Ghazali On Women In Islam

Re: sb #336

Its hard to make a joke with people who have no sense of humor. Hamidm`s irony entirely escapes the wanna-be mullahs we have running around Chowk. After all, when you are doing God`s work, you don`t have time for frivolities. If there is a God, I`ll rely on his sense of mercy to save me. If he doesn`t, then he wasn`t much of a god to begin with, was he? (Or she, or it; don`t want to be genderist here).

Re: Scout #329

Not quite burst it. You are arguing that your personal experience has led you to become one with Carrie Nation. Not as close as a family member but pretty close.

In essence you are making the slippery slope argument in reverse. Usually its made as a case against govt intervention. If we ban hate speech, whats next? Banning politically unpopular speech? Banning my rival from speaking at all? Etc. Etc.

You advocate banning all alcohol consumption everywhere because someone, somewhere might drink too much and do something stupid/dangerous/deadly? You don`t see a problem with your logic?

Presumably, you would also want to ban tobacco. How about fatty foods? Fast cars? Knitting needles (sharp points you know)? Scissors? Knives? Guns? The list is endless.

Wait, or do you want to ban those items whose use has a social impact? Drunk drivers kill others, not just themselves. Second-hand tobacco smoke kills non-smokers. Grossly obese people kill only themselves, not others. So, to use Mill`s typology in a different sense, there are self-hurting and other-hurting actions. Are self-hurting actions (eating myself to death) OK but potentially other-hurting ones (drinking myself to death--I might drive while drunk) are not?

I have news for you. Virtually all actions are other-hurting in some way, shape or form. For example, if I pay taxes and these taxes are used to fund some sort of a social-welfare state, I am being hurt every time the state looks after some moron who was too stupid not to look after him/herself. If the state mandates warning labels on hairdryers--do not use while showering!!!!!--I have to pay for the cost of the label and all the lawsuits filed by idiots against the company and the cost of idiot-proofing the device. The classic is of course the infamous McDonalds` coffee suit. The coffee was TOO hot! I hurt myself because I am an idiot! Now you must pay!

So in a perfect Scoutian world, who gets to make the rules, other than you of course? Where do YOU personally draw the line? Just how big should the nanny state be? It seems to be a common feature in Common Law systems that every one has a positive duty to help the stupid. I say its time to thin the herd. Every one is ignorant about some thing at some time but the people who are permanently ignorant about everything are the ones that really need to be thinned out!

Personally, I am of the opinion that the ideal state of affairs would be something like the old French Foreign Legion which, reportedly, had no restrictions on drinking while on duty but the penalty for being drunk or incapacitated while on duty was being staked out in the desert. Similarly, the penalties for drunk driving were ludicrously low for years because we look after the stupid too much, no matter what they do. A month in jail for a first offense, treat drunk driving deaths as felony murder, and people will soon change their habits. The solution is not to ban alcohol but to punish stupid behavior

hmm..salam all

very interesting yet at times disturbing discussion :)

as for omarphoenix, urstruly, Farungi_kush..

let me just say

Allah karey Zor - e - bayan aur ziyada``

btw

i need to ask u ppl this..ijtihad can only be used where we do not find order or guindence from Allah (s w t ) and his prophet. thats how i understand..

so i dont think u can ijithad on circumcision and start cutting penises of rapist, coz there punishment is also there.

regards

PS: i d love to read more of Omar phoneix.

he is good.

Scout, coming from Pakistan, you should know, perhaps more than some urban Indians, about the caste system among the Indoos. Each profession had a caste associated with it. In my state, there is a caste whose profession it is to make and sell liquor. I believe this caste has been alive and kicking for atleast a few centuries now. Have a friend, a woman, who is not frightfully western but who would drink along with her parents in India. In the coastal areas of Andhra, women (of lower classes, since that seems to be important too) relish smoking strong, home-grown tobacco to this day.

Please dont rant on and on about smoking and drinking being Caucasian and call people who enjoy a drink or two names! And what are we doing in the west, calling the desis oreos? Btw, there is difference between drinking and drunk-driving.

Like Saxena asked (i think), shall we stop using the light bulb because it is a western invention?

Shankar, what does it take for a shrink to see the irony in hamidm`s posts?

Rsuxena #328,

``So that, little, myopic scout is what the issue is. Further, if you are indeed the psuedo-intellectual New-Age Muslima you pose as, what leads you to label a drinker as gora? What does it have to do with being gora and kaala?``

HEY now, how did you know I was severely myopic (no joke). I`m practically blind without my contacts.

You spelled pseudo wrong, and I`m not posing as anything at all. I just say what I feel. Drinking is predominantly a gora culture phenomenon, thus labeling the goras as drinkers.

There are exceptions to the rule though.

``Where were you educated (if at all), by the way?``

Everywhere, through experiences more than books.

