Reply to Be Wary of Racism and Islamophobes

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
That verse Muslima quoted is often quoted to show that Islam made women's political allegiances and oaths relevant. No one compelled them to take the oath. And their oath counted. Contrast this with how women were typically regarded at the time in other cultures and in pre Islamic times or even in the US until recently. In other cultures and in pre Islamic times, women's political opinions, oaths, allegiances were irrelevant, only their husbands or fathers political opinions, oaths, or allegiances counted or mattered. [/quote]

I am sorry, I just don't see that. That verse describes the proper treatment of women who were from pagan tribes yet wanted to be Muslims, and wanted to join Muslims at the place where they lived.   Hence the very long list of requirements to prove that they were in fact Muslim. Why did women have to be perfect to make an oath? Did anyone apply these standards to men who wanted to make an oath of allegiance?

I also must object to the wholesale characterization of other cultures. The universe has seen civilizations come and go. At different times in different cultures women had a different status and a different set of rights. It is incorrect and inappropriate to say that Islam granted women unique rights they didn't have before. Powerful women existed in all civilizations, queens and goddesses alike. We simply do not have the data to say women never voted or were politically relevant before Islam, and I do believe women owned and inherited property well before Islam. If Muhammad's first wife was able to get rich, run her own business, hire other men and manage them, and then propose marriage, herself, to a much younger men of her choice - all before Islam - then I don't think women in pre-Islamic Arabia were all that disempowered.

It is also inappropriate to compare a philosophy (Islam) with a real country (U.S.) A more proper comparison would be Islam vs. Christianity, OR, for instance, timelines of women's suffrage in the U.S. and Europe vs. Muslim-majority countries, or even in Islamic societies shortly after Muhammad's death. I don't think the results are all that equivocal.

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