MUSLIM WOMEN AND ISLAMIC FAMILY STRUCTURE

[DQ]

Islam sees a woman - whether single or married - as an individual in herself with the right to own and dispose of her property and earnings as she pleases. At the time of marriage, the groom gives a marriage dowry to the bride for her own personal use, and she keeps her family maiden name rather than changing it to her husband's last name.







Both men and women are expected to dress in a way that is modest and dignified. The Muslim woman is required by the Qur'an to cover her entire body with the exception of her face and hands while in the presence of men whom she is not related to (or permitted to marry). This drees code is oftern referred to as the Islamic Hijab.







The various styles and types of women's dress found in some Muslim countries are often the expression of their local customs and are permitted as long as the minimum requirements are met.







In the Qur'an, Allah addresses both the male and the female believers in regards to their conduct and dress by saying:







"Say to the believing men that they cast down their looks and guard their private parts, that is purer for them; surely Allah is aware of what they do. And say to the believing women that they cast down their looks and guard their private parts and do not display their beauty except what appears thereof, and let them wear their head-coverings over their bosoms, and not display their beauty except to their husbands..." (al-Qur'an, Chapter 24, Verse 30-31)





Another aspect that Islam places great importance on is marriage and the family structure.







The final Messenger of Allah, Prophet Muhammad said:







"He who takes a woman (as a wife) should certainly respect her, because the wife of anyone of you is a means of your pleasure, so the one who marries a woman should not spoil or disgrace her (by disregarding her rights)."







In Islam, the bond of marriage which takes place only between a man and a woman, is counted as one of the phenomenon of Allah, as the Qur'an states:







"And amongst His signs is that He has created for you spouses from amongst yourselves so that you may live in tranquility with them; and He has created love and mercy between you. Verily, in this are signs for people who reflect." (al-Qur'an, Chapter 30, Verse 21)







Thus, the Muslim family is based on the concept of love and mercy - both between the husband and wife and the children.







In Islam, it is the responsibility of the husband to work and earn so as to take care of his wife and children. All of the needs and necessities of the family must be provided by the man of the house.







Although the woman is permitted to work outside of the house, Islam sees her primary role as the nurturer and first teacher of her children. It is through the mother that the children are brought up and taught the morals and values of righteous living. However, if a woman decides to work, then whatever money she earns is entirely hers and she is not required to contribute any of it to the maintenance of the family.

[CtrlAltDel]

i am not qualified to participate in the poll DQ...coz i do not know what the Quran actually says...and my opinions (like most other non-muslims') are based on what i see n hear about.



yr post was interesting...but i see in reality societies pick n choose as per convenience what injunction to follow n what not to follow...the old issue of 'out of context' interpretations, but this time by muslims themselves.



as far as i can conclude from yr information (and from what i have seen n heard), it is only in Malaysia and Indonesia do the muslims follow the closest interpretation regarding women's rights.

[DQ]

Lets study Womans rights.



It is the disregard of the Womans natural position which mostly leads to her being deprived of her rights.



Respecting her natural position will ensure Her Rights are maintained and respected.

[betty]

Lets study Womans rights.

It is the disregard of the Womans natural position which mostly leads to her being deprived of her rights.

And what exactly is a 'woman's natural position'?

[CtrlAltDel]

Lets study Womans rights.

It is the disregard of the Womans natural position which mostly leads to her being deprived of her rights.

And what exactly is a 'woman's natural position'?

exactly...



who decides that? men?



on a lighter note, is "woman-on-top" a natural position?

[CtrlAltDel]

..and i finally got to the article i was looking for:



Venus and Mars aren't that far apart



its an wonderful article and i have hilighted only the salient points here...for the rest read the full article via link above.

How different are men and women, really? Not very, says a recent study......

newer studies prove that there isn't much of a difference between the two genders, after all.....

They found significant differences in only 22 per cent of traits.....

"Popular media has portrayed men and women as psychologically different, but these differences are vastly overestimated. The two sexes are more similar in personality, communication, cognitive ability and leadership than realised." .......

"Men and women are very similar. Over the years, the perception of them being different developed because of the way they are brought up"......

.......The so-called difference between men and women is created by society, reiterates sociologist Nandini Sardesai "If a girl is more sporty and aggressive she's called tomboyish and a boy who cries is sissy,"......

.......It's society that determines certain traits as typical of men and certain others as typical of women,"........

When Indira Gandhi was the PM, people would say she is the only male in the cabinet because she was aggressive and a decision-maker..........

........Speaking of basic instincts, an accepted myth is that men have a higher sex drive compared to women.......

