Osomir
VIP Member
It’s because of my education and experience that I have been disagreeing with you. Generalizations like the one that this thread is based on don’t really sit well with me. I find them both intellectually dishonest and a poor reflection of reality. Domestic abuse is a global problem, not merely one of religion, and simply pointing to Islam as a causal variable is fairly shallow analytically as it ignores most instances of domestic abuse and doesn’t even hold true across Islamic populations. Furthermore it suggests a notion of a singular Islam which simply doesn’t exist. It also ignores the vast diversity in the way that Islam is practiced throughout the world and the vast diversity of cultures that it is a part of. Furthermore, simply saying “LOL Islam” is pretty damaging in the battle against domestic abuse, and in the fight for women’s rights. Painting women’s right as something antithetical to an entire religion phrases the question of women’s rights in a very negative way. In essence you make people choose between gender equality, and religious salvation. It is a very harmful way of tackling the issues in general and can very much so prevent progress, while simultaneously spurning any progress among Islamic majority populations that is taking place.
As for my response to your video. I quoted Ibn Abbas’ reference to the scarf because he was Muhammad’s cousin and is considered by a majority of formal Sunni scholars to be one of the most authoritative in terms of his exegesis of the Quran. I pulled his comments from his commentary on the Quranic passage that was being discussed. He is also considered an authoritative source for validating Sunnah and spoke out against hitting women as well. He certainly ranks much higher in scholastic Islamic theological debate at least, than a random individual from the UK that you found on Youtube. Not to be mean with regards to your source, but literally anyone can name themselves an Imam or a sheik, those are just titles. Even the commentary that you posted disagreed with the OP in terms of the issue and he referenced the “non-harsh strike;” which is a hit that cannot leave any mark on a person’s body (and also can’t target the face). It is also a strike that cannot be issued in anger; which brings us back to the symbolic strike, Ibn Abbas suggested it was something that should be done with a headscarf; from hadith tradition there is also the suggestion that it should be issued via a “siwak” (a instrument for cleaning teeth. Either way it is vastly different from what the OP was talking about. The prohibition against beating your wife (in our sense of the term) comes from authoritative Sunni hadiths with plenty of witnessing passages across multiple collections (including Muhammad’s criticism of domestic abuse in both the Sahih Muslim and Sahih Bukhari, the two most authoritative hadith collections among the four main formal Sunni schools of jurisprudence).
You have to understand that early Islam and Arabic culture in general was steeped in symbolic mannerisms. For example striking a person’s face is considered dishonorable, not just a woman’s, but anyone’s. Another example are the four sacred holy months (the concept of holy months predates Islam and was folded into the religion by Muhammad). Even the way the Quran is constructed is based on old Arabic oral traditions. When looking at Islam you can’t ignore how it was constructed; not if you wish to understand it at least.
We also see from Gallup’s publication “Who Speaks for Islam” one of the largest international polls of Islamic populations ever to be conducted that majorities of Islamic men all over the world believe in granting the same basic rights to women (this includes the same legal rights which would throw out the point you tried to make via you “women need four male witnesses in rape cases” argument. Turkey and Lebanon for example showed 92% of their population in support of the same legal rights for men and women (which includes assault laws and domestic violence laws). Saudi Arabia represents the big exception to this rule with only 41% of males agreeing (61% of Saudi women said yes).
I’d also point out that attacking Islam also attacks the hundreds of millions of Islamic women who want both equal rights and freedom to practice their Islamic faith. They don’t see a contradiction between the two, and it is important to present them opportunities that allow them to have both (which is happening more and more every day).
I’m absolutely against it. Not sure why would you even need to ask? As far as Female genital mutilation and Islam though; once again it is much more of a cultural thing that a religious one. It has a particularly large following in Africa (including in Christian majority countries such as Ethiopia). Out of the four main schools of Islamic thought female circumcision (the removal of the clitoral hood and the lowest form of female genital cutting) is encoded by two branches: the Shaffi school of thought, and the Hanbali school of thought (the Hanbali school of thought is the smallest and has largely been replaced by Wahhabism). Theologically though it is more akin to the Jewish (and some Christian) version of male genital cutting: aka circumcision. The other forms of FGM, particularly the horrible ones that involve the removal of the clitoris or the sewing up or obstructing of the vaginal canal are culturally rooted, and if they seem into local religious sets, it is a result of Urf or the local cultural merging of tradition with religion (the same applies to much of Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa).
It is also worth noting that Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi who sat at the head of the four Sunni schools of Islamic jurisprudence as the Grand Mufti of Egypt from 1986 – 1996 and who served as the Grand Sheikh of the Al-Azhar Mosque / University (considered to generally be the most influential position within Sunni jurisprudence sets globally); publicly condemned the practice of female circumcision and genital mutilation and called it un-islamic (also revealing that his own daughter was not circumcised). And he was originally from the Shafii school of jurisprudence (before becoming the symbolic scholastic head of all four main Sunni schools).
Apologies for taking so long to respond to you. I've been fairly busy with work and the family.
