Anonymous wrote:

Muslima wrote:

A few crucial points:
(1) a woman whose husband is dead or disabled is indeed "compelled" to work. This is true in many Muslim countries that have been plagued by war, where women and mothers with no other sources of family support, are indeed "compelled to work" and would, in fact, benefit from laws promoting equality.

Not in an islamic society. In an islamic state, the divorced/widowed woman is the responsibility of her father. If the father can't take care of her, then her brothers, or other relatives ect. So no in a pure shariah state unless the woman has no male relatives, she is never compelled to work, and of course if she doesn't have male relatives then the inheritance is hers....

(2) what you call being "compelled" to work is a source of great happiness for many women.
(3) one of the reasons US women earn less than men is they work in different jobs. Women are much more likely to go into teaching and nursing, for example.

Ugh.... You understand the meaning of "Compelled" right? Most Muslim women do CHOOSE to work freely but their money is 100% theirs to keep, they do not have to participate financially and can not be compelled to do so. Husbands on the other hand are obligated to support 100% their wives regardless of whether they work or not. Fathers are obligated to take care of their daughters 100% till they get married.

But surely you know all these things.... Since you claim you live in the US, it would be pretty much impossible to be oblivious to points #1-3. I don't understand a mindset that argues by denying the the obvious and expects that nobody will see through it. Do you cross your fingers and hope that nobody will challenge your statements?

You seem pretty confused.....

I think many of us are frustrated with your deliberately slippery, shallow arguing style. You pretend not to see obvious points and you provide shallow answers to reasonable questions. There's a lot to take on in your snide post above, but let's focus on the following:
1. Your response that a widow with no male family members to support her "gets the full inheritance" is not only glib and disrespectful to the people you're talking to on DCUM, it's incredibly cavalier about the plight of impoverished widows. Their situation is very common in wartime. So, what happens to the woman with NO male relatives and NO inheritance of any substance?
2. We all know that being dependent on someone else can be OK, or it can be fraught with emotional and financial difficulties.
3. Many of us disagree that discrimination against women is so ingrained that we should stop trying to seek change, and that instead we should ingrain patriarchal family and institutional structures.

Finally, your gratuitous insults are not welcome. Argue like an honest, mature adult. Thank you.

1. Your response that a widow with no male family members to support her "gets the full inheritance" is not only glib and disrespectful to the people you're talking to on DCUM, it's incredibly cavalier about the plight of impoverished widows. Their situation is very common in wartime. So, what happens to the woman with NO male relatives and NO inheritance of any substance?

The question posed was about inheritance, not about widows who dont have relatives or any substance. That is a pretty illogical question given that of course someone who doesn't have money or any family to rely on will get a job if they can and want. Otherwise, they become the responsibility of the islamic state and the muslims in that state to a greater extent. Islam is not an individualistic society like the West. The wellbeing of each and every Muslim is the responsibility of all in the state.

3. Many of us disagree that discrimination against women is so ingrained that we should stop trying to seek change, and that instead we should ingrain patriarchal family and institutional structures.

Yeh, discrimination that exists in your head, so pointless! I will repeat it over and over again. Islam doesn't discriminate against women. I am a Muslim woman and will choose the rules of Islam over any other rules, now you dont have to accept that because obviously you are not Muslim. But to tell me that I am being discriminated against by my Religion while I perfectly know I am not is kinda insulting. To think you care more about my situation and plight as a muslim woman is actually very odd! Whenever Women are being discriminated against in the muslim world, it has been because of action of Men not the religion, so get off of your high horses. Hundreds of Thousands of women are being discriminated against in the United States every single day, so have at it!

Anonymous wrote:Are you still claiming to live in the District of Columbia?

+1.

Muslima wrote:

A few crucial points:
(1) a woman whose husband is dead or disabled is indeed "compelled" to work. This is true in many Muslim countries that have been plagued by war, where women and mothers with no other sources of family support, are indeed "compelled to work" and would, in fact, benefit from laws promoting equality.

Not in an islamic society. In an islamic state, the divorced/widowed woman is the responsibility of her father. If the father can't take care of her, then her brothers, or other relatives ect. So no in a pure shariah state unless the woman has no male relatives, she is never compelled to work, and of course if she doesn't have male relatives then the inheritance is hers....

