Women and Islam

[dzheremi]

There is a legitimate question as to what constitutes “oppression” here. While I do NOT echo the sentiment of Sedonaman in this case (granted, all Muslims ARE free to leave whenever they should feel they want to, but they shouldn’t have to if they are practicing their faith peacefully), I would hope that we have not fallen into such hysterics about Islam that we do not distinguish between sneers and family ostracization (both of which are not within anyone’s power to protect you from) and arrest for expressing a point of view.

Really, Amy, I am sorry that you feel oppressed in peacefully practicing your faith in the USA. As a member of a faith minority that also often feels itself discriminated against (Catholics are less than 30% of this country), I can agree that being sneered at and ostracized by family or friends does contribute to feeling discouraged about your ability to practice your faith to its fullest in a country that largely does not see it as worthy of respect. However, to go a step further and say that this constitutes some sort of systematic oppression is too much. When Muslims are forbidden from praying or building mosques, then you can say such things. From all that I have seen, living in a city that has a lot of Muslims of a decidely conservative outlook (I see not only hijabs everyday, but also chhadors, and it is not uncommon for me to walk into a bathroom and see a man in full beard performing wudu…and that’s FINE with me! Would that I might accidentally interrupt a young woman or man praying the rosary someday!), the exact opposite happens. I have to sit through offensive lectures on Islam that ridicule Christianity, and listen to people ridicule Christianity every day because of the rather flamboyant manner that the local Protestant Evangelical community conducts itself. It’s a disgrace.

So why I don’t I move to Malta or some other place where it might be “easier” to be Catholic? Because Christ told us that we are to take up our crosses and follow Him, which means in everyday life we are to accept that we will not always be free to practice as we would in an ideal world. Maybe our families will talk badly of us (one of my grandmothers took the opportunity to tell me how stupid she thought it was that I would join the Church; this was after not having seen her in over half a decade! This was the first thing she had to say to me in person!), maybe people will refuse to deal with us justly…maybe all kinds of bad things will happen, because we won’t give up our faith and be nominal Christians/non-denominational Protestants or secular humanist atheists like a lot of the country. It is better to be persecuted for your faith than to be safe in a hermetically-sealed community of like-minded persons. Save real oppression of the “we have to leave or we will be murdered” variety (such as the kind faced by converts from Islam to Christianity or atheists in some places in the Muslim world), to flee just because people are mean to us is the exact opposite of following the narrow path.

That western convert Muslims would so eagerly leave to Islamic lands does nothing but confirm the feelings of non-Muslims the world over that Muslims are babies who are unable to deal with the modern world, where most of the time people will not bend over backwards to treat your faith as above reproach or any better than any other, or if they have to because they’re forced to, they’ll resent you personally for it. Indeed, you cannot live in the actively secular West as you would in KSA or Iran or some place that has no pretense of even being nominally secular. To say that this fact in and of itself constitutes oppression is ridiculous, though.

 

[sedonaman]

There is a legitimate question as to what constitutes “oppression” here. While I do NOT echo the sentiment of Sedonaman in this case (granted, all Muslims ARE free to leave whenever they should feel they want to, but they shouldn’t have to if they are practicing their faith peacefully), I would hope that we have not fallen into such hysterics about Islam that we do not distinguish between sneers and family ostracization (both of which are not within anyone’s power to protect you from) and arrest for expressing a point of view.

I think you misunderstood my comment. I wasn’t telling her to leave but merely pointing out that she is free to do so if she felt so oppressed in the US and would feel much more free in the KSA. Is that not what she said? And that the same option is not necessarily available to those in other countries, like the KSA. I have noticed the same thing about some Catholics I know who are all uptight and complaining constantly because women are not allowed to be priests. Well, if women priests are so important to them, why shovel sand against the tide? Just join the Episcopal Church down the street. The liturgy is the same. I would honestly like an answer. The same went for the academic professors who bellyached that George Bush was turning the country into another Nazi Germany. I have an eight-year, standing request of them to tell me where Bush was taking applications for kommandant of the concentration camp that holds the liberal/Leftist professors. None of them fled from America, and I am still waiting for an answer.

A few days after 9/11, a reporter told of his experience in a cab driven by a Muslim from the ME. The driver did nothing but complain about how bad America was and deserved it. The reporter asked him why, if he was so unhappy with America, he didn’t go back to live in the ME. The cabby replied that he was here for “business purposes”. Translation: “I can make a better living here.” The thought never occurred to him that the victims of the Twin Towers were living here for that precise reason.

