Intolerance of Islam

Intolerance of Islam
Views of a Muslim-American
By JAVED AMIR

Article reprinted courtesy of Hamdard Islamicus Vol. XXI, No. 1



It is truly ironic that when Christian extremists in the West do something weird, they are called a 'lunatic fringe' of the Christian faith. But when an Islamic extremist does likewise, Islam is termed lunatic and not the extremist.
In a recent report entitled The Status of Muslim Civil Rights in the United States prepared by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington based Islamic advocacy group, it was stated that during 1996 there was a threefold rise in anti-Muslim bias in the United States compared to a year earlier.
Although this was not an audit of anti-Muslim incidents, and, mercifully, none of them terribly violent, they did highlight the experience of five million Muslims now living in the multicultured U.S. Society. While Muslims are growing in number, diversity and visibility in America, there remains among them a strong undercurrent of anxiety about living in a culture that many may treat Islam as foreign, mysterious or something to fear.

Who is responsible for this popular stereotype of all Muslims as "terrorists", or at least, as "fundamentalist fanatics"? No doubt, world events like the taking of American hostages in Iran in 1979, the Gulf War in 1991 and the World Trade Centre bombing in 1994 contributed to this paradigm, but there are also deeper undercurrents for this Western intolerance of Islam.

Bernard Lewis' Islam and the West, Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations and lesser known Robert Allison - of Harvard's History of American Civilization Program in his dubious book The Crescent Obscured portray a simplistic East-West conflict between Islam and the so-called West throughout history.

In these books we are reminded of deep hostilities that go back to the Arab conquests of the Middle East in the seventh and eighth centuries and later the hundreds of years of threat from the Ottoman Empire, though those scholars conveniently forget the European counter attacks like the Crusades and the Western commercial, diplomatic and colonial domination during the last two hundred years. Thus many Western scholars, who should know better, depict Islamic western relations as a story of centuries of confrontation between two great but exclusive civilizations where each finds the other as the final enemy. Hardly any reputable Western scholar ever mentions that the message of Islam conveyed by Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) is essentially the same as the messages of a long line of prophets like Abraham, Moses, John the Baptist and Jesus (a.s.).

Today, Islam is portrayed by the popular Western media as a triple threat to the West -- political, civilizational and demographic. For example, despite Iran's dismal failure in exporting its revolution abroad, it is still viewed as a global threat. The French writer Raymond Aron and right-wing politicians like Jean Marie LePen's paranoiac warnings of a revolutionary war by Islamic powers, Charles Krauthammer's categorization of Islam as "an ancient rival to our Judaeo-Christian and secular West" (The New Crescent of Crisis: Global Intifada) is only matched, specially after the Trade Centre bombing, in the audacity by the portrayal of Islam as a demographic threat from recent Muslim immigrants in Europe and the USA.

The question therefore arises: Is there really an Islamic threat to the West? Does this grand apocalyptic vision of some "Orientalist" scholars accurately define the truth of our times? Or does this remind us of the overblown, preposterous threat the peasant guerrillas known as Sandinistas once posed to the USA?

Of course, there are anti-West Muslim movements in the world today, but hundreds of millions of Muslim peoples are also friends of the West. How would one otherwise classify a majority of Muslim populations of Pakistan, Morocco, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Kuwait, Jordan, Bangladesh, and Egypt? What about millions of Muslim masses who dream Western dreams? Why have millions of these people chosen to migrate to England, France, Germany, Italy, Australia, Sweden and the USA if they are enemies of the Christian West? And what will be the outcome of this huge migration of the late twentieth century? What difference will this make in the Islamic-Western relations? Given this scenario, orientalist scholars' interpretation of a stereotype millennial confrontation, nor the erroneous common anxiety about the threat of "Islamic Fundamentalism" can resolve the future at hand. The old glib explanations are no longer the key to the much more complex contemporary situation.

The fact of the matter is that Islam and its late twentieth century movements have been badly interpreted and misunderstood in the West. To begin with, politicized Islam in the 1990s is not alone. At the end of the 20th century, religion, by and large, has become an energetic force for change world-wide. Buddhists in East Asia, Catholics in Eastern Europe and Latin America, Sikhs and Hindus in India and Jews in Israel have seen their religions provide legitimacy to define their goals and to enable them to mobilize. Need we add to this list the names of Jerry Falwell of the Moral Majority and Ralph Reed of the Christian Coalition in the USA.

Despite the growing body of evidence to the contrary, Islam is still widely and wrongly perceived in the West as inherently extremist and monolithic. For the last three decades Islamic societies have been considered by these Westerns scholars to be in need of "modernization". Indeed, in one of many Civil Service Academy papers in Lahore in the 1960s, I vividly recall the assignment: "Can Islam be reconciled to the spirit of the 20th century?" As a result in the West, for the right, Islam represented uncouth barbarism; for the left, it was equivalent to a medieval theocracy and for the centre a kind of distasteful exoticism. Such a reductive view of Islam is a deliberate and gross simplification so as to realize several manipulative aims. In the USA today, grade school history text books, comic strips, TV series, films and cartoons show only caricatures of Muslims as oil suppliers, terrorists or as bloodthirsty mobs.

For example, saturation coverage was given to Muslims who vociferously supported Ayatullah Khomeni's fatwa against Salman Rushdie compared to a minimal exposure to the majority of Muslims who opposed it. Any Islamic high school student can tell you that Muslim law does not permit a man to be sentenced to death without trial and has no jurisdiction outside the Muslim world. At the Islamic Conference of March 1989, 44 out of 45 members states unanimously rejected Ayatullah's fatwa. But this received only slight attention in the British media and no mention of it at all in the American. It is truly ironic that when Christian extremists in the West do something weird, they are called a "lunatic fringe" of the Christian faith. But when an Islamic extremist does likewise, Islam is termed lunatic and not the extremist.

Marshall Hodgson, the distinguished historian of Islam, points out that feminists frequently condemn Islam for the custom of female circumcision. This despite the fact that it is really an African practice and is never even mentioned in the Qur'an.

Similarly, the various recent Islamic movements are often erroneously called "fundamentalist" in the West. The truth is that this word nor the concept exists in Arabic or is ever mentioned in the Qur'an. Actually, "fundamentalism" is a Christian code word meaning born again (and refers to beliefs held by some American Protestants who insist on literal truths of the Bible). Furthermore, fundamentalism generally urges passive adherence and does not advocate change of the social order which as already discussed is not the agenda of the contemporary dynamic Islamic movements.

Beyond this distorted and ignorant coverage of Islam in the Western media is the larger question that why is it that Islam is a threat but not Hinduism Judaism or Confucianism? Although Huntington does include Confucianism along with Islam on the fault lines of his great clash of civilizations, the media in general only singles out 'Islamic Fundamentalism' as the quintessential menace to Western interests. One reason usually given is that after the fall of Communism and the Soviet Union, a 'threat vacuum' has given rise to search for new enemies. For some Americans, the challenge is from Japan or the European Community or even in the long run from China. For others, looking for a bogeyman, it is the Islamic world with its one billion Muslims mostly living in poverty in more than 48 countries and a rapidly growing minority in Europe and America.

This demonization of Islam in Western thought is firmly rooted in the idea that Islam is medieval and dangerous. It is part of the cultural canon now and the task of changing this thinking is very urgent indeed.

Witness for example what happened with the Algerian situation. The stunning victory of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) in the 1990 municipal elections in Algeria was a great triumph of democracy in an Islamic state which had been dominated for decades by a one party dictatorship under the National Liberation Front (FLN). Despite the arrest of FIS leaders like Abbasi Madani and Ali Belhadj and indulging in other corrupt practices, the ruling party failed to prevent an even more stunning victory of the FIS in parliamentary elections in 1991. As the world of Islam celebrated its democratic victory, the Algerian military intervened, arresting FIS leaders, imprisoning 10,000 people in camps and outlawing FIS. What did the West, the great champion of democracy, do? In face of blatant repression, it stood silent. The U.S. State Department "regretted" the suspension of the democratic process and did nothing else. Several European governments allowed the junta's representatives to pay official visits to explain their plans. A consortium of European and American banks provided 1.45 billion dollars to help the dictatorship in Algeria to spread out the servicing of its debt.

For the Muslim world this was a clear signal of Western prejudice and antagonism against Islam. Not only did the Algerian situation show that Islam could be democratic, but the West did not want it to be so. A barbaric, medieval image of Islam was suited more to its purpose. Above all, it was a test whether the West could reconcile with Islam and not the other way round because the Algerian Muslims had already tried to reconcile to Western democratic ideals. Obviously, the West failed the test. As someone remarked: "The White House prefers a police state to an Islamic Democracy". Not only in Algeria but in Central Asia, the West has taken a confrontational stand on Islam.

For someone like me, who admires the West and has indeed come to live here and raise his children in the USA, it is shocking to see the ignorance about Islam. One sixth grader I know read a passage in her school book about Muslims when they kneel to pray. According to the textbook, they are supposed to rub their faces in the sand while praying. "Daddy" the sixth grader told her father, "we've got to get some sand in the house".

In the middle ages it was understandable that a Muslim was regarded as the real enemy. John Victor Tolan's excellent work Medieval Christian Perceptions of Islam details the military, intellectual, economic and theological superiority of the Islamic world. No wonder, under those circumstances, the founder of Islam was treated as a manifestation of the Anti-Christ and in popular propaganda like Chanson de Roland, the Saracen Zaragoza is shown worshiping a trinity of Golden idols: Mahomet, Apollin, and Tervegant. But that was the eleventh century when Embricio of Mainz and Gauthier de Compiegne wrote false biographies of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) preaching lechery and incest, staging bogus miracles and putting Christians to death who opposed him. Those demonic myths about Islam and its founder were firmly established in the Western mind at about the same time as the myths of Charlemagne, King Arthur and Robin Hood. But from the 20th century success of Rushdie's Satanic Verses which resonates deeply with those long established Western fantasies of the myth of Mahmoud, and school textbooks are still circulated in the USA, one would think the West never outgrew its medieval, schizophrenic conception of Islam.

Today we must realize that in the West the history of knowledge about Islam has been too closely tied to conquest and war and, it is sad to say, to the Crusades of the Middle Ages. As Umerto Eco stated in his Essay Dreaming of the Middle Ages: "In fact both Americans and Europeans are inheritors of the Western legacy, and all the problems of the Western world emerged in the Middle Ages: modern languages, merchant cities, capitalist economy are inventions of medieval society:..

As Karen Armstrong, one of the few objective Islamic scholars in the West pointed out succinctly, we could add Islam to this list.

