[Reader-list] Fwd: My Brief Review of Women and Islam on the Shelfari Page

Thu Apr 23 19:56:34 IST 2009

Dear Javed

SLAVERY

Venugopalan stated that "Islam would not sanction the practice of slavery among
the believers"

I countered that with "Slavery is institutionalised in Islam through the Quran". You too do not seem to disagree with that.

Where the movement to abolish slavery started is hardly relevant and your claim is not necessarily correct. What is relevant is 'who actually abolished it'.

The weblink for the Book you provided does not allow a read of all pages of the book. But here are a few interesting extracts:

- Participants in such controversies rarely heed Jacques Jomier's wise words that no religion is in the position to cast the first stone in the matter of slavery

- Abdullahi al-Naim ...... concluded "slavery is lawful under sharia to the present day"

That is how it is. No one can change that since that would mean abrogating passages from the Quran.

HADEETH

Islam would have had, if it had so been followed, the strength of there being a single text, the Quran. The deep sectarian divides amongst Muslims come from the Hadeeth and Rivayaat taking forward the history of divides that started almost immediately after the death of Mohammed.

Although, between sects there is quibbling over interpretations of some text even from the Quran but it is the non-acceptace of any set of Hadeeth and Rivaayat universally by all Muslims that has deepened the divides.

Forget about what Islamic scholars say. If they knew what they were talking about, Islam as represented by those who claim to be Muslims would not be in the mess that it is.

The sects cannot even agree on what a single version of the Last Sermon of Mohammed not to speak of the thousands of Hadeeth and Rivaayat.

The Word is God. Quran is the Word. There cannot be any intercession in the relationship between the Creator and Creations. If it is a question of understanding the Quran, then the Quran itself tells Mohammed that (even) he will not understand some parts of the Quran. 

Even the Sunnis for example might have started by claiming the trueness of the Sahi Sitta (6 Hadeeth books), they are to this day struggling to agree whether all of their contents are Sahi (true). The Shias of course hold much of the contents in those books in contempt and yet funnily enough at times use some content from those very books to attack the Sunnis and especially Aisha and the first three Khalifas. Quite a mess.

The write-up on Al Albani's work forwarded by you only confirms this. One more attempt to sort out the Hadeeth and Rivayaat. How can they serve as a useful tool to understand the Quran if they continue to be controversial?

Interestingly the write-up makes reference to Al Albani's "The Veil of the Muslim Woman" where apparently he has argued that Muslim women should not cover their faces. But thats another topic. 

What the Muslims need to do is to go back to the basics. Study the Quran and the Quran alone and understand it along the lines I had written about earlier:

- Self-declaratory by Allah. A generalised commentary on  Creator and the
Creations and expectations of Creator from Creations
- Advisories for Mohammed alone
- Advisories for everyone
- Advisories for specific times
- Advisories valid in perpetuity for ever after
- Commentaries of the times before Mohammed that may or may not
be advisories  in perpetutity for ever after

Once they agree on a common understanding they will find much in the Hadeeth and Rivaayat from the different sects that need to be discarded. They will find quite unimportant some of the difference they quarrel over. They will find a new understanding of what a true Muslim is that will not make them suspect in the eyes of everyone else. 

Kshmendra

--- On Thu, 4/23/09, M Javed <javedmasoo at gmail.com> wrote:

From: M Javed <javedmasoo at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Fwd: My Brief Review of Women and Islam on the Shelfari Page
To: kshmendra2005 at yahoo.com
Cc: "sarai-list" <reader-list at sarai.net>, "Venugopalan K M" <kmvenuannur at gmail.com>
Date: Thursday, April 23, 2009, 2:42 PM

Dear Kshmendra
There is no medieval culture or civilization which didn't have slavery
in it. In some places it is still existing in the form of castism.
While it is true that the Quran or Prophet Muhammad did not abolish
slavery, the movements to end it truly started in the Muslim world,
much before it was abolished even in Europe. It would be interesting
to take a look at a book which is even available online:

Islam and the abolition of slavery
By W. G. Clarence-Smith

http://books.google.co.in/books?id=nQbylEdqJKkC&dq=islam+against+slavery&printsec=frontcover&source=in&hl=en&ei=oC3wSaKiM4zW6gO_4qCfDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=11#PPP1,M1