Also Published DAWN: Letters to the Editor

Nov 17-2000

Pakistan: past and present

THE enemies of human freedom, ideological cousins and mentors to the Taliban, are calling today in Pakistan for a ban on Basant, and dance and cultural shows. In short, they would like nothing better than to crush the human spirit, lock it up, and throw away the key.

No one forces them to frequent cultural events or even to simply enjoy themselves, but yet they seek to impose upon others, their dreary and extreme views of how life ought to be lived, all the time. It is clear they are well armed, and now prepared to use whatever force is necessary to subjugate society. Their priorities for society are to force all men to grow breads, ban shorts in public parks, smash T.V. sets, satellite dishes, and confine women to the home, from whence they would not be permitted to leave unaccompanied by a close male relative.

Many people have left the country because of the spread of their virulent intolerance. Individualism they find utterly incomprehensible. Most Pakistanis are simply fed up of them and their intimidation of society.

According to a recently published interview, ``Munno Bhai said we had regressed. For many years after independence, it was common for girls to bike to their colleges. Today, in Lahore, it was not easy for a woman even to be seen driving a car. She was subjected to much jeering and humiliation.

``He told the story of a family which had gone to Gilgit by road and when it was driving through Kohistan, some young men in beards had screamed obscenities at the young women in the group. When asked why they were doing that, they had replied that the local Mullah had told them that if they saw unveiled women they should scream filth at them so that they learnt never to venture out of their homes again. Even in villages, where the women had always worked unveiled in the fields, it was becoming increasingly difficult for them to do so.``

Back in the 1960s when society in Pakistan, under Gen. Ayub Khan was yet carefree, and bereft of the intimidation of armed and bearded fanatics on the streets, and the bombings their meetings attract from RAW, there used to be such fun events as Horse and Cattle shows. Even the current generals must remember them fondly, for they all belong to that generation and bygone era.

No one can possibly successfully argue that Pakistani society has improved over the past two or three decades as a result of religious radicalization. If anything, society has clearly `regressed`. No one talks about the importance of the freedom value in society, it is only an abstract thing, that Pakistan demands for Kashmiris in IOK, but increasingly circumscribes at home.

OMAR MIRZA

Dar ul harb, New York

Dawn Letters to the Editor: December 9th 2000

Reordering the priorities

PAKISTAN has serious problems of all kinds - political and economic, to name but two categories. Jobless people commit suicide in increasing numbers, society has grown more and more violent, and the main concerns of some people while all this goes on, are whether the Governor of Punjab committed such an un-Islamic act, by shaking a foreign lady`s hand while her husband looked on, as to deserve censure. This, and the mentality behind the mean spirited ban on shorts in public parks shows only too clearly the real imprint of the 11 year dictatorship of Ziaul Haq on the country.

It is now only a matter of time before someone or the other has a light bulb go off in their head that the power of the state should be used to prevent women from leaving the home, driving cars, or for their manner of dress become the subject of national legislation, and so on. Some reeds of religious justification could undoubtedly be found for all this too if one looked for them with a particular regressive bent of mind.

Let me say this once and for all, on behalf of many who read this paper, that contemptible despotism that is opposed to the very notion of human liberty that Mulla Omar runs up there in the North, provides no model for Pakistan. Freedom of individual conscience, also means freedom from the oppressive religious views of others. I for one, not only plan to continue shaking hands with women who defiantly refuse to don burqas or hijab for that matter, and go jogging in shorts in public parks, I urge all others to do so as well, while they still can. Never mind if it gives anyone offence. I am offended they should presume to encroach on my liberty, or that of the remaining few free thinkers left in society, clearly a nearly extinct species on the endangered list.

Religious totalitarianism is clearly on the rise in Pakistan.

OMAR MIRZA

New York, USA

Disrespectful Ghazzali Bashing. Ghazzali`s Ihya has its own place in islamic thought. And also weak hadith have been profusedly quoted!!! This article is a NO-GO!

aamir

scout,

When God made RSaxena & hamidm, He put their brains in their prepuce instead of their heads. That explains why they think & act like dicks.

Alas hamidm was born on your side of the border. The Islamic eqvivalent of the bris took care of his intellectual prowess.

As far as Saxena goes, what can I tell you? If I insult the bum, he takes it as a compliment! Just watch how this post will give him a hard on:)

OK, dick-for-brains Saxena, start your show. Afterall, you wont care how much it will gross us out. Maybe ylh will get turned on..

Fuzair #327,

Sorry to burst your psychoanalytical bubble, but NO, I don`t have family members who are alcoholics. My aversion is due to seeing friends losing themselves to alcohol, seeing disease, etc.