The time has now come to sever this connection between Western medieval phobias and Islam completely. It must be understood that it is a mistake to imagine that Islam is an inherently violent and fanatical faith. Islam is a universal religion and there is nothing extremist, monolithic and anti-western about it. Doctrinally, Islam is as blameless as other of the great Universal religions. In fact, Islam shares many of the ideals and visions that have inspired both Jews and Christians. Its main faults too, were the same as those of the Western Church, namely, pride, greed, violence and the lust for power.(1)

And let me add, that Islam is not only a rational creed but it is also pro-democracy. When Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) proclaimed that he was the last in the line of God's prophets on earth what did he mean by that? Was he signalling that from then on there would be no more 'dictated' messages from God in the form of Divine revelations like the Bible and the Qur'an and that the Age of Reason had been born?

In fact in 1730 Henri, Comte de Boulainvilliers, published a rare book in the West entitled Vie de Mahomed portraying the founder of Islam as a forerunner of the Age of Reason. In continuation of this thought, Ah Shariati in the 20th century explained in his Sociology of Islam that the Qur'an looks upon not chance, not historical determinism, not powerful persons, not even Divine will as the motor of history. Actually, the Qur'an sees al-nas or the masses as wholly responsible for shaping history. Chapter XIII Verse 11 of the Qur'an (Eng. Tr. Yusuf Ali) says:

Verily never will God change the condition of a people until they change it themselves.
Thus Islam proclaims man as God's vice-regent on earth and its concept of Tawhid as a world view looks upon the whole universe as a unity: there is no separation between this world and the Hereafter, between the natural and the supernatural, between God, nature and man.
In its desperately needed re-evaluation and positive understanding of Islam, the West should not ignore the struggle in Islamic societies today between the modernist reformers and the orthodox clergy. Indeed, it was the West which promoted the clergy and financed their activities because they constituted the first line of defence against world communism. Today, with the disappearing cash flow, the same orthodox clergy that opposed communism is rejecting American capitalism.

It is the modernist Muslim thinker who is ready to accommodate Western ideas on their merits. During the last two hundred years, Muslim reformers like Jamaluddin Afghani, Muhammad Iqbal in India, Muhammad Abduh in Egypt, Abdurrahman Wahid in Indonesia, Nawal Sadawi in North Africa, Chandra Muzaffar in Malaysia and Abdullahi An Na'im in New York have boldly tried to "reconstruct Islam" along modernist lines.

Indeed millions of Muslims world-wide are quietly living secularized lives. In the USA, for instance, it is estimated that only five to ten per cent of the Muslim community participates in organized religion. Indonesia, with the world's largest Muslim population, has a secular system of government. Yvonne Haddad, author of Islamic Values in the United States, lists how both in the West and in their homelands the majority of Muslims accept the principle that religion is a private affair between man and his Creator.

In fact, examined critically, Modernism and Liberalism are nothing new in Islamic culture. The liberal thrust of a brilliant civilization in Muslim Spain was an early triumph over conservatism, the result of the teachings of Muslim sages like Ibn Sin (Avicenna) and Ibn Rushd (Averroes). Egypt in the 10th century emerged as a pluralist society with Christians, Jews and Muslims enjoying comfortable lives under the Shi'ah rulers, the Fatimids, who not only built Cairo but also the world's oldest University, Al-Azhar.

The Safawid renaissance in Iran and Central Asia was interestingly similar to the Italian renaissance. Both expressed themselves in art and paintings and creatively re-visited the pagan roots of their older cultures.

Mughul Emperor Akbar's 16th century efforts in India to synthesize Islam and Hinduism into a hybrid humanistic religion called Din-e-Ilahi was a modern liberal message to the entire world some hundreds of years before its time.

While Muslims like Akbar were seeking understanding with people of other faiths, the Christian West demonstrated in 1492 when Ferdinand and Isabella conquered Granada in Spain, that it could not even tolerate proximity with the two other religions of Abraham. Not only were the Muslims expelled from Spain which had been their home for 800 years, but Christian occupation was fatal for the Jews also. In this century, the strongest force for Islamic secularism was the emergence of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in Turkey. He embraced all things Western and turned the Aya Sofia mosque into a museum.

Today the West and Islam have reached a watershed in their relationship. The next few years are crucial to the development of an Islamic-Western reconciliation. The clash of the past 20 years or so between the USA and Iran should be discarded as a paradigm. The West should press Muslim countries toward political pluralism and then accept the results of free and fair elections. The history of the last fifty years clearly shows that although, theoretically, the West has preached the virtues of democracy to third world countries, sometimes, in practice, it ended up promoting totalitarianism instead. Now is the time to encourage and not obstruct democracy in Islamic countries, especially where feudalism and autocratic governments still hold power and religious exploitation is still the name of the game.

Finally, when millions of Muslims have migrated to Europe and America and need to be equal partners in the Western culture, it is imperative that the West outgrows its intolerant and negative attitude towards Islam.

At the same time, Muslims world-wide have to rediscover the liberal roots of their Islamic tradition which Japanese Islamologist Sachiko Murata defines as "gentleness, love, compassion and beauty".

As mankind approaches the end of the millennium, people all over the world must widen their horizons beyond their geographical, cultural and religious boundaries. Already a few are finding inspiration in more than one religion and these few have adopted the faith of another culture. For centuries, the Jewish people suffered at the hands of Christian Europe and were exiled from city to city and country to country, but finally the anti-Semitic prejudices seem to have been overcome after Hitler's Nazism and the Holocaust.

"The fundamental weakness of Western civilization," wrote Wilfred Smith in 1956 "is its inability to recognize that it shares the planet not with inferiors but with equals. Unless the West learns to treat others with fundamental respect, it will have failed to come to terms with the 20th century."

From the time of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), Muslims have recognized that Islam and the West share a common tradition, but the West has failed to do so. No doubt, the Muslim peoples need to set their houses in order and resolve their manifold domestic ideological, political and economic problems. The West, too desperately needs to rid itself of its ancient hatreds and prejudices. In the long run, Christians and Muslims are friends not antagonists.




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Notes
1. In fact they were the faults of the misguided believers - Editor

http://muslim-canada.org/intolerance.html

Muslim Albania Selamatkan Ratusan Ribu Yahudi dari Holocaust

"Orang Islam menyelamatkan orang-orang Yahudi? Bagaimana mungkin?" Pertanyaan itu dilontarkan banyak orang pada Norman Gershman, saat mereka melihat foto-foto dan mendengar cerita Gershman tentang Muslim yang menyelematkan banyak orang-orang Yahudi saat tragedi Holocaust.
Gershman, lima tahun belakangan ini terlibat dalam proyek BESA, proyek untuk memberikan penghormatan terhadap keberanian warga Muslim Albania dan menyelamatkan ribuan orang Yahudi baik yang tinggal di Albania maupun yang menjadi pengungsi pada Perang Dunia II.

"BESA adalah tradisi masyarakat Albania sejak ribuan yang lalu. BESA falsafahnya adalah, ketika ada orang yang mengetuk pintu rumah Anda untuk minta bantuan, maka Anda punya kewajiban untuk menolongnya, tak peduli siapa orang itu, " jelas Gershman.

Ia memulai proyek BESA berawal dari New York, ketika sedang mencari foto-foto orang-orang non-Yahudi yang telah membantu para Yahudi dari kejaran tentara NAZI pada masa Holocaust. Ia tercengang ketika menemukan nama-nama Muslim di antara nama-nama non-Yahudi itu. Apalagi ketika diberitahu bahwa mereka adalah Muslim Albania.

Rasa ingin tahu membawanya ke museum holocaust Yad Vashem yang dibangun Israel di Yerusalem. Di musium itu, ia lebih banyak lagi menemukan nama-nama Muslim Albania. Setelah itu, ia melanjutkan perjalanannya ke pelosok Albania dan Kosovo. "Di sana saya bertemu dengan mereka yang kini sudah berusia 60 tahunan bahkan lebih tua dari itu, yang ketika Holocaust terjadi mereka masih usia anak-anak, dan merekalah yang menyelamatkan Yahudi-Yahudi itu, " ujar Gershman.

Ia menghabiskan waktu lebih dari empat tahun untuk mengumpulkan foto-foto hitam putih dan kisah-kisah tentang Muslim Albania yang menyelamatkan orang-orang Yahudi dari Holocaust. Gershman kemudian menggelar pameran pertamanya di Yad Vashem bulan November lalu, kemudian pameran di markas besar PBB di New York, sebelum memutuskan untuk pameran ke seluruh dunia.

Selain foto-foto, Gershman juga membuat buku-buku berisi profil Muslim Albania dan Kosovo yang menyelamatkan orang-orang Yahudi dan sedang membuat film dokumentarnya, yang diharapkan sudah bisa dirilis pada tahun 2009. "Saya bahagia dan bangga bisa menunjukkan kisah ini pada dunia, " tukas Gershman.

Gershman membantah pernyataan yang mengatakan bahwa Muslim Albania telah menyerahkan orang-orang Yahudi pada NAZI, karena yang terjadi adalah sebaliknya. Muslim Albania justeru memberikan perlindungan pada orang-orang Yahudi. Ini terlihat dari jumlah orang-orang Yahudi di Albania yang meningkat lebih dari sepuluh kali lipat dibandingkan sebelum masa Perang Dunia II.

"Albania adalah satu-satunya wilayah pendudukan NAZI yang memberikan perlindungan pada orang-orang Yahudi. Kedatangan orang-orang Yahudi dianggap sebagai tamu, diberi nama Muslim dan tinggal bersama keluarga-keluarga Muslim, " tutur Gershman.

Dari cerita-cerita yang disampaikan Muslim Albania, Gershman menemukan alasan mengapa warga Muslim Albania menyelamatkan orang-orang Yahudi, yaitu tradisi BESA yang merupakan manifestasi dari ajaran Islam bahwa seorang Muslim harus menepati janjinya dan melindungi yang lemah.

"Saya ingat, sebagian dari mereka bilang 'tidak ada BESA tanpa Qur'an. Mereka menyelamatkan orang-orang Yahudi atas nama agama yang mereka anut. Mereka sama sekali tidak menyimpan prasangka buruk, " ungkap Gershman.

Ia melanjutkan, "Saya pernah bertanya pada mereka 'mengapa Anda melakukan ini semua?' Apa yang diajarkan Qur'an sehingga Anda melakukan ini?'. Mereka cuma tersenyum dan sebagian mereka menjawab 'kami menyelamatkan hidup orang lain supaya bisa masuk surga'."

Islam Tidak Seperti Gambaran Dunia Barat

Gershman meyakini keberanian Muslim Albania dalam melindungi dan menyelamatkan orang-orang Yahudi dari ancaman Holocaust adalah sebuah tindakan yang luar biasa. "Ini merupakan sejarah yang penting, di mana ratusan ribu Yahudi telah diselematkan oleh Muslim Albania, " katanya.