I think what you have said hits the nail on the head with respect to what constitutes “oppression”. People are not risking their lives on the open ocean and in burning deserts to come to America to be oppressed, and people are not breaking down the border gates to get into the KSA to be free either. There is an old engineering saw that goes, “When you increase the sensitivity, you increase the false alarm rate.” And I think that is what has happened to Sister Amy [and others]: she now feels she has a right not to be offended. Because of her Islamic beliefs, she feels she has a “right” to some social considerations from her family, and that she doesn’t feel “free” “when my own family refuses to go out in public with me.” It never occurred to her that she can’t demand something she would not give up herself: their very consciences.

Well, there are lots of things that offend all of us in this life, but no one is rushing to assuage the hurt feelings of the politically incorrect. What makes her think she is so special?

 

[dzheremi]

I think you misunderstood my comment. I wasn’t telling her to leave but merely pointing out that she is free to do so if she felt so oppressed in the US and would feel much more free in the KSA.

I most certainly did, and I’m sorry for jumping to conclusions. Your reply/clarification to her was written while I was writing the post you’re quoting, so I obviously couldn’t have seen it. Sorry about that! It was an honest mistake on my part.

Is that not what she said? And that the same option is not necessarily available to those in other countries, like the KSA. I have noticed the same thing about some Catholics I know who are all uptight and complaining constantly because women are not allowed to be priests. Well, if women priests are so important to them, why shovel sand against the tide? Just join the Episcopal Church down the street.

Hear, hear! What is it about Catholicism that makes all the “dissidents” feel as though they can dictate to the Church what it should allow and what it shouldn’t? I’m a fairly recent convert (3 years), so maybe there’s some sense of ownership among born Catholics that I don’t understand. I was taught that you submit to the Church as part of the practice of the faith, not the other way around. Go figure…maybe I had bad RCIA classes?

There is an old engineering saw that goes, “When you increase the sensitivity, you increase the false alarm rate.”

I’ve never heard this saying before, but I love it. It is so true, not just of this situation, but many other situations.

And I think that is what has happened to Sister Amy [and others]: she now feels she has a right not to be offended. Because of her Islamic beliefs, she feels she has a “right” to some social considerations from her family, and that she doesn’t feel “free” “when my own family refuses to go out in public with me.” It never occurred to her that she can’t demand something she would not give up herself: their very consciences.

Well, for my part, I am trying to be sensitive to this aspect, because like I said in my post, it is really by the grace of God that I am not in the same situation. While I was not born into Catholicism, I was born into Christianity and part of my family is natively Catholic, so I’ve had an easier road to Catholicism in that regard than probably Amy has had to Islam. That is unfortunate, but also not anything that constitutes real oppression, in my view. It is an internal family matter, and I agree completely that it is wrong for Amy to expect her family to embrace her new-found Muslim-ness to the extent that it conflicts with her family’s own identity, if that is indeed at the root of her problems with her family. We don’t know that this is the case because she hasn’t said so, and as it is an internal matter for her to deal with, I don’t think speculation is appropriate or called for.

Well, there are lots of things that offend all of us in this life, but no one is rushing to assuage the hurt feelings of the politically incorrect. What makes her think she is so special?

From what I have been told, Islam does engender in its followers that they are the “best of all creations” or some such hooey. Christianity also certainly has this sort of triumphalism in some quarters, but I don’t buy it there, either. If we are “better” in any way, it is in comparison with the old, pre-Christian ways of living when we, as gentiles, lived without the grace of God as something other than believers in the One True God. That, I think, is a succinct way to summarize our differences: In Islam, the orientation of the believers to the rest of the world seems to be of the “ummah” vs. everyone else, and the “ummah” seems quite obviously superior to everyone outside of it. We, the outsiders, are worth less by virtue of our being outsiders. In Christianity, by contrast, a big emphasis is on the grace imparted to us by God that transforms us as people, so that the big point of comparison is between the sinner who is unclean and the one who, having been baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, has been made anew and is in a clean state. We do not receive that “betterment” simply by our self-identification as Christians. Rather we are made clean again in a way that recalls our baptism with every new confession, because the struggle is really of man against himself, rather than man against man as in Islam. I have to believe, after studying it a lot, that the Christian tradition of asceticism that began in the Egyptian desert is essentially introverted for this purpose: not because we don’t also want people to come to Christianity just as Muslims would want people to come to Islam, but because the ultimate expression of faith in practice for a Christian comes in purification of the soul, rather than purification of the world.

