Why has husband been given this much of a right?

Lifestyle Relationships
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Re: Why has husband been given this much of a right?

yes.........but i guess the question from the OP shows that the OP and many others see the importance of 'roles & responsibilities" of a husband different than what you might think...

as in, the designated role of the wife is more important, hence should be given greater right...

42

Re: Why has husband been given this much of a right?

Well, in today’s world, women definitely are doing more things that they did years ago. Many women wear tons of hats and their households depend on them financially as much as their husbands. And even if a woman isn’t working, she still has greater responsibilities now than ever before…very active role in a child’s education, both deeni and duniyavi, etc… so one can argue that perhaps this hadeeth doesn’t apply to the life situations today. However, I feel that it doesn’t make sense to argue with God’s laws. You end up getting more frustrated, and at the end of the day, whichever way the job gets done in your home, the true credit and blessings do come from Allah alone. Now regarding why we should still hold so much more respect for the man of the home…well it’s not about acts of respect alone, but mostly the attitude. The more you resist that respect, the more it haunts you. You get what you give.

I don’t know if I’m making sense. :smack:

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Re: Why has husband been given this much of a right?

Thanks every one!
I had a confusion, some people completed the hadees, others clarified the context.. others: Why can't we have a decent conversation without getting hyper?

44

Re: Why has husband been given this much of a right?

You just elaborated on my point… that role played by women today is worthy of ''if it were allowed Prostration" too…

45

Re: Why has husband been given this much of a right?

But I also said that I wouldn't argue with God's laws.

46

Re: Why has husband been given this much of a right?

So are you deluding yourself?? (no offence just for the sake of discussion)

You think that the role played by men is not so great to be worthy of that.......yet you chose to accept the deemed right of the man??

47

Re: Why has husband been given this much of a right?

I am very clear and have no problem with the hadeeth.

I can understand why some women may have problems with it...1] because many women have problems with everything and are always dissecting every little religious matter and 2] because they may not feel appreciated and think they work harder or as hard as their husbands but don't enjoy the respect they deserve.

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Re: Why has husband been given this much of a right?

so....correct me if i am wrong....(just for clarification..lest i be accused of putting words in your mouth)

.in your point no.1......... you are saying they see a problem with this without actually thinking about it?? or they just like to find problems with every issue of women's right in islam??

in point no.2........ you saying that even though they accept the hadith and the guidance...they are only complaining about receiving their fare share of rights (as per islam)??

49

Re: Why has husband been given this much of a right?

Just curious, anyone who question this (and other hadees like this), in working environment, do they ask boss WHY do something when boss orders? do you tell boss, sorry this does not make sense to me.....Just curious.

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Re: Why has husband been given this much of a right?

Peace DaffyDuck

(Make way a Mulla in the House :D) ... I'm so sad that you felt this was not a religion topic ... probably because you thought that people would start to question your iman rather than give you a satisfactory answer ...

In fact if you are looking for a satisfactory answer inshaAllah I can give that to you ...

Someone earlier spoke about Jannah being at the feet of the mother ... this is true - however note: this IS the case that Jannah is at the feet of the mother ... however in contrast "If Allah (SWT) had permitted prostration to other than Himself for humans then ..." my point being ... that is a big IF ... the fact is you do not have permission to prostrate to other than Allah (SWT) ... So why the word play?

This is essential to understand ... I said once to girl at work "You look like so and so a celebrity" she got so conscious ... she looked up that celebrity and saw her to be thin and good looking and said , "She is nice, so thanks" ... I asked, "What are you saying thanks about?" She explained that since I equated her with someone who she felt was good looking - she concluded that I was giving her a compliment - ... Now if I said the same to a man he would look up the person and say "You're right I do look like so and so" ... He would regard the words more literally and would be less likely to conjure up reasons for asking ...

Likewise ... we know that Allah (SWT) has not given permission to women to prostrate to their husbands ... however playing around in the minds of wives is the what if ... and it is that that is important ... because if we are declared as equals and nothing else said then women through their greater powers of emotion and farsightedness will quickly come to dominate relationships which can also cause imbalances enough to weaken the bond of marriage ... but the wisdom in such a statement balances things out - it is like a handicap for us men that we are given ... The reality is that it is indeed haram for a wife to prostrate to her husband ... but if she feels that she should respect him because of that statement then it will balance things out ... and you know what? It does!

51

Re: Why has husband been given this much of a right?

you have to take into consideration when islam was conceived women where treated slightly above cattle in society. im not saying this is right or wrong its just a fact. Now today people try to follow the exact letter of Islam of course there will be problems and conflicts.