Apa yang dilakukan Muslim Albania menunjukkan bahwa mereka adalah orang-orang yang memiliki toleransi keagamaan yang tinggi. Sebuah fakta yang bertolak belakang dengan maraknya stereotipe terhadap umat Islam yang dilakukan Barat.

Terkait hal ini, Gershman menyampaikan pesan pada dunia Barat bahwa banyak sekali orang-orang yang berhati mulia di dunia ini, dan banyak di antara mereka adalah Muslim. "Kalau Anda melihat foto-foto dan membaca kisah-kisahnya, tidak diragukan lagi bahwa mereka (Muslim Albania) adalah orang-orang yang berhati mulia, " imbuh Gershman.

"Jika ada yang melihat foto-foto saya, khususnya di negara-negara Barat dan mengatakan bahwa mereka adalah militan dan pendukung kekerasan, saya menolak pernyataan itu, " tegas Gershman, seorang Yahudi Amerika yang kini sedang belajar sufisme.

"Islam tidak seperti yang ada dalam pikiran orang-orang Barat. Buat saya, Islam adalah puisi, ilmu pengetahuan, agama yang sempurna. Islam ada keindahan, " tandas Gershman.

Hidden Sources Of MSG In Foods

Hidden Sources Of MSG In Foods
From the book 'Excitotoxins - The Taste That Kills'
By Dr. Russell Blaylock, MD
3-6-3

What if someone were to tell you that a chemical (MSG) added to food could cause brain damage in your children, and that this chemical could effect how your children's nervous systems formed during development so that in later years they may have learning or emotional difficulties?

What if there was scientific evidence that these chemicals could permanently damage a critical part of the brain known to control hormones so that later in life your child might have endocrine problems? How would you feel?

Suppose evidence was presented to you strongly suggesting that the artificial sweetener in your diet soft drink may cause brain tumors to develop, and that the number of brain tumors reported since the introduction of this widespread introduction of this artificial sweetener has risen dramatically? Would that affect your decision to drink these products and especially to allow your children to drink them? What if you could be shown overwhelming evidence that one of the main ingredients in this sweetener (aspartate) could cause the same brain lesions as MSG? Would that affect your buying decisions?

And finally, what if it could be demonstrated that all of these types of chemicals, called excitotoxins, could possibly aggravate or even precipitate many of today's epidemic neurodegenerative brain diseases such as Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, ALS, and Alzheimer's disease? Would you be concerned if you knew that these excitotoxin food additives are a particular risk if you have diabetes, or have ever had a stroke, brain injury, brain tumor, seizure, or have suffered from hypertension, meningitis, or viral encephalitis?

Would you also be upset to learn that many of the brain lesions caused by these products in your children are irreversible and can result from a SINGLE exposure of these products in sufficient concentration?

How would you feel when you learn the food industry hides and disguises these excitotoxin additives (MSG and Aspartate) so they can't be recognized? Incredulous? Enraged? The fact is many foods are labeled as having "No MSG" but in fact not only contain MSG but also are laced with other excitotoxins of equal potency and danger.

All of the above are true. And all of these well known brain toxins are poured into our food and drink by the thousands of tons to boost sales. These additives have NO OTHER purpose other than to enhance to TASTE of food and the SWEETNESS of various diet products.


Hidden Sources Of MSG

As discussed previously, the glutamate (MSG) manufacturers and the processed food industries are always on a quest to disguise the MSG added to food. Below is a partial list of the most common names for disguised MSG. Remember also that the powerful excitotoxins, aspartate and L-cystine, are frequently added to foods and according to FDA rules require NO LABELING AT ALL.


* Food Additives that ALWAYS contain MSG *

Monosodium Glutamate
Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein
Hydrolyzed Protein
Hydrolyzed Plant Protein
Plant Protein Extract
Sodium Caseinate
Calcium Caseinate
Yeast Extract
Textured Protein (Including TVP)
Autolyzed Yeast
Hydrolyzed Oat Flour
Corn Oil

* Food Additives That FREQUENTLY Contain MSG *

Malt Extract
Malt Flavoring
Bouillon
Broth
Stock
Flavoring
Natural Flavors/Flavoring
Natural Beef Or Chicken Flavoring
Seasoning
Spices

* Food Additives That MAY Contain MSG Or Excitotoxins *

Carrageenan
Enzymes
Soy Protein Concentrate
Soy Protein Isolate
Whey Protein Concentrate

Also: Protease Enzymes of various sources can release excitotoxin amino acids from food proteins.


Aspartame - An Intense Source Of Excitotoxins
Aspartame is a sweetener made from two amino acids, phenylalanine and the excitotoxin aspartate. It should be avoided at all costs. Aspartame complaints accounts for approximately 70% of ALL complaints to the FDA. It is implicated in everything from blindness to headaches to convulsions. Sold under dozens of brand names such as NutraSweet and Equal, aspartame breaks down within 20 minutes at room temperature into several primary toxic and dangerous ingredients:

1. DKP (diketopiperazine) (When ingested, converts to a near duplicate of
a powerful brain tumor causing agent)
2. Formic Acid (ant venom)
3. Formaldehyde (embalming fluid)
4. Methanol (causes blindness...extremely dangerous substance)

Common Examples:
Diet soft drinks, sugar free gums, sugar free Kool Aid, Crystal Light, childrens' medications, and thousands of other products claiming to be 'low calorie', 'diet', or 'sugar free'.

A Final Note...
Dr. Blaylock recounted a meeting with a senior executive in the food additive industry who told him point blank that these excitotoxins are going to be in our food no matter how many name changes are necessary...

Muslim Ummah

"In the Western world, the basic unit of human organization is the nation, in American but not European usage virtually synonymous with country. This is then subdivided in various ways, one of which is by religion. Muslims, however, tend to see not a nation subdivided into religious groups but a religion subdivided into nations."

The Crisis of Islam" by Bernard Lewis

How to live as a Muslim?

How to live as a Muslim?

Here, I will attempt to approach the topic from a different angle.

In some ways, Muslims don’t live much differently from non-Muslims. They go to work, shop, play, get married, spend time with family and friends much as anyone else. The differences come in their attitude toward their daily activities.

Dedicated Muslims know that everything they do in conformance to God’s laws is an act of worship that will be rewarded if it is done with the intention of pleasing God. Even having intercourse with one’s spouse will be rewarded.

The most obvious manifestation of Muslims’ belief is the performance of five daily Prayers called salah. Muslims should schedule their activities around the Prayers and also try to keep God in mind throughout the day. This may be the biggest change in your friend’s lifestyle, as it probably will entail getting up earlier than he is accustomed, finding a place to pray at work, and changing the daily schedule a bit, especially on Fridays when he must attend the congregational Jumu`ah Prayer in a mosque. But the personal relationship with God—with no intermediaries—is all-important and must be begun from the start.

Muslims should also develop their character. They should be kind, generous, honest, trustworthy, and hard-working. Your friend probably has at least some of these qualities already, and he should work on improving himself.

From my own experience, I feel that the main difference between myself and my non-Muslim (Christian) family is our attitude toward God. As a Muslim I recognize God’s majesty and His right to make laws and to be obeyed. For my family, God is someone they ask help from and someone they worship on Sundays, but His laws don’t really have much place in their lives. For sure, they don’t murder, steal, or cheat; but they accept pre-marital sex and homosexuality as just a part of modern life. “Times change.” If my experience can be generalized—and for sure there are exceptions on both sides—then if your friend accepts Islam, he should expect to live his life differently because he wants to develop his relationship with God and keep in touch with Him.

A big change for many new Muslims is in how they spend their leisure time. They can’t drink with their old friends, or be around others when they are drinking. So unless their old friends are willing to meet without alcohol, new Muslims are often lonely. I hope that the mosques near him will have supportive programs for new Muslims to help them make new friends and adjust to the many changes they have to make.

Of course, there will likely be changes in diet. Your friend will have to avoid pork and pork products and any non-halal meat. I’m not a scholar of fiqh, so I won’t try to define halal meat in Europe; there are various opinions on the subject of what exactly is and is not allowed for Muslims. But meat that is slaughtered by Islamic ritual should be widely available in Europe now, I think.

Your friend might also need to change his occupation if it conflicts with Islamic law. For example, Muslims are not only forbidden to drink alcohol, but they are also forbidden to manufacture, distribute, transport, sell, or serve alcohol. There are some occupations that deal with riba (interest) that are forbidden. You can check with our Fatwa section for more on that.

Islam does attempt to deal with all aspects of life, but at the practical level we must realize that that is not always possible today. Many of the laws in Muslim countries conflict with Islamic Law (Shari`ah), and where Muslims are a minority they cannot always apply Shari`ah.

Still, we must strive to live in accordance with God’s laws as best we can. It should remain our ultimate goal as a Muslim Ummah (nation) to establish justice and live by the Shari`ah. The lives of the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) and his Companions can give us guidance and inspiration, but when questions arise on how to deal with certain situations, Muslims should turn to someone educated in Islamic fiqh (jurisprudence) for answers. There are many books written that discuss the basics of an Islamic society.

http://www.islamonline.net

Islam Indonesia sebenarnya Islam Syiah

Pada suatu waktu ketika keturunan dinasti fatimiah mulai terdesak oleh kelompok sunni, pascatragedi padang karbala. kelompok yang pro dengan fatimah ra, Ali ra, hasan, husein berkumpul di hadramaut, Yaman, negeri asal para habaib dan syarifah.

setelah mengalami keterdesakan, mereka berkomitmen bahwa di luar mereka akan mengikuti ajaran sunny, tetapi mereka tetap meyakini tradisi syiah mereka. kelompok itulah yang kemudian membawa Islam ke Indonesia melalui Maulana Malik Ibrahim dan beberapa orang waliyullah lainnya. bahkan walisanga yang ada di tanah jawa, mayoritas dari mereka berasal dari kalangan syiah, kecuali kelompok kali jaga yang asli Jawa.

mayoritas sunni di Indonesia bermadzhab syafii, sedangkan sunni di negeri lain malah tidak seberapa. asumsi ini menjadi kuat karena setelah diperhatikan ternyata tradisi sunni di Indonesia berbeda dengan sunni di negeri lain. tradisi ziarah kubur, mengirim surah al-fatihah untuk orang yang telah meninggal dunia, 7 hari dan 40 hari orang meninggal (selain di hindu jawa), rabu wekasan atau keluar pada hari rabu terakhir pada bulan shafar untuk mengerjakan shalat tasbih dan menolak bala, itu semua adalah tradisi syiah yang disunnikan. penguat lain ialah tradisi membaca maulid al-barzanzi terutama dikalangan para habaib, yang di dalamnya sebenarnya terdapat pujian untuk ke-12 imam syiah. orang syiah pun sampai terheran-heran, mengapa orang Indonesia yang mengaku sunni justru setiap datang malam jumat malah mengingat-ingat ke 12 imam syiah, melalui bacaan al-barzanzi.

tradisi syiah sebenarnya mulai mengalami distorsi semenjak masuk ke tanah melayu, salah satunya adalah munculnya syiah qamaratiah.

untuk lebih lengkapnya silakan baca beberapa hasil riset yang dilakukan oleh beberapa peneliti LIPI, terutama hasil penelitian abubakar aceh, dan ada satu edisi tentang syiah di Indonesia pada majalah Ulumul Quran, tulisan di majalah ini mudah untuk kita pahami alur pikirnya.

