November 30, 2010

Women And Islam

Women And Islam

By Tyseer Aboulnasr, Ph.D.

IMAGE OF MUSLIM WOMEN
As a Muslim woman, I found myself thrown right into the controversy of women's role in today's society. Over and over I had to explain that what you see in a Hollywood movie about Islam has nothing to do with Islam. For years and years, the average western person has been subjected to one image of a Muslim woman: mysteriously veiled, heavily guarded, living in a harem with a brutal sex maniac for a husband. One can't really blame this person if he or she accepts this image as true especially if he or she never saw Muslim women in any other light.

The Relation of the Sexes

The Relation of the Sexes

1925 lecture on the "pitiful condition of Muslim womanhood" by English convert to Islam and Quran translator Mohammad Marmaduke Pickthall.

Today I have to speak to you about a delicate subject -- the Islamic position of women -- a subject which is delicate, and to me painful, only because at every turn while examining it I am reminded that I am in a country [India] where, among the Muslims, a woman is emphatically not in her Islamic position, and where men are generally indifferent to the wrongs done to her. The state to which the great majority of Muslim women in India are reduced today is a libel on Islam, a crime for which the Muslim community as a whole will have to suffer in increasing social degradation, in the weak and the sickly, in increasing child mortality, so long as that crime is perpetuated.

Women in Mosques

Women in Mosques
Banished to basement rooms or banned from the mosque entirely. American convert to Islam, Yahya M tells it how it is... and how it should be.

The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: If any among your women asks permission to go to the mosque, don't stop her from going. But in some Muslim societies overseas, they don't let women in the mosques. They've turned the mosques into men-only clubs, contrary to what the Prophet ordered.

In North America and Britain, hard as it is to believe, too many Muslims have brought over this ignorant attitude and many mosques here don't allow women in. It's hard to understand why anybody would perpetuate such un-Islamic injustice.

Denying women access to the ‘Main Space’ -
A Betrayal of the Prophet (pbuh)

Presented to the Jamaat Khanna Committee of the University of the Witwatersrand - 1995. Shamima was a 'community member' of the committee which was negotiating with the university administration for a new Mosque complex and participating in decisions regarding the design of the complex. She argued for women to be accommodated in the 'main space' of the mosque.

An ‘Ignorance’ that's frightening

I was prompted to put together these few thoughts after a meeting with a group of architects (who are also popular mosque designers in South Africa) and students who presented their proposals for the WITS mosque. The architects expressed their certainty as to where a woman may be located in a mosque, saying that any other accommodation was bid'ah (innovation). A young student presenting his design said women and men reading alongside was unacceptable; they had to be completely separated (he said that women should be accommodated in a gallery). His other assumption was that men at WITS could not control their libidos.

Women in mosques

Women in mosques - No curtains, no walls, no partitions!
"It is perfectly Islamic to hold meetings of men and women inside the Masjid, whether for prayers or for any other Islamic purpose, without separating them with a curtain, partition or wall". An emphatic ruling from Dr. Muzammil H. Siddiqi.

Question: We have a big controversy going on in our Masjid. Some brothers want to build a wall in the Musalla to separate men from women. Is it required in Islam? What are the basic rules of Shari’ah in this matter?

Women's Rights and Equality in Islam

Women's Rights and Equality in Islam
By American convert to Islam, Yahya M.
At the beginning Islam was the most revolutionary liberalization of women's rights the civilized world has ever seen. But afterwards Muslims became ignorant of this and now Muslim countries are the scene of some of the worst abuses of women's rights. As the Latin proverb says, "Corruptio optimi pessima" (When the best is corrupted, it becomes the worst). The Qur’ân expresses the same theme in Sûrat al-Tîn: "We created man in the best pattern, and later reduced him to the lowest of the low."

Turning Sex Into Sadaqa

Turning Sex Into Sadaqa
[an act of voluntary kindness pleasing to God]
An excerpt from 'The Muslim Marriage Guide', By Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood.

"Women shall have rights similar to the rights upon them; according to what is equitable and just; and men have a degree of advantage over them." (Quran, 2:216)

They do indeed! This passage of the Holy Quran was revealed in connection with the rights of women following a divorce, but it also has a general sense. One basic right of every person taking on a contract never to have sex other than with their own legitimate partner is that each spouse should therefore provide sexual fulfillment (imta') to the other, as part of the bargain.

The Status of Woman in Islamic Law

The Status of Woman in Islamic Law
"The Islamic extremists are imposing the infallibility of the basic Quranic text on interpretations of the text. In effect a human interpretation is being made infallible."
English Translation of the Lecture held by Dr. Jur., Ph.D. Christina Jones on June 14th, 1998 in Göttingen, Germany.

Jurisprudential questions

From the start I want to make clear that I speak not as an historian, or a linguist, or a philosopher or theologian, rather as a sociological jurist and lawyer, with practical and academic experience. This means that I regard Islamic law as I would any other legal system. A legal approach involves the following: It accords first of all primacy to the word of the text. The text serves as what is commonly called the source of the law that is pronounced in the form of a legislature enacted law or a judgment. If as in many Islamicized countries the legislated law -- including the constitution -- has in its text a further reference to the Quranic text, then the Quran is also made part of the legal text which constitutes the basic tool of the lawyer and jurist.

