4 Responses

1. Calatrava

   January 27, 2012 | Log in to Reply

   Mr. Guindy

   Have you ever come accross the unique Islamic concepts of takkyia and abrogation?

   We are aware of them. And this knowledge makes it difficult for us to fall into traps.

2. Democracyistheanswer

   March 14, 2011 | Log in to Reply

   Dr. Mohsen El-Guindy cherrypicks verses that support his sugar-coated Meccan Islam and ignores the savage, brutal Medianan verses. El-Guindy rips the 9th sura entirely out of the Koran. Since it was the last, abrogating all the others, it has final authority.

   Dr. Bill Warner uses a rationalistic, statistical approach that counts the frequency of themes. This is objective. El-Guindy’s approach is entirely subjective. Who cares about one person’s subjective ideas?

   I prefer Warner’s objective, scientific approach.

   Many great errors can be avoided merely by counting.

3. Dr. Mohsen El-Guindy

   February 7, 2011 | Log in to Reply

   In continuation of my talk about plygamy in Islam I reemphasize that while the provision of plygamy makes the social system flexible enough to deal with all kinds of conditions, it is not necessarily recommended or preferred by Islam. Taking the example of the Prophet is instructive. He was married to one woman, Khadijah, for 25 years. It was only after her death when he had reached the age of fifty that he entered into other marriages to promote friendships, create alliances or to be an example of some lessons to the community; also to show the Muslims how to treat their spouses under different conditions of life.

   The Prophet was given inspiration from Aallah about how to deal with mulitple marriages and the difficulties encountered therein. It is not an easy matter for man to handle two wives, two families, and two households and still be just between the two. No man of reasonable intelligence would enter into this situation without a great deal of thought and very compelling reasons.

   In most human societies, females outnumber males. In the US there are at least eight million more women than men. In a country like Guinea there are 122 females for every hundred males. In Tanzania, there are 95.1 males per 100 females. What should a society do towards such unbalanced sex ratios? There are various solutions, some might suggest cilibacy, others would prefere female infanticide, which does happen in some societies in the world today! Others may think the only outlet is that the society should tolerate all manners of sexual permissiveness: prostitution, sex out of wedlock, homosexuality, etc.

   For other societies, like most African societies today the most honorable outlet is to allw polygamous marriage as a culturally accepted and socially respected institution. Polygamy in most African societies is such a respectable institution that some Protestant churches are becoming more tolerant to it.

   A Bishob of the Anglican Church in Kenya declared that: “Although monogamy may be ideal for the expression of love between husband and wife, the Church should consider that in certain cultures polygamy is socially acceptable and that the belief that polygamy is contrary to Christianity is no longer attainable.”

   After careful study of African polygamy, Reverend David Gitari of the Anglican Church has concluded that polygamy, as ideally practised, is more Christian than divorce and remarriage as far as the abandoned wives and children are concerned.

   Billy Graham, the eminent Christian evangelist has recognized this fact: “Christianity cannot compromise on the question of polygamy. If present-day Christinity cannot do so, it is to its own detriment. Islam has permitted polygamy as a solution to social ills and has allowed a certain degree of latitude to human nature but only within the strictly defined framework of the law. Christian countries make a great show of monogamy, but actually they practice polygamy. No one is aware of the part mistresses play in western society. In this respect Islam is a fundamentally honest religion and permits a Muslim to marry a second wife if he must, but strictly forbids all clandestine amatory associations in order to safeguard the moral probity of the community.”

   Philip Kilbride, an American anthropologist of Roman Catholic heritage, in his provocative book, “Plural Marriage of our Time” proposes polygamy as a solution to some of the ills of the American society. He argues that plural marriage may serve as a potential alternative for divorce in many cases in order to obviate the damaging impact of divorce on many children. He maintains that many divorces are caused by the rampant extramarital affairs in the American society. According to Kilbride, ending extramarital affairs in a polygamous marriage, rather than a divorce, is better for the children. He thinks that children will be better served if family augmentation rather than only separation and dissolution were seen as options. He also suggested that other groups would also benefit from plural marriage such as elderly women who face a chronic shortage of men and the African Americans who are involved in man sharing.