Gus Dur pun pernah berkomentar, bahwa secara kultural NU sebenarnya mengerjakan tradisi-tradisi syiah.

Wallahu'alam

Wahyudi Djafar
(seorang yang dibesarkan dalam tradisi sunni NU)

Kara Ben Nemsi IV: Kafilah Maut

Numpang tanya. Apakah upacara Tabuik di Sumatra Barat juga peninggalan Syiah yang masih dilestarikan?

#Yang berikut dicuplik dari buku "Kara Ben Nemsi IV: Kafilah Maut" (un-edited version), karangan si tukang membual: Karl May (1842-1912). Indonesia jelas disebut-sebut. Soal benar-tidaknya nggak janji de:
==============

Ali meninggalkan dua orang putra, Hassan dan Hosseïn. Kaum Syiah memilih si putra sulung sebagai kalifah, sementara kaum Sunnah memilih Muawiyah pertama, sang pendiri Dinasti Ummayyah. Ia memindahkan tempat tinggalnya ke Damaskus, mengubah kedudukan kalifah menjadi kedudukan turun-temurun. Semasa hidupnya, ia begitu dikagumi oleh putranya, Jezid, yang di kemudian hari ternyata menjadi penguasa zalim hingga namanya dikutuk kaum Sunnah. Hassan tak mampu bersaing dengan kaum Muawiyah dan meninggal di Medinah pada 670 M karena diracuni.

Adiknya, Hosseïn, menolak mengakui Jezid sebagai kalifah. Ia adalah tokoh utama dari salah satu babak paling menyedihkan dalam sejarah Islam.

Kezaliman Kalifah Muawiyah ini terutama berlangsung di provinsi-provinsi kerajaan. Para gubernur mendukungnya dengan segenap kekuasaan mereka. Sebagai contoh, Zijad, gubernur Basra, yang memerintahkan agar setiap orang yang masih berada di jalan-jalan setelah malam hari harus dihukum mati. Malam pertama setelah perintah ini diturunkan, 200 orang ditemukan di luar rumah dan segera dipenggal. Malam berikutnya, jumlah itu jauh lebih sedikit dan pada malam ketiga, tak seorang pun ditemukan di jalan. Yang paling mengerikan di antara para pejabat Ummayyah adalah Hadjasch, gubernur Kufa yang pada masa pemerintahannya, telah membunuh 120.000 orang.
Jezid, putra Muawiyah, bahkan lebih bengis lagi. Pada masa pemerintahan monster ini, Hosseïn tinggal di Mekkah. Di sana ia menerima utusan dari Kufa yang memaksanya ikut bersamanya karena ingin mengangkatnya sebagai kalifah. Ia menerima undangan yang ternyata membawa maut ini.

Hanya diiringi kurang dari seratus orang pengikut setia, ia tiba di Kufa, tetapi mendapati bahwa kota itu diduduki musuh. Ia berusaha berunding namun sia-sia. Persediaan makanannya menipis, air minumnya kering karena terik matahari, hewan tunggangannya mati, dan maut terpancar dari sorot mata para pengikutnya yang cekung dan menderita. Ia berseru kepada Allah dan Nabi memohon bantuan namun tanpa hasil. Kehancurannya sudah tersurat dalam kitab takdir. Obeïd ‘Allah, panglima tentara Jezid, menyerangnya di luar kota Kerbela dan membantai kelompoknya habis-habisan. Hosseïn sendiri tak diberi ampun. Ia lemah karena kekurangan air dan kematian sudah dekat. Tetapi ia tetap tak diampuni. Dengan sisa kekuatannya, ia mempertahankan nyawanya yang sekarat. Kepalanya dipancung dan ditancapkan pada tombak dan diarak dengan penuh kemenangan.

Semua itu terjadi pada 10 Muharram. Hingga kini pun kaum Syiah menganggapnya sebagai hari berkabung. Di Hindustan, gambar kepala Husain yang ditancapkan pada ujung tombak diarak, sebagaimana yang berlangsung setelah kematiannya. Dengan menggunakan tapal kuda yang terbuat dari logam berharga, peristiwa pelariannya dilakonkan kembali. Pada 10 Muharram, suara tangis kesedihan bergema dari Kalimantan hingga Sulawesi, menyeberang ke India dan Parsi hingga tanah Magribi [tanah di barat] di Asia, tempat yang dihuni oleh sedikit penganut Syiah yang terpenar-pencar. Pada hari ini pun, ada drama yang dipentaskan di Kerbela, suatu adegan yang tak dapat dilukiskan, bahkan dalam imajinasi terliar. Celakalah para pengikut Sunnah, celakalah para giaur yang memperlihatkan muka di Kerbela, di tengah-tengah kerumunan kaum Syiah yang larut dalam kemarahan. Orang itu akan habis dicabik-cabik!

Tangkal Negara Islam, Ponpes Ngalah Terbitkan Buku

Salah satu contoh Phobia Syariat ISLAM


Berita Pesantren
Tangkal Negara Islam, Ponpes Ngalah Terbitkan Buku


Pasuruan, wahidinstitute.org
Didorong keprihatinan yang mendalam terhadap masalah bangsa saat ini, Pengasuh Pondok Pesantren (Ponpes) Ngalah Sengonagung Purwosari Pasuruan Jawa Timur, KH. M. Sholeh Bahruddin menggagas penerbitan dua buah buku; Buku Pedoman Santri Darut Taqwa dalam Berbangsa dan Bernegara dan Piagam Madinah; Rujukan Kehidupan Berbangsa dan Bernegara. Keduanya diterbitkan secara swadaya oleh Ponpes Ngalah.

Dalam rilis yang dikirimkan oleh Pergerakan Mahasiswa Islam Indonesia (PMII) Komisariat Ngalah ke redaksi wahidinstitute.org, Kamis (17/07/2008), kedua buku ini digagas oleh KH. Soleh sebagai pedoman dan pegangan wajib bagi seluruh santri Ponpes Ngalah yang jumlahnya puluhan ribu.

"Ini karena kekhawatiran Romo Kyai (KH. Soleh, red.) atas maraknya gerakan yang ingin menjadikan negara ini sebagai negara Islam. Untuk itu, beliau berusaha menangkalnya dimulai dari ponpes yang beliau asuh," tulis rilis itu.

Dalam salah satu pengantarnya, KH. Soleh menulis, suatu ketika dirinya menyuruh para santrinya untuk menerjemahkan kitab Sirah Nabawiyyah Juz III halaman 31-35, yang berisi point-point Mitsaq Madinah (Piagam Madinah). Menurutnya, penerjemahan ini diniati untuk memantapkan keberadaan dasar negara Pancasila dan UUD 1945.

"Di masa Rasulullah, pemerintahan yang dipimpin beliau bukanlah Negara Islam. Ini terbukti melalui adanya Piagam Madinah," tulis Kiai Soleh.

Diharapkan, terbitnya buku ini kian memantapkan eksistensi keislaman a la Indonesia, keislaman yang tetap berpegang teguh pada dasar-dasar negara ini dan keislaman yang sesuai akar tradisi bangsa ini.[nhm]

===============
My comment :
Ponpes semacam itu tidak layak lagi menyandang nama Lembaga Pendidikan Islam. Karena nyata-nyata tidak mengarahkan murid-muridnya untuk berISLAM secara KAAFFAH.

===============

Misconception: Islam degrades women

Misconception: Islam degrades women


Even though many aspects of Islam are misunderstood by non-Muslims, the ignorance, misinformation and incorrect assumptions that are made in regards to Islam's treatment of women are probably the most severe. Numerous verses of the Qur'an make it clear that men and women are equal in the site of God. According to the teachings of Islam, the only thing that distinguishes people in the site of God is their level of God-consciousness. Due to this, many people are surprised to find out that Islamic Law guaranteed rights to women over 1400 years ago that women in the Europe and America only obtained recently. For example, Islam clearly teaches that a woman is a full-person under the law, and is the spiritual equal of a male. Also, according to Islamic Law, women have the right to own property, operate a business and receive equal pay for equal work. Women are allowed total control of their wealth, they cannot be married against their will and they are allowed
to keep their own name when married. Additionally, they have the right to inherit property and to have their marriage dissolved in the case of neglect or mistreatment. Also, Islam does not consider woman an "evil temptress", and thus does not blame woman for the "original sin". Women in Islam participate in all forms of worship that men participate in. Actually, the rights that Islam gave to women over 1400 years ago were almost unheard of in the West until the 1900s. Less than fifty years ago in England and America, a woman could not buy a house or car without the co-signature of her father or husband! Additionally, Islam gives great respect to women and their role in society --- it gives them the right to own property, marry who they want and many other rights. Also, it should be mentioned that the Prophet Muhammad's mission stopped many of the horrible practices in regards to women that were present in the society of his time. For example, the Qur'an
put an end to the pagan Arab practice of killing their baby daughters when they were born. Additionally, Islam put restrictions on the unrestricted polygamy of the Arabs of the time, and put many laws in place to protect the well-being of women. Today, most of the so-called reforms in the status of women came about after the West abandoned religion for secularism. Even those in the West who claim to follow the so-called "Judeo-Christian tradition" really follow the values of Western liberalism --- but just to a lesser degree than their more liberal countrymen. For more on this subject, please read: Women in Islam versus Women in the Judaeo-Christian Tradition --- The Myth and The Reality.

If women in the Muslim World today don't have their rights, it is not because Islam did not give them to them. The problem is that in many places alien traditions have come to overshadow the teachings of Islam, either through ignorance or the impact of Colonialization.



" DON'T DARE TO BE DIFFERENT JUST DARE TO BE YOURSELF !!"

EVE'S FAULT ?

EVE'S FAULT ?WOMEN IN ISLAM VERSUS WOMEN IN THE JUDAEO-CHRISTIAN TRA
Posted by: "salina salha" guidance4allofyou@yahoo.com

EVE'S FAULT ?