(2) what you call being "compelled" to work is a source of great happiness for many women.
(3) one of the reasons US women earn less than men is they work in different jobs. Women are much more likely to go into teaching and nursing, for example.

Ugh.... You understand the meaning of "Compelled" right? Most Muslim women do CHOOSE to work freely but their money is 100% theirs to keep, they do not have to participate financially and can not be compelled to do so. Husbands on the other hand are obligated to support 100% their wives regardless of whether they work or not. Fathers are obligated to take care of their daughters 100% till they get married.

But surely you know all these things.... Since you claim you live in the US, it would be pretty much impossible to be oblivious to points #1-3. I don't understand a mindset that argues by denying the the obvious and expects that nobody will see through it. Do you cross your fingers and hope that nobody will challenge your statements?

You seem pretty confused.....

I think many of us are frustrated with your deliberately slippery, shallow arguing style. You pretend not to see obvious points and you provide shallow answers to reasonable questions. There's a lot to take on in your snide post above, but let's focus on the following:
1. Your response that a widow with no male family members to support her "gets the full inheritance" is not only glib and disrespectful to the people you're talking to on DCUM, it's incredibly cavalier about the plight of impoverished widows. Their situation is very common in wartime. So, what happens to the woman with NO male relatives and NO inheritance of any substance?
2. We all know that being dependent on someone else can be OK, or it can be fraught with emotional and financial difficulties.
3. Many of us disagree that discrimination against women is so ingrained that we should stop trying to seek change, and that instead we should ingrain patriarchal family and institutional structures.

Finally, your gratuitous insults are not welcome. Argue like an honest, mature adult. Thank you.

From Muslima's post of 8/28 23:04:

Muslima wrote:
But as it aimed at putting an end to such issue, Islam laid down rules which would eventually lead to eradicating the practice. So it allowed Muslims to have intercourse with slave women taken as captives of just and legitimate wars. In so doing, the woman would automatically become free if she got pregnant. What's more, her child would also become free. Not only that, Islam also ordered a Muslim to treat the slave woman in every respect as if she were his wife. She should be well fed, clothed and given due protection. In the family environment, she had the opportunity to learn about Islam and was free to accept it or reject it. She also had the opportunity to earn her freedom for she could be ransomed.

This sure reads as though Muslim victors can rape female captives. The female captives would be freed if they bore the rapist's child, or had relatives wealthy enough to ransoms them. Pity the barren captive woman with impoverished (likely after losing a battle to Muslim conquerors) woman....

Male slaves are freed if they convert to Islam or are ransomed, again if they are lucky enough to come from wealthy families.

A few crucial points:
(1) a woman whose husband is dead or disabled is indeed "compelled" to work. This is true in many Muslim countries that have been plagued by war, where women and mothers with no other sources of family support, are indeed "compelled to work" and would, in fact, benefit from laws promoting equality.

Not in an islamic society. In an islamic state, the divorced/widowed woman is the responsibility of her father. If the father can't take care of her, then her brothers, or other relatives ect. So no in a pure shariah state unless the woman has no male relatives, she is never compelled to work, and of course if she doesn't have male relatives then the inheritance is hers....

(2) what you call being "compelled" to work is a source of great happiness for many women.
(3) one of the reasons US women earn less than men is they work in different jobs. Women are much more likely to go into teaching and nursing, for example.

Ugh.... You understand the meaning of "Compelled" right? Most Muslim women do CHOOSE to work freely but their money is 100% theirs to keep, they do not have to participate financially and can not be compelled to do so. Husbands on the other hand are obligated to support 100% their wives regardless of whether they work or not. Fathers are obligated to take care of their daughters 100% till they get married.

But surely you know all these things.... Since you claim you live in the US, it would be pretty much impossible to be oblivious to points #1-3. I don't understand a mindset that argues by denying the the obvious and expects that nobody will see through it. Do you cross your fingers and hope that nobody will challenge your statements?

You seem pretty confused.....

Are you still claiming to live in the District of Columbia?

20:44 here. I seem to have offended you, and for that I'm sorry.

However, you repeatedly make glowing claims without providing the full picture. On this thread, you've made claims such as, "Islam offers asylum to prisoners of war" or "Islam offers inheritance rights to women."