So, uh…short answer…I guess Muslims are special because they are Muslims. I don’t agree, but will agree that Muslims are special in the respect as anyone is: They are created in the image of God, with certain inalienable rights as a result. The right to not be offended is not among those rights, though.

 

[Sister_Amy]

Well sort of … if you consider wanting to go on living to be a religion.

We have a large problem with aliens entering the US illegally on our Southwestern border. They have to pay a coyote thousands of dollars for the privilege of risking their lives, and the lives of their families, to cross a burning desert just to get to a country to be oppressed? Something doesn’t compute. Meanwhile, Mexico doesn’t have a problem of Americans entering their country illegally. I hadn’t heard that the KSA has a problem of people entering illegally either.

That’s enough data for me.

Had you looked for data about people entering the KSA illegally? Actually it’s quite a problem. People come on a visa for Hajj/Umrah (more people visit the KSA than do the USA in a year, based on the last data I read) and then they don’t leave! It’s actually a huge problem for the Saudis–growing immigrant populations, often illegally (by outstaying their visas.) Maybe you should do better research.

 

[Sister_Amy]

There is a legitimate question as to what constitutes “oppression” here…

Really, Amy, I am sorry that you feel oppressed in peacefully practicing your faith in the USA. …

So why I don’t I move to Malta or some other place where it might be “easier” to be Catholic? …

That western convert Muslims would so eagerly leave to Islamic lands…

Rather than try to whine and moan that I am actually oppressed here, my point was actually to highlight that life is not so “free” and hunky-dory as many people might like to think it is. I don’t have much of a bone to pick anyway. My own shaykh insists that he can practice Islam more freely here than anywhere else in the world. But still he has to bow to the government–slight censorship. Perhaps not as bad as overseas, but it’s still there. And I wonder how many Christians wonder about FBI agents trying to “infiltrate” their places of worship. (Recall the recent story about a “convert” who was trying to rile people up for “jihad” in a mosque, who was actually reported to the FBI by CAIR. He turned out to be a FBI agent.)

For my part, I don’t think secularism is better than faith. I have a number of (Muslim) friends who attended Catholic schools growing up. I myself attended a private Christian (albeit not Catholic) school some years as well. And personally, though I definitely prefer Muslim schools, deprived of that option I might prefer a Christian private school to the secular public school for my own kids. And it says something (good) about the USA that there are private religious schools, I think.

I am one of only a few converts who would actually like to move overseas. Trust me on that one, as I know many many many converts myself. Most American Muslims are quite happy to stay in America. For me, there is something very specific I want, related to Islam, which is not easily obtainable here in the USA, and for that reason I find it very likely that I will move overseas, for at least several years. That’s me, my opinion–and honestly it doesn’t apply to really most Muslims living in the USA. I’d hate for you to look at me and what you know about me and assume that (in this case) it applies for all Muslims, because this time it really doesn’t.

One other thing I would like to say is that Islam is not a religion that is supposed to keep to itself–you probably know that. But it is preferable for a Muslim to live under Muslim lands–why? Because then he can be better assured of justice. And isn’t the USA supposed to be a nation, under God (therefore not atheist or necessarily secular) with liberty and justice for all? Even for Muslims? Yep. So for the most part Muslims actually can find justice in the USA (we’ll consider the last 8 years to be a glaring exception in American history, I hope.) And they have simultaneously the responsibility to teach people Islam. It is one reason that Muslims are actually allowed to live outside of Muslim lands–to teach Islam.

 

[Sister_Amy]

No. I’m simply suggesting that if you are so unbearably oppressed, you are free to vote with your feet. That’s one of your human rights. BTW, I understand a person [even a Saudi] has to have the government’s permission to leave KSA. That kinda tells me something.

I have actually never heard that was the case.

 

[Sister_Amy]

I think you misunderstood my comment. I wasn’t telling her to leave but merely pointing out that she is free to do so if she felt so oppressed in the US and would feel much more free in the KSA. Is that not what she said?

There are some ways in which I would be freer, I think, in the KSA than in the USA. But not without sacrifices in other ways. Right now, I think it would be more sacrifices than gains, but one day those gains might be worth the sacrifice.