The three religions agree on one basic fact: Both women and men are created by God, The Creator of the whole universe. However, disagreement starts soon after the creation of the first man, Adam, and the first woman, Eve. The Judaeo-Christian conception of the creation of Adam and Eve is narrated in detail in Genesis 2:4-3:24. God prohibited both of them from eating the fruits of the forbidden tree. The serpent seduced Eve to eat from it and Eve, in turn, seduced Adam to eat with her. When God rebuked Adam for what he did, he put all the blame on Eve, "The woman you put here with me --she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it." Consequently, God said to Eve:

"I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you."

To Adam He said:

"Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree .... Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life..."

The Islamic conception of the first creation is found in several places in the Quran, for example:

"O Adam dwell with your wife in the Garden and enjoy as you wish but approach not this tree or you run into harm and transgression. Then Satan whispered to them in order to reveal to them their shame that was hidden from them and he said: 'Your Lord only forbade you this tree lest you become angels or such beings as live forever.' And he swore to them both that he was their sincere adviser. So by deceit he brought them to their fall: when they tasted the tree their shame became manifest to them and they began to sew together the leaves of the Garden over their bodies. And their Lord called unto them: 'Did I not forbid you that tree and tell you that Satan was your avowed enemy?' They said: 'Our Lord we have wronged our own souls and if You forgive us not and bestow not upon us Your Mercy, we shall certainly be lost' " (7:19:23).

A careful look into the two accounts of the story of the Creation reveals some essential differences. The Quran, contrary to the Bible, places equal blame on both Adam and Eve for their mistake. Nowhere in the Quran can one find even the slightest hint that Eve tempted Adam to eat from the tree or even that she had eaten before him. Eve in the Quran is no temptress, no seducer, and no deceiver. Moreover, Eve is not to be blamed for the pains of childbearing. God, according to the Quran, punishes no one for another's faults. Both Adam and Eve committed a sin and then asked God for forgiveness and He forgave them both.

EVE'S LEGACY ?

EVE'S LEGACY ?
WOMEN IN ISLAM VERSUS WOMEN IN THE JUDAEO-CHRISTIAN TR
Posted by: "salina salha" guidance4allofyou@yahoo.com


The image of Eve as temptress in the Bible has resulted in an extremely negative impact on women throughout the Judaeo-Christian tradition. All women were believed to have inherited from their mother, the Biblical Eve, both her guilt and her guile. Consequently, they were all untrustworthy, morally inferior, and wicked. Menstruation, pregnancy, and childbearing were considered the just punishment for the eternal guilt of the cursed female sex. In order to appreciate how negative the impact of the Biblical Eve was on all her female descendants we have to look at the writings of some of the most important Jews and Christians of all time. Let us start with the Old Testament and look at excerpts from what is called the Wisdom Literature in which we find:

"I find more bitter than death the woman who is a snare, whose heart is a trap and whose hands are chains. The man who pleases God will escape her, but the sinner she will ensnare....while I was still searching but not finding, I found one upright man among a thousand but not one upright woman among them all" (Ecclesiastes 7:26-28).

In another part of the Hebrew literature which is found in the Catholic Bible we read:
"No wickedness comes anywhere near the wickedness of a woman.....Sin began with a woman and thanks to her we all must die" (Ecclesiasticus 25:19,24).

Jewish Rabbis listed nine curses inflicted on women as a result of the Fall:

"To the woman He gave nine curses and death: the burden of the blood of menstruation and the blood of virginity; the burden of pregnancy; the burden of childbirth; the burden of bringing up the children; her head is covered as one in mourning; she pierces her ear like a permanent slave or slave girl who serves her master; she is not to be believed as a witness; and after everything-- death."


To the present day, orthodox Jewish men in their daily morning prayer recite "Blessed be God King of the universe that Thou has not made me a woman." The women, on the other hand, thank God every morning for "making me according to Thy will." 3 Another prayer found in many Jewish prayer books: "Praised be God that he has not created me a gentile. Praised be God that he has not created me a woman. Praised be God that he has not created me an ignoramus."


The Biblical Eve has played a far bigger role in Christianity than in Judaism. Her sin has been pivotal to the whole Christian faith because the Christian conception of the reason for the mission of Jesus Christ on Earth stems from Eve's disobedience to God. She had sinned and then seduced Adam to follow her suit. Consequently, God expelled both of them from Heaven to Earth, which had been cursed because of them. They bequeathed their sin, which had not been forgiven by God, to all their descendants and, thus, all humans are born in sin. In order to purify human beings from their 'original sin', God had to sacrifice Jesus, who is considered to be the Son of God, on the cross. Therefore, Eve is responsible for her own mistake, her husband's sin, the original sin of all humanity, and the death of the Son of God. In other words, one woman acting on her own caused the fall of humanity. 5 What about her daughters? They are sinners like her and have to be
treated as such. Listen to the severe tone of St. Paul in the New Testament:

"A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I don't permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner" (I Timothy 2:11-14).

St. Tertullian was even more blunt than St. Paul, while he was talking to his 'best beloved sisters' in the faith, he said: 6

"Do you not know that you are each an Eve? The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age: the guilt must of necessity live too. You are the Devil's gateway: You are the unsealer of the forbidden tree: You are the first deserter of the divine law: You are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God's image, man. On account of your desert even the Son of God had to die."
St. Augustine was faithful to the legacy of his predecessors, he wrote to a friend:

"What is the difference whether it is in a wife or a mother, it is still Eve the temptress that we must beware of in any woman......I fail to see what use woman can be to man, if one excludes the function of bearing children."

Centuries later, St. Thomas Aquinas still considered women as defective:

"As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active force in the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of woman comes from a defect in the active force or from some material indisposition, or even from some external influence."

Finally, the renowned reformer Martin Luther could not see any benefit from a woman but bringing into the world as many children as possible regardless of any side effects:
"If they become tired or even die, that does not matter. Let them die in childbirth, that's why they are there"

Again and again all women are denigrated because of the image of Eve the temptress, thanks to the Genesis account. To sum up, the Judaeo-Christian conception of women has been poisoned by the belief in the sinful nature of Eve and her female offspring.
If we now turn our attention to what the Quran has to say about women, we will soon realize that the Islamic conception of women is radically different from the Judaeo-Christian one. Let the Quran speak for itself:

"For Muslim men and women, for believing men and women, for devout men and women, for true men and women, for men and women who are patient, for men and women who humble themselves, for men and women who give in charity, for men and women who fast, for men and women who guard their chastity, and for men and women who engage much in Allah's praise-- For them all has Allah prepared forgiveness and great reward" (33:35).

"The believers, men and women, are protectors, one of another: they enjoin what is just, and forbid what is evil, they observe regular prayers, practise regular charity, and obey Allah and His Messenger. On them will Allah pour His Mercy: for Allah is Exalted in power, Wise" (9:71).

"And their Lord answered them: Truly I will never cause to be lost the work of any of you, Be you a male or female, you are members one of another" (3:195).

"Whoever works evil will not be requited but by the like thereof, and whoever works a righteous deed -whether man or woman- and is a believer- such will enter the Garden of bliss" (40:40).

"Whoever works righteousness, man or woman, and has faith, verily to him/her we will give a new life that is good and pure, and we will bestow on such their reward according to the best of their actions" (16:97).

It is clear that the Quranic view of women is no different than that of men. They, both, are God's creatures whose sublime goal on earth is to worship their Lord, do righteous deeds, and avoid evil and they, both, will be assessed accordingly. The Quran never mentions that the woman is the devil's gateway or that she is a deceiver by nature. The Quran, also, never mentions that man is God's image; all men and all women are his creatures, that is all. According to the Quran, a woman's role on earth is not limited only to childbirth. She is required to do as many good deeds as any other man is required to do. The Quran never says that no upright women have ever existed. To the contrary, the Quran has instructed all the believers, women as well as men, to follow the example of those ideal women such as the Virgin Mary and the Pharoah's wife:

"And Allah sets forth, As an example to those who believe, the wife of Pharaoh: Behold she said: 'O my lord build for me, in nearness to you, a mansion in the Garden, and save me from Pharaoh and his doings and save me from those who do wrong.' And Mary the daughter of Imran who guarded her chastity and We breathed into her body of Our spirit; and she testified to the truth of the words of her Lord and of His revelations and was one of the devout" (66:11-13).

SHAMEFUL DAUGHTERS-2 ?

SHAMEFUL DAUGHTERS-2 ?
Posted by: "salina salha" guidance4allofyou@yahoo.com


In fact, the difference between the Biblical and the Quranic attitude towards the female sex starts as soon as a female is born. For example, the Bible states that the period of the mother's ritual impurity is twice as long if a girl is born than if a boy is (Lev. 12:2-5). The Catholic Bible states explicitly that:

"The birth of a daughter is a loss" (Ecclesiasticus 22:3).

In contrast to this shocking statement, boys receive special praise:

"A man who educates his son will be the envy of his enemy." (Ecclesiasticus 30:3)

Jewish Rabbis made it an obligation on Jewish men to produce offspring in order to propagate the race. At the same time, they did not hide their clear preference for male children : "It is well for those whose children are male but ill for those whose are female", "At the birth of a boy, all are joyful...at the birth of a girl all are sorrowful", and "When a boy comes into the world, peace comes into the world... When a girl comes, nothing comes."7
A daughter is considered a painful burden, a potential source of shame to her father:
"Your daughter is headstrong? Keep a sharp look-out that she does not make you the laughing stock of your enemies, the talk of the town, the object of common gossip, and put you to public shame" (Ecclesiasticus 42:11).

"Keep a headstrong daughter under firm control, or she will abuse any indulgence she receives. Keep a strict watch on her shameless eye, do not be surprised if she disgraces you" (Ecclesiasticus 26:10-11).

It was this very same idea of treating daughters as sources of shame that led the pagan Arabs, before the advent of Islam, to practice female infanticide. The Quran severely condemned this heinous practice:

"When news is brought to one of them of the birth of a female child, his face darkens and he is filled with inward grief. With shame does he hide himself from his people because of the bad news he has had! Shall he retain her on contempt or bury her in the dust? Ah! what an evil they decide on?" (16:59).

It has to be mentioned that this sinister crime would have never stopped in Arabia were it not for the power of the scathing terms the Quran used to condemn this practice (16:59, 43:17, 81:8-9). The Quran, moreover, makes no distinction between boys and girls. In contrast to the Bible, the Quran considers the birth of a female as a gift and a blessing from God, the same as the birth of a male. The Quran even mentions the gift of the female birth first:
" To Allah belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth. He creates what He wills. He bestows female children to whomever He wills and bestows male children to whomever He wills" (42:49).

