Mariam highlighted a very disturbing report (in Arabic) published on al-Arabiya’s website that says over 80% of Jordanian women support wife-beating! I’m not sure if this has even a smidgen of truth to it but the figures, released by Jordan’s National Family Council, are quite alarming and disturbing.
According to the report:
- 83% of Jordanian women approve of wife beating if the woman cheats on her husband
- 60% approve of wife beating in cases where the wife burns a meal she’s cooking
- 52% approve of wife beating in case where she’s refused to follow the husband’s orders
I’m quite skeptical, as the figures are very alarming! If this proves true, then a major awareness campaign should take place among Jordanian women as soon as possible! Oh my, the world is going down the drain!
I have been reading all of this debate, and many comments have been made purely to appear politically correct. I’m a young woman, and live in a Western country. Why don’t arab men stop beating thier wives…then you too can boast a one in three divorce rate? Yes…it was sarcasm. No, it’s not a simplistic view, its absolutely true. We have a divorce rate you can’t jump over, women having endless children outside of marrage and cheating on their husbands or “partners” all through the relationship. I’m married to a Jordanian (after being married to an Aussie who did nothing but cheat), and have never been beaten, and at the same time have never disobeyed. We are both educated professionals, so no, we’re not ignorant. There is no need to disobey or argue, the fact is, if you have to do the odd thing a certain way, then that’s a small price to pay for a happy and peaceful relationship. It sure beats the hell out of divorce.
Not for a goddamn meal
Today, I had the pleasure of meeting Leila Hamarneh, the projects director of the Arab Women Organization.
In the course of the conversation, a controversial report on wife beating published by the Jordan’s National Family Council was mentioned as…
“Nas you are being sly here….”
I realised something now, that no matter how much I explain this and to the arabic reader it is such an obvious statement, you will never agree. I really dont know what to add without having to repeat myself; and i know how u guys like to repeat like a broken record but hey, if you dont get it on the first, second or third time, i’m not sure i’m the kind of person who should be helping you. Suffice to say you’ve not only chosen to omit words from the translation but you’ve also chosen to change their context like clever sound editing, to make them mean anything. It is nevertheless, defecient in respsonsibilities, and it is nevertheless pretaining to the fact that they have a large impact on the their husbands which often or not can be negative, and it is nevertheless in context a speech given to women in the form of adivce and not insultive. what you don’t understand you can make mean anything.
“There are many things absent from the Qu’ran, order and rakats of daily prayers for example….”
Arash, you still haven’t provided me or any of us with just ONE verse from the quran that says women cannot be judges or hold high positions. you went from stating that women cannot hold these positions as a matter-of-factly straight into…”well they are often said to be misfit”. But i’ll tell u what…i’ll even make it easier for you…bring me ONE verse that says women are not allowed to work as well!
“No, this doesn’t happen in all cultures…”
What YOU are talking about is SOCIETY, there many many many cases where the shari3a law is misused just like any other law all over the world, beit man made or divine. Nevertheless this is what Islam says, and there will always be people there to abuse it. There are laws that say you can’t kill a person but suprisingly murders take place all over the world. Should I draw you a diagram to show you the difference between religion and society? And what do you mean it doesnt happen in all cultures? If you divorce in the west you get sued for alamony and child support if you are a man and are making enough money to support the wife and family you left.
“Again, I’ve had more official religious education than you and SC combined…”
Tell me oh wise one since you know more about my religion than anyone else here, how is it with all your great wisdom you manage to translate ahadith wrong, fail to recognise their context, or fail to know that under Islam a women has no financial responsibilities or burdens whatsoever…she can work and make money, what she takes into the marriage is hers, but she has legally no responsibility to support herself or her family, so technically this means that the male members in her family, typically her husband, will support all her needs 100%. So lets bring 10 people to judge nuetrally and decide which of our arguements is fairer.
“Allah akbar…Do look at the Jews though, they’re more liberal than many. Why can’t the same happen with Islam? Are these rules written in stone?”
Why should Islam change to accomodate the likes of you? Should we also say…well although homosexuality is technically a sin in all monothiest religions…well…what the heck…lets have a gay parade just for the heck of being liberal and “hip”. But you were right about the first two words in your sentence…God is great.
