A glance at Saudi government-approved fatwas

[Starsoul]

That is a very chauvinistic and misogynistic mind set, I NEVER think so low of the women Im with, some of them are stronger than me in various ways.
Its really sad if this is how Muslim men think about Muslimahs.

SO i gather that being Manly , in your opinion, is more indicative of a man's manliness when he's exhibiting his lust for women rather than being strong (physically) than the women. Great role reversal of the sexes isn't it?

And as for muslim women, stop feeling bad for them, they pretty much enjoy being treated like princesses rather than the bland treatment westren women receive from their manly counterparts. Women are so not equal to men, they are much delicate and Better

 

[Meow Mix]

Women are so not equal to men, they are much delicate and Better

Women aren't better than men, and just an FYI the reason so many people are jumping on this statement is that we western women find being called "delicate" offensive. It's just a cultural thing; it undermines everything we've fought for to gain equality because part of what held us down during our civil rights movements were perceptions by men that we're too soft to handle any responsibilities. Thus in most contexts being called delicate offends Western women because it reminds us of our oppression a mere 50 years ago.

 

[Caladan]

SO i gather that being Manly , in your opinion, is more indicative of a man's manliness when he's exhibiting his lust for women rather than being strong (physically) than the women. Great role reversal of the sexes isn't it?

I dont know how things are done in your land, Pakistan, is it? but in the developed world women have become very ecomplished, in politics, science, the academy, etc. if you believe, that as a Muslim Pakistani man, you are stronger than a Western woman, you are only fooling yourself.

And as for muslim women, stop feeling bad for them, they pretty much enjoy being treated like princesses rather than the bland treatment westren women receive from their manly counterparts. Women are so not equal to men, they are much delicate and Better

oh yes, I would love being told who to marry and when, not being able to walk outside on my own, to cover my hair, etc. true royal treatment.
I dont know how delicate women are, many women here take up arms and discipline Muslim men.

 

[MysticSang'ha]

SO i gather that being Manly