Rights of Women in Islam

A Collection of References from the Quran and Hadeeth about the Rights of Women guaranteed by Islam

Spiritual Equality of Women and Men
Allah has got ready forgiveness and tremendous rewards for the Muslim men and women; the believing men and women; the devout men and women; the truthful men and women; the patiently suffering men and women; the humble men and women; the almsgiving men and women; the fasting men and women, the men and women who guard their chastity; and the men and women who are exceedingly mindful of Allah. (Al-Ahzab 33:35)

Shattering Illusions - Western Conceptions of Muslim Women

Shattering Illusions - Western Conceptions of Muslim Women
"Islam in its original state gave women privileges and imposed no harsh restrictions or double standards upon them.," says Saimah Ashraf, a 1997-98 winner of the Stanford University Boothe Prize for Excellence in Writing.

"Rose Hamid is as American as they come. She drives a Ford station wagon, leads a local Girl Scout troop, shops at the Gap and just attended her 20-year high school reunion" writes Laurie Goodstein in a recent New York Times article (A1).

From this brief description of Rose, readers may have formed a particular picture of her in their minds. If they were told, however, that "Rose Hamid wears a head scarf in keeping with her Muslim faith,'" that picture might take a drastic turn (Goodstein A1).

Can Islam liberate womem?

Muslim women and scholars think it does - spiritually and sexually.

We're sitting in a stylish club, ArRum, in Clerkenwell, central London. Firelight is flickering on the leather sofas, there is contemporary art on the walls and delicious "fusion" food on the table, but what distinguishes this club from its many neighbours is that it is Muslim, there is no alcohol on the menu and downstairs there's a prayer room. The stylish place conveys a complex ethos - modern, yet true to its Muslim identity.

Women Scholars of Hadith

Women Scholars of Hadith
Dr. Muhammad Zubayr Siddiqi

History records few scholarly enterprises, at least before modern times, in which women have played an important and active role side by side with men. The science of hadith forms an outstanding exception in this respect.

Islam, as a religion which (unlike Christianity) refused to attribute gender to the Godhead,¹ and never appointed a male priestly elite to serve as an intermediary between creature and Creator, started life with the assurance that while men and women are equipped by nature for complementary rather than identical roles, no spiritual superiority inheres in the masculine principle.

Make Way for the Women!

Make Way for the Women!
Why Your Mosque Should be Woman Friendly, by American convert, Saraji Umm Zaid.

"Do not stop the maid servants of Allah from going to the mosques of Allah." (Muwatta of Imam Malik)

"When the wife of one of you asks about going to the mosque, do not stop her." (Bukhari)

I recently took a trip with my family to the state of Colorado, and I was looking forward to visiting a different Muslim community. To my great dismay, when we went to an (unnamed) Colorado city to pray Jumu'ah in their masjid [mosque], we were told that there were no women in that masjid, and that I would be unable to pray there. With my children and (non Muslim) mother in tow, I went off to a park while my husband prayed. As a Muslima, I felt humiliated and angry, and I was embarrassed for the Ummah that my non Muslim mother should have to see Muslims barring me from Bait Ullah [house of God] for no reason other than my gender. Nothing like reinforcing negative stereotypes, is there? Later, the brothers there told my husband that it was nothing against me, there just "wasn't room" for women in this masjid.

Women, Shari'a, and Oppression

Women, Shari'a, and Oppression - Where are the Voices of Conservative Muslims?
"When we stay silent in the face of injustices, non Muslims begin to wonder if we really care about our women as much as we claim to", says American convert to Islam, Saraji Umm Zaid.

A lot of attention has been focused on the issue of Muslim women and human rights since September 11, almost all of it by non Muslims. Once again, images of women swathed in black veils or blue burqas are de rigeur, as the media soberly reminds us that Muslim women are not considered equals to men in Islam, and that they are oppressed even by the moderate regimes in the Muslim world.

They hate women, don't they?

They hate women, don't they?
Muslim and secular feminists pity one another. It is time they realised they have much common ground, argues Arzu Merali.

"It must be terrible having to wear all that," a friend of mine was told last December as she attended a meeting to discuss the future of Afghanistan, particularly its women - "all that" being some baggy clothing and a headscarf. "Not particularly," she retorted, putting an abrupt end both to the conversation and to the prospect of building bridges between Muslim and secular feminists.

My friend is the founder of an NGO dedicated to penal reform.

Islam, Culture and Women

Islam, Culture and Women
by Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood

How can anyone justify Islam's treatment of women, when it imprisons Afghans under blue shuttlecock burqas and makes Pakistani girls marry strangers against their will?

How can you respect a religion that forces women into polygamous marriages, mutilates their genitals, forbids them to drive cars and subjects them to the humiliation of "instant" divorce? In fact, none of these practices are Islamic at all.

Some Basic Concepts in Islam

Some Basic Concepts in Islam

Background and History

The word Islam is derived from the triliteral root SLM, which means "submission" or "peace," in this case, something to the effect of "the peace that comes through submission to God." A Muslim, therefore, is "one who submits." Semitic language patterns (Arabic, Aramaic, Hebrew) are interrelated and very similar to one another: the Hebrew Shalom ("peace"), for example, is derived from the same triliteral root (iSLaM, muSLiM, SaLaM, ShaLoM).

500 islamic wallpeprs HD

500 wallpapers of muslim arts and mosques and views and landscape

The word Islam : Islam is an Arabic word which means Submission or to Submit to The Supreme Being, The Creator, whose proper name is ALLAH (Subhanahu wa Ta'ala - Glorified be He, the Most High). The Oneness of Allah (Subhanahu wa ta'ala) is the basic principle of Islam, and is called Tawhid. Muslims are those who submit, totally, to The Creator, Allah (Subhanahu wa ta'ala).

Islam, Message Of Peace

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November 30, 2010

Women And Islam

The Relation of the Sexes

Women in Mosques