....."It's just that earlier women learnt to suppress, now they have learnt to express.........."

[Imran Khan]

nice post DQ i strongly agree with that

[Jack]

I think you guys are in a minority. I guess that's because you are from India, which does seem to produce some moderate muslims. The predominant view held by most muslims is that woman is a mans property just as an animal and he can choose to do as he pleases. I think guys like you should speak up more rather than let the religion be hijacked by the extremists with their primal views.

[Xeno]

I think you guys are in a minority. I guess that's because you are from India, which does seem to produce some moderate muslims. The predominant view held by most muslims is that woman is a mans property just as an animal and he can choose to do as he pleases. I think guys like you should speak up more rather than let the religion be hijacked by the extremists with their primal views.

I think you are propagandist , I think you are trying to create a issue out of nothing, what he said is what the status of a woman is in Islam,ofcourse people like you dont want to hear the truth they want to hear the propaganda from some one 1)who is not a muslim , 2) who is a propagandist 3) doesnt have any knowledge of what he is talking about.etc etc.. If you have seen a muslim who mistreats his wife and you see what the religion Islam says about the status of woman and the rights it confers upon her you still try to generalize the issue by blaming all the muslims , this propagandist fraidy cat policy is very obvious now , propagandists like you need to change your strategies now ...else you wont be going anywhere with your propaganda...

[CtrlAltDel]

The predominant view held by most muslims is that woman is a mans property just as an animal and he can choose to do as he pleases.

if u notice carefully, that view abt women is held by many men, irrespective of religion, education, financial status, caste, race...whateva...and u'll find such men not only in india...

[CtrlAltDel]

...and btw, i noticed no one has any bone to pick with the article i put up above...i assume all agree with me that there is nothing much that can be called "natural" or "unnatural" for women...

[DQ]

Natural Position?



Trying to follow the usual trend to lead the arguement into something lewd does not help anybody.



It also portrays to a balanced mind, the actual mindset of those who cry hoarse about rights. A talk about natural position and they comeback with only where their minds can lead.



Now back to the point of discussion Women and Family Structure. Of which we chose to discuss Womens rights.



There were no satisfactory arguements or remarks to my remark



"It is the disregard of the Womans natural position which mostly leads to her being deprived of her rights.



Respecting her natural position will ensure Her Rights are maintained and respected."



A bit of an explanation on what this means.(A long read )



In all the social movements of the west, from the seventeenth up to the present century all ideas centered around two things: liberty and equality.



The pioneers of this movement considered the liberty of women and the equality of their rights with those of men to be the completion and fulfillment of the movement for human rights that had been the central idea since the seventeenth century.



Everything resolved around the one matter that man and woman are partners in humanity, that woman is a genuine human being, and must therefore enjoy the alienable and undeniable rights of a human being, just as a man, and in equality with him.



Man and woman are equal in their being human, but they are two kinds of human being with two kinds of characteristics and two kinds of psychology. This difference is not the result of any geographical, historical or social factors; rather it is sketched out in the very plan of creation. Nature had a purpose in these two different conditions, and so whatever step is taken against nature and the order of things is bound to produce an undesirable toll. Just as the liberty and equality of human beings, both men and women, has been revealed to us from nature, so we must look to nature to inspire us concerning the uniqueness or the duality of the right, of women and men, and also as to whether the family unit is at least a semi-natural social unit, or not.



In this development, it was forgotten that there are other matters besides equality and liberty to be taken into consideration. Equality and liberty are necessary conditions, but they are not sufficient. An equality of rights is one thing, but an identicalness of rights is something else. The equality of the rights of man and woman from the point of view of their material and spiritual value is one thing but their parity, uniformity and identicalness is another thing. In this development, intentionally or unintentionally, ‘equality’ is taken to mean ‘ identicalness’ and ‘equivalence’ or ‘uniformity’, Quality has been eclipse by quantity in the attempt to remember woman’s ‘man-ness’, her ‘woman-ness’ has been, forgotten.



One of those factors was that the aspirations of capitalists were involved in this current. Because factory owners wanted women to be attracted horn from their homes to the factories, and because they wanted to benefit from their economic power, they took up the banner of the rights of women, their economic independence, their liberty, the equality of women’s rights with those of men and it was only these people who could give these demands a legal acceptance.

Will Durant remarks: “Until 1900 or so a woman had hardly any rights which a man was legally bound to respect.” (p.131). He then writes about the causes for the change in the status of women in the twentieth century: “The emancipation of ‘woman’ was an incident of the ‘Industrial Revolution’. He continues in his own words: They (women) are cheaper labour than men; the employer preferred them as employees to the more costly and rebellious males. A century ago, in England men found it hard to get work, but placards invited them to send their wives and children to the factory gate… The first legal step in the emancipation of our grand mothers was the legislation of 1882, by which it was decreed that thereafter the women of Great Britain should enjoy the unprecedented privilege of keeping the money they earned."