I don’t have a lot to complain about really–probably the same things you do, though. I don’t like the rampant consumerism, advertisements around every corner, immorality rampant and easily accessible, even for the youth. I don’t like how women here are expected to be super-human. If they want to raise their children at home they are considered unintelligent or unambitious, and at least non-contributing to society. They are expected to contribute to the household income and take care of the house and the children simultaneously–it’s no wonder so many get burnt out. And still they receive less pay than men do for the same work. They are mocked and objectified in popular culture (specifically hip-hop music.) They are taught to conform in their appearance to the social norm–powering industries of dieting, of cosmetics, and fashion.

With that in mind I have to tell you that the most liberating thing I ever did was start to cover–rejecting these notions of fashion, that I should have to dress a certain way to fit in, rejecting cosmetics that I needed to look pretty for everyone, and rejecting the idea that the shape of my body was anyone else’s business but my own. I can get an education and not feel shame to know that the greatest thing I might ever do is not get a patent or earn an impressive salary, but actually raise a human being, teaching him from the very beginning. I just felt like sharing that with you.

A few days after 9/11, a reporter told of his experience in a cab driven by a Muslim from the ME. The driver did nothing but complain about how bad America was and deserved it.

Muslims worked in those towers too, and they also died. I remember, on 9/11, that I cried. Excepting the actual terrorists, I cried for everyone who died, regardless of their faith.

And I think that is what has happened to Sister Amy [and others]: she now feels she has a right not to be offended. Because of her Islamic beliefs, she feels she has a “right” to some social considerations from her family, and that she doesn’t feel “free” “when my own family refuses to go out in public with me.” It never occurred to her that she can’t demand something she would not give up herself: their very consciences.

Well, there are lots of things that offend all of us in this life, but no one is rushing to assuage the hurt feelings of the politically incorrect. What makes her think she is so special?

This isn’t really true, and is an over generalization about me. I don’t really assume that because I am Muslim I am entitled to extra rights. But I’m afraid that you assume that because I am a Muslim I am entitled to less rights. It’s true though that my relationship with my family isn’t really a matter of freedom or oppression. Although, perhaps, persecution might be a more appropriate term. Has little to do with being offended.

 

[Sister_Amy]

Well, for my part, I am trying to be sensitive to this aspect, because like I said in my post, it is really by the grace of God that I am not in the same situation. While I was not born into Catholicism, I was born into Christianity and part of my family is natively Catholic, so I’ve had an easier road to Catholicism in that regard than probably Amy has had to Islam. That is unfortunate, but also not anything that constitutes real oppression, in my view. It is an internal family matter, and I agree completely that it is wrong for Amy to expect her family to embrace her new-found Muslim-ness to the extent that it conflicts with her family’s own identity, if that is indeed at the root of her problems with her family. We don’t know that this is the case because she hasn’t said so, and as it is an internal matter for her to deal with, I don’t think speculation is appropriate or called for.

In my defense:

My expectations of my family, at the time I embraced Islam, were simple, that nothing change. The fact that I no longer believe my eternal salvation depended on the suffering of a man born from a virgin really doesn’t mean I should be expelled from the house, does it? How does it affect their identity? Quite simply, it doesn’t. My Islam doesn’t affect their identity one iota, but they decided to kick me out of the house, to disinvite me to family gatherings, to prevent me from even seeing my nieces and nephews. The problem with that is not that it’s “offensive” in the sense that I feel “offended” by it. It is an even greater problem, that they tried to expel me from the family.

I actually decided to fight them on that, and since then my relations with them have only improved. The fact that I embraced Islam did not require any change on their part–but instead, they chose to make a change, by excluding me. And I don’t see how anyone could possibly justify that.

All the same, I do appreciate your closing line (of that paragraph) that it is a family matter and should not be open for discussion. The way I disclosed it was not entirely appropriate–I see now that my meaning was obscured by it, in that people have since assumed that by saying I don’t feel totally “free” in the USA I meant because of the way I’m treated by my family. And that’s not really true, both those issues are far more complex than that. All the same, I brought it up so the fault must lie with me.

 

[dzheremi]

And I wonder how many Christians wonder about FBI agents trying to “infiltrate” their places of worship.

Any who might use their places of worship as safehouses to plan for insurrection ought to worry, no matter what religion they are.

(Recall the recent story about a “convert” who was trying to rile people up for “jihad” in a mosque, who was actually reported to the FBI by CAIR. He turned out to be a FBI agent.)