In order to wipe out all the traces of female infanticide in the nascent Muslim society, Prophet Muhammad promised those who were blessed with daughters of a great reward if they would bring them up kindly:

"He who is involved in bringing up daughters, and accords benevolent treatment towards them, they will be protection for him against Hell-Fire" (Bukhari and Muslim).
"Whoever maintains two girls till they attain maturity, he and I will come on the Resurrection Day like this; and he joined his fingers" (Muslim).
" DON'T DARE TO BE DIFFERENT JUST DARE TO BE YOURSELF !!"

SHAMEFUL DAUGHTERS ?

SHAMEFUL DAUGHTERS ?
Posted by: "salina salha" guidance4allofyou@yahoo.com



The difference between the Biblical and the Quranic conceptions of women is not limited to the newly born female, it extends far beyond that. Let us compare their attitudes towards a female trying to learn her religion. The heart of Judaism is the Torah, the law. However, according to the Talmud, "women are exempt from the study of the Torah." Some Jewish Rabbis firmly declared "Let the words of Torah rather be destroyed by fire than imparted to women", and "Whoever teaches his daughter Torah is as though he taught her obscenity"8
The attitude of St. Paul in the New Testament is not brighter:


"As in all the congregations of the saints, women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church." (I Corinthians 14:34-35)


How can a woman learn if she is not allowed to speak? How can a woman grow intellectually if she is obliged to be in a state of full submission? How can she broaden her horizons if her one and only source of information is her husband at home?


Now, to be fair, we should ask: is the Quranic position any different? One short story narrated in the Quran sums its position up concisely. Khawlah was a Muslim woman whose husband Aws pronounced this statement at a moment of anger: "You are to me as the back of my mother." This was held by pagan Arabs to be a statement of divorce which freed the husband from any conjugal responsibility but did not leave the wife free to leave the husband's home or to marry another man. Having heard these words from her husband, Khawlah was in a miserable situation. She went straight to the Prophet of Islam to plead her case. The Prophet was of the opinion that she should be patient since there seemed to be no way out. Khawla kept arguing with the Prophet in an attempt to save her suspended marriage. Shortly, the Quran intervened; Khawla's plea was accepted. The divine verdict abolished this iniquitous custom. One full chapter (Chapter 58) of the Quran whose title is
"Almujadilah" or "The woman who is arguing" was named after this incident:

"Allah has heard and accepted the statement of the woman who pleads with you (the Prophet) concerning her husband and carries her complaint to Allah, and Allah hears the arguments between both of you for Allah hears and sees all things...." (58:1).

A woman in the Quranic conception has the right to argue even with the Prophet of Islam himself. No one has the right to instruct her to be silent. She is under no obligation to consider her husband the one and only reference in matters of law and religion.

UNCLEAN IMPURE WOMAN ?

UNCLEAN IMPURE WOMAN ?
Posted by: "salina salha" guidance4allofyou@yahoo.com



Jewish laws and regulations concerning menstruating women are extremely restrictive. The Old Testament considers any menstruating woman as unclean and impure. Moreover, her impurity "infects" others as well. Anyone or anything she touches becomes unclean for a day:

"When a woman has her regular flow of blood, the impurity of her monthly period will last seven days, and anyone who touches her will be unclean till evening. Anything she lies on during her period will be unclean, and anything she sits on will be unclean. Whoever touches her bed must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean till evening. Whoever touches anything she sits on must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean till evening. Whether it is the bed or anything she was sitting on, when anyone touches it, he will be unclean till evening" (Lev. 15:19-23).
Due to her "contaminating" nature, a menstruating woman was sometimes "banished" in order to avoid any possibility of any contact with her. She was sent to a special house called "the house of uncleanness" for the whole period of her impurity. 9 The Talmud considers a menstruating woman "fatal" even without any physical contact:
"Our Rabbis taught:....if a menstruant woman passes between two (men), if it is at the beginning of her menses she will slay one of them, and if it is at the end of her menses she will cause strife between them" (bPes. 111a.)

Furthermore, the husband of a menstruous woman was forbidden to enter the synagogue if he had been made unclean by her even by the dust under her feet. A priest whose wife, daughter, or mother was menstruating could not recite priestly blessing in the synagogue. 10 No wonder many Jewish women still refer to menstruation as "the curse."


Islam does not consider a menstruating woman to possess any kind of "contagious uncleanness" . She is neither "untouchable" nor "cursed." She practises her normal life with only one restriction: A married couple are not allowed to have sexual intercourse during the period of menstruation. Any other physical contact between them is permissible. A menstruating woman is exempted from some rituals such as daily prayers and fasting during her period.

BEARING WITNESS

BEARING WITNESS
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Another issue in which the Quran and the Bible disagree is the issue of women bearing witness. It is true that the Quran has instructed the believers dealing in financial transactions to get two male witnesses or one male and two females (2:282). However, it is also true that the Quran in other situations accepts the testimony of a woman as equal to that of a man. In fact the woman's testimony can even invalidate the man's. If a man accuses his wife of unchastity, he is required by the Quran to solemnly swear five times as evidence of the wife's guilt. If the wife denies and swears similarly five times, she is not considered guilty and in either case the marriage is dissolved (24:6-11).


On the other hand, women were not allowed to bear witness in early Jewish society.


The Rabbis counted women's not being able to bear witness among the nine curses inflicted upon all women because of the Fall (see the "Eve's Legacy" section). Women in today's Israel are not allowed to give evidence in Rabbinical courts. 13 The Rabbis justify why women cannot bear witness by citing Genesis 18:9-16, where it is stated that Sara, Abraham's wife had lied. The Rabbis use this incident as evidence that women are unqualified to bear witness. It should be noted here that this story narrated in Genesis 18:9-16 has been mentioned more than once in the Quran without any hint of any lies by Sara (11:69-74, 51:24-30). In the Christian West, both ecclesiastical and civil law debarred women from giving testimony until late last century.


If a man accuses his wife of unchastity, her testimony will not be considered at all according to the Bible. The accused wife has to be subjected to a trial by ordeal. In this trial, the wife faces a complex and humiliating ritual which was supposed to prove her guilt or innocence (Num. 5:11-31). If she is found guilty after this ordeal, she will be sentenced to death. If she is found not guilty, her husband will be innocent of any wrongdoing.
Besides, if a man takes a woman as a wife and then accuses her of not being a virgin, her own testimony will not count. Her parents had to bring evidence of her virginity before the elders of the town. If the parents could not prove the innocence of their daughter, she would be stoned to death on her father's doorsteps. If the parents were able to prove her innocence, the husband would only be fined one hundred shekels of silver and he could not divorce his wife as long as he lived:


"If a man takes a wife and, after lying with her, dislikes her and slanders her and gives her a bad name, saying, 'I married this woman, but when I approached her, I did not find proof of her virginity,' then the girl's father and mother shall bring proof that she was a virgin to the town elders at the gate. The girl's father will say to the elders, 'I gave my daughter in marriage to this man, but he dislikes her. Now he has slandered her and said I did not find your daughter to be a virgin. But here is the proof of my daughter's virginity.' Then her parents shall display the cloth before the elders of the town, and the elders shall take the man and punish him. They shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give them to the girl's father, because this man has given an Israelite virgin a bad name. She shall continue to be his wife; he must not divorce her as long as he lives. If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the girl's virginity can be
found, she shall be brought to the door of her father's house and there the men of the town shall stone her to death. She has done a disgraceful thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father's house. You must purge the evil from among you." (Deuteronomy 22:13-21)

ADULTERY

ADULTERY
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Adultery is considered a sin in all religions. The Bible decrees the death sentence for both the adulterer and the adulteress (Lev. 20:10). Islam also equally punishes both the adulterer and the adulteress (24:2). However, the Quranic definition of adultery is very different from the Biblical definition. Adultery, according to the Quran, is the involvement of a married man or a married woman in an extramarital affair. The Bible only considers the extramarital affair of a married woman as adultery (Leviticus 20:10, Deuteronomy 22:22, Proverbs 6:20-7:27).
"If a man is found sleeping with another man's wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die. You must purge the evil from Israel" (Deut. 22:22).

"If a man commits adultery with another man's wife both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death" (Lev. 20:10).

According to the Biblical definition, if a married man sleeps with an unmarried woman, this is not considered a crime at all. The married man who has extramarital affairs with unmarried women is not an adulterer and the unmarried women involved with him are not adulteresses. The crime of adultery is committed only when a man, whether married or single, sleeps with a married woman. In this case the man is considered adulterer, even if he is not married, and the woman is considered adulteress. In short, adultery is any illicit sexual intercourse involving a married woman. The extramarital affair of a married man is not per se a crime in the Bible. Why is the dual moral standard? According to Encyclopaedia Judaica, the wife was considered to be the husband's possession and adultery constituted a violation of the husband's exclusive right to her; the wife as the husband's possession had no such right to him. 15 That is, if a man had sexual intercourse with a
married woman, he would be violating the property of another man and, thus, he should be punished.

To the present day in Israel, if a married man indulges in an extramarital affair with an unmarried woman, his children by that woman are considered legitimate. But, if a married woman has an affair with another man, whether married or not married, her children by that man are not only illegitimate but they are considered bastards and are forbidden to marry any other Jews except converts and other bastards. This ban is handed down to the children's descendants for 10 generations until the taint of adultery is presumably weakened.

The Quran, on the other hand, never considers any woman to be the possession of any man. The Quran eloquently describes the relationship between the spouses by saying:
" And among His signs is that He created for you mates from among yourselves, that you may dwell in tranquillity with them and He has put love and mercy between your hearts: verily in that are signs for those who reflect" (30:21).

This is the Quranic conception of marriage: love, mercy, and tranquillity, not possession and double standards.

VOWS

VOWS
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According to the Bible, a man must fulfil any vows he might make to God. He must not break his word. On the other hand, a woman's vow is not necessarily binding on her. It has to be approved by her father, if she is living in his house, or by her husband, if she is married. If a father/husband does not endorse his daughter's/wife' s vows, all pledges made by her become null and void:


"But if her father forbids her when he hears about it, none of her vows or the pledges by which she obligated herself will stand ....Her husband may confirm or nullify any vow she makes or any sworn pledge to deny herself" (Num. 30:2-15)


Why is it that a woman's word is not binding per se ? The answer is simple: because she is owned by her father, before marriage, or by her husband after marriage. The father's control over his daughter was absolute to the extent that, should he wish, he could sell her! It is indicated in the writings of the Rabbis that: "The man may sell his daughter, but the woman may not sell her daughter; the man may betroth his daughter, but the woman may not betroth her daughter." 17 The Rabbinic literature also indicates that marriage represents the transfer of control from the father to the husband: "betrothal, making a woman the sacrosanct possession-- the inviolable property-- of the husband..." Obviously, if the woman is considered to be the property of someone else, she cannot make any pledges that her owner does not approve of.


