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Understanding the Position of Women in Islamic Culture Anthropology determines two distinctive ancient cultures: river culture and desert culture. Women and River Culture: A few thousands
years ago">
Understanding the
Position of Women in Islamic Culture Anthropology
determines two distinctive ancient cultures: river culture and desert culture. Women and River
Culture: A few thousands
years ago, hunting and collecting naturally growing food was the only resource
of food for men and women. Women needed to be excluded from the dangerous
activities of this task, because she gets pregnant and needs to breast feed her
baby after birth, so the woman becomes the home sitter. The man took the
responsibility to go on his dangerous mission to bring home food. Since she sits in
the shelter for longer periods than men, the woman started to learn new things.
Like how plants grow. I could imagine her seeing seeds fall and getting watered
by rain. A few weeks later it grows to some sort of plant. When she learned
that, she started planting, which makes her family have more ties to a certain
piece of land than just travel to wherever there is food. These ties settled
tribes who travel all the time (since travel after food is the main rule of life
at that time). For the first time, they do not need to look for shelters or
caves to sleep at. They started to learn how to build homes, and take care of
their land. Women were praised
and even worshipped as gods from these ancient civilizations, since she was the
source of life. From her comes a new person to support and strengthen the tribe.
They described the woman as earth, when it is seeded, it brings back life.
That’s why in a lot of languages, “earth” is feminine noun (even in Arabic).
Women and Desert
Culture: In the desert
culture, women are viewed and treated differently. Since there is nothing to
plant, the tribe needed to travel always for food. Also, the men needed to fight
for food and water. The role of men was more appreciated than the role of women. The woman could not
participate in battles, because of her physical attributes, and is considered
weaker than the man. She needed to be around the children and take care of them;
bearing new children was an obstacle to being active in the daily food and water
quest for the family. Since animals are
also rare in the desert, the Bedouin starts to learn new skills like breeding
cattle. Travelling with their tribes to the sources of water and looking for new
sources of food, protecting the tribe and life resources (food, and water) was
the job of the men of the tribe. The importance of
men increased, and they needed to have more men to help with the animals and to
fight enemies. Since a man has no trouble on fertilizing more than one woman in
one time, Polygamy was a good solution to increase the number of the tribe
members. Women and
Pre-Islamic Culture: Early before the
time of Mohammed and Islam, women had fewer rights than the men. A woman never
inherited from her father; and sometimes out of poverty, some fathers buried
their “useless” female babies alive. They do not need to feed someone who is not
productive, which is how extra females were seen. At this time, there
were many more kinds of permitted sex than what we know today as marriage. Like
a man wanted a child but could not have any himself: he let his wife lay with
another man to have a child, who would carry her husband’s name. Another example
is a bunch of men lying down with one woman, in different times. After she
delivers her baby she names the baby after anyone she chooses from these men. Islam grew up in a
kind of a settlement. Mecca (the holy land of Muslims) was a village, whose
dwellers have different values than the travelling Bedouins. Since it was in the
middle of the paths of the trade caravans, trade and business grew rapidly, and
a more complex foundation had to be introduced. The Arab does not need to travel
that much anymore, since the food comes to them in caravans. The only issue that
remained was water, which is found in wells. More tolerance
toward women was shown, even some gods were women. Like Al-lat, Al-Aoza, and
Manat, the Arab worships them as the daughters of Allah. Women and Islamic
Culture: Islam tried to fix
some women issues and reform the unfair cultural treatment of women. Some of
these reformations were:
1-
Forbidding killing infant females.
2-
Giving women half of the man
rights to inherit.
3-
Limit how many women man could
marry to four.
4-
Putting up rules for divorce.
5-
Giving women some rights to
testify (half of the man’s rights).
6-
Encouraging intimate and good
treatment to wives.
7-
Forbidding all types of marriages
(sex if you do not feel you can call it marriage) beyond the type of marriage we
have now. Since Muslim men
believed that women have less knowledge and experience than men (sitting home
and taking care of children is not the best education for anyone), the woman was
described as less than a man, less in brains, and even less in religion (since
she becomes unclean by having the period blood on her, which makes her unable to
perform religious duties). It is a fact that
Arab men were possessive about and jealous of their women. They hated the idea
that she could participate in men’s activities, like sitting in men’s clubs to
chat about religion, war, business. There was a little exception in the society,
that of extraordinary women who had more knowledge than regular women. Such an
extraordinary woman was treated with respect and welcomed to give her opinion.