I haven’t heard of this until now, though I don’t doubt that such a thing could happen.

And it says something (good) about the USA that there are private religious schools, I think.

Agreed.

I am one of only a few converts who would actually like to move overseas. Trust me on that one, as I know many many many converts myself. Most American Muslims are quite happy to stay in America.

I know this. I have never met an American-born Muslim who wants to move overseas. Perhaps go there to travel and visit pilgrimage sites, but that’s no different than a Christian going to Mt. Lebanon, or the Church of the Holy Sepulchre/Resurrection, etc. I had a portion of my original post that mentioned that enough U.S. convert Muslims obviously must not feel themselves so oppressed since they mostly stay here, but I deleted it in an effort not to blather so much. (Oops. Well, I tried!)

For me, there is something very specific I want, related to Islam, which is not easily obtainable here in the USA, and for that reason I find it very likely that I will move overseas, for at least several years.

Best of luck in all your travels.

One other thing I would like to say is that Islam is not a religion that is supposed to keep to itself–you probably know that. But it is preferable for a Muslim to live under Muslim lands–why? Because then he can be better assured of justice. And isn’t the USA supposed to be a nation, under God (therefore not atheist or necessarily secular) with liberty and justice for all? Even for Muslims? Yep.

I’m no professor of Political Science or what have you, but the much-lauded separation of Church (Mosque, Synagogue, Shinto Temple, whatever) and State is meant to avoid either establishing “Christian” OR “Muslim” justice, isn’t it? That’s how I had always understand the USA’s brand of secularism, anyway. Since our faith communities have radically different notions of what is considered to be “just” treatment in many cases, it is not the case that the “justice” we are supposedly guaranteed in the USA should match either the Christian or Muslim version of that concept. So of course if we are using ‘divine justice’ as a yardstick, then of course all will be disappointed.

So for the most part Muslims actually can find justice in the USA (we’ll consider the last 8 years to be a glaring exception in American history, I hope.) And they have simultaneously the responsibility to teach people Islam. It is one reason that Muslims are actually allowed to live outside of Muslim lands–to teach Islam.

Well, good for them, I suppose. I wonder, though, how does this at all fit with the often-used excuse that such and such group in Muslim country X are not practicing “true Islam” when they mete out Islamically-prescribed punishments (or what their country’s version of Islamic law sees as being appropriate, at least)? Is it really true that a Muslim can get the best form of justice only from his fellow Muslims? Does it matter what the religion is of the man who will behead you in the town square, or cut off your hand, or hang you? Where will you for the true justice that isn’t available outside of the Muslim lands when it is often claimed by Muslims that no country on the face of the earth is practicing “true” Islam?

 

[cathopologist]

But I can tell you that the more sincerely I try to practice Islam, the more constricted I feel by living in the West. I don’t feel ‘free’ to cover my hair, when I get sneers and dirty looks, and when my own family refuses to go out in public with me. I don’t feel ‘free’ to pray 5 times a day when I have to hide in a stairwell while at school. I don’t feel ‘free’ to learn and study about Islam because by doing so I’m considered to be an ‘extremist.’ I’ve seen my teachers locked up and deported for some of their teachings.

So maybe you think there is freedom–but it’s not universal. Many many people will gladly take the “oppression” (what you call it) in Saudi Arabia over the “freedom” of the USA, because Saudi they are not oppressed in their faith, or in its practices, as they are here.

Well, no matter how much i disagree with your religious views, there is always a place for you in Singapore. Over here, Muslims enjoy the freedom to practice their religion (over 15% of the population are Muslims) as long as you remain peaceful and mindful of your non-Muslim neighbours. There are hundreds of mosques in Singapore, by the way.

 

[dzheremi]

I am really, really hesitating to reply to this, but I think it deserves a serious reply…

My expectations of my family, at the time I embraced Islam, were simple, that nothing change.

That right there is already an unrealistic expectation. You cannot dictate to anyone their reactions to your choices, even if the consequences of those choices ultimately lie with you alone.

How does it affect their identity? Quite simply, it doesn’t. My Islam doesn’t affect their identity one iota

Hmmm. Can I tell a little story from my own life, so that I don’t seem like I am speculating on your family situation?

