ATWT Discussion Group

Topic: question

Hello everybody,

I have a question i would really like to ask you all, though i am not sure it will go over to well. Anyway here goes:   I am a big atwt fan from Morocco. I always enjoy reading the atwt board and the personal board, but i never really write something myself. The other day however i read a topic on the atwt board about Faith being lesbian and the author included something along the lines of not living under Shar'ia law and the word Subhanallah.

That really hurt my feelings, even though i am sure it was not intentional. Oke coming to the point now, sorry for being so lenghty about it. My question is, what do you all think about us muslims? And i mean muslims in general not Iraqi muslims or Afghani muslims, because i am a Morocain woman, so i am not in a position to talk about the situation in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Thanks in advance for ur input.

Choumicha

Greetings Choumicha,

I am pleased that you posted on this board. I think if people of different faiths interact more with open minds, we will learn from each other. And sadly, I don't know any Muslims. I do try to educate myself through reading, keeping in mind that people who write books usually have an agenda. I have read two books by your countrywoman Malika Oufkir. I have also read Khaled Hosseini's two books and a non fiction about Baghdad (name escapes me). I visited Kashmir in the mid 1980s and was impressed by the industriousness and cleanliness of the Muslims there.

From my reading and from various news articles, I get a fairly bleak picture of how women are treated in Muslim countries. It is my hope that things are not as bad as depicted in the books I've read or the incidents reported in the news. We do hear positive things periodically. Only today it was reported that Saudi Arabia is considering allowing women to drive automobiles and to check into hotels by themselves.

Again, I welcome you to the board and look forward to a healthy dialogue and intelligent discussion.

It was very interesting reading both of your posts and also enlightening. It appears that the interpretation of a source can be read differently just as many Western religions translate the Bible differently.

The post that hurt your feelings was mine, so I feel obliged to respond honestly to your query. There was no reason to feel hurt because I did not say anything negative about Muslims as people, only Shari'a law, which allows nine-year-old girls (Natalie's age) to undergo what amounts to marital rape. This is a fact, supported by the life of Prophet Muhammad as documented in several testimonials attributed to his favourite wife Aisha, who was six years old when he contracted marriage with her, nine years old when her mother called her from her swing to sit on his lap and let him consummate the marriage with her, still playing with toy horses when she moved in with him, too young to stay awake to prevent the goat from eating the dough when she was accused of infidelity, and eighteen years old when he died. Shari'a law, as interpreted by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the late theocratic dictator of Iran, recommends that a girl be married so early that she experiences menarche in her husband's home - no age is too early, but molestation should be nonvaginal until she is nine! In addition, I have read the testimony of a girl from Pakistan, a country created for the sole purpose of having a 'clean' Islamic state under Shari'a law, who was sold into marriage to an old man before puberty, and then kicked out because she could not get pregnant, excessive sex before puberty having left her sterile for life. When the thought that I might upset some people by talking about young Natalie's sexual orientation reminds me of the religion that inflicts such monstrous depravity on girls her age, I can only follow the example of al-Jauniyya when Prophet Muhammad was about to strike her for refusing to marry him - I take refuge in a higher power. Subhanallah - praise God that some of us have better sense than his followers!

I have many Muslim friends who pray for me, and I appreciate their good intentions even when I abhor what they pray for (my conversion to Islam, without bothering to find out what I believe). They know that I know more about the roots of Islam and its history than they do, and that is why I detest the character of Prophet Muhammad as he appears in the Qur'an, the Ahadith, and his biographies. (Bear in mind that every damning detail we know about this man comes from records collected and expurgated by his devoted followers a couple of centuries after his time, and translated into English by his followers today: http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/) I find Shari'a law barbarous and ridiculous, especially as articulated by the mutawwas of Saudi Arabia and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran. That said, I recognize that Sufis and others have achieved spiritual progress in spite of Islam. If you want to discipline yourself with prayer, fasting and pilgrimage, good for you. Just don't consider yourself superior because you commune with God by kissing a black stone while others feel inspired by God to carve his/her beauty in stone. And please stop circumcising your children without their informed consent! It's traumatic, medically unnecessary, and a violation of their right to bodily integrity.

Replies: (list all replies)

First, let me say thank you for your honest reply. I understand where you are coming from, although some things concerning the marriage of Aicha (raa) with the Prohphet (saw) are not correct. Also the things the Ayatollah says are not what ppl in for instance Morocco believe in, seeing as they are Shia and we are Sunni. Circumcising is also something that is not only for muslims but for many other religions and is also often done for medical reasons.And i have certainly not said i feel superior to you or anybody else for that matter. Greetings Choumicha

I indicated my source for the facts about Aisha and Muhammad: the Ahadith translated by Islamic scholars at http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/ If you say that these facts are incorrect, how so, and what is your source? And I can also tell you about systemic rape of prepubescent girls by Sunni men under the guise of religiously sanctioned marriage - wealthy Saudi Arabs often go to Cairo, Hyderabad, or Yemen to purchase girls for mut'a marriage (yes, I know mut'a isn't Sunni-sanctioned, but it is tolerated) and abandon them far from home, soiled and destitute. If not for the religious component, these would be just more examples of worldwide misogyny, but the fact is that these crimes against humanity are done under the auspices of Islam.

