Was polygamy commanded by God in the Bible?

[hamba2han]

I can see that this discussion on the “spiritual bonding” between man and wife has hit an impasse and perhaps it is better that we pause and take a breather.

There is however one small thing that I would like to add.

Islam teaches that Asiyah was one of the greatest women who ever lived and her place is Paradise is assured because of her righteousness and the awesome steadfastness of her faith in her Lord.

And who was Asiyah?

Well, she is best remembered as being the wife of someone whose acts of evil have equally ensured him a place in the Hellfire.

And who was her husband?.. He was the Pharaoh of the Exodus.

So much for the “intricate bond between their souls” of a man and his wife.

 

[jakasaki]

I can see that this discussion on the “spiritual bonding” between man and wife has hit an impasse and perhaps it is better that we pause and take a breather.

There is however one small thing that I would like to add.

Islam teaches that Asiyah was one of the greatest women who ever lived and her place is Paradise is assured because of her righteousness and the awesome steadfastness of her faith in her Lord.

And who was Asiyah?

Well, she is best remembered as being the wife of someone whose acts of evil have equally ensured him a place in the Hellfire.

And who was her husband?.. He was the Pharaoh of the Exodus.

So much for the “intricate bond between their souls” of a man and his wife.

I wasn’t going to entertain your nonsense, but it’s Friday and I’m in a good mood.

So, show us where this “Asiyah” is mentioned in Exodus in the Bible.

You know Hamba, and you do know this… this Asiyah person is only in the islamic belief and nowhere else.

There is no record of this person in Judaism or Christianity or even Egyptian records. Just something mohamad made up.

BTW, you should read the documents of Saint Catherine. It might… just might make you scratch your head.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Polygamy is a concept lost on me. Why would any guy want to deal with that many hormones under one roof? Who would want that much estrogen and drama? Wowzers…The husband would be taking out the trash and running errands and would be hen-pecked beyond belief. God couldn’t have commanded this!! LOL

 

[RebeccaJ]

Polygamy is a concept lost on me. Why would any guy want to deal with that many hormones under one roof? Who would want that much estrogen and drama? Wowzers…The husband would be taking out the trash and running errands and would be hen-pecked beyond belief. God couldn’t have commanded this!! LOL

Thus the Islamic laws that it is ok to beat the hell out of your wive(s).

LDS use the male “priesthood authority”, in more passive-aggressive ways to enforce the same. Codependency is the usual result. Smith came up with “scripture” that threatened his first wife Emma with destruction (death threat), if she would not accept his adultery (polygamy).

Polygamy is not a relationship of equals.

 

[dolphinlove]

If, as you say, a polygamous marriage damages the “spiritual” bond between a man and his wife and is against God’s commandment, then why did some of the Prophets like Abraham and Jacob (pbut) marry more than one wife?

Were they spiritually weak that they disobeyed the command of their Lord?

Nay, your explanation on this “spiritual” bonding between man and wife just does not add up when measured against actual accounts on the marriages of the Prophets as told in the Bible.

Is this “intricate bond between their souls” of a man and his wife actually taught in the Bible or is this quaint concept merely the fruit of someone’s emotional creativeness?

I would suspect it to be the latter.

 

[hamba2han]

I wasn’t going to entertain your nonsense, but it’s Friday and I’m in a good mood.

So, show us where this “Asiyah” is mentioned in Exodus in the Bible.

You know Hamba, and you do know this… this Asiyah person is only in the islamic belief and nowhere else.

There is no record of this person in Judaism or Christianity or even Egyptian records. Just something mohamad made up.

BTW, you should read the documents of Saint Catherine. It might… just might make you scratch your head.

All I can say is that those who are demanding to see proof that Asiyah really existed need to first show proof themselves that Moses (pbuh) really existed.

It all boils down to faith, doesn’t it?

