Although some Muslim women have gained basic equality with men, other are still held in low regard and denied basic human rights. This session will help trace such thinking back to roots in ancient Islamic traditions, or Hadith.
Although some Muslim women have gained basic equality with men, other are still held in low regard and denied basic human rights. This session will help trace such thinking back to roots in ancient Islamic traditions, or Hadith.
The gospel is God’s good news for human beings mired in sin and its consequences. Often, this good news is presented as Jesus’ sacrificial payment of the just penalty for sin. This message is thoroughly biblical, and for many, it is good news indeed. However, for many Muslims, it is an answer to a legal question they are not asking. Rather, Muslims often demonstrate a felt need for cleansing. Jesus’ provision of complete cleansing from sin and a new spiritual nature can speak directly to these felt needs for purity, which are repeatedly affirmed in the biblical record.
I recommend that believers of any faith when engaging believers of another faith, read the commentaries of the scholars of the other faith that help interpret or contextualize the scripture of the other faith. For example, regarding the Qur’an 2:191, a Christian might read the commentary of Ibn Kathir that contextualizes the verse to mean something quite different than the meaning given to it by the Christian reading the verse without the context and without access to the centuries of commentary around the verse.
Will contextualizing the verses solve the problem completely? Absolutely not. Why not? Because ignorant believers in a particular scripture often decontextualize or misinterpret a verse in their own holy book. Let’s look at some examples.
Have Christians at times treated the Bible to justify Jesus as the Lord of Wars more than the Prince of Peace because they read a verse such as Matthew 10:34 and believe that Jesus is advocating violence? Absolutely! This happened in the Crusades, which was actually a string of crusades, some launched by Muslims and others by Christians, each resorting to brutal violence. It was a horrible time in the history of both Christianity and Islam.
Have Muslims at times treated Muhammad as advocating violence without any constraints when convenient for Muslims? Absolutely! ISIS does it daily.
Even acknowledging these horrendous events in our histories doesn’t solve the problem because believers often get into a game of “your sin is worse than my sin,” “your transgressions are worse than our transgressions.” Or believers of different faiths often engage in the dubious logic of comparing the ideals of their faith against the realities witnessed in the lives of those of the other faith. I don’t find it morally sensitive or helpful to justify sin in any way.
Sinful people are often not interested in the truth but instead on misusing words of truth to justify sin rather than promote goodness.
Jesus warned us about this and directed us to remove the log in our own eye before addressing the speck in another’s eye.
Although men and women are spiritually equal before God they have different functions and responsibilities. There are four ways in which the primacy of men over women is affirmed in the Qur’an: (1) man is physically stronger (Q 2:228); (2) men may discipline their wives (Q 4:34); (3) in a legal situation. In the 1980s there was much debate in Pakistan as to whether in a court of law the testimony of one man is equaled by the testimony of two women or of one woman. In the end it was decided that in each case the judge would decide – a solution which pleased neither the fundamentalists nor the liberals. The question of evidence in court stems from one particular Quranic verse ( 2:282). However, Muslims put a very high store on the Hadith or Traditions. Some hadith raise interesting questions about the position of women. Aisha, one of Muhammad’s wives, was not happy about being categorized with dogs. Bukhari, in his collection of Hadith (Vol.2, 135) records that Muhammad said that “Prayer is annulled by a dog, a donkey and a woman (if they pass in front of the praying people). I said you have made us (i.e. women) dogs.” (4) Finally, in the matter of inheritance (Q 4:11). Generally a daughter inherits half of what would come to her brother. The rationale is that the son has greater economic responsibilities. “Men are superior to women on account of the qualities with which God has gifted the one…
Whereas non-Muslims in the west may joke that there are only two things we can count on–death and taxes, Muslims, as a rule, do not joke about such serious matters lest such levity invite a premature occurrence. But as to its universal and unavoidable reality, there is no doubt, for in the Scripture of Islam death is called “the certain.” The Qur’an says: “And serve thy Lord until there come unto thee the hour that is certain” (Surah 15:99).