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Re: Why has husband been given this much of a right?

First of all, we all need to read the full hadees and not a part of it because then we are taking things way out of context. This hadees is part of a longer hadees where Companions told Prophet :saw2: that they wish they can prostrate before him as they have seen others doing to their priests. Prophet said NO .. and then the following hadees that OP quoted (except for the last part that is added I think and not part of the hadees “*due to the greatness of his right over her.”). *

Hadees clearly shows that Sajda is not allowed in front of a man,and - to a Muslim woman, her husband is the figure of utmost respect and even to him sajda is not allowed - so how can you (companions) prostrate in front of me (prophet :saw2:)

Please read in bwteeen the lines what this hadees is negating. We are taking out the meaning that the hadees in its undertone is asking to avoid.

Another similar hadees was when prophet said (paraphrasing) that your neighbors have so much right on you that I had a fear that you might be obligated to share your inheritance (wealth) with them. Now my cousin from another city can argue that how comes TLKs’ neighbor got more importance than us who are his first cousins and neighbor is not even related

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Re: Why has husband been given this much of a right?

Thanks for the input every one. Please would some quote here the exact hadees with the context it was said in, in case I haven't put it in rightly.

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Re: Why has husband been given this much of a right?

  • ".. if someone wants a decent justification/explanation - *athough we shouldnt try to justify/explain any verse from quran or hadith *...

  • "... *many women have problems with everything and are always dissecting every little religious matter *..."

  • "...** Now if I said the same to a man** ...] He would regard the words more literally and would be less likely [than a woman] to conjure up reasons for asking ..."

Not sure what school of thought the above POVs reflect, but it's interesting that if one personally doesn't care for intellectual prodding or study, there exists a compulsion to discourage others from the same. The Prophet Muhammad is known to have said that all mujtahids (those who use independent judgment to settle a matter) are correct. This is intended as a figurative reminder that scholars/people do not, and should not, agree on everything, and that such disagreements should be acceptable; after all, Islam has a long-established tradition of disputation and disagreement that started during the time of the Prophet. We lost that - as this thread demonstrates - when the gates of ijtihad (independent reasoning) were closed.

Anyone who is serious about faith will delve beneath the surface. There's nothing impressive about learning by rote, or emphasizing taqlid (copying/obeying without question). Unless one is a cow or a monkey, one will ask why. God tells us we're different from animals because we're given the power of rational thought and free will. It seems regressive to criticize the OP simply for being curious, or to condescend to women for asking questions - as if inquisitiveness is a vulgar tendency which ought to be nipped in the bud. Sexist, patronizing comments abound here, sadly. Views that don't agree with those of the majority are shunned and stigmatized as “western/modern” and the bearer of the view is considered a heretic. Let's keep an open mind and facilitate intellectual curiosity instead of sucking the oxygen out of any thread that dares to ask why.

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Re: Why has husband been given this much of a right?

Daffy Duck, you asked why this hadith implies what it does. I’ll go a step further and question the hadith itself. Since the following is an underrepresented view, I’m including it here. Whether one agrees or disagrees is extraneous; I’m not posting this to change anyone’s mind but to share scholarly analysis for those who are interested in an alternative approach.

The author’s credentials : Khaled Abou El Fadl - Wikipedia
An excerpt from ‘Speaking for God : Islamic Law, Authority and Women,’ p 213.

"Because of the drastic normative consequences of traditions such as this, they require a conscientious pause. If by the standards of age and place, or the standards of human moral development, traditions lead to wakhdh al-damir (the unsettling/disturbing of conscience), the least a Muslim can do is to pause to reflect about the place and implications of these traditions. If we assume that the human fitrah (intuition) is socially and historically limited, it will necessarily be changing and evolving. Consequently, what will disturb the conscience in one context will not necessarily do the same in another. Nevertheless, if a Muslim’s conscience is disturbed, the least that would be theologically expected from thinking beings who carry the burden of free will, accountability and God’s trust, is to take a reflective pause, and ask : to what extend did the Prophet really play a role in the authorial enterprise that produced this tradition? Can I consistently with my faith and understanding of God and God’s message, believe that God’s Prophet is primarily responsible for this tradition?