“…Well I’ve got news for you, the family unit has always been changing..”
arash that movie called Junior where Arnold Shwartzeneggar gets pregnant, that wasn’t real. how have the fundemental dynamic of the family unit changed since it was first created? Have men started giving birth lately? The truth is it hasnt changed, it has been the same, and islam strives to unify it and preserve it.
““I don’t have any problem with gays, but they shouldn’t have the right to marry. We need to keep the oh-so-fuzzy ‘family unit’ intact.”
“I don’t have any problem with women working, but they shouldn’t have the right to equal inheritance. We need to keep the oh-so-fuzzy ‘family unit’ intact.””
is this humor? come on arash, with all your superior religious education that out ranks two muslims here, you should be able to come up with something remotely intelligent! but sarcastic mimicry? perhaps you’ve confused me with my childhood.
“I wanted to post this weblog as a trackback, but since it’s not mine I link to it down here. Read The Hijab Squad and the Top 10 Reasons why Saudi women can’t vote by Nadz”
your bravado is embarrassing
I wanted to post this weblog as a trackback, but since it’s not mine I link to it down here. Read The Hijab Squad and the Top 10 Reasons why Saudi women can’t vote by Nadz.
Eman, your points are well taken. Blame the people not the religion. Each religion has it’s glory and it’s bad followers.
Yet the behaviour of the followers will always reflect on the observing masses. Reality is, even with an anti-Muslim/Arab biased Western media reporting only the worst, Muslims in this generation are Islam’s worst enemy. If true followers of Islam want to take back the excellent reputation they desire and draw others to their faith, it is going to take a massive work based on humility. Let go of blameshifting in every arena and grab hold of practicing what it means to serve the Most Merciful and Compassionate. Until these great attributes of the Almighty are lifted up in the eyes of the watching world, and real inner transformation takes place, no amount of explaining doctrine will change public opinion.
Not all of the arguments given on this thread were false claims. And seeing what Nas how and SC responded was for the most part very instructive. But “attacking” the one with the undesirable opinion only discredits the message.
Fact of the matter is, some of what is being taught as Islam needs to havethe mirror of higher criticism applied as the bible did. Then true intellectual integrity can be applied to faith.
Hi Jeff, as you wished, you got both sides of the story involved, Muslims and non-Muslims, what was the result? some got more ignorant and rude than before. I told you, few are the ones who argue to really know, many just waste time and end up with a pointless discussion.
When I wrote: http://aquacool.blogspot.com/2005/04/blame-it-on-peoplenot-religion.html
I got loads of emails, most attacking, few understanding and admiring. And to me it’s those few that matter the most, and thank God, my post was spread by those few and I reached out for more and more people, and got more and more positive responses agreeing that each religion has its glory, and each religion has its bad followers.
What I’m trying to say is, when someone means to listen they can work wonders in making this world a better place to live! When they don’t want to listen, they can get as ignorant, shallow and silly as possible. That’s why I always try to put an end to any discussion on my blog that starts to get pointless.
Nas,SC, and M7ammad, it’s about time you realise many here do not will to listen. They get your answers to use against you. So typical. Anyway, don’t be upset for the reactions and false claims, it the end of the day, no one is forcing anyone to love their own religions. All religions are great, and when misapplied they lead to the bad reputations we have, full stop.
Arash, Its not only in theory, men do have more financial responsibilities than women! When getting married the man will pay for almost everything unless the woman and her family decided to help him out.thats how things are in our culture and thats how things should be i believe, even with all the cultural changes occurred still the man is asked to take care of lots of financial issues before and after marriage. I think we arabs are comfortable with that. I don’t want to kneel infront of a man and ask him to marry me while he takes a look at the diamond ring i bought him.
However, There is a huge difference between culture and religion. Religion is always there for people to hold on to IF they want to. so if one day we became totally westernized we have only our religion to save us, and maybe only then you’ll have some respect to Islam and its teachings.
I noticed Arash, that you’re angry with God not Islam. You think man’s rules on earth are better but trust me they aren’t and it doesn’t make sense that you want the man who is unfair, unmerciful, ignorant, selfish and simply human to decide on the responsibilities and rights of his brothers and sisters.
theories about everything can always remain theories if nobody decided to implement them.