   The world today possesses more weapons of mass-destruction than ever before and the churches of the West might sooner or later, be obliged to accept polygamy as the only way out.

   Father Hillman has thoughtfully recognized this fact: “It is quite conceivable that these genocidal techniques (nuclear, biological, chemical…) could produce so drastic an imbalance among the sexes that plural marriage would become necessary means of survival…Then contrary to previous custom and law, an overriding natural and moral inclination might arise in favor of polygamy. In such a situation, theologians and church leaders would quickly produce weighty reasons and Biblical texts to justify a new conception of marriage.”

   Dr. Mohsen El-guindy

4. Dr. Mohsen El-Guindy

   February 6, 2011 | Log in to Reply

   All the oppression of Muslim women mentioned in this web page has nothing to do with Islam. Understanding a certain religion from the attitude of some of its nominal followers is misleading. Many people confuse culture with religion. We should distinguish between real Islamic belief and varied Muslim practices influenced by social customs.

   In America and the West in general, no restriction is put on man’s behavior, every temptation is allowed.

   Outwardly in the western world, women are thought to have equal rights in education, work and so forth, but in reality women are still oppressed in a different more subtle way. In order to socialize they have to dress in a dissolute way to appear more appealing to men. In these days of the so-called ‘society of equal rights’ girls are expected to have a boy friend and lose their virginity in order not to be weird! This is a sort of oppression enenthough women do not realize it. In the majority of cases women are attacked and molested because of how they are dressed.

   These kinds of distortion raise the question: ‘Would I judge Christianity according to the behavior of Christian homosexuals, priests seusally abusing children and women in churches, preaching christianity wihile dancing and singing in churches, buying God’s consent by passing a collection bucket, lesbian preachers, open sex in the movies made by Christian actors and actresses, Christian drunkards and gamblers, Christian men and women living together without marriage, pregnant girls seeking abortion thus killing a soul without right.

   The example for American girls now is the movie stars walking on the red carpet showing their sexy parts, and the female dancers in ‘dancing with the stars’ wearing very short dresses, and shaking and vibrating vigorously in the dancing arena. The girls aspire to be models demonstrating new fashions while showing their most secret parts. These women who are thought to be examples for younger female generation are in fact slaves traded in slave market. The buyers are men. This is glaring slavery!

   The enemies of truth seek to corrupt the morals, values and virtues of the people. It is now common in the West to see: movies peddling nudity and lust, styles of clothing and fashions which reveal ever more of nudity, pornographic and semi-pornographic magazines.

   The Koran reads:

   And they work corruption in the land. And Allah does not love those who work corruption (5, 64).

   True Christianity and Islam do not allow any of such abnormalities. Christianity is a great religion, and it has been mentioned in the Koran.

   Modesty for women protection, is a crucial point in Islam. Some people especially in the West, tend to redicule the whole argument of modesty for women protection. Their argument is that the best protection is the spread of education, civilized behavior, and self-restraint. If civilization is enough protection then why is that women in North America dare not walk alone in a dark street or even across an empty parking lot? If education is the solution, then why is it that a respected university like Queen’s has a walk home service mainly for female students on campus? If self restraint is the answer then why cases of sexual harrasment, in the last few years include: navy officers, managers, university professors, Senators, priests in churches, Supreme court justices etc…

   This takes us to the subject of women in Islam. Islam teaches that the woman is not inherently inferior to man. They both are equal in intellectual and spiritual capacity. They are equally responsible for their deeds before Allah.

   Islam places great emphasis on the role of the Muslim woman as a wife and particularly as a mother. In Islam woman has a primary role to play in the constitution and running of the family. Such is the importance of the role of motherhood that Prophet Muhammad said: “paradise lies under the feet of the mother.” In Muslim homes the entire family pivots around the mother, and it is extremely rare to hear of a mother or father being farmed off into a nursing home when they are elderly.