This is not an invitation to the exercise of whimsy and feel-good determinations. The duties of honesty, self-restraint, diligence, comprehensive-ness, and reasonableness demand that a Muslim make a serious inquiry into the origin, structure, and symbolism of the authorial enterprise that produced the tradition before simply waiving it away and proceeding on his merry way. The conscientious-pause would obligate the Principal’s agent to apply thorough critical thought to the tradition in question, in search for the role of the Prophet in it. To demonstrate this point, I will examine the prostration tradition, and similar reports, in some detail.

Perhaps the most notable thing about the prostration traditions is that they are structurally peculiar. In most reports, the Prophet is asked whether it is permissible to prostrate to him, the Prophet. To this he is supposed to have answered, “No! But actually if a human could prostrate to a human it would be a wife to a husband.” Such a fundamentally revolutionary review is expressed out of context and in a rather casual way. Basically, according to these reports, the Prophet volunteers this injunction although that is not what is being asked. In most versions, the one doing the asking is a man and the response is given to a man or men. Although the traditions have a profound impact upon women, this advice is supposed to be enunciated before an audience of men. This is quite a casual way of delivering advice that will have profound social and theological implications upon women in particular. Furthermore, as a matter of symbolic discourse, **an unjustifiable nexus is created between the Prophet and husbands. The question posed to the Prophet is about the respect owed the Prophet. The response addresses the respect that is owed husbands. A powerful symbolic association is created between the status of the Prophet and the status of husbands. **

The context and structure of the traditions makes them suspect. It is highly unlikely that the Prophet, in such an unsystematic or haphazard fashion, would address Islamic theological questions. Furthermore, the Quran is rather vigilant in asserting the unshared, undivided, and non-contingent supremacy of God. This assertion formed the basis for the Islamic dogma maintaining that submission to God necessarily means non-submission to anyone else. Consequently, any tradition that draws an association between the status of the Prophet, or the pleasure of God, and the status or pleasure of a human being is inherently suspect. Under all circumstances, it is reasonable to claim that if a tradition has serious theological, moral, and social implications, it should meet a heavy burden of proof before it can be relied upon. But even more, if a tradition is suspect because of a contextual or structural defect, among other reasons, then there should be a presumption against its authenticity, and the evidence supporting the authenticity of the tradition should be conclusive.

In the case of the prostration (and submission) traditions, the evidence suggests that they cannot be relied upon because we cannot conclusively assert that the Prophet played the primary role in the authorial enterprise that produced them. For one, they contradict the theological notion of the undivided supremacy of God and God’s will. In addition, they are inconsistent with the Quranic discourse on marriage. The Quran states: “From God’s signs is that God created mates for you among yourselves so that you may find repose and tranquility with them, and God has created love and compassion between you” (30:21). The Quran also describes spouses as garments for each other (2:187). In addition, these traditions are not consistent with the cumulative reports describing the conduct of the Prophet with his own wives."

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Re: Why has husband been given this much of a right?

I think no one labelled the OP as "heretic".

Sure, Islam allows to have difference of opinions and diversity but we are not doing ijtihad here in this thread. Looking at the chain of a hadith to see its authenticity and explaining it in context of Islamic teachings, in comparison to calling it nonsense and hogwash....BIG DIFFERENCE.

I can see how you're demonstrating "difference of opinion" and at the same time those who follow a different opinion are cows and monkeys in your sight. Well done.

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Re: Why has husband been given this much of a right?

chaibiskut,

Now here is something for you to ponder upon,* taqlid* does not mean following something without questioning.

An excerpt from Sh. Abdal Hakim Murad aka T.J. Winter’s article.

And this principle continued generation of the Tabi`in, even more so then, of course, with the growing catharsis and violent level of religious learning among the Muslims. So we find, Imam ash-Shabi, for instance, despite again his quite extraordinary and oceanic knowledge, refusing to consider himself to be a mufti. He was, he said, only a naqil, somebody who only transmitted the texts and transmitted the opinions of others.

**Now this tried and tested principle of Islam is known as taqlid, which means emulation of somebody who knows more than you do. Either somebody is qualified to derive rulings of Shari`a from the Qur’an and Sunna in which case such a person is obliged to do so and is not permitted to follow the deductions made by anybody else; or on the other hand, one is not so qualified, in which case it is obligatory for him to follow the verdict of the qualified.

