). They also required the groom to pay the dowry directly to the bride. In addition, the Qur'an and sunnah specified that women are entitled to inherit wealth and that married women should be able to control their own money and property. These sources further stated that husbands must support their wives financially during marriage and for a certain period after a divorce."

It's pretty clear that the vast majority of scholars in the field of religious studies acknowledge the period of of Jahiliyah and also state that Islam did much to improve the lives of people.

This leads me to wonder…if this information is easily accessible with research, why are you publishing false statements about Islam? [/quote]

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