Is Muslims’ Treatment of Women Islamic?
Is Muslims’ Treatment of Women Islamic?
On March 11, 2002, fire struck a girls’ school in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The religious police locked the schoolgirls inside the inferno rather than let them escape without their head-to-toe cloak. The firemen were prevented from entering the school for fear that the girls would be seen without their covering. Fourteen young girls were burned to death and dozens more were injured.
Is this treatment Islamic?
To answer this question, a comparison will be made between the fine treatment that the Prophet Muhammad reportedly accorded to His first wife Khadija and the treatment of women that evolved under Sharia (Islamic Law).
We are told that Khadija was the best born, a rich businesswoman who employed Muhammad, proposed marriage to him when He was 25 years of age. She was 15 years his senior and twice a widow. For the 25 years of their marriage, the Prophet remained monogamous. Khadija was the one person to whom He turned for advice. She was the first convert to Islam.
The difference between the Prophet’s treatment of Khadija and the treatment of women under Sharia Law is stark.
The Quran subordinates women to men [Verses 2:228 (Chapter 2, Verse 228], 4:34, and 18:46). It decrees that one man is equal to two women when bearing witness in a legal setting (2:282), that a male’s share in inheritance is equal to that of two females (4:11), that a man can have up to four wives simultaneously, on condition of equitable treatment (4:3), that a husband can divorce his wife without giving reason, though the Prophet reportedly discouraged divorce.
Allowing the Muslim male to marry four wives simultaneously and divorce any one of them without giving cause is synonymous with unlimited polygamy.
Additionally, Shiite religious scholars interpret Verses 4:4 and 4:24 as if men are allowed a temporary marriage contract, called Mut’a, for which a payment to the woman is made for her services for a predetermined period of time.
Sunnis sanction the Misyar marriage. Here, the couple lives apart; the woman relinquishes her right to have financial support and accepts the man’s visits in her family house. Misyar has been sanctioned by the Islamic Jurisprudence Assembly on April 12, 2006 and by the Grand Muftis of Saudi Arabia and Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo.
Misyar and Mut’a marriages are sanctioned adultery.
The Sunna (sayings and acts attributed to the Prophet) too contains Traditions unflattering to Women. Al-Bukhari attributed to the Prophet saying that most of those who are in hell are women, that women’s lack of intelligence is the reason why a woman’s witness testimony in an Islamic court of law is equal to half that of the Muslim male, and that the reason why Muslim women are prohibited from praying and fasting during menstruation is due to them being deficient in religious belief. Al-Nasai attributed to the Prophet saying: People who entrust the management of their affairs to a woman will fail.
Sharia Law is not applied uniformly in Muslim countries. In Saudi Arabia, Sharia means, among others, strict segregation of the sexes at work, schools, hospitals, shops, public parks, elevators, let alone guardianship by the male in the family. Al-Bukhari’s attributions became a common popular Saudi proverb: women are light on brains and religion.
Saudi Sharia eliminates the potential political opposition of one half of the population to the government.
By contrast, in Muslim non-Arab Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Turkey, Sharia means that women can be presidents and prime ministers.
Harmonizing Sharia with the Sunna is critical. Tenth century Ulama turned the Sunna into a source of Sharia equal to the Quran.
In June 2006, Turkey formed a committee of thirty-five scholars to study the removal of Prophetic attributions that encourage violence against women.
Elie Elhadj; Author: The Islamic Shield
http://www.universal-publishers.com/book.php?method=ISBN&book=1599424118
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