Islamic knowledge in this respect is like any other branch of knowledge known to man. For instance, if you are a student of medicine, or for instance, if you’re a beginning student of medicine and your child falls ill, then what do you do? Do you go to the medical textbooks and try to figure out what the correct remedy will be or do you go to the best doctor you can find and consult that person? Obviously, you’ll choose the latter option. And if you are interested in building a nuclear power station, what do you do? Do you say, " I don’t accept the traditional texts of nuclear physics - I just believe in nuclear power and I want to build my own power station and I’m not going to pay any attention to the views and deductions of other people who have thought similarly in the past. I’m going to do it all for myself. Obviously, this is absurd.
**
**And in this respect, really, Islamic knowledge is not categorically different from any other branch of knowledge. It involves information. It involves systematic methods of processing and presenting that information. The science of deriving the Sharia from the revelation, which is known as *usul al-fiqh*, is, of course, a necessarily intricate business. And it is even more important that we get this right then that we get, for instance, the judgments in medicine correct, because this has to do not just with, not with our physical health, but it has to do with our prospects for eternal salvation. ** Now, obviously, Islam has a core message: it has the two *shahadas*, it has the obligations to conform to certain basic universal, ethical principles in moral life. And that is extremely simple. In its essence, Islam is an enormously simple vision. But the revelation also, necessarily, contains complexities, particularly in legal areas, because human life and human societies are themselves complex. Hence the involvement in the variety of that body of legal methodologies and rulings that we call the *fiqh*. Now, if anybody wants to learn more about the techniques which the ulama have traditionally applied for this process of *instinbat*, of deduction of the Sharia from the revealed sources, I would suggest they go to Professor Muhammad Hashim Kamali’s book, which despite one or two falls from grace generally is a very good presentation of the sciences of usul of fiqh; which explains the principle, for instance, of knowing which verses of the Qur’an are abrogated *mansukh *and which abrogating nasikh. If you follow the principle of ‘do-it-yourself-fiqh’ that I was explaining earlier, you would simply not be able to know which verses of the Qur’an still carry legal weight and which have been abrogated by later ones.

I recommend you to read the whole article…it’s very interesting.

http://www.sunnipath.com/library/Articles/AR00000079.aspx

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Re: Why has husband been given this much of a right?

1) I didn't claim anyone labeled the OP in particular as heretic. It is generally implied to describe those with a minority view, as they are accused of 'cherry-picking' and having questionable intentions.

2) You have misinterpreted my use of 'ijtihad.' I speak of it in the context of freedom of thought, rational thinking and the quest for truth through an epistemology covering science, rationalism, human experience, critical thinking and so on, not the narrow legal definition you're referencing.

3) A quick scan of this thread doesn't bring up the words 'nonsense' or 'hogwash' so I don't know who/what you're referring to.

4) You're funny, really. I argue that human beings are wired to ask "why," unlike cows and monkeys, and you interpret : "Chaibiskut is calling everyone a cow and monkey." I present a valid argument, and you proclaim : "Chaibiskut is saying Hareem is a loser." Straw man arguments and red herrings seem to be your achilles' heel. When one is unable to make a counter argument, deflection and the 'personal attack' accusation comes in handy I imagine.

5) Thanks for the explanation of taqlid. Words have more than one meaning. The term also carries a negative connotation to the degree that it's come to mean one who slavishly follows another, and hence follows blindly. Back to the OP's question.

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Re: Why has husband been given this much of a right?

  1. Yes, such people do exist.

  2. That’s not* ijtihad* you’re talking about…it’s calledkalam.

  3. no comment.

  4. you’re more funny…I didn’t say you called everyone monkey and cows, I said you referred to Mutaqalideen as monkeys and cows who are following without questioning. Your post is up there and anyone can go and check.

"There’s nothing impressive about learning by rote, or emphasizing taqlid (copying/obeying without question). Unless one is a cow or a monkey, one will ask why."

About the other thread, I had to choose a title and that’s what I could think of at that time and I even made it clear that I myself chose the title of the thread. If you have anything against my method of moderation or you think I’m being dishonest and biased then please take it to admins instead of writing long posts against my character and personality. Thank you.

You attacked a guppan personally by calling her psycho and then you tried opening a new thread (just to very harshly criticize a poster for her opinion about her hypothetical child) with the same title which was previously locked because of too many people getting emotional and indulging in arguments, you broke the rules and you got warning for that, as simple as that. There was no need to write a 200 words essay on how bad and biased hareem is. Talk about personal vendetta!

Seriously, you should be the last person talking about “stating an opinion with freedom”.

  1. Anyone who follows blindly is called a fanatic, not a muqalid or mujtahid, even a 10 year old can tell you that.
60

Re: Why has husband been given this much of a right?

Excuse me? When did I question the hadith ... I just wanted a clarification.