And BTW, Muslims can indeed show proof that the Pharaoh of the Exodus really existed… and this is something that Jews and Christians simply cannot do without at the same time compromising their opposition to the truth of Islam.

But I digress from the topic i.e. the permissibility of polygamy by God in the Bible.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

No kiddin’. Those extremist Mormon polygamist cults in Idaho and Utah aren’t famous for their women’s rights agenda!

Thus the Islamic laws that it is ok to beat the hell out of your wive(s).

LDS use the male “priesthood authority”, in more passive-aggressive ways to enforce the same. Codependency is the usual result. Smith came up with “scripture” that threatened his first wife Emma with destruction (death threat), if she would not accept his adultery (polygamy).

Polygamy is not a relationship of equals.

 

[Reuben_J]

I can see that this discussion on the “spiritual bonding” between man and wife has hit an impasse and perhaps it is better that we pause and take a breather.

I did give it much thought before deciding to tell you about the spiritual bonding of married couple. You may not able to understand it. This kind of marriage is non-existence in Islamic marriage where a Muslim husband needs only to utter the word ‘divorce’ and by golly they are divorced. So trivial is the issue of marriage and divorce in Islam that it is probably alien to you if I tell you that marriage does not involve only the physical but the spiritual as well. I can understand why you laugh at the Biblical concept of marriage.

Whatever it is, the command of God for the husband and wife to be united and will become one flesh is in the Bible. Whether you like it or not, they are in the Bible; not only in the first book of the Bible but Jesus categorically quoted it in the Gospels less we overlook the importance of it.

Gen 2:23-24
The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called 'woman, for she was taken out of man.”
For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

Mt 19:5-6
“Haven’t you read,” he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."

A proper marriage is designed by God. What is ‘one flesh’ that cannot be separated by no man? It goes more than just the physical and the superficial. One cannot see God nor can two persons literally become one flesh. Yet God said this. What it means is that the souls and the spirits of the couple ties together and is not to be broken.

When they divorce, the ‘tie’ is broken; and when they marry another person, another ‘tie’ is established. This God does not allow because it damages the first tie - the husband and wife is no more one.

Explicit command for polygamy is to be found in the Quran, not in the Bible. You may like to tell us how that command came about, eh?

Well, please do take a rest and come back refreshed. I commend you this time; at least you did not resort to cut and paste from Ahmad Deedat and Answering Christianity. Try think about what I said. You will get better understanding of the Bible here instead of from those sites and earn some respect for yourself.

God bless.

 

[Reuben_J]

I am wary of this because it is probably true and may just end that way.

I just hope that Hamba for once be like a man and be accountable for himself. For too long he did a disservice for Islam; instead of convincing us with his argument he has become a subject of ridicule with his distortion and inability to understand the Bible; and his constant cut and paste antic.

For us who are trying to look even for that little credibility in Islam, a clown that comes forward from their midst to represent them will surely does not help. So I hope my hope for a change would not go down the drain. One can always hope.

 

[KathleenGee]

This pastor had me attend a marriage prep session in a country where monogamy is hard to practice.

He said, ‘Well you have one woman here at this house…you try to help her…then you have to get up and go out across town and take care of that wife…and then you have to go like that, back and forth, back, and forth, and it gets to be pretty tiring.’

The young man got married and it wasn’t before long he had a young 14 year old girl with him on his bicycle and the new wife very upset.

Arab Muslims don’t understand that polygamy oftentimes leads to poverty and ignorance.

 

[seraphime2008]

Muslims who wish to practice polygamy need to follow guidelines which are laid down in Islam but unfortunately, many Muslims do not follow these divine guidelines and the result of this is that unjustness do indeed occur in their marriages.

Muslim women however do have the right to stipulate in their marriage contracts that their husbands cannot marry another woman without their consent.

Just show me where in Koran it says that you have to get ur wife’s permission to get another wife?

What kind of woman who would let her husband to be shared with another woman/other women? Must be some kind of pathetic, un-independent woman, weak and unable to make her own decision, probably have been grown up in a society that makes her less valuable than man!