You don’t know much about Islam and if you know you’d know that its not up to the man to decide what the woman needs and what duties he has towards her, you keep mixing with culture and social norms which applies for almost all the people regardless of their religion.
which brings us back to the main point, this whole beating thingie has nothing to do with any religion, it has to do with men in the first place and then with women’s reaction.
As for emotional, yes women are more emotional than men of course and men are more reasonable and logical and i’m talking in general. The problem is that people think emotional means weak and logical means strong which is wrong. Women think usig their hearts mostly when it comes to their relationships with others and i don’t know how can you deny that! i mean we all know about women’s gut feelings, women’s instinct…etc and we also know about men’s ability to control their feelings and focus on one thing at a time. this is only generally speaking.
You wondered why do we need two women to testify and confirm while we need only one man and you said this indicates women’s inferiority in Islam. I gave you an example to further understand that it has to do with making sure one did not forget something due to her duties and worries, while in giving birth one woman who confirms it is enough because women do know more than men in this field despite of the sensitive nature and criticality of such issues.
Women can be judges, if they are not allowed anywhere its not Islam’s fault because not allowing them in the first place means not following Islam, as simple as that. you got a problem with society and culture don’t blame Islam for it.
on a last note, don’t be so angry because Islam says kill the apostates 😉
I’ll give a final answer to you folks in one go and call it quits. I have a few hectic days ahead of me, and unmoderated discussions never end anyways.
Nas:
Nas you are being sly here. And I can tell you’re having great difficulty in accepting this hadith yourself. Your understanding of this narration would be fine had Muhammad not mentioned the issue of religion and intelligence. In addition, you ignore the structure of this conversion (this is after the eid address and in a separate dailouge). This isn’t a one-way speech. First, Muhammad is saying you will go to hell. Then women inquire why. Then he says because you “curse frequently and are ungrateful to your husbands.” Had he stopped here there wouldn’t be anything scandalous about the hadith. But in the same breath he continues to say “I have not seen anyone more deficient in intelligence and religion than you.” Do you understand the significance of that? He is connecting their abuse of their husbands with their lack of faith and brains. Why else would he even mention those? He’s not saying you’re ungrateful to Allah and curse him eventhough Allah is expecting less from you, no, Muhammad’s saying no one else that I’ve seen is as stupid as you, no wonder you mistreat your husbands and make it to hell in the great numbers that you will and I’ve seen it myself! The rest of the conversation is irrelevant, because women ignore the issue of being hell-dwellers and ask why’d he just call them those words. Think about it for a second and judge Muhammad as a person, not a saint who never wrongs. Ask a neutral third-party to read our discussion and tell you his/her opinion. Better yet, ask 10 and see how many agree with you. Consider this hadith also:
The Prophet said, “I looked at Paradise and saw that the majority of its residents were the poor; and I looked at the (Hell) Fire and saw that the majority of its residents were women.” Volume 7, Book 62, Number 126
There are many things absent from the Qu’ran, order and rakats of daily prayers for example. And Jordan isn’t always ruled according to the shari’a. You’d think in a country ruled by the shari’a at least the rulers respect it, I’d like Her Majesty to start putting on the veil if that’s the case. Women have been barred from that position because they are often said to be unfit to judge amongst men, especially given that their testimony isn’t as reliable (which was my main point anyways).
No, this doesn’t happen in all cultures. This doesn’t even happen that often in Muslim countries. Children move on and go to other places; they have their own responsibilities and so on. A woman has to forgo her personal ambitions, because his brother would hold conditions on providing for her. That would certainly include things he consider “unnecessary” and could even extend to what is required for subsistence. I don’t see how a forced dependency is healthy for a union. I discuss other aspects of this issue in my answer to SC.
Again, I’ve had more official religious education than you and SC combined, so please. In fact, here’s another clarification missing from the Qu’ran, you can come up with situations that upon adding up the decreed fractions the total goes over 1! And no it won’t total 19 either!
Allah akbar, we’re better than two other outdated religions! Allah must have been brushing up on feminism between prophets. Too bad he stopped caring. Do look at the Jews though, they’re more liberal than many. Why can’t the same happen with Islam? Are these rules written in stone?