In time that was very rare, and actually we could say it disappeared. Sex with female
slaves is something Islam inherits from its culture. Mohamed canonized having
sex with a slave woman as something legal. Marrying free women involves ties
with her family, which could be expensive. Actually, to establish these ties
with these families it was a custom to marry from them, or give a close relative
(sister, daughter) to a man from that family. Mohamed practiced
that openly as he married into a lot of important families and close supporters
in his time. Something which explains why he needed nine wives. Also, he gives
his daughters to close supporters (e.g. Othman and Ali). Women (or better,
wives) were a means of getting good connections. Women and Hijab
(Veil): There were two types
of people who live in the tribe: the free and the slaves. There were a lot of
problems in identifying a free woman from a slave woman. Tradition tells us
the story of Hijab: during this time of not being able to tell who was free and
who was a slave, women would go at night to certain areas and use it as a
restroom (there were no restrooms in houses at this time). Bad Muslim men waited
and looked for the women, wanting to have sex with them. Mostly they were
looking for slave women, because they do not want to have trouble with a free
woman’s family. Since that was
really annoying for Mohamed, he decided not to solve the problem with those
wicked men by tracking them down or punishing them or something. He instead
chose to mark his women so the men know who they are and do not hurt them. So,
he told his wives to wear a veil. Later, almost every
free woman voluntarily did that so they could avoid these bad men. Some slave
women wanted also to avoid that type of rape, so they decided to do the same.
The tradition tells us that Omar, the second ruler after Mohamed, beat any slave
women who wear the veil because they are trying to show that they are free
women. The outlaw men were not able to distinguish between free and slave women,
so they started to attack anyone, even those who wear the veil! Later, the veil
evolved and became a type of Islamic duty for women to wear. It became a burden
Muslim women never had before, to prevent men from seeing her beauty and cause
them to sin because they desire her. Nowadays, there are
a lot of women they do not wear Hijab. Most of them know that they are not
obeying their god faithfully, and may well “repent” when they become older, and
take up the practice of wearing the veil. Virginity: Like a good
merchant, a Muslim man wants to make sure that the women who will dwell in his
house, and becomes the mother of his children, are good women. If a woman never
had been married before, she should physically be a virgin. The first night for
a virgin woman with her husband could involve a lot of horror for her. Even
though she knew that she is a virgin, she is scared of not bleeding. Since blood
is the sign of virginity when women get her first sexual encounter with her
husband, not bleeding is considered to be a sign of the woman not being a
virgin. Death (in some cases) could be the punishment for not bleeding at the
first night of marriage. In modern times,
this threat of death has reduced tremendously, since there is a way to determine
by going to a doctor if the bride is a virgin or not. Also some non-practicing
Muslims could accept that the women have a sexual history with other men. How Women Get
Married Sex outside of
marriage or slavery was a big issue, so every Muslim man has an issue with other
men trying to look at his wife, sister, daughter or even mother. So there is
nothing like dating before marriage, unless such a thing could be done in front
of someone who is related to the woman who is forbidden to her (e.g. brother,
father, uncle). That of course will
forbid any thing like love before marriage, since man is not allowed to have any
type of contact with a woman without being in the process of marrying her
(engagement). Actually marriage mostly is arranged by the male relatives (who
arrange the marriages of his mother, sister, or even wife). He hears about a
good family and he heard they have a daughter have a good reputation. His female
relative visits them and sees the girl. She will later describe her to him and
tell about her moral and religious attributes. The man goes and
asks her father (or someone in authority) for her hand, they let them talk and
see each other under close monitoring. Then they got married. In modern days, that
has been changed. A lot of men and women fall in love, meet and have a
relationship before marriage. They are called bad Muslims. Marrying Cousins: For a lot of
reasons, the only available female you could have relationship with is a cousin.
Since you are allowed to marry her, growing up together is something natural.
(Though the families tear them away from each others at early ages.) The cousin
or other types of relatives who you could see while you are young are the most
favourable potential wives. Also, the family likes that because in that way, the
family wealth stays in it. Marrying Young: Marrying young was a
solution for sex outside the marriage frame. That is why there are a lot of
girls who could marry in ages between 9-14. The family does not want her to sin
(punishment by family tradition is death). Also that will shut any mouth who
will talk about their girl. To be a pretty girl
is a big problem to the family, especially if people start to talk, or if a man
saw you or knew you, and started going on with his fantasies and talk about you
in his poems. That is big time trouble. The pretty girl will be almost as known
(as famous) as Britney Spares. There are a lot of
people who think that only older men marry younger girls. Actually, there were
more of teenage marriages, where husband and wife were about the same age. It
was rare that a male or female was still single by the age of 16 or so. This is not really a
big practice in the modern days, because less people have enough money to marry
young girl. Almost always they seek someone who is older so they get a good deal
(financially) by marrying her. Richer Muslims (e.g.