Have you seen a mother cry because her 3 year old died was killed by a drunk driver? It`s horribly sad. Have you talked to a girl who lost her virginity to someone she didn`t even know due to drunkenness?

It all starts with social drinking.

Re: scooty

``Not drinking alcohol is not enjoying American freedom? Who`s ranting against American freedom?``

No, but you have argued in the past against giving people the right to choose whether or not they want to drink. Whether or not you drink is irrelevant to the issue.

You have often argued - with Lubna amongst others - against the of people being allowed to choose for themselves what is morally right or wrong (outside of theft, murder, and rape).

So that, little, myopic scout is what the issue is. Further, if you are indeed the psuedo-intellectual New-Age Muslima you pose as, what leads you to label a drinker as gora? What does it have to do with being gora and kaala?

Where were you educated (if at all), by the way?

Re: Scout`s posts on alcohol

I am just curious, none of my business, but this strong an aversion to alcohol AND not based on religious convictions usually means that there is either a family history of alcohol abuse or something similar. A friend of mine (an American) in college was a complete teetotaller and in his case it was because both his parents were alcoholics and his brother as well. He had developed an almost pathological (although understandable) aversion to alcohol. He told me once that he was afraid that if he drank, he too would become an alcoholic.

As I said, its none of my business but I was curious if you had a family history of alcoholism?

Regards.

Musthtaq Farooqi (re. 304)

Thanks for the long post on male/female spiritual characteristcs et al.

Attractive and compelling as I found the ideas (not different from those in far eastern mythology, eh?), extrapolating them from the teachings in Islam seemed, at best, like squeezing water from a rock.

Just goes to show what a good neeyat AND a good mind can do in combination, eh?

regards,

PM

PS. IF not too troublesome, could u email me about your work in IT schools and agriculture development in Pak too. (postmatser@yahoo.com). Please note the spelling.

Rsaxena #322, ``You are soooo right about this here young scout....I too can`t get over the irony in her living and enjoying American freedom while continuing to rant against it (and failing to fully understand it).``

Not drinking alcohol is not enjoying American freedom? Who`s ranting against American freedom?

Say a word against alcohol, and you become a thick skulled idiot. I think you need treatment from Dr. Shankar. I suggest electroconvulsive therapy.

Enjoying American freedom is more than drinking alcohol, a fact your kind (kala angrez FOB) wouldn`t know until you get your faces out of your stinking beer mugs.

Ref Lubna #: 47

You said {Yes, I do believe Ijtihad is still possible - in fact, it is reviving - and that there is a serious need for REFORMS in Islam.}

In the state of Kerala in India, which has over 90% literacy rate and where Muslims, Hindus and Christians have lived in relative harmony since the days of the Moplah Riots, a mullah decided on Ijtihad. He went so far as to say that other religions may also be correct. This gentle man was picked up in the middle of the night, tortured, killed, and his body buried in a shallow grave. Two days later, when the police discovered the body, the perpetrators had caught a flight to the Middle East and disappeared. This happened 7 years back. Yes, Ijtihad is possible, but it is mostly considered to be heresy and blasphemy. If an area with 90% literacy couldn`t handle the questioning of the tenets of Islam, what chance do other scholars in other areas have?

You said {Basically, it`s for the benefit of women that these laws exist. Later in the program someone on the phone made a very interesting suggestion to him: how about re-evaluating their ``values``. Instead of spending so much time, effort and money on laws that make Saudi a safe place for women, why not remove the threat - why not spend more time, effort and money on ``educating`` the youth - changing their attitudes towards women, teaching them to respect the other gender. Then maybe they won`t feel the need for such laws. The scholar didn`t have anything to say in response to that. He was clearly very disturbed by the suggestion.}

Why educate men? Why not go along with the typical Islamic punishment of amputation of the offending member? If your hand commits a theft, Islam demands that it be cut off. Extending the logic, we can clearly see what organ needs to be cut off for rapists. Since the mullah claims that women are likely to be attacked if they go out alone, why doesn`t he prescribe a slight repositioning of the knife during the circumcision ceremony? That ought to take care of the threats to women`s honor and dignity. But that would be Ijtihad, no?

Re: shankar shrink

You go sip your lattes and hug your trees elsewhere; leave hamidm alone!

Re: hamidm

``scout ....... now here is a woman who has bought the party line hook, line and sinker ....no matter how many surahs and hadiths you throw at her, she has convinced herself that it is better to be the veil-wearing twelve year old third wife of a pious tetotaler, five-a-dayer, ankle-bared, tasbeeh and watwani-fiddling momin......``

Hehehehehehehe, you are one hilarious mofo! You are soooo right about this here young scout....I too can`t get over the irony in her living and enjoying American freedom while continuing to rant against it (and failing to fully understand it).

``Have some morals, scout`s Muslim morals.``

How dare you define your own morals.

Life is black and white.