Nas, to return the gesture, I advise you to take some anthropology classes. You remind me of some people who oppose gay-marriages and polygamy by citing the “Godly eternal structure of the family unit”. Well I’ve got news for you, the family unit has always been changing. God didn’t intend hoot as far as we’re concerned. This isn’t a question of biology, women have been giving birth, raising the children and feeding the men at the same time in many places and at many different times. This is about super imposing the social roles of Hijaz in 610 CE to societies that have long changed.
“I don’t have any problem with gays, but they shouldn’t have the right to marry. We need to keep the oh-so-fuzzy ‘family unit’ intact.”
“I don’t have any problem with women working, but they shouldn’t have the right to equal inheritance. We need to keep the oh-so-fuzzy ‘family unit’ intact.”
SC:
SC, you fails to distinguish between “what should” and “what has”, real women have real responsibilities. What do you think would happen to the world if workingwomen started to sit home today? Many families just don’t have that option, to vacation at Aqaba and be treated like a queen (or be the queen for that matter) and wax about how Islam has truly liberated them. (In fact if it wasn’t because of oil, Saudis wouldn’t degrade their women to the level of baby-making machines.) With reliance come demands, next thing you know they ask you to stay home and forget your life-long dreams (whatever those may be). The inheritance laws have limited the personal liberty of women, making them unreasonably reliant on the arbitrary powers of their male relatives. Incidentally, Islam doesn’t say males have to treat women “like queens”. There is nothing in the Qu’ran that would indicate this, and the hadith equates spending on family to sadaqhah and only to cover “reasonable” necessities. That puts men in a position to decide what is reasonable (and when and to what degree they’d like to be charitable) and what to allow, which bring us to the next point:
Again that is just in theory, I’m speaking of real responsibilities. Islam is dividing the inheritance based on assumptions that have never materialized. It could have advised men to take up more and then formulate a variable formula for the division of inheritance. That way the poor and workingwomen wouldn’t suffer and irresponsible spoiled queens get to blow less money on lipstick and mascara.
Quite the contrary, women are always poorer than men on average and have fewer options to get out of poverty. Many in poorer countries resort to prostitution just to get their daily food. The governments just can’t do anything and the discriminatory Islamic laws sure won’t help either.
What does that mean, that 99.9% of women are emotional? Everybody is emotional, man or woman. Surely you don’t mean 99.9% of women are more emotional than the most emotional man, do you? I didn’t understand the rest of that paragraph, where does motherhood enter the issue of testimony and judgment?
Only in a secular setting have Muslim women been appointed to this position. Really, if you consider a woman incompetent in providing a simple testimony, how can you allow her to issue a judgment?
Final thoughts
I think I’ve demonstrated my point that women are indeed considered inferior in Islam and it’s unreasonable to imply that this treatment is fair because of their physical or intellectual capacities. In addition, the fact that many women are physically and physiologically abused in Islamic countries must have something to do with their inferior rights and lack of adequate protection under law. Their incapability to free themselves of these religious barriers will keep the society from realizing half of its potentials. That is something we all must be concerned about, man or woman.
Arash, it seems that you want to argue for the sake of arguing. Males responsible about their female relatives who need their support, I thought i’ve made that clear earlier. he can get as much money as i can so what? he has greater responsibilites, i have to take care of myself only, in fact thats optional, i can just sit and enjoy myself while my brother, father or husband is obliged to offer me the proper level of life i deserve. thinking about it, females are supposed to be treated like queens. Islam is not responsible for those who do not abide by its crystal clear teachings.
of course i agree, Islam made the responsibilities of men and women clear before stating that the daughter takes half what her brother takes of the inheretence.
so? i didn’t get your point. its not like women will be poor while men are rich.
the majority of women (99.9%) are emotional, i always thought of this as a fact and never imagined someone will actually debate it. however, emotional doesn’t mean weak, just if you were wondering. By the way, when giving birth to a baby one woman is enough to confirm it although its well known how critical it is when claiming or denying motherhood and similar issues. The fact that one woman is enough is because women by nature are very keen on this subject.
As for being a judge, who said she can’t?
Muslim ladies out there, what do your think of all that has been written thus far?
I think it is great that this topic has accumulated more comments than the Turkish toilet post awhile back, much more worthy of attention. 🙂