Actually, those horrible things are done by ppl who claim to be Muslim and use the islam for their own benefit, but those actions are not islamic. My sources are books about ahadith and books about fiqh ou sounnah. I read them in Arabic, so i would have to look up the exact title and translate that. Will do that in case you want to know. Also i read the Qur'an in Arabic and that is a big source of knowledge for me as well. Thank you for your reply's, i really enjoy it

What do you think of the following Hadith that appears multiple times (for example, Sahih Bukhari Vol. 7, Book 62, No. 16): Narrated Jabir bin 'Abdullah: 'While we were returning from a Ghazwa (Holy Battle) with the Prophet, I started driving my camel fast, as it was a lazy camel. A rider came behind me and pricked my camel with a spear he had with him, and then my camel started running as fast as the best camel you may see. Behold! The rider was the Prophet himself. He said, 'What makes you in such a hurry?' I replied, 'I am newly married.' He said, 'Did you marry a virgin or a matron?' I replied, 'A matron.' He said, 'Why didn't you marry a young girl so that you may play with her and she with you?' When we were about to enter (Medina), the Prophet said, 'Wait so that you may enter (Medina) at night so that the lady of unkempt hair may comb her hair and the one whose husband has been absent may shave her pubic region.' And the next Hadith (No. 17): Narrated Jabir bin 'Abdullah: When I got married, Allah's Apostle said to me, 'What type of lady have you married?' I replied, 'I have married a matron.' He said, 'Why, don't you have a liking for the virgins and for fondling them?' Jabir also said: Allah's Apostle said, 'Why didn't you marry a young girl so that you might play with her and she with you?' Doesn't it sound like Islamic scripture highly recommends marrying innocent children? And No. 18 is about Muhammad asking to marry Aisha: Narrated 'Ursa: The Prophet asked Abu Bakr for 'Aisha's hand in marriage. Abu Bakr said 'But I am your brother.' The Prophet said, 'You are my brother in Allah's religion and His Book, but she (Aisha) is lawful for me to marry.' So, Aisha's father was bringing her up to look upon Muhammad as her uncle, but Muhammad wanted this little girl to be his wife. If you think 'little girl' is an exaggeration, just flip back to No. 15: Narrated 'Aisha: Allah's Apostle said (to me), 'You have been shown to me twice in (my) dreams. A man was carrying you in a silken cloth and said to me, 'This is your wife.' I uncovered it; and behold, it was you. I said to myself, 'If this dream is from Allah, He will cause it to come true.''

I do know those hadiths, but the explanation given to them is different. Also the first wife of the Prophet, the lady Khadija was nowhere near a virgin, she was 20 years older and allready had children. Still he loved her more then any of his other wifes and while married to her, he had no other wifes. The reason Allah wanted the Prophet to marry Aicha was indeed because she was still young and would have many years to live after his death, during which years she would be able to pass on knowledge about islam and about the life of the Prophet. He did not consumate the marriage untill she was of a good age to do so. Since i read the hadith in Arabic, it is difficult to write them down h ere, seeing as i am scared of making a mistake in translating. But very nice to talk with somebody who indeed knows what he/she is talking about and is not just following other ppls words

Choumicha, you keep bringing up counterexamples as if they cancel out the examples I provided, but they don't. How does marriage to Khadija excuse marriage to Aisha? Muhammad married an older woman who supported him financially until her death, and within a month or so he contracted marriage with six-year-old Aisha. (And right after that, he married Sauda to keep house for him; later, he would have divorced her if she hadn't conceded her nightly turn to Aisha.) He didn't penetrate Aisha until she recovered from a disease that made her hair fall out - this is the ONLY reason Aisha gives for postponing sex in the Ahadith attributed to her; she does NOT say that she was too young at six and old enough at nine! The topic was whether Islamic doctrine promotes the sexual exploitation of children. I can provide you with several Ahadith, repeated many times, that specify Aisha's age as NINE when the marriage was consummated. You cannot find even one Hadith that says that Muhammad left her unmolested even until puberty, but if you could, it wouldn't stop both Shia and Sunni clerics from saying that sex with children is endorsed by the prophet's example. Just as one more example of the consequences, I read a nonfiction book about a member of the Saudi royal family (Jean Sasson's 'Princess Sultana's Daughters') in which eight sisters gathered on the 20th anniversary of their mother's death realize that they are now older than their mother was when she died. Thanks to a country under Islamic law, this girl went through childbirth EIGHT times before she was twenty. She was used like a slot machine for babies! You can say all you want that these are not real Muslims, but they are the ones following Muhammad's example and his pronouncements.

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