When you say your marriage vow in Islamic way, would you say: I am marrying you on a contract based agreement that is sealed by a set of dowry of …this much…and so there are some agreement on requirements that I have made from you that if not fulfilled, will entitle me to divorce you…???

Wow…it very much sounds like a transaction for me!

 

[Reuben_J]

What kind of woman who would let her husband to be shared with another woman/other women? Must be some kind of pathetic, un-independent woman, weak and unable to make her own decision, probably have been grown up in a society that makes her less valuable than man!

Maybe Hamba shouldn’t speak for and on behalf of the Muslim women. It is easy to say especially when one is not in their shoes. He is a man after all.

I have known some Muslim women whose marriage become problematic when their husbands take another wife. One of whom is a close friend of my wife. She is a professional. Her husband took another wife and moved to another town, taking their three children with him. He wanted a polygamous marriage and did not care whether this wife agreed or not. She is now terribly broken as she cannot face the fact that her husband should marry another woman. The husband has taken all the properties, cars and other household facilities. What really hurts her is the separation from her children. It’s terrible to see and she is in a verge of doing something extreme to herself. She has come for counseling but it’s really difficult moment for her.

 

[KathleenGee]

Reuben J,

You are sharing a similar story…and how the children are the property of the Muslim man. It is very bad when a Christian woman marries a Muslim man and the children in many cases must be brought up by the father.

I will keep her in her prayers…I think to have her children taken like that…is she in the USA…I am afraid her husband could have her set up to be murdered…not by himself but by accomplices…These kinds of Muslim men are sheer evil.

 

[seraphime2008]

Maybe Hamba shouldn’t speak for and on behalf of the Muslim women. It is easy to say especially when one is not in their shoes. He is a man after all.

I have known some Muslim women whose marriage become problematic when their husbands take another wife. One of whom is a close friend of my wife. She is a professional. Her husband took another wife and moved to another town, taking their three children with him. He wanted a polygamous marriage and did not care whether this wife agreed or not. She is now terribly broken as she cannot face the fact that her husband should marry another woman. The husband has taken all the properties, cars and other household facilities. What really hurts her is the separation from her children. It’s terrible to see and she is in a verge of doing something extreme to herself. She has come for counseling but it’s really difficult moment for her.

I’m now convinced since Hamba cannot present any verses from Koran saying that a husband must take permission from the previous wife to get another/other wives, that these Muslim men can do whatever they please to get their lust and carnal desires to be fulfilled. Muslims women are just gullible in believing that their position have been escalated by Islam, they also are gullible in believing that there’s such law that they have the rights to give permission for polygamy, this is just another fraud made by Islam!!

 

[seraphime2008]

Another heart breaking and horrendous story about marriage in Islam is the kind of “one night stand husband” or “Muhallil” to legalized a husband to get his previous divorced wife back:

The verse discussed above from Surat al-Nisa (Quran 4:34), is not the only troubling text in the Quran when it comes to marital relations. Millions of people enjoyed the movie The Parent Trap when it reappeared in 1998, just as an earlier generation enjoyed the same story when the original movie was made in 1961. It is the delightful story of two young sisters who scheme to get their divorced parents back together again. That could never take place in Muhammad’s Islam. For some strange reason that might have made sense in 7th century Medieval Arabia but certainly makes no sense today, Muhammad stipulated in al-Baqarah (Quran 2:230) that a divorced woman could only return to her husband after she married and divorced a second husband. This has actually become a racket in Muslim countries where husbands can easily divorce their wives in a fit of rage by simply declaring three times that she is divorced. The husband wakes up the next morning with no-one to prepare his coffee, realizes he made a rash mistake, and decides he wants her back again. He finds someone called a Muhallil, pays him a certain amount of money to marry-rape-divorce the woman, and then takes her back again. Young girls have committed suicide rather than undergo this humiliation.staringattheview.blogspot.com/2010/04/from-muhammad-to-jesus-story-of-wajdi.html

