fatima, excellent summary.

Submitted by Abdul Rahman Reijerink (Australia), May 28, 2006 at 08:15

It is pleasing to read such an honest appraisal of how things are as opposed to how they should be.

Too often I hear "why do we needs women's liberation Islam gives women rights", or insert whatever other movement you care to name, the environment etc... True Islam does these things, especially when we re-examine sacred srcipture without being bound by the interpretations from the past that are tied up with the historical attitudes of people long dead where their culture imprinted itself on their conclusions (inevitable), so for people living in a misogynist era, their fiqh is misogynist no matter how pure their intent.

See books like Asma Barlas' "Believing Women" and articles by Amina Wadud.

Too often cultural practises or the conclusions of previous genertions are presented as the be all and end all for Islam, coupled with a hostility to modernity which is just irrational, they accept the products of science in modernity but vehemently reject the social sciences, how does that sit with the injunction to "read". The sacred texts have been subsumed through the layers of their interpretation into the ideologies of the interpreters, this is a form of idolatory in my view, if we do not attempt to reapproach the texts and put into practise the liberation that they preach.

Spouting "we don't need women's rights because Islam gives them to women" is a dead end. Islam is about doing what pleases Allah, not conforming to socially endorsed values connected to the historical practise of Muslims. Allah is Merciful, just and logical, so too should be our practise.

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