   The Muslim woman however, is not prohibited from leaving her home to persue education, a career, or other worthwhile goals that profit not only her but society as well.

   The Koran establishes the spiritual equality and mutual responsibility between man and woman in verses such as the following:

   But whosoever does good works of righteousness, whether they be a believing male or female, shall enter paradise, and not be wronged a pit mark of a date stone (4, 124).

   And indeed their Lord answered them, “I do not waste the labor among you, male or female, you are from each other (3, 195).

   A husband is commanded by the Law of Allah to treat his wife with equity, respect her feelings and show kindness and consideration.

   The Koran reads:

   …and treat them (women) kindly (4, 19).

   The relationship of the muslim husband to his wife is not that of master to slave. Rather the entire responsibility of economic support is placed on the shoulders of the husband alone. The Muslim husband is responsible for the protection, happiness and maintenance of his wife. He is responsible for the cost of her food, clothes and accomodation. He cannot demand of his wife that she also become economically productive to support the family, although she is able to do this if she desires.

   The Koran explains this in the following verse:

   Men are the maintainers of women for that Allah has preferred in bounty one of them over the other, and for that they have spent their wealth. Righteous women are obidient, guarding in secret that which Allah has guarded (4, 34).

   The wife must be faithful, trustworthy and honest. She must not allow any other person to have access to that which is exclusively the husband right i.e. sexual intimacy. She must not receive or entertain strange males in the house without his knowledge. She should not be alone with a strange male. She should not accept gifts from other men without his approval. This is meant to avoid jealousy, suspicion and gossip. The husband’ possessions are her trust. She must not dispose of his belongings without his permission.
   A wife should make herself sexually attractive to her husband and be responsive to his advances. The wife must not refuse her husband sexually as this can lead to marital problems and worse still-tempt the man to adultery.

   The Prophet said: “A wife must run to her husband if he calls her, even if she is occupied at the oven.”

   In Islam the man has been given the right to be obeyed because he is the leader and not because he is superior. Obedience does not mean blind obedience, it is subject to conditions.

   The wife must accept that if there is a dispute between her and her husband, he has the final word. In other words she must accept his leadership. Authority is not the equivalent to power, so men should not consider their position as one of power and the woman’s as subservience or submission. The office of leadership is allocated to man because he is better qualified for the position. The man as part of the family is bound by the rule of the office. He is answerable to Allah at all times so he is not given free reign to rule as he pleases. His leadership is not unquestionable. If he does something unethical the wife is entitled to tell her husband that his behavior is unacceptable in Islam. The rights and obligations of each of the sexes are complementary.

   It is one of the great ironies of our world today that the very same headscarf revered as a sign of holiness when worn by catholic nuns for the purpose of showing the authority of man, is reviled as a sign of oppression when worn for the purpose of protection by Muslim women. The Koran urges believing women to cover their private parts.

   Allah says in the Koran:

   O Prophet! Tell your wives, your daughters and the believing women to draw their cloaks (veils) over their bodies (when outdoors). That is most convenient that they could be known as such (i.e. decent and chaste) and not molested (33, 59).

   Muslims are always asked why Muslim women are covered. The attire of a Muslim woman is that of modesty, where her figure is not apparent for outsiders and her head is covered with a scarf. In the present days where rape is a current occurrence in the west she finds modest clothing to be a protection from unwarranted advances by the opposite sex.

   According to Rabbi Menachem Bayer, “It was the custom of Jewish women to go out in public with a head covering, which sometimes even covered the whole face leaving only the eyes free. He quotes some famous ancient Rabbis saying: “cursed be the man who lets the hair of his wife seen…a woman who exposes her hair for self-adornment brings poverty.”