The development of mechanization and the ever-increasing growth in production at a rate greater than the level of the actual needs of people, the necessity of persuading consumers through thousands of deceptions and frauds, the urgency with which all auditory usual, psychological, sensory, aesthetic, artistic and venal means to transform man into an involuntary agent of consumption, further required that the capitalist should take advantage of woman’s existence; not of woman’s physical strength or her work power as a simple worker sharing with man in production, but rather of her power to attract with her beauty, by trading in her honour and respect, through her power to entice, to captivate minds and wills and to transform them, to impose consumption on consumers. It is clear that all this was done in the name of her ‘liberty’ and her becoming ‘equal’ with man.





Politics also did not lag behind in making use of this factor; one can read the circumstances of this regularly in newspapers and magazines. In all these things, the existence of woman is exploited and woman is used as a means for accomplishing the aims of man: and all this under the cover of ‘liberty’ and ‘equality’.





Clearly the young man of the twentieth century did not fail to avail himself of this precious opportunity, He stopped taking on the traditional responsibilities with regard to women, and made the seeking of a partner something cheap and gratuitous, seizing her in his talons. Then they shed more crocodile tears than before over the misfortunate of women and the unjust discrimination against her. And, finally, so as to avail themselves more fully of the pleasures of this world they delay their marriage until they are forty and later; and then even prefer to remain bachelors.



There is no doubt that our century has removed a whole series of misfortunes from women, but the point is whether, it has not actually brought another series of misfortunes as a gift. What is the reason for this? Is woman condemned to one of these two calamities, and forced to choose one of them, or is there nothing to hinder her from banishing her old misfortunes, as well as the new misfortunes?



The fact is that there is no compulsion or inevitability. The misfortunes of the olden days were mostly caused because the fact that a woman is a human being was forgotten, and her modern misfortunes are because, intentionally or otherwise, the womanliness of a woman, her inborn tendencies and nature, her mission, the axis around which she turns, her instinctual needs and her special capabilities are totally ignored.



After their logical and wise interpretation, these people exclaim “All right, since nature was so cruel to woman, and created her weak and imperfect, should we aggravate the situation and add injustice to injustice? If we consign woman’s natural disposition to the realms of oblivion, will we not make her more human?





The situation, incidentally, is just the reverse. Indifference towards the natural and innate disposition of woman has entailed the violation of her rights. If man confronts woman and tells her: “Now you are one and I am one. All task,, duties, profits, rewards and punishments will be alike and equal, and in all difficult, heavy work you will be my partner and receive compensation in proportion to your work force; do not expect any special respect and support from me; be responsible for all your living expenses; share with me the expenses of children; defend yourself against all dangers and perils; spend as much on me as I do on you……”, that is, the occasion for woman to throw in the sponge, because her labour strength and productive power is naturally less than that of a man, and the drain on her earnings is more. Besides, her monthly period, the inconveniences to her during pregnancy, the difficulties of labour and the bringing up of the child, have all placed her in a situation where she is under the protection of man with fewer responsibilities and more rights. This is not confined to human beings alone: all animals that live in pairs behave like this. In all these species the male instinctively rises up to protect his female partner.





If the natural and innate disposition of both sexes is kept in view, and their equality in being human and in the shared rights of humanity is remembered, then woman will find herself in a very favorable position neither will her person nor will her personality be crushed.

[CtrlAltDel]

There were no satisfactory arguements or remarks to my remark

whaddyamean? betty n i asked you to be more clearer abt yr opinion....

A bit of an explanation on what this means.(A long read )

no problemo...i read it all...

An equality of rights is one thing, but an identicalness of rights is something else.......‘equality’ is taken to mean ‘ identicalness’ and ‘equivalence’ or ‘uniformity’,........
.
.
........the capitalist should take advantage of woman’s existence; not of woman’s physical strength or her work power as a simple worker sharing with man in production, but rather of her power to attract with her beauty, by trading in her honour and respect, through her power to entice, to captivate minds and wills and to transform them, to impose consumption on consumers. It is clear that all this was done in the name of her ‘liberty’ and her becoming ‘equal’ with man...........
.
.
..........the existence of woman is exploited and woman is used as a means for accomplishing the aims of man: and all this under the cover of ‘liberty’ and ‘equality’......

