Re: The Rights of Women in Islam
I have read the whole thread and quite a range of questions and answers, wow. I am making an attempt to address a very small part, since the topic is so vast that we can write and write and it would take pages and pages. But before I start, I would like to mention an aya here, that got me thinking …
“Believers, let no man among you mock another man; the man being mocked is usually superior to the man who mocks. Let no woman among you mock another woman; the woman being mocked is usually superior to the woman who mocks. Do not slander one another, nor call each other by rude names; it is wrong that someone who has embraced the faith, should be called by a rude name. Those who do not repent, are sinners.”
[RIGHT]Quran, Al-Hujurat, Surah 49:11[/RIGHT]
- I think this should be posted among the rules and regulations of this forum and even other GS forums, some of us do this so blatantly
Let me also add that pre-judging without the right knowledge is called Prejudice. Basically we try to advocate our own biases without making an effort to understand. I have seen here that people take an aya and start criticising it without understanding.
LB with reference to your post # 36: Where you took an aya from Quran 4:34 and highlighted and underlined some words and started questioning it.
We all know and accept that Quran cannot be studied without fiqh and understanding. Though not all of us have studied fiqh but at least we can consult some detailed resources before making our judgement and start questioning.
The aya says, Men are maintainers of women … that does not give them any political authority over women. It simply means that it’s their financial obligation to maintain women. Women on the other hand do not have the same obligation. The wealth they acquire is considered discretionary wealth and if they want, they can share it with their husbands or they can spend it on whatever they want to. In fact, in Maliki Mudhab, it is wajib, a fard for a man to provide domestic help for a woman. Although a woman’s work at home taking care of children and household, is given the status of Jihad. This is a Sahih hadith. Prophet :saw: said that a woman gets the same muqaam and rewards of a man in Jihad fee sabil-Allah for doing all the household work. Now how many men get the opportunity of being in a Jihad, while women get this status everyday at home 
Now LB, when you questioned the rights of women when men are disloyal or vice-versa … do you even know the purpose of this particular aya, why and when it was revealed?
We need to understand what that aya means, which requires the detail and sophistication of fiqh and fuqaha have explained it with precision, that I cannot go into detail here or I’ll take at least 2 more pages and yet I may not be able to do justice with the job since I’m not a religious scholar. There are rules of fiqh that relate to men (when they are unfaithful) and if you really want to learn in detail, I can give you references of written and audio material. So let me first say that it is utterly forbidden to beat a woman or a child or even an animal in Shari’ah. **Basically, **this aya relates to domestic violence. How? That takes us to knowing, when and why the aya came. Prophet :saw: said, “Lunyeyadribu khiyarukum” meaning, The best of you would never hit a woman.
This translation that you put in bold and underlined about “beat them (lightly)” . This is not actual beating, it is, strike lightly. That too, it was given with “karahiyah” (disliking) as a way of maintaining the self-esteem of Arabs. This verse was revealed when a woman was struck by her husband and the Prophet :saw: said to the woman that I’ll take you and you can strike him the same way, he struck you. And they were actually on the way and this woman was gonna hit her husband in the presence of :saw: because he thought that was fair. At that point this verse was revealed. In other words it conveyed the message, don’t humiliate these men, they are Arabs. And because they have already done so much (let’s not forget that these are Arabs who used to burry their daughters alive, forget about giving them any respect or share in inheritance). Under Islam, they had transformed themselves. Arabs were very proud men (they still are, we all know that) and if :saw: would have humiliated them that way, and he would have lost them. So this aya was revealed as per the psychology of those people. This message was given to the first people.
Now, my purpose of this post was to share some information and not to hurt someone’s ideas or beliefs. Neither did I mean to go beating about the bush by repeated discussions. If anyone is interested to know more about what I mentioned here, please contact me, and I’ll be more than happy to share the source of my information.
And Only God knows the truth. May God forgive us for making any wrong or uninformed claims (intentional or unintentional) and may He :swt: guide us to the right path. Ameen, sum Ameen.