It is of interest to note that this Biblical instruction concerning women's vows has had negative repercussions on Judaeo-Christian women till early in this century. A married woman in the Western world had no legal status. No act of hers was of any legal value. Her husband could repudiate any contract, bargain, or deal she had made. Women in the West (the largest heir of the Judaeo-Christian legacy) were held unable to make a binding contract because they were practically owned by someone else. Western women had suffered for almost two thousand years because of the Biblical attitude towards women's position vis-à-vis their fathers and husbands.


In Islam, the vow of every Muslim, male or female, is binding on him/her. No one has the power to repudiate the pledges of anyone else. Failure to keep a solemn oath, made by a man or a woman, has to be expiated as indicated in the Quran:

"He [God] will call you to account for your deliberate oaths: for expiation, feed ten indigent persons, on a scale of the average for the food of your families; Or clothe them; or give a slave his freedom. If that is beyond your means, fast for three days. That is the expiation for the oaths you have sworn. But keep your oaths" (5:89).

Companions of the Prophet Muhammad, men and women, used to present their oath of allegiance to him personally. Women, as well as men, would independently come to him and pledge their oaths:

"O Prophet, When believing women come to you to make a covenant with you that they will not associate in worship anything with God, nor steal, nor fornicate, nor kill their own children, nor slander anyone, nor disobey you in any just matter, then make a covenant with them and pray to God for the forgiveness of their sins. Indeed God is Forgiving and most Merciful" (60:12).

A man could not swear the oath on behalf of his daughter or his wife. Nor could a man repudiate the oath made by any of his female relatives.

WIFE'S PROPERTY ?

WIFE'S PROPERTY ?
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The three religions share an unshakeable belief in the importance of marriage and family life. They also agree on the leadership of the husband over the family. Nevertheless, blatant differences do exist among the three religions with respect to the limits of this leadership. The Judaeo-Christian tradition, unlike Islam, virtually extends the leadership of the husband into ownership of his wife.


The Jewish tradition regarding the husband's role towards his wife stems from the conception that he owns her as he owns his slave.

This conception has been the reason behind the double standard in the laws of adultery and behind the husband's ability to annul his wife's vows. This conception has also been responsible for denying the wife any control over her property or her earnings. As soon as a Jewish woman got married, she completely lost any control over her property and earnings to her husband. Jewish Rabbis asserted the husband's right to his wife's property as a corollary of his possession of her: "Since one has come into the possession of the woman does it not follow that he should come into the possession of her property too?", and "Since he has acquired the woman should he not acquire also her property?"

Thus, marriage caused the richest woman to become practically penniless. The Talmud describes the financial situation of a wife as follows:

"How can a woman have anything; whatever is hers belongs to her husband? What is his is his and what is hers is also his...... Her earnings and what she may find in the streets are also his. The household articles, even the crumbs of bread on the table, are his. Should she invite a guest to her house and feed him, she would be stealing from her husband..." (San. 71a, Git. 62a)


The fact of the matter is that the property of a Jewish female was meant to attract suitors. A Jewish family would assign their daughter a share of her father's estate to be used as a dowry in case of marriage. It was this dowry that made Jewish daughters an unwelcome burden to their fathers. The father had to raise his daughter for years and then prepare for her marriage by providing a large dowry. Thus, a girl in a Jewish family was a liability and no asset.

This liability explains why the birth of a daughter was not celebrated with joy in the old Jewish society (see the "Shameful Daughters?" section). The dowry was the wedding gift presented to the groom under terms of tenancy. The husband would act as the practical owner of the dowry but he could not sell it. The bride would lose any control over the dowry at the moment of marriage. Moreover, she was expected to work after marriage and all her earnings had to go to her husband in return for her maintenance which was his obligation. She could regain her property only in two cases: divorce or her husband's death. Should she die first, he would inherit her property. In the case of the husband's death, the wife could regain her pre-marital property but she was not entitled to inherit any share in her deceased husband's own property. It has to be added that the groom also had to present a marriage gift to his bride, yet again he was the practical owner of
this gift as long as they were married.


Christianity, until recently, has followed the same Jewish tradition. Both religious and civil authorities in the Christian Roman Empire (after Constantine) required a property agreement as a condition for recognizing the marriage. Families offered their daughters increasing dowries and, as a result, men tended to marry earlier while families postponed their daughters' marriages until later than had been customary.

Under Canon law, a wife was entitled to restitution of her dowry if the marriage was annulled unless she was guilty of adultery. In this case, she forfeited her right to the dowry which remained in her husband's hands.


Under Canon and civil law a married woman in Christian Europe and America had lost her property rights until late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For example, women's rights under English law were compiled and published in 1632. These 'rights' included: "That which the husband hath is his own. That which the wife hath is the husband's."

The wife not only lost her property upon marriage, she lost her personality as well. No act of her was of legal value. Her husband could repudiate any sale or gift made by her as being of no binding legal value. The person with whom she had any contract was held as a criminal for participating in a fraud. Moreover, she could not sue or be sued in her own name, nor could she sue her own husband.


A married woman was practically treated as an infant in the eyes of the law. The wife simply belonged to her husband and therefore she lost her property, her legal personality, and her family name.


Islam, since the seventh century C.E., has granted married women the independent personality which the Judaeo-Christian West had deprived them until very recently. In Islam, the bride and her family are under no obligation whatsoever to present a gift to the groom. The girl in a Muslim family is no liability. A woman is so dignified by Islam that she does not need to present gifts in order to attract potential husbands. It is the groom who must present the bride with a marriage gift. This gift is considered her property and neither the groom nor the bride's family have any share in or control over it. In some Muslim societies today, a marriage gift of a hundred thousand dollars in diamonds is not unusual.


The bride retains her marriage gifts even if she is later divorced. The husband is not allowed any share in his wife's property except what she offers him with her free consent.


The Quran has stated its position on this issue quite clearly:

"And give the women (on marriage) their dower as a free gift; but if they, Of their own good pleasure, remit any part of it to you, take it and enjoy it with right good cheer" (4:4)
The wife's property and earnings are under her full control and for her use alone since her, and the children's, maintenance is her husband's responsibility.


No matter how rich the wife might be, she is not obliged to act as a co-provider for the family unless she herself voluntarily chooses to do so. Spouses do inherit from one another. Moreover, a married woman in Islam retains her independent legal personality and her family name.

An American judge once commented on the rights of Muslim women saying: " A Muslim girl may marry ten times, but her individuality is not absorbed by that of her various husbands. She is a solar planet with a name and legal personality of her own."

DIVORCE

DIVORCE
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The three religions have remarkable differences in their attitudes towards divorce. Christianity abhors divorce altogether. The New Testament unequivocally advocates the indissolubility of marriage. It is attributed to Jesus to have said, "But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery" (Matthew 5:32). This uncompromising ideal is, without a doubt, unrealistic. It assumes a state of moral perfection that human societies have never achieved. When a couple realizes that their married life is beyond repair, a ban on divorce will not do them any good. Forcing ill-mated couples to remain together against their wills is neither effective nor reasonable. No wonder the whole Christian world has been obliged to sanction divorce.


Judaism, on the other hand, allows divorce even without any cause. The Old Testament gives the husband the right to divorce his wife even if he just dislikes her:


"If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, and if after she leaves his house she becomes the wife of another man, and her second husband dislikes her and writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, or if he dies, then her first husband, who divorced her, is not allowed to marry her again after she has been defiled" (Deut. 24:1-4).


The above verses have caused some considerable debate among Jewish scholars because of their disagreement over the interpretation of the words "displeasing" , "indecency", and "dislikes" mentioned in the verses. The Talmud records their different opinions:
"The school of Shammai held that a man should not divorce his wife unless he has found her guilty of some sexual misconduct, while the school of Hillel say he may divorce her even if she has merely spoiled a dish for him. Rabbi Akiba says he may divorce her even if he simply finds another woman more beautiful than she" (Gittin 90a-b).


The New Testament follows the Shammaites opinion while Jewish law has followed the opinion of the Hillelites and R. Akiba. 33 Since the Hillelites view prevailed, it became the unbroken tradition of Jewish law to give the husband freedom to divorce his wife without any cause at all. The Old Testament not only gives the husband the right to divorce his "displeasing" wife, it considers divorcing a "bad wife" an obligation:


"A bad wife brings humiliation, downcast looks, and a wounded heart. Slack of hand and weak of knee is the man whose wife fails to make him happy. Woman is the origin of sin, and it is through her that we all die. Do not leave a leaky cistern to drip or allow a bad wife to say what she likes. If she does not accept your control, divorce her and send her away" (Ecclesiasticus 25:25).


The Talmud has recorded several specific actions by wives which obliged their husbands to divorce them: "If she ate in the street, if she drank greedily in the street, if she suckled in the street, in every case Rabbi Meir says that she must leave her husband" (Git. 89a). The Talmud has also made it mandatory to divorce a barren wife (who bore no children in a period of ten years): "Our Rabbis taught: If a man took a wife and lived with her for ten years and she bore no child, he shall divorce her" (Yeb. 64a).



Wives, on the other hand, cannot initiate divorce under Jewish law. A Jewish wife, however, could claim the right to a divorce before a Jewish court provided that a strong reason exists. Very few grounds are provided for the wife to make a claim for a divorce. These grounds include: A husband with physical defects or skin disease, a husband not fulfilling his conjugal responsibilities, etc. The Court might support the wife's claim to a divorce but it cannot dissolve the marriage. Only the husband can dissolve the marriage by giving his wife a bill of divorce. The Court could scourge, fine, imprison, and excommunicate him to force him to deliver the necessary bill of divorce to his wife. However, if the husband is stubborn enough, he can refuse to grant his wife a divorce and keep her tied to him indefinitely. Worse still, he can desert her without granting her a divorce and leave her unmarried and undivorced. He can marry another woman or even live with
any single woman out of wedlock and have children from her (these children are considered legitimate under Jewish law). The deserted wife, on the other hand, cannot marry any other man since she is still legally married and she cannot live with any other man because she will be considered an adulteress and her children from this union will be illegitimate for ten generations. A woman in such a position is called an agunah (chained woman).


In the United States today there are approximately 1000 to 1500 Jewish women who are agunot (plural for agunah), while in Israel their number might be as high as 16000. Husbands may extort thousands of dollars from their trapped wives in exchange for a Jewish divorce.