:? thats was pretty regressive DQ! u are clearly implying that this "so called equality" u are talking abt has only resulted in exploiting the women sexually....thats typical of mindset of people who prevent women from working or going out alone coz they dont want others to 'stare' at them or 'talk' to them. this they do in the guise of 'protecting the women-folk'.

before u jump the gun to accuse me of tarnishing a certain religion, let me tell u that the above feeling is present in many men of all religions. i have a Reddy friend who openly said tht he wants to marry a plain looking woman coz he fears others wud 'look' at her. what you are expressing is not very dissimilar.

Clearly the young man of the twentieth century did not fail to avail himself of this precious opportunity, He stopped taking on the traditional responsibilities with regard to women, and made the seeking of a partner something cheap and gratuitous, seizing her in his talons. Then they shed more crocodile tears than before over the misfortunate of women and the unjust discrimination against her. And, finally, so as to avail themselves more fully of the pleasures of this world they delay their marriage until they are forty and later; and then even prefer to remain bachelors.

thats an opaque view of things. i'd like to look at it in another way: the 'conscious' man of today recognizes that his woman is an equal partner with equal rights on everything. he no longer looks at certain tasks as the domain of women only. he shares house work and responsibility of bringing up kids.
for instance, last week when my kid was ill, i stayed back home to take care of him n my wife went to battle deadlines. a person with your thinking wud not do it. he wud instead say "since u are a woman, its yr job to take care of the kid. if yr work pressure is that high, quit and stay home".

There is no doubt that our century has removed a whole series of misfortunes from women, but the point is whether, it has not actually brought another series of misfortunes as a gift. What is the reason for this? Is woman condemned to one of these two calamities, and forced to choose one of them, or is there nothing to hinder her from banishing her old misfortunes, as well as the new misfortunes?

there is no such thing as a perfect world. either in the "good old days" or the "evil modern days", troubles always make their presence felt - both for men and women. my point is there is no urgent requirement to shelter women from all problem. they are tougher than u can imagine and no problem wud be unsurmountable.

her modern misfortunes are because, intentionally or otherwise, the womanliness of a woman, her inborn tendencies and nature, her mission, the axis around which she turns, her instinctual needs and her special capabilities are totally ignored.

here we have to remember that the "womanliness", her "axis", "need", "capabilities" are defined hundreds of years ago by a male dominated society. if you look at traditionally matriarchal societies (in india u can see them in kerala, north east and many tribal areas), all your opinions get the boot.

If man confronts woman and tells her: “Now you are one and I am one. All task,, duties, profits, rewards and punishments will be alike and equal, and in all difficult, heavy work you will be my partner and receive compensation in proportion to your work force; do not expect any special respect and support from me; be responsible for all your living expenses; share with me the expenses of children; defend yourself against all dangers and perils; spend as much on me as I do on you……”,

that sounds like the words of a resentful man who cant accept the fact that his women can do what he does. no real man wud deny his wife respect, support, security and wash his hands off her that way.

.....her labour strength and productive power is naturally less than that of a man,

balls. if u study results of recent researches, u will realise u r wrong.

the drain on her earnings is more.

in what way?

Besides, her monthly period, the inconveniences to her during pregnancy, the difficulties of labour and the bringing up of the child, have all placed her in a situation where she is under the protection of man with fewer responsibilities and more rights.

eh? u are talking as if less responsibilty and more rights in times of physical stress is a bad thing!

This is not confined to human beings alone: all animals that live in pairs behave like this. In all these species the male instinctively rises up to protect his female partner.

seriously, have u studied nature. in most of the species, its the female that takes up responsibilty of bringing up babies. she does it along with hunting for food etc. in many species, the only job of the males is to mate and disappear (sounds familiar? ). of corz there are species that live as u have written, but i want to point out that is not true in all species.



remember the lion for example. the lioness brings up cubs, hunts and keeps away danger. the lion lies around all day sleeping, f u cking and eating.

[spamtaneous]

bahh...such looooooooong posts...

[DQ]

How appaling can a mindset get.

There is no point in counter replying. The attempt made to break the post down selectively (which has been a trend) does not help here.



There are 101 facets to the discripencies in the replies, one facet for starters. A little bit of study instead of the eagerness to reply could have helped carry forward a discussion.



Clearly portraying your ineptness to take digest the context of the matter and in your eagerness to portray your so called balanced mind you have made a fundamental mistake, the analogy you drew to a Lion to portray the ills of a family structure is on its base so untrue an unprofound.



