Peace
Quran & Sunnah
Baraka Lahu fika you too brother
:yes: Very true! She narrated (rah), I believe, more than 2000 hadith.
May our dear Allah grant us some of her knowledge, ameen!
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Islam and women
- Thread starter Melody
- Start date
Baraka Lahu fika you too brother
:yes: Very true! She narrated (rah), I believe, more than 2000 hadith.
May our dear Allah grant us some of her knowledge, ameen!
Hyperborean
Cultural Conservative
I'm not going to trust some postmodernist pinko Jew who quotes Marx, since obviously you use seem to have a pre-determined conclusion, and just Marx to attack religion.
But straight to the point: I would say Muslim women are more free than American women. The American woman is bombarded with images from Hollywood and thus becomes acquainted with the body's sexual capacity. She learns to find her only worth in her appearance. The fashions coming out of the Western sewer are designed to emphasize just that.
Here is a letter from an American Christian woman to Muslim women in the middle east:
http://www.haqqanisoul.com/forum/topics/a-letter-from-a-christian
It should speak for itself.
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Tanuki
Taking a hiatus
I think you'll find that not all Muslims take their religion from that woman. As a former Shia, we took our faith from the Qur'an, the Prophet and the Apostolic Imams. To us that woman was never respected due to her treatment of the first Imam, Imam Ali (AS) and Our Lady of Light, Fatimah.
Abu Rashid
Active Member
Yeh I was speaking about mainstream Muslims (ahl as-sunnah wal-jamaa, the people of prophetic tradition and the main stream), not about the little shi'a sect.
Levite
Higher and Higher
As for the blessings thanking God for not making one a woman or a non-Jew, you will find that non-Orthodox Jews (85%+ of the world's Jewry) and many Modern Orthodox Jews do not say them, but have replaced them with more pluralistic liturgy.
Also, while I agree there are some stories in the Talmud that are not at all nice to certain non-Jews (specifically, Romans, who were persecuting Jews at that time, and early Christians, who were, from the perspective of the Rabbis, leading Jews astray into heresy), there are also stories that are very positive about non-Jews.
As for the purported law that a Jew need not pay the wage of a non-Jew, that is not so. There are two places from which this false claim is usually supposed to be founded; in the one case, it is a common mistranslation. In the other case, it is what we call a daat yachid, the opinion expressed by a single rabbi, which was never adopted as Jewish law in practice. The law as put in force by the Rabbis of the Talmud regarding paying wages owed to workers is, in fact, that one must pay the worker the wage owed, regardless of national or religious status, and must do so promptly and without making the worker ask for it. Any competent rabbi would tell you it is absolutely forbidden to withhold or refuse to pay any contracted worker for work fairly done, regardless of the worker's beliefs.
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Abu Rashid
Active Member
Levite,
Quite frankly I'd respect you more if you didn't compromise your religion every time someone claimed it wasn't politically correct.
Well I was merely pointing out that such things clearly exist in other religions. Whether they are adopted into practice or not is another issue. Many practicing Jews do pray each day and thank God for not making them a goy or a woman, and I was merely pointing that out. Islam does no such thing, yet was being slandered in such a way. So I was just putting it into perspective.
Quite frankly I'd respect you more if you didn't compromise your religion every time someone claimed it wasn't politically correct.
Well I was merely pointing out that such things clearly exist in other religions. Whether they are adopted into practice or not is another issue. Many practicing Jews do pray each day and thank God for not making them a goy or a woman, and I was merely pointing that out. Islam does no such thing, yet was being slandered in such a way. So I was just putting it into perspective.
Good post, Levite. Parenthetically, Dr. Eliezer Segal notes:
The "has not created me a woman" blessing is part of a subgroup that expresses similar gratitude for not having been created a gentile (i.e., a heathen) or a slave. Differing liturgical traditions are at variance over whether these three blessings are to appear near the beginning of the sequence or at its conclusion.
This inconsistency attests to an important fact: The three "who has not made me" blessings were not originally part of the same set as the others. They originate in a separate Talmudic passage, ascribed to the second-century sage Rabbi Judah bar Ilai. Earlier versions of the tradition read "ignoramus" instead of "slave."
Contemporary apologists for the blessing insist that the blessing is not intended to disparage women or imply that they are inferior, but merely to express gratitude for the fact that men are obligated to perform more religious commandments. It must be admitted that the "apologetic" explanation is not a modern invention, but it appears explicitly in the earliest version of the blessing.
An old liturgical fragment from the Cairo Genizah contains a more positive formulation of the same themes "…who has created me a human and not beast, a man and not a woman, an Israelite and not a gentile, circumcised and not uncircumcised, free and not slave."
Some scholars have suggested that the Apostle Paul was alluding to an early version of this blessing when he declared, "there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female…" Others have preferred to portray Rabbi Judah as reacting to Paul's words.