I am not offended & I am also not the poster who was talking about inheritance rights of women ect.

I think it's important that people have full information so they can make informed decisions. Readers need to understand that "asylum" can mean "slavery for non-Muslims" and "rape for non-Muslim women." They also need to understand that "giving women inheritance rights" means "women get 1/2 the share that men get." And that these are rules are in the Quran, so they are for all time.

This is false. I already explained why women get 1/2 of inheritance, if that doesn't satisfy you well I can't help. As a Muslim woman I am fully satisfied and btw just so you know since you keep repeating women get half , women getting half is not true across the board. In some cases t men and women take an equal sum of inheritance, like for instance the father and the mother of the deceased take an equal amount of inheritance. About your 2nd point, false again..Islam forbids rape in all cases as it is a major sin in the category of adultery. The Quran says:

Whoever among you cannot find the means to marry free, believing women, then he may marry from those whom your right hands possess of believing slave girls, and Allah is most knowing about your faith. You believers are of one another. So marry them with the permission of their people and give them their due compensation according to what is acceptable. They should be chaste, neither of those who commit unlawful intercourse randomly nor those who take secret lovers - Surah An-Nisa 4:25

This passage lays down in an unequivocal manner that sexual relations with female slaves are permitted only on the basis of marriage, and that in this respect there is no difference between them and free women.

And:

let those who do not find the means to marry keep chaste until Allah makes them free from want out of His grace. And (as for) those who ask for a writing from among those whom your right hands possess, give them the writing if you know any good in them, and give them of the wealth of Allah which He has given you; and do not compel your slave girls to prostitution, when they desire to keep chaste, in order to seek the frail good of this world's life; and whoever compels them, then surely after their compulsion Allah is Forgiving, Merciful. (The Noble Quran, 24:33)"

And:

Narrated Jabir ibn Abdullah: "Musaykah, a slave-girl of some Ansari, came and said: My master forces me to commit fornication. Thereupon the following verse was revealed: "But force not your slaves to prostitution (when they desire chastity). (24:33)" (Translation of Sunan Abu Dawud, Divorce (Kitab Al-Talaq), Book 12, Number 2304)"

Bottom line is; Outside of Islam, slaves were treated like slaves, they were beaten, tortured, insulted and worked beyond their capacity - with no chance of freedom. When Islam came, it liberated slaves, it gave them rights, and slowly but surely opened a way to abolish slavery. It did the best it could given the circumstance it was revealed to mankind. There came a period during the 3rd Caliphate where slavery was surely looking to end, however it's unfortunate that the greed of people got the better of them, and they continue'd the practice which no doubt was to end, had people followed the teachings of Islam.

Islam is the only religion or way of life, that attacked the practice of Slavery in the heart. While people of other nations were readily engaging in Slavery, Islam came about and waged war upon it.

"Righteousness is not that you turn your faces toward the east or the west, but [true] righteousness is [in] one who believes in Allah , the Last Day, the angels, the Book, and the prophets and gives wealth, in spite of love for it, to relatives, orphans, the needy, the traveler, those who ask [for help], and for freeing slaves; [and who] establishes prayer and gives zakah; [those who] fulfill their promise when they promise; and [those who] are patient in poverty and hardship and during battle. Those are the ones who have been true, and it is those who are the righteous. - [Quran 2:177]

Perhaps we can agree for future discourse:
1. When you make a statement like "Islam gives asylum" you will provide a full and honest picture.
2. I will try to be more neutral in my explanations. If you provide a full and honest picture, I won't need to say anything!
That way, readers can make up their own minds based on full information. Which, if I read your post of 1:38 correctly, you also want

Feel free to chime in whenever you want. I do not have anything to hide, Islam doesn't have anything to hide, really the Quran is an open book available for anyone interested. I back up everything that I say with the Quran and the sunnah. Yes, I am a Muslim but I also study Islam academically. The danger with posts like yours is that verses are torn out of context to prove some particular juristical opinion or notion that you want to affirm. Contextualization gives to countless verses a construction different from the one usually placed on them; it throws new light not only on the doctrinal and creedal aspects of the Quranic message but also on the methodological aspects of the messagE, it lends new significance not only to the moral and legal injunctions of the Quran but also to the stories and parables narrated by the Quran. It is indeed a great irony that all heresies have been claimed by their propounders to have their basis in the Quran. And if these heresies looked plausible to many, it was because the context of the verses constituting the so-called 'basis in the Quran' was not properly understood. This Book is not like a magazine, article, or blog. You can’t skim through the Quran to get its treasure!