Islam occupies the middle ground between Christianity and Judaism with respect to divorce. Marriage in Islam is a sanctified bond that should not be broken except for compelling reasons. Couples are instructed to pursue all possible remedies whenever their marriages are in danger. Divorce is not to be resorted to except when there is no other way out. In a nutshell, Islam recognizes divorce, yet it discourages it by all means. Let us focus on the recognition side first. Islam does recognize the right of both partners to end their matrimonial relationship. Islam gives the husband the right for Talaq (divorce). Moreover, Islam, unlike Judaism, grants the wife the right to dissolve the marriage through what is known as Khula'.

If the husband dissolves the marriage by divorcing his wife, he cannot retrieve any of the marriage gifts he has given her. The Quran explicitly prohibits the divorcing husbands from taking back their marriage gifts no matter how expensive or valuable these gifts might be:


"But if you decide to take one wife in place of another, even if you had given the latter a whole treasure for dower, take not the least bit of it back; Would you take it by slander and a manifest wrong?" (4:20).



In the case of the wife choosing to end the marriage, she may return the marriage gifts to her husband. Returning the marriage gifts in this case is a fair compensation for the husband who is keen to keep his wife while she chooses to leave him. The Quran has instructed Muslim men not to take back any of the gifts they have given to their wives except in the case of the wife choosing to dissolve the marriage:

"It is not lawful for you (Men) to take back any of your gifts except when both parties fear that they would be unable to keep the limits ordained by Allah. There is no blame on either of them if she give something for her freedom. These are the limits ordained by Allah so do not transgress them" (2:229).

Also, a woman came to the Prophet Muhammad seeking the dissolution of her marriage, she told the Prophet that she did not have any complaints against her husband's character or manners. Her only problem was that she honestly did not like him to the extent of not being able to live with him any longer. The Prophet asked her: "Would you give him his garden (the marriage gift he had given her) back?" she said: "Yes". The Prophet then instructed the man to take back his garden and accept the dissolution of the marriage (Bukhari).

In some cases, A Muslim wife might be willing to keep her marriage but find herself obliged to claim for a divorce because of some compelling reasons such as: Cruelty of the husband, desertion without a reason, a husband not fulfilling his conjugal responsibilities, etc. In these cases the Muslim court dissolves the marriage.



In short, Islam has offered the Muslim woman some unequalled rights: she can end the marriage through Khula' and she can sue for a divorce. A Muslim wife can never become chained by a recalcitrant husband. It was these rights that enticed Jewish women who lived in the early Islamic societies of the seventh century C.E. to seek to obtain bills of divorce from their Jewish husbands in Muslim courts. The Rabbis declared these bills null and void. In order to end this practice, the Rabbis gave new rights and privileges to Jewish women in an attempt to weaken the appeal of the Muslim courts. Jewish women living in Christian countries were not offered any similar privileges since the Roman law of divorce practiced there was no more attractive than the Jewish law.


Let us now focus our attention on how Islam discourages divorce. The Prophet of Islam told the believers that:

"among all the permitted acts, divorce is the most hateful to God" (Abu Dawood).
A Muslim man should not divorce his wife just because he dislikes her. The Quran instructs Muslim men to be kind to their wives even in cases of lukewarm emotions or feelings of dislike:

"Live with them (your wives) on a footing of kindness and equity. If you dislike them it may be that you dislike something in which Allah has placed a great deal of good" (4:19).
Prophet Muhammad gave a similar instruction:

" A believing man must not hate a believing woman. If he dislikes one of her traits he will be pleased with another" (Muslim).

The Prophet has also emphasized that the best Muslims are those who are best to their wives:

"The believers who show the most perfect faith are those who have the best character and the best of you are those who are best to their wives" (Tirmidthi).

However, Islam is a practical religion and it does recognize that there are circumstances in which a marriage becomes on the verge of collapsing. In such cases, a mere advice of kindness or self restraint is no viable solution. So, what to do in order to save a marriage in these cases? The Quran offers some practical advice for the spouse (husband or wife) whose partner (wife or husband) is the wrongdoer. For the husband whose wife's ill-conduct is threatening the marriage, the Quran gives four types of advice as detailed in the following verses:

"As to those women on whose part you fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, (1) Admonish them, (2) refuse to share their beds, (3) beat them; but if they return to obedience seek not against them means of annoyance: For Allah is Most High, Great. (4) If you fear a break between them, appoint two arbiters, one from his family and the other from hers; If they wish for peace, Allah will cause their reconciliation" (4:34-35).


The first three are to be tried first. If they fail, then the help of the families concerned should be sought. It has to be noted, in the light of the above verses, that beating the rebellious wife is a temporary measure that is resorted to as third in line in cases of extreme necessity in hopes that it might remedy the wrongdoing of the wife. If it does, the husband is not allowed by any means to continue any annoyance to the wife as explicitly mentioned in the verse. If it does not, the husband is still not allowed to use this measure any longer and the final avenue of the family-assisted reconciliation has to be explored.


Prophet Muhammad has instructed Muslim husbands that they should not have recourse to these measures except in extreme cases such as open lewdness committed by the wife. Even in these cases the punishment should be slight and if the wife desists, the husband is not permitted to irritate her:


"In case they are guilty of open lewdness you may leave them alone in their beds and inflict slight punishment. If they are obedient to you, do not seek against them any means of annoyance" (Tirmidthi)


Furthermore, the Prophet of Islam has condemned any unjustifiable beating. Some Muslim wives complained to him that their husbands had beaten them. Hearing that, the Prophet categorically stated that:


"Those who do so (beat their wives) are not the best among you" (Abu Dawood).
It has to be remembered at this point that the Prophet has also said:
"The best of you is he who is best to his family, and I am the best among you to my family" (Tirmidthi).

The Prophet advised one Muslim woman, whose name was Fatimah bint Qais, not to marry a man because the man was known for beating women:
"I went to the Prophet and said: Abul Jahm and Mu'awiah have proposed to marry me. The Prophet (by way of advice) said: As to Mu'awiah he is very poor and Abul Jahm is accustomed to beating women" (Muslim).


It has to be noted that the Talmud sanctions wife beating as chastisement for the purpose of discipline. 39 The husband is not restricted to the extreme cases such as those of open lewdness. He is allowed to beat his wife even if she just refuses to do her house work. Moreover, he is not limited only to the use of light punishment. He is permitted to break his wife's stubbornness by the lash or by starving her.


For the wife whose husband's ill-conduct is the cause for the marriage's near collapse, the Quran offers the following advice:

"If a wife fears cruelty or desertion on her husband's part, there is no blame on them if they arrange an amicable settlement between themselves; and such settlement is best" (4:128).

In this case, the wife is advised to seek reconciliation with her husband (with or without family assistance). It is notable that the Quran is not advising the wife to resort to the two measures of abstention from sex and beating. The reason for this disparity might be to protect the wife from a violent physical reaction by her already misbehaving husband. Such a violent physical reaction will do both the wife and the marriage more harm than good. Some Muslim scholars have suggested that the court can apply these measures against the husband on the wife's behalf. That is, the court first admonishes the rebellious husband, then forbids him his wife's bed, and finally executes a symbolic beating.


To sum up, Islam offers Muslim married couples much viable advice to save their marriages in cases of trouble and tension. If one of the partners is jeopardizing the matrimonial relationship, the other partner is advised by the Quran to do whatever possible and effective in order to save this sacred bond. If all the measures fail, Islam allows the partners to separate peacefully and amicably.

MOTHERS

MOTHERS
"salina salha" guidance4allofyou@yahoo.com


The Old Testament in several places commands kind and considerate treatment of the parents and condemns those who dishonor them. For example, "If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be put to death" (Lev. 20:9) and "A wise man brings joy to his father but a foolish man despises his mother" (Proverbs 15:20). Although honoring the father alone is mentioned in some places, e.g. "A wise man heeds his father's instruction" (Proverbs 13:1), the mother alone is never mentioned. Moreover, there is no special emphasis on treating the mother kindly as a sign of appreciation of her great suffering in childbearing and suckling. Besides, mothers do not inherit at all from their children while fathers do.


It is difficult to speak of the New Testament as a scripture that calls for honoring the mother. To the contrary, one gets the impression that the New Testament considers kind treatment of mothers as an impediment on the way to God. According to the New Testament, one cannot become a good Christian worthy of becoming a disciple of Christ unless he hates his mother. It is attributed to Jesus to have said:


"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters--yes, even his own life--he can not be my disciple" (Luke 14:26).

Furthermore, the New Testament depicts a picture of Jesus as indifferent to, or even disrespectful of, his own mother. For example, when she had come looking for him while he was preaching to a crowd, he did not care to go out to see her:

"Then Jesus' mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone to call him. A crowd was sitting around him and they told him, 'Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.' 'Who are my mother and my brothers?' he asked. Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said,' Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother.' " (Mark 3:31-35)

One might argue that Jesus was trying to teach his audience an important lesson that religious ties are no less important than family ties. However, he could have taught his listeners the same lesson without showing such absolute indifference to his mother. The same disrespectful attitude is depicted when he refused to endorse a statement made by a member of his audience blessing his mother's role in giving birth to him and nursing him:
"As Jesus was saying these things, a woman in the crowd called out, 'Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you.' He replied, 'Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.' " (Luke 11:27-28)

If a mother with the stature of the virgin Mary had been treated with such discourtesy, as depicted in the New Testament, by a son of the stature of Jesus Christ, then how should an average Christian mother be treated by her average Christian sons?

In Islam, the honor, respect, and esteem attached to motherhood is unparalleled. The Quran places the importance of kindness to parents as second only to worshipping God Almighty:

"Your Lord has decreed that you worship none but Him, And that you be kind to parents. Whether one or both of them attain old age in your life, Say not to them a word of contempt, nor repel them, But address them in terms of honor. And out of kindness, Lower to them the wing of humility, and say: 'My Lord! bestow on them Your Mercy as they Cherished me in childhood' " (17:23-24).

The Quran in several other places puts special emphasis on the mother's great role in giving birth and nursing:

"And We have enjoined on man to be good to his parents: In travail upon travail did his mother bear him and in two years was his weaning. Show gratitude to Me and to your parents" (31:14).

The very special place of mothers in Islam has been eloquently described by Prophet Muhammad:


"A man asked the Prophet: 'Whom should I honor most?' The Prophet replied: 'Your mother'. 'And who comes next?' asked the man. The Prophet replied: 'Your mother'. 'And who comes next?' asked the man. The Prophet replied: 'Your mother!'. 'And who comes next?' asked the man. The Prophet replied: 'Your father'" (Bukhari and Muslim).


Among the few precepts of Islam which Muslims still faithfully observe to the present day is the considerate treatment of mothers. The honor that Muslim mothers receive from their sons and daughters is exemplary. The intensely warm relations between Muslim mothers and their children and the deep respect with which Muslim men approach their mothers usually amaze Westerners.