When I was around 12 years old, my mother was diagnosed with skin cancer. My parents divorced when I was 3, and my mother raised me and my brother by herself, so she was the only real immediate family I ever knew. She raised us to be good Christians, taking us to church services every Sunday, bringing us up to know the religious holidays of the “Christmas season” as, well, religious holidays, not orgies of hyper-consumerism. She made sure we participated in Lent. So, when she was diagnosed with cancer and slowly began wasting away, and everything at home fell apart, I was hurt and confused. Who was this “God” who for some reason felt it appropriate to take someone who loved Him so and had dedicated her life to Him away from her kids? More importantly, why should I continue to believe in this God who was torturing her, and me, and all of my family by allowing this to happen?

So, eventually I told my mother that I really didn’t want to go to church anymore, I didn’t see the point in being Christian, if God was up there somewhere He certainly wasn’t behaving like the great being I had been told He was, and I was through trying to make sense of his “plan” that apparently included letting the people who love Him die horrible, painful deaths even though He supposedly had the power to end all suffering. Basically, I renounced my faith right then and there.

Well, of course, my mother began to cry and wail about how she had always tried to raise us kids right, and she knew that things were difficult, but that was all the more reason to trust in God no matter what happens, and how she couldn’t bear the thought that I would be giving up my faith and hence jepoardizing my eternal soul because of what we were going through right then, for that short period. She begged me to reconsider, reminded me that Jesus Christ is the only way to life, and spent the next 3 or 4 days locked in her room in prayer that I might come to see the light.

Long story short, I didn’t do so until many years after she had died, and that whole event is the one thing that I regret more than anything in my entire life. Now, I might be able to argue dispassionately that my choice to be or not be Christian (or any other religion) had no realistic effect on anyone who wasn’t me. After all, I was the one who spent a decade wandering around lost from that point on, and for most of that time she was already dead. Obviously, though I was the one who had “changed” and no one else would have to change with me, that episode showed me that no one decision can ever be entirely self-contained. My choice obviously affected her deeply, whether I wanted it to or not.

Hopefully, your family situation is not so dramatic. That is not for me to judge. Just the same, I know from personal experience that when it comes to matters of faith, ones personal choice can and often does affect people who you could say have no “right” to react in one way or another. But they still do. And maybe their reasons for doing so are not valid to the person who has actually made the change, but they are certainly valid for those reacting to it.

The fact that I embraced Islam did not require any change on their part–but instead, they chose to make a change, by excluding me. And I don’t see how anyone could possibly justify that.

See above. It is not a “justification”, but it is an explanation of how family dynamics and religious free will can sometimes prove quite combustible.

We all have choices to make in our lives. Your or my freedom of choice cannot impinge on another’s “freedom of reaction”, since those reactions are the consequences of having freedom of choice in the first place. Is this always “fair”, in our eyes? No, but then I would argue that it was not fair for me to put additional strain on my mother in such a fragile state just because I was angry with God. I’ve learned my lesson, even though it took ten years for me to learn it and the person who I would most like to communicate it to is no longer here. The key is that in order to begin to make sense of it all, I had to first reconcile the effect that the choice I had made had on my life. Obviously, if I had felt that the negative consquences of deciding to turn my back on God were less than the freedom I had gained to not have to acknowledge Him anymore, I would not be typing this on Catholic Answers (or anywhere) right now. Eventually, I reached a point where I had nothing else, and my own desire to be left alone with my choice meant exactly that: I was entirely alone. I came to the Church with nothing, and that helped me to understand the nature of the world and of free will such that I no longer feel that I can say my choices are only my own, even if no one in my family or friends particularly cares that I am Catholic. I am Catholic not out of one individual choice that I made, but out of the years I spent away from God that He did not spend away from me, no matter how I tried to prove I didn’t want Him in my life.

I hope at least some of that made sense. I am sure your family has their own reasons to behave towards you as they do, some “good” some “bad”. Just remember them in your prayers and continue to do what you can to improve your relationship with them.

 

[planten]

**
There is good discussion between sister Amy and dzhereme. May I interject with the Islamic view on family relations?

It is absolutely not allowed to break off the family (Rehmi) relations under any circumstances. If any one converts from Islam to Christianity or vice versa, The best thing for the family to do is to go along with the convert to where ever he/she goes for some time to observe what change has taken place and why it has happened. The family should not scold the convert.

By keeping company with the convert, they will learn something good or they will be able to help the convert to come back. But to break the family relations (i.e. to keep away from the convert) is forbidden in Islam.

