Reply to Science channel's "Biblical Mysteries Explained"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

What I mean is, if you're proud of Islamic rules about women, and I'm sure you're sincere in this -- then why keep describing them in a way that gives the appearance of misrepresenting them? Why describe them in a way that you know, as you've said you know, will be misinterpreted by DCUM readers?

Also, why do you never bring up the actual laws yourself? Instead other posters need 20 pages to drag them out of you.

Why not just say, "In Islam, equality means something different. Yes, the rules about inheritance, divorce, testimony... are different for women, and here's how.... But we don't think this difference is bad because the legal rights are offset by commensurately different responsibilities for men and women."  If you said that, nobody would need to drag you through 20 pages to find out what the legal rights are. Nobody would need to engage in debates about whether or not we should all have understood the Muslim meaning of the word "equality" whenever you use it.[/quote]

[b]I did say exactly that. I said Islam does not promote equality (not in western sense); it promotes justice. B[/b]ut you need to understand that practicing muslims here live in a completely different mindset. The poster arguing with us said abstaining from fornication and adultery were oppressive to her. This was quite stunning for me to read, as a Muslim woman. It goes so against our way of thinking and I can not fathom abstinence as oppressive. I live a different life so my views are completely different. In the same way that poster thinks abstinence is oppressive, she perceives the absence of linear rights between men and women as inequality. We have a totally different perspective and for us to say our religion oppresses us with unequal rights would be to utter a misleading statement.[/quote]

Golly I'm sick of these spins. Here's exactly what you said at 00:16:

[quote=Anonymous]There was one poster who had some knowledge in the way of scholars and some islamic historical context. I already acknowledged this but also said a little knowledge is dangerous. It can give a person a false sense of security and prevent them from seeking additional knowledge. Such was the case with that poster.[b] This is why she was was completely befuddled when the other Muslim poster said women had equality in Islam. She did not think about the equality in terms of the value of rights, she thought of equality in strictly linear terms, the way a self taught westerner would think. [/b]She had no idea about sura Ash Shurra and the verse that addressed men AND women on how to resolve (political) matters that required collective opinions. She could not read Arabic so she had no idea the language used in that verse was plural, addressing women too. She saw women were taking the oath of allegiance for the first time in history without a guardian, but alleged it was discriminatory since men didn't have to. Of course men took this oath regularly before, so it was less noteworthy. Still, it was mentioned men did when the Quran talked about the treaty under the tree. She didn't know about this verse either and she had no idea about the historical context, otherwise she would not have made the accusation that the oath was discriminatory. Then she saw where the Prophet asked about converting womens illegitimate children and alleged it discriminated women because the same questioning did not exist for men. There was no way to identify a man's illegitimate child since fornication and adultery were not uncommon. A man could not be held financially responsible for children without evidence he fathered them. If a woman admitted her children were illegitimate, however, the State would provide for them. The poster spun this into a discrimination argument because she did not understand islamic history.
So, its not that we refused to acknowledge her superior understanding of Islam, it is simply that t[b]here were some gaps, critical ones, in her understanding [/b]that contributed to her misjudgments. [/quote]

In other words, you and Muslima put the burden squarely on your readers to understand what "women's equality" means in Islam. You even accused them of "befuddlement" for relying on their own, western, version of equality that you like to call "linear." Then, you moved straight into the question of whether men had to take a purity pledge if it wasn't spelled out, like it is for women, in the Quran.

Two sentences on "equality" where again you didn't address divorce or other rights. Then a dozen sentences on your disagreement with that poster about (a) whether an oath of purity is the same as voting, and (b) whether men have to take the purity pledge if the Quran mentioned it for men but not for women. Again, this is a disagreement, not islamophobia in her part.[/quote]

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