The American Conservative Movement opted to replace the negative formulation with an affirmation of what we are: free, Jewish, and (instead of "male") created in God's image. In making this change, they could cite the precedent of the Genizah text cited above, as well as the text of the Rome Mahzor, which reads "who has made me an Israelite."
Several modern scholars, beginning with the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, have remarked on the uncanny parallel between the wording of the Jewish blessings and an ancient Greek tradition ascribed variously to Thales, Socrates, or Plato. The sage in question was allegedly in the habit of thanking God for three things: "that I was born a human and not a beast; a man and not a woman; a Greek and not a Barbarian."
Is it possible, then, that our problematic blessing is not even an original Jewish one, but merely a plagiarism from Greek sources?
That said, it is indeed our problematic blessing.This inconsistency attests to an important fact: The three "who has not made me" blessings were not originally part of the same set as the others. They originate in a separate Talmudic passage, ascribed to the second-century sage Rabbi Judah bar Ilai. Earlier versions of the tradition read "ignoramus" instead of "slave."
Contemporary apologists for the blessing insist that the blessing is not intended to disparage women or imply that they are inferior, but merely to express gratitude for the fact that men are obligated to perform more religious commandments. It must be admitted that the "apologetic" explanation is not a modern invention, but it appears explicitly in the earliest version of the blessing.
An old liturgical fragment from the Cairo Genizah contains a more positive formulation of the same themes "…who has created me a human and not beast, a man and not a woman, an Israelite and not a gentile, circumcised and not uncircumcised, free and not slave."
Some scholars have suggested that the Apostle Paul was alluding to an early version of this blessing when he declared, "there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female…" Others have preferred to portray Rabbi Judah as reacting to Paul's words.
The American Conservative Movement opted to replace the negative formulation with an affirmation of what we are: free, Jewish, and (instead of "male") created in God's image. In making this change, they could cite the precedent of the Genizah text cited above, as well as the text of the Rome Mahzor, which reads "who has made me an Israelite."
Several modern scholars, beginning with the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, have remarked on the uncanny parallel between the wording of the Jewish blessings and an ancient Greek tradition ascribed variously to Thales, Socrates, or Plato. The sage in question was allegedly in the habit of thanking God for three things: "that I was born a human and not a beast; a man and not a woman; a Greek and not a Barbarian."
Is it possible, then, that our problematic blessing is not even an original Jewish one, but merely a plagiarism from Greek sources?
Point taken.
Abu Rashid
Active Member
I do apologise if any offense was taken, none was intended.
Jumping in to point out:
That is one woman's opinion. Do not read this letter and think it is anything else but that.
If you'd like to discuss this further, feel free to in Comparative Religion.
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Levite
Higher and Higher
Quite frankly, I think it is the singular glory of the halakhic system (the system of Jewish law) that it teaches us that the interpretation, reinterpretation, innovation, and refinement of the laws are not only our right, it is what God wishes of us.
In that fashion, the system of halakhah is designed to remain vibrant, living, and flexible, rather than ossified, stultified, and anachronistic.
Hyperborean
Cultural Conservative
Would you call it a "living document" (or set of documents) somewhat like the US Legal system which has evolved over time?
And I have experienced some lovely and vibrant Islamic faith communities where neither women nor the treatment of women resemble the stereotype too often suggested (i.e., promoted) by Islamophobes, much as there are Jewish faith communities with attitudes and practices far removed from Mea Shearim. On the other hand, one need only follow the efforts of IRAC to realize that we progressive Jews might be better served by addressing our own failures before blithely attributing the shortcomings of other cultures to Islam.
Levite
Higher and Higher
Yes. I think that's a very apt comparison. I might even stretch the analogy thin enough to say that the Torah is a bit like the Constitution, which, generally speaking is not changed, and when revisions are made, the revised text is still printed as a part of the whole, in order to teach, and for reference in case jurisprudence indicates that a revision to the revision might be needed. The Talmud we could compare to the Federal Statutes, and post-Talmudic rabbis to Circuit Court and Superior Court judges, with the halakhic literature being equivalent to the body of Federal, State, and common laws. I mean, that's stretching the analogy to the breaking point, but I do think you've hit on the notion that in order to be a legal system for a living society, the law itself must live and breathe and evolve, so to speak, with every case brought before a judge, and with every evolution in society causing us to reconsider our social norms and frameworks.
In the case of halakhah, the religious nuance to this idea is that revelation is ongoing, not static, and as we (hopefully) grow and mature as a species, as a people, as social individuals, we are able to unfold new and more refined understandings of how God wishes us to pursue justice, compassion, and faith. There is a saying in Rabbinic writings that the Torah has "many faces," or that "everything" can be found within it, which is of course not literal, but a metaphor for the idea that a truly revelatory text can be interpreted, reinterpreted, and reinterpreted again, to a nearly infinite extent, because its sacredness and potential reflects in some small measure the Infinite and sacred nature of God who either inspired it or gave it (depending on one's interpretation).