Please explain why do you say that most people go wrong when they try
to read Quran with hadith. Almost all Islamic scholars are of the
opinion that the cryptic nature of the Quran can be best understood by
interpreting it through hadiths - the two cannot be understood without
each other. I would like you to read on essay about some new work on
the interpretation of hadith:

http://www.isim.nl/files/review_21/review_21-6.pdf

Javed

On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 7:43 PM, Kshmendra Kaul <kshmendra2005 at yahoo.com>
wrote:
> Dear Venugopalan
>
> Just a few comments on what you have written:
>
> - Mohammed's son-in-law was Ali (not Umer)
>
> - Slavery is institutionalised in Islam through the Quran. It comments on
it and gives no injunction against it as being unacceptable
>
> - There is no advisory favouring the HIJAB in the Quran other than ONLY
for the wives of Mohammed (this is open to interpretations).
>
> - Certain controversial advisories in the Quran and specifically the Law
for Evidences, makes suspect a claim of 'equality between the sexes' as
may be understood in secular terms
>
> - You err in referring to the 'monotheistic universal faith is
absolutely egalitarian' of Islam as being a VISION of Mohammed. It is the
VISION of ALLAH and not Mohammed.
>
> While on this subject; Most commentators on Islam including Muslims do
wrong when they try to read the Quran in combination with the Hadith. The Hadith
are sectarian and indeed political and may not always be in-line with the
Quranic word, which makes some doubly suspect.
>
> Even in the reading of the Quran (and this is solely my own
understanding), it would help both Muslims and Non-Muslims to understand things
better if they were to identify the following aspects:
>
> - Self-declatory by Allah. A generalised commentary on  Creator and the
Creations and expectations of Creator from Creations
>
> - Advisories for Mohammed alone
>
> - Advisories for everyone
>
> - Advisories for specific times
>
> - Advisories valid in perpetuity for ever after
>
> - Commentaries of the times before Mohammed that may or may not
be advisories  in perpetutity for ever after
>
> Kshmendra
>
>
> --- On Wed, 4/22/09, Venugopalan K M <kmvenuannur at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> From: Venugopalan K M <kmvenuannur at gmail.com>
> Subject: Fwd: My Brief Review of Women and Islam on the Shelfari Page
> To: "sarai-list" <reader-list at sarai.net>
> Date: Wednesday, April 22, 2009, 6:25 PM
>
>
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Venugopalan K M <kmvenuannur at gmail.com>
> Date: Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 6:23 PM
> Subject: Fwd: My Brief Review of Women and Islam on the Shelfari Page
> To:
>
>
>
> Respected friends,
> Kindly send in your comments; I expect to be benefited by them as I
shortly intend to publish a translation of the work  in Malayalam, which is my
mother tongue.
> Warmly,
> Venu.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Women and Islam: An Historical and Theological Enquiry
> by Fatima Mernissi
> In this book the author, who is both a feminist and a Muslim, aims to shed
light on the status of women in Islam by examining and reassessing the literary
sources as far back as 7th century Islam. She portrays how, far from being the
oppressor of women that his detractors have claimed, the Prophet upheld the
equality of all true believers. Here is a bold reconciliation of feminism with
the... (more)
>
>      kmvenuannur
>          o Rated 0 stars
>
>      “ Fatima Mernissi has done an epoch making and scholarly
exploration of the Suras (original Quranic verses) and the Hadits (accounts by
the Companions of the Prophet about how the Messenger of God responded to
challenging moments in the lives of first generation of believers,methodically
cross checked and compiled by religious scholars who lived in the first two
centuries of Islam) along with the interpretations since then. The major
findings of the author are the following:
>      1. The Prophet undoubtedly wanted no separation between the public
and private realms of life.
>      2. His vision of a monotheistic universal faith is absolutely
egalitarian and that is a world in which women could shoulder equal roles with
that of men in political, social and economic realms with a view to creating a
new world that would assure peace and happiness to all humans.
>      3. While Islam would not sanction the practice of slavery among
the believers, continuation of that institution for several centuries was
possible in the actual islamic regimes thanks to the denial of option (to the
new religion )to the prisoners of wars, who were mostly women from the pre
Islamic kingdoms. However,their chidren were considered free persons. These
women were treated as slaves and they were traded off or exchanged as booty.
>      4.The descend of Hijab,the physical as well as the symbolicl
separation of private and public spaces happened as a response to the grave
crisis in the Medina priod,which corresponded to the later phase in the life of
the Prophet. Years between Hejra 3-8 (AD 625- 628) were crtical periods of
crisis characterized by severe losses and uncertainity both on the side of
military expetitions and on the socio-economic life of people.
>      5. Evenwhile the Prophet together with his wives and many of the
articulate women in the Medinese city continued adherence to the principle of
equality( between men and women) , they encountered lot of social abuses on
account of this.
>      6. The prominent of the male Companions led by his son in law Umer
continuously pressed on the Prophet to impose restrictions for women. They
persisted on the view that solution to the above crisis of credibility and above
all the insecurity, was in the separation of the Muslim space into two- public
space was to be preserved as exclusive domain of men, and the private space as
the secluded space for women- both these spaces to be separated by a Hijab-
>      7. The Hijab ultimately descended from the Heaven as revealed to
the Prophet during the night of a wedding dinner in connection with his first
night with Zainab in the year Hejra 5 (AD 627). The immediate provocation of the
incident, according to a Hadith, was boorish behaviour of three men who
continued to linger there chatting, sitting in the room without leaving the
place even after the dinner; Prophet was eagerly waiting to be left alone in the
company of Zainab,his new bride sitting in the same room. ”
>      kmvenuannur wrote this review 1 minute ago. ( reply | edit
|permalink )
>
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