Islam for Women or is it?

[Miss_Noland]

@ravage

You seem to say Islam should have introduced contemporary values from the outset. that is infeasible given that contemporary values may get outdated in times to come. how do you reconcile your expectation of what Islam should have revealed with the fact that 100 years from now someone could look back at your views and consider them primitive?

Absolutely, 100 years into the future what we know will probably be irrelavent. If we continue to advance at this rate, the world as we know it will indeed be different so will be the views.

a more rational argument to me seems to be that islamic laws tend to hinder the negative aspects of a culture at a given time without (usually) being overly prescriptive. You are not required to have slaves, but if you do you are required to keep them a certain way. You are not required to eat meat, but if you do, you do it a certain way. You are not required to be polygamous, but if you do, you do it a certain way. You are not required to beat your wife, but if you do you do it a certain way. This allows for cultural evolution of values bounded within a religious framework. You could be abiding by the sharia while never owning a slave, never having touched meat, while having practiced monogamy and being completely under your begum’s shoe, and while regarding all of these as important cultural values. This is a liberal reading of it ofcourse, there are hardliners who would disagree with me but I believe they’re in the minority.

Sharia doesn’t ‘require’ you to have slaves, practice polygamy, or beat your wife, that was never the argument. The fact is it was there before Islam came about and it stayed that way. What did Islam change except adding a few restrictions to how you do it?

Some of the laws are ofcourse quite controversial, and as you can see I have argued that you have legitimate concerns about them. That does not warrant the conclusions you’re drawing though, assuming you wish to be rational.

I appreciate that you recognize the controversial nature of the laws and of course we have different opinions in regards to it.