from the oil rich country) love to marry young girls, since it is not a big deal
financially for them, so they seek them in poor Islamic countries. Divorce: A lot people think
it is easy for Muslims to divorce and get married again. Actually it is, since
tradition does not allow an intensive introduction or knowing each other before
marriage. A lot of problems occur, which lead to divorce. The Islamic marriage
system is more similar to the western relationship called “Living Together”. There are a lot of
Muslims who try to stay in the relationship now, even if it is not working,
because of financial issues. A lot of Muslim countries give more rights in the
divorce to the women especially if she has children. That could involve losing
the place of living (house, apartment) for the man. Polygamy: Though polygamy is
preached and allowed, the Quran discourages marrying more than one woman. If the
man could be just and fair with all his wives, and provide the same to all of
them (financially, emotionally, and even sexually), then it is fine for him to
marry more than one wife. As we talked before,
in the desert culture, sons are important to the man. He wants more sons so they
help him in whatever business or profession he has. That also explains
strong family ties, and why it is important culturally for children to provide
for their parents when they are old enough and their parents are needy. In modern days, such
practice is very limited, since almost all Muslim men have difficulties
providing for one family financially. Modern Times
Issues: It is clear now how
it was easier in the old days for Muslims to build new homes, and fulfil their
sexual desires with their wives or slaves. Now, we still have
this culture. But we have more problems than the old time Muslims. Building a
family is a very big and difficult task. In order for a man to get married now,
he should provide a house; pay to marry the women; and provide gold, and
celebration. Also he should have
steady income and high salary so he could provide for his wife, and be able to
have a child. Almost all Islamic
countries have financial troubles (exclude the few rich oil countries), which
makes it difficult for a lot of young men to get married young, as Muslim
married involves a lot of wealth they or their family have. The result of this
is that the marriage age now moves to the end of the twenties. The age of getting
married has been raised tremendously. Sex outside of marriage is not acceptable,
difficult to find, and punishable. It could take a Muslim man or women 30 years
or more to encounter their first sexual experience. Islam and the
West: Sexual freedom in
the West, high income provided by strong economic performance, power and
domination of the world, and freedom and human rights protection is something
makes Muslims love and hate the West.
1-
The West for non-practicing Muslim
young men (and maybe women) is sexual paradise they fantasize about, since they
are suffering unfulfilled strong sexual desires. These desires are fuelled by
Hollywood movies and the stereotype the Muslims hear about how amoral the West
is.
2-
The domination of the western
power over the world is something that makes Muslims hate the West also. Since
they consider themselves the true believers of the true god, they hate the fact
that the corrupt, non-believing west is dominating them and could humiliate them
any time. Also, since Muslims had a civilization for a period of time which
dominated the world, they feel that they should be the one in charge of the
world, not the other way around.
3-
Strong economy and high income of
western people, something Muslims definitely hate and wish that they could
achieve. The privilege of having enough to live happily is something missing in
the Islamic culture.
4-
Almost all Muslim countries are
ruled by dictatorship as democracy is not practiced in a wide range. Also human
rights are not protected; you could be jailed, tortured or even executed without
being judged. Links:
I received this message from Khaled Abdel-Rahim. It will show you an example of
how Muslims try to avoid such issues by trying to disarm us even from using the
sacred text they do believe in. -----Original Message----- From: khaled abdel-rehiem Hello Mr.Khaled, First, i'd prefer to introduce you my self, my name is
(khaled), i'm 26 years old, MUSLIM (ahmed Allah), have a Bachelor degree in
communications engineering, studying & living in Europe & close to earn the
Master degree sooner Inshallah in the same specialization. Second, actually while i was surfing the web-site
(answering-islam) & reading your own-written articles (woman in islam), i ve
been astonished !! as your words are obviously not true !& unfortunately you
dont demonstrate these viewpoint in a convincing way, just some unfair words
(& of course illogical) so, what i need from you, is simply, to convince me
(with correct evidences) not those incomplete Ahadees, but in a logical way
(absolutely logical way) not a religious way, that the woman isnt treated
fairly in Isalm ! i dont want you to provide me with those corrupted ideas
which u have, but to convince me in a logical way (as i m engineer & only
accept the logic), & i m ready 2 talk with u if u d like 2 voicely which is
much better of course. but plz dont discard my mail as it will be a negative
sign 4 u ! waiting 4 ur reply, with my best regards, yours, khaled I replied to him with the following. -----Original Message----- From: Khaled Abdelrahman > so, what i need from you, is simply, to convince me
(with What you are saying is not logical. How you want me to
prove to you a teaching a religion (Islam) taught without using the sacred
text of this religion (Quran and Hadith)?! You could use the logic with your engineering studies
but not with Islam or any other religions. Blessings... Khaled I will leave you to read his response. I will not comment, I will leave the
judgment to you. -----Original Message----- From: khaled abdel-rehiem many thanks 4 ur reply which was as similar as i
expect :)) thx that u confirmed the idea i ve created abt u ! Web Design: Abdel
Rahman |