If you would have been a lil diligent you could have chosen so many other animals, the Lion and its fuc king abilities that you chose to portray, here is a fact "While mothers bear the brunt of caring for cubs, fathers also make important contributions. Not only do they protect females and cubs from strange lions, but they also are instrumental in capturing large prey from which the entire pride can feed. When cubs are small, males generally remain at a distance from the pride but older cubs are fascinated by their fathers, often approaching them and trying to play." a good link for your research.



http://www.lionresearch.org/behavior_gu ... rhood.html.



Will get back on topic in the next reply.

[Mayavi Morpheus]

The full text of DQ's earlier post can be found here where the author dilligently argues that women rights are just an illusion created by capitalist forces of the west.

Full Text



Will post later after I read the original.

[DQ]

A suggestion to those who would want to dwell more on this topic.

Before reading full text of Ayatullah Murtuza Mutaharis book, it would be better if you read.



1. The Quran.

2. Nahj al Balagha.



there are more texts on these very subjects.



If Quran and Nahj al balagha are too much to read at least have them in reference, good start to reading in order.



The Qur'an in Islam: Its Impact and Influence on the Life of Muslims by Muhammad Husayn Tabataba'i



Trends of History in Qur'an by Muhammad Baqir Sadr



Our Philosophy by Muhammad Baqir Sadr, trans. by Shams Constantine Inati



Links to all the above can be found at :

http://www.hinduwebsite.com/general/etextsislam.htm.



Once you read the above then will you be able to comprehend the link you forwarded. Else you will come back will the same old rhetorical rant.

[CtrlAltDel]

why drag religion into the discussion?



is it coz u have no arguements to put forward and finally fall back on religious texts as a last resort so that u can claim anyone who oppose your views as racist or RV or whateva?

[DQ]

why drag religion into the discussion?

is it coz u have no arguements to put forward and finally fall back on religious texts as a last resort so that u can claim anyone who oppose your views as racist or RV or whateva?

Ah eh kya!!!



Name of the thread : MUSLIM WOMEN AND ISLAMIC FAMILY STRUCTURE.

First Post on thread : Contains atleast two verses from the Quran.



17 replies down the line CAD comes up with the above question. Why drag religion ? What are you trying to prove ?

[CtrlAltDel]

Ah eh kya!!!

Name of the thread : MUSLIM WOMEN AND ISLAMIC FAMILY STRUCTURE.
First Post on thread : Contains atleast two verses from the Quran.

17 replies down the line CAD comes up with the above question. Why drag religion ? What are you trying to prove ?

i thot this thread went off-topic...

all this discussion was in response to the following statement u made:

Lets study Womans rights.

It is the disregard of the Womans natural position which mostly leads to her being deprived of her rights.

Respecting her natural position will ensure Her Rights are maintained and respected.

[DQ]

Well its all about assumptions (thots). Now I presume you have been trying hard from post one to throw it off topic.



MUSLIM WOMEN AND ISLAMIC FAMILY STRUCTURE.



How could you ever gulp it.

[CtrlAltDel]

u r the one who took it off-topic when u talked abt "NATURAL position" of women...it was misleading.



u shud've said "ISLAMIC position" if u wanted to talk abt how Islam framed laws for women and family. that way the responses like "who decides what is natural" etc wud not have come up.

[DQ]

Well staying on Topic.



The framework of Islam ensures that a Womens rights are maintained.



Ever changing times have not changed the rights and respect of Women. Muslim Women have been protected from the vices and troubles that have plagued other women whereever they have been.

[CtrlAltDel]

Well staying on Topic.

The framework of Islam ensures that a Womens rights are maintained.

Ever changing times have not changed the rights and respect of Women. Muslim Women have been protected from the vices and troubles that have plagued other women whereever they have been.

...what can i contribute now...? i donno abt Quran n Islam.





...and i refuse to be trapped abt questioning certain practices and being branded a racist...

[Jack]

Well staying on Topic.

The framework of Islam ensures that a Womens rights are maintained.

Ever changing times have not changed the rights and respect of Women. Muslim Women have been protected from the vices and troubles that have plagued other women whereever they have been.

...what can i contribute now...? i donno abt Quran n Islam.


...and i refuse to be trapped abt questioning certain practices and being branded a racist...

Religion was designed by people to control other people or as the old saying it the opiate of the masses. To say that the only way to protect a woman from worldy vices of the world is put her in a chaddor and have her stay home is such a nativist and tribal view. Probably made sense during the 6th century when lawless tribes ruled the Arab marshlands, but not in this day and age. To take a 6th century view and trying to apply to the modern world shows a lack of basic understanding of human needs and aspirations. We should work on making the world a better and safe place for all our wifes,mothers, daughter not to reduce their lives to mere serfs or just child rearing.