There is a Hadith on this subject:

The prophet Muhammad said “Any one who will break the family (Rehmi) relation then Allah will not accept his.her prayers at all.” (Rehmi means relations of the womb.)

But the problem is that both Muslims and the christians cannot stop distancing away from the converts. It seems to be inbuilt nature.

Now about 9/11. Conditions changed severely for the Muslims after 9/11. It was not necessary to take any severe action against all Muslims in the US… But temper was high because of the severe tragedy.

It reminds me of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (around year 1941). The American Government gathered (picked up) ALL the japanese origin Americans in the US within one day and put them up in the camps.

So it is an inbuilt nature that is working there too.**

 

[Jay53]

this is actually a really good question. Unfortunately the answer is rather murky. Sorry. It’s complicated to answer because it doesn’t really fit in either of the three categories, in the way that you asked it.

You asked only about leaving the home, though, and not traveling (which is a different issue.) So I’m going to stick with just leaving the home for mundane matters.

It’s true that a married couple is supposed to have an agreement about what they do outside of the home, and that they know where the other person is. If a husband is leaving the home, his wife has a right to know where he is, and a husband has a right to know where his wife is when she leaves the home. That’s the real objective, and not keeping a woman locked up inside a house (which is absurdly inhumane!)

So there is a Shari’a basis to the statement, that a woman should have an agreement with her husband about leaving the home, that he knows where she is. It doesn’t mean she has to ask his permission every single time she steps outside. It’s like if they have an agreement she will go to school, and it means she has class twice a week at night, then she’ll be gone all those time, and he knows about it up front so she doesn’t need to “ask permission” each night in order to go to class. That’s pretty silly.

But if she were never to tell her husband where she was, it’d be a problem. Or if he needed her for something during that time and didn’t know where she was (I mean an emergency, like he had to go to the hospital or something.)

So I think that some people really take this to an extreme. In fact, I know some people do. The man will prevent his wife from ever leaving, and he won’t tell her where he goes and he’ll be gone a lot. I’ve seen that happening–and it’s wrong and unfair.

So let’s see… there is a Shari’ah basis, which is frequently misinterpreted by culture. When people see that sort of injustice, I think they perceive it exactly as it is–as injustice, and wrong. But the misperception is more on the people who do it, really. It might be the cases that this is exaggerated even further based on culture, I guess, which could make it cultural too.

And it doesn’t apply for a male relative–she doesn’t need permission of a male relative, it’s just supposed to be an agreement with her husband if she is married.

There is a new law in Afghanistan which refutes your interpretation of this concept. The cleric who helped draft the law had this to say:

Afghanistan is an Islamic state and its constitution defers to the Quran as the ultimate authority. Mohseni said the law simply reiterates rules from Islam’s holy book.

“In Shariah law, it states that a woman cannot go out without the permission of her husband,” he said. He argued that the law is permissive because it allows a woman to go out for a medical emergency or other urgent reason without asking.

This doesn’t say anything about there being an “agreement” between the husband and wife - it says she has to ask permission. Or is the Afghan government misinterpreting again - and if so, where are all the protests from the peaceful, moderate Muslims who only want to see the correct interpretations implemented? There has been international outcry over this law, but I haven’t seen it as being widespread from Muslims. I believe there are a few women in Afghanistan obviously against this law, but will their opinion actually count?

This cleric also goes on to say:

Mohseni argued that women and men are very far from equal in today’s Afghanistan and should not be treated as such. He said many rural women are illiterate and would not be able to find work. Men are typically expected to provide for their wives and children.

“For all these expenses, can’t we at least give the right to a husband to demand sex from his wife after four nights?” he said. foxnews.com/story/0,2933,514517,00.html

I think his quote speaks for itself.

Edit: I did find some info. on protests within Afghanistan regarding this law. We can only pray and hope that it will be enough to make a difference. Does anyone know of any protests/petitions being circulated from outside Afghanistan by other Muslims in defense of these women?

news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090408/wl_sthasia_afp/afghanistanunrestwomen

 

[sedonaman]

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So there is a Shari’a basis to the statement, that a woman should have an agreement with her husband about leaving the home, that he knows where she is. It doesn’t mean she has to ask his permission every single time she steps outside.

Should she carry a written and signed copy of their agreement in case she is stopped by the religious police or the self-righteous, self-appointed guardians of the faith [a.k.a., terrorists]?