Read the whole exposition in here, this link is really hilarious but actually posing a serious criticism on Islam by an American who speaks Arabic and had lived many years in Middle East:

staringattheview.blogspot.com/2010/04/tiptoeing-through-trilogy-part-three.html

 

[Reuben_J]

Kathleen

She is a Muslim, not even a convert. Through their profession, she has become good friend to my wife. The husband started seeing the other woman with her full knowledge. Eventually the relationship is so open that they practically became strangers in their house. The husband was angry with her because she couldn’t agree to be one of the wives. She has to endure the silent treatment and the humiliation of seeing her husband talking on the phone to the other woman. The children and the husband’s parents are all aware of what’s going on. Eventually the husband moved out to the woman’s town, taking all the three children and everything that he can bring along. Now she is all alone. Last week was her wedding anniversary – she asked my wife to send her to the airport; she just wanted to get away to some place. It affects her work and perhaps her health as well.
My heart really goes for cases like this and this is not the only one that I know. I don’t really care for Islam and what they do but if you see the situation of this family, your natural compassion really prick you.

When I talk about polygamy in this forum (especially the Islamic version) it is not just because I am a Christian, do not agree with polygamy and to prove that Christianity is right and Islam is wrong, but more so because I have seen the devastation it causes to the wives and families concerned of polygamous marriage.

Hamba is trying to whitewash polygamy but I can tell you as you probably agree, it is not pretty.

 

[Reuben_J]

Seraphime

I would not go as far as saying it’s a fraud intentionally made by Islam though looking at the surface it is a tempting supposition. What I can say with certainty is that polygamy does not work – for a harmonious marriage and family.

In places and societies where it is accepted, it is probably accepted with resignation by the women. The role model for polygamy must probably be from the Arab countries especially where Mohammad came from. There is not much the women can do to protest without risking the ire of the country’s law (and their men) and the absence of such does not mean that the women are happy being one of the wives in polygamous marriage. We see resistance to polygamy from Muslim women who are daring enough to speak out even in Muslim country like Iran.

 

[Benadam]

The fact that males and females are born 1/1 provides evidence about the truth of marriage.

 

[seraphime2008]

Maybe Hamba shouldn’t speak for and on behalf of the Muslim women. It is easy to say especially when one is not in their shoes. He is a man after all.

I have known some Muslim women whose marriage become problematic when their husbands take another wife. One of whom is a close friend of my wife. She is a professional. Her husband took another wife and moved to another town, taking their three children with him. He wanted a polygamous marriage and did not care whether this wife agreed or not. She is now terribly broken as she cannot face the fact that her husband should marry another woman. The husband has taken all the properties, cars and other household facilities. What really hurts her is the separation from her children. It’s terrible to see and she is in a verge of doing something extreme to herself. She has come for counseling but it’s really difficult moment for her.

Is it Islamic that the husband got all the wealth and even got all the rights to take care for and get the children for himself?

 

[Reuben_J]

Is it Islamic that the husband got all the wealth and even got all the rights to take care for and get the children for himself?

It may be a yes. Islamic inheritance law certainly does not favor women very well. If a husband dies, the property would go the male relatives if he has no sons, only a small portion would go to the wife.

In a normal divorce law, my wife’s friend husband would practically have to pay her alimony through his underpants and he certainly cannot get custody of the children. He would be considered adulterous and deserting his wife. Its different story altogether in Islam as the wife has to submit and be subservient to the husband. In theory the wife can object to her husband’s polygamy but in reality the wife would be bullied to submission either by the expectation of other Muslims or the Islamic law itself which the husband can apply to his advantage.

As you have noted, there’s probably no Quranic verses to support the assertion that the wife can object to her husband’s taking another wife; so the wife has everything to lose. I cannot see the wife can be treated fairly in such circumstance.