Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I got to the first line of your post and I just had to reply because you honestly do not know Muslims or Islam. The majority of Muslims I know, and I have come in contact with thousands because of my faith and the jobs I have held, know how to read the Quran in Arabic. Where in the world did you get that 95% statistic from!!?!

So this is WHY this has turned into a nearly 50 page thread. I spent three posts explaining to you already that children ALWAYS learn to read the Quran in Arabic. Are you the same person I was communicating with? Did you forget what I said?

On it's face this is patently false. The literacy rate in Afghanistan, for example, is 28 percent. More than two-thirds of the population is this almost entirely Muslim country isn't reading anything in Farsi, let alone seventh century Arabic.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow! Been a couple of days since I checked into this thread an see pages and pages have been added, almost all about the oath some women made at the gate of Medina.

I think it's fair to say this may be the only general listserv that hosts such heated debate over such obscure historical events.

About Jahaliyya--I've never heard it referred to as the days of darkness, but rather as the days of ignorance, and specifically ignorance about the monotheistic God. In other words, the days of paganism.

I don't believe there is any evidence people of the jahiliyya were any more cruel or barbaric then those who followed them. Yes, there was infanticide, but most people on the Arabian peninsula lived hard scrabble lives that became even more difficult in a time of drought. Infanticide would have been an economic response as it was in China and many other places. Moreover, the practice of infanticide, which was not limited to female children, appears to have been the practice of one tribe in Arabia, and even then only in times of famine.

Women in the jahiliyya clearly could live pretty emancipated lives as Khadija did. However, women who were captured or sold into marriage did have a pretty miserable lot. Under Islamic rules, they would have been entitled to more rights.

As one PP has said there is a bit of marketing around the term; and it is pretty common to paint a very dark picture of the jahaliyya that was relieved by the Quranic revelations to Mohammed. History is written by the winners.

There is nothing wrong with paganism or polytheism.

Anonymous wrote:Even in Arab countries, thee are sizable numbers who couldn't possibly the read the Quran or anything else. One third of Yemen's population is illiterate. Many of those with some degree of literacy would not be able to understand the Arabic of the Quran, just as many of us have a very hard time really understanding the Canterbury Tales in its original version (or even Shakespeare for that matter).

Anonymous wrote:

On it's face this is patently false. The literacy rate in Afghanistan, for example, is 28 percent. More than two-thirds of the population is this almost entirely Muslim country isn't reading anything in Farsi, let alone seventh century Arabic.

Anonymous wrote:

I got to the first line of your post and I just had to reply because you honestly do not know Muslims or Islam. The majority of Muslims I know, and I have come in contact with thousands because of my faith and the jobs I have held, know how to read the Quran in Arabic. Where in the world did you get that 95% statistic from!!?!

So this is WHY this has turned into a nearly 50 page thread. I spent three posts explaining to you already that children ALWAYS learn to read the Quran in Arabic. Are you the same person I was communicating with? Did you forget what I said?

Anonymous wrote:Wow! Been a couple of days since I checked into this thread an see pages and pages have been added, almost all about the oath some women made at the gate of Medina.

I think it's fair to say this may be the only general listserv that hosts such heated debate over such obscure historical events.

About Jahaliyya--I've never heard it referred to as the days of darkness, but rather as the days of ignorance, and specifically ignorance about the monotheistic God. In other words, the days of paganism.

I don't believe there is any evidence people of the jahiliyya were any more cruel or barbaric then those who followed them. Yes, there was infanticide, but most people on the Arabian peninsula lived hard scrabble lives that became even more difficult in a time of drought. Infanticide would have been an economic response as it was in China and many other places. Moreover, the practice of infanticide, which was not limited to female children, appears to have been the practice of one tribe in Arabia, and even then only in times of famine.

Women in the jahiliyya clearly could live pretty emancipated lives as Khadija did. However, women who were captured or sold into marriage did have a pretty miserable lot. Under Islamic rules, they would have been entitled to more rights.

As one PP has said there is a bit of marketing around the term; and it is pretty common to paint a very dark picture of the jahaliyya that was relieved by the Quranic revelations to Mohammed. History is written by the winners.

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Yes it was forward thinking. BUT if a woman was lying about paternity, she was not admitted into the tribe. This is why questioning took place, to see if she was unfairly putting responsibility on her lawful husband AND if so, no admission.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I got to the first line of your post and I just had to reply because you honestly do not know Muslims or Islam. The majority of Muslims I know, and I have come in contact with thousands because of my faith and the jobs I have held, know how to read the Quran in Arabic. Where in the world did you get that 95% statistic from!!?!

So this is WHY this has turned into a nearly 50 page thread. I spent three posts explaining to you already that children ALWAYS learn to read the Quran in Arabic. Are you the same person I was communicating with? Did you forget what I said?

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Yes it was forward thinking. BUT if a woman was lying about paternity, she was not admitted into the tribe. This is why questioning took place, to see if she was unfairly putting responsibility on her lawful husband AND if so, no admission.

Anonymous wrote:

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 wrote:

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 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.

Anonymous wrote:

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?