Anonymous wrote:


I am not the "Muslima" pp. However, she is correct here. The reason women get half the inheritance of men is because of the requirement (legal requirement) of men to financially support women. Thus, brothers must financially support unmarried sisters.

The rule for requiring two female witnesses for testimony when for a male only one is required is only with regard to financial transactions.

The divorce rate in Islam is close to the divorce rate in America, and often times the woman wants the divorce. I have not heard that a divorce is any harder for women to get than men.

A man just has to repeat "talaaq" three times and the divorce is final. Women can't do this. There was a case recently - in Indonesia? Malaysia? - where a guy did his talaaqs via text. The case was about whether texting was a valid form of delivering it.

here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divorce_in_Islam. Confirms that divorce is much more difficult for women than for men.

Anonymous wrote:One thing pp's need to understand that Islam does not promote equality. It promotes justice. Big difference. There is too much engrained or institutional prejudice against women, the scale needs to be adjusted. Married women in Islam are not compelled to work. Women are not required to financially support themselves. Here in the U.S. Where women make less than what men make for the same jobs, perhaps equality is not truly achievable. And even if it could be achievable in the future, perhaps women need safeguards because of their historical subjugation.

So..while Islam on the outside may look like a religion that oppresses womens rights, in fact it really does the opposite. It protects them from institutional mistreatment. And those who deny women their rights in an Islamic system are never acting in accordance with Islam.

A few crucial points:
(1) a woman whose husband is dead or disabled is indeed "compelled" to work. This is true in many Muslim countries that have been plagued by war, where women and mothers with no other sources of family support, are indeed "compelled to work" and would, in fact, benefit from laws promoting equality.
(2) what you call being "compelled" to work is a source of great happiness for many women.
(3) one of the reasons US women earn less than men is they work in different jobs. Women are much more likely to go into teaching and nursing, for example.

But surely you know all these things.... Since you claim you live in the US, it would be pretty much impossible to be oblivious to points #1-3. I don't understand a mindset that argues by denying the the obvious and expects that nobody will see through it. Do you cross your fingers and hope that nobody will challenge your statements?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bhutto was elected because she came from a dynasty, one of the wealthiest, most powerful families in Pakistan.

Lets not use Bhutto as any kind of a positive example. One of the most corrupt families that ever ruled over Pakistan.

OK. But Muslima is citing "five Muslim women leaders" and you're saying we shouldn't count Bhutto?

Anonymous wrote:20:44 here. I seem to have offended you, and for that I'm sorry.

However, you repeatedly make glowing claims without providing the full picture. On this thread, you've made claims such as, "Islam offers asylum to prisoners of war" or "Islam offers inheritance rights to women."

I think it's important that people have full information so they can make informed decisions. Readers need to understand that "asylum" can mean "slavery for non-Muslims" and "rape for non-Muslim women." They also need to understand that "giving women inheritance rights" means "women get 1/2 the share that men get." And that these are rules are in the Quran, so they are for all time.

Perhaps we can agree for future discourse:
1. When you make a statement like "Islam gives asylum" you will provide a full and honest picture.
2. I will try to be more neutral in my explanations. If you provide a full and honest picture, I won't need to say anything!
That way, readers can make up their own minds based on full information. Which, if I read your post of 1:38 correctly, you also want.

She will not provide a full and honest picture. It will be a vague, flowery type statement. There is no intellectual honesty with Islam.

Mohammed did have people killed, spread his religion through war, married a very young girl and had relations with her when she was nine years of age, and taught hatred of Jews and Christians.

Jesus never killed or ordered the death of anyone.

Anonymous wrote:Bhutto was elected because she came from a dynasty, one of the wealthiest, most powerful families in Pakistan.

Lets not use Bhutto as any kind of a positive example. One of the most corrupt families that ever ruled over Pakistan.