   Rabbinical Law forbids the recitation of blessings or prayers in the presence of a bareheaded-married woman since uncovering the woman’s hair is considered nudity. During the Tannaitic period the Jewish woman’s failure to cover her head was considered an affront to her nodesty. When her head was uncovered, she might be fined four hundred zuzims for this offense. The external pressures of the European life in the nineteenth century forced many of them to go out bareheaded. Some Jewish women found it more convenient to replace their traditional veil with a wig as another form of hair covering.

   What about the Christian tradition? It is well known that Catholic nuns have been covering their heads for hundreds of years, but that is not all. St. Paul in the New Testatament made some very interesting statements about the veil:

   “Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of every woman is man, and the head of Christ is God. Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head. And every woman who prays or prophsies with her head uncovered dishonor her head. It is just as though her head was shaved. If a woman does not cover her head, she should have her head cut off.”

   The Islamic veil unlike the veil of the Christian tradition is not a sign of man’s authority over woman, it is only a sign of modesty with the purpose of protecting women. The Islamic philosophy is that it is always better to be safe than sorry.

   In fact, the Koran is so concerned with protecting women’s reputation that a man who dares to falsely accuses a woman of unchastely will be severely punished:

   And those who launch a charge against chaste women, and produce not four witnesses (to support their allegations) flog them with eighty stripes; and do not accept any testimony of theirs ever; those – they are the ungodly (24, 4).

   Compare this strict Koranic attitude with the extremely lax punishment for rape in the Bible:

   If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay the girl’s father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the girl, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives (Deut. 22: 28-30).

   One must ask a simple question here, who is really punished? The man who only paid a fine of rape, or the girl who is forced to marry the man who raped her and lives with him until he dies? Another question that also should be asked: which is more protective to women, the Koranic strict attitude or the Biblical lax attitude?

   Lowering the gaze and hiding the private parts are also emphasized in the Koran:

   Tell the believing men to lower their gazes and protect their private parts; that is purer for them; indeed Allah is well aware of what they do. And, tell the believing women to lower their gazes, and to protect their private parts, and to not reveal their beauty except that of it which is apparent (24, 30-31).

   In Islam there is no sex outside marriage. In the Koran, the sin of adultery is mentioned alongside polytheism and murder, illustrating its seriousness:

   The servants of Allah are those who do not call upon another God besides Allah, nor kill the sole which Allah has made sacred, except with just cause, nor commit fornication. And, whoever does that will meet punishment. The chastisement will be doubled for him on the Day of Arising, and he shall abide therein in ignominy. (Al-Furqan, 68-69).

   The Prophet said: “The fornicator is not a believer while he commits fornication.”

   The Prophet also said: “His belief leaves his body while he commits the shameful act, and hovers outside it until he finishes the act, at which time he regains it.”

   There is a severe sentence for fornicators and adulterers in an Islamic state once the crime has been proven by either the testimony of four witnesses, or by confession. The physical punishment they receive is painful indeed, 100 lashes if never married, or stoning to death if the guilty has consumated a legitimate marriage at any time in the past.

   The Koran says: “Let not any pity overcome you (so as to prevent any) from inflicting the order of Allah, if indeed you believe in Allah and the Last Day. And let a group of the believers witness their punishment (24, 2).

   Westerners argue that these divine punishments are brutal, but the divine commands are not to be argued but to be followed; second, those opposing such verdict must abstain from committing such heinous sin instead of criticizing the divine verdict that is forbiding such crime. Fornication spreads debauchery in the society as well as sexual sickness and social ills.

   Now let us ask the question: do Judaism and Christianity truly offer women a better treatment than Islam does?

   Both Judaism and Christianity preach that the fall of Adam from the Garden of Eden was the fault of Eve and as such women are to blame. This is not the teaching of Islam; the Koran directs all the responsibility to Adam himself, while adding that Allah turned to Adam in mercy and forgave him his sin. Therefore Adam’s sin stops with Adam himself, and Allah does not hold mankind responsible for the sin of Adam and rejects the concept of original sin.

   Muslims pracrice polygamy, a matter that is totally rejected by the Christians and the westerners in general.

   Mankind has practiced polygamy for thousands of years. Many of the ancient Israelites were polygamous, some having hundreds of wives. King Soliman is said to have had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines. David had ninety nine, and Jacob had four. No early society put any restriction on the number of wives or put any conditions about how they were to be treated. Jesus was not known to have spoken about polygamy. As recently as the seventeenth century polygamy was practiced and accepted in the Christian Church. The mormons-Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has allowed and practiced polygamy in the United States.
   Monogamy was introduced into Christianity in the time of Paul when many revisions took place in Christianity. This was done in order for the Church to conform to the Greco-Roman culture where men were monogamous but owned many slaves who were free for them to use; in other words, unrestricted polygamy.

   Early Christians invented ideas that women were “full of sin” and man was better off to “never marry”. Since this will be the end of mankind these same people compromised and said, “Marry only one.”
   In the American society many times when relations are strained, the husband simply deserts his wife and cohabits with other immoral woman without marriage.

   Actually, there are three kinds of polygamy practiced in western societies: serial polygamy. That is marriage, divorce, marriage, diovorce and so on any number of times. A man married to one woman but having and supporting one or more mistresses. An unmarried man having a number of mistresses.

   Islam condones but discourages the first and forbids the other two.

   Wars cause the number of women greatly exceed the number of men. In a monogamous society, those women left without husbands or support, resort to prostitution, illicit relationships with married men resulting in illegitimate children with no responsibility on the part of the father, or lonely spinsterhood or widowhood. But are these men really concerned about the rights of women? The society has so many practices, which exploit and suppress women leading to women’s liberation movements from the suffragettes of the early twentieth century to the feminists of
   today.

   The truth of the matter is that monogamy protects men, and allowing them to play around without responsibility. Easy birth control and easy legal abortion has opened the door of illicit sex to woman and she has been lured into the so called sexual revolution. But she is still the one who suffers the trauma of abortion and the side effects of the birth control methods. Taking aside the plagues of venereal disease, herpes and AIDS, the male continues to enjoy himself free of worry.

   Men are the ones protected by monogamy while women continue to be victims of men’s desires. Polygamy is very much opposed by the male dominated society because it will force men to face up to responsibility and fidelity. It would force them to take responsibility for their polygamous inclinations and would protect and provide for women and children.

   Among all the polygamous societies in history there were none, which limited the number of wives. All of the relations were unrestricted.
   In Islam, the regulations concerning poloygamy limit the number of wives a man can have while making him responsible for all the women involved.

   The Koran says in this respect:

   Marry women of your choice, two or three or four; but if you fear that you will not be able to deal justly with them, then only one or one that your right hand possess. That will be more suitable, to prevent you from doing injustice (4, 3).

   This verse from the Koran allows a man to marry more than one woman but only if he can deal justly with them. Another verse says that a person is unable to deal justly between wives, thus giving permission but discouraging.

   You will never be able to deal justly between wives however much you desire (to do so). But (if you have more than one wife) do not turn altogether away (from one), leaving her in suspense (4, 129).

   It should be noted that in many Muslim societies today the practice ofr polygamy is rare since the gap between both sexes is not huge. One can safely say that the rate of polygaqmous marriages in the Muslim world is much less that the rate of extramarital affairs in the western world.

   It has to be added that polygamy in Islam is a matter of mutual consent. No one could force a woman to marry a maerried man. Besides, the wife has the right to stipulate that her husband must not marry any other woman as a second wife.

   The Bible on the other hand, sometimes resorts to forcible polygamy. A childless widow must marry her husband’s brother, even if he is already married regardless of her consent (Genesis 38:8-10).

   What is more dignifying to a woman? An accepted and respected second wife as in the Islamic approach or a virtual prostitute as in the ‘civilized’ allies approaches? In other words, what is more dignifying to a woman, the Koranic prescription or the theology based on the culture of the Roman Empire?

   Reference: “Women in Islam versus Judeo-Christian Tradition”
   By: Sherif Muhammad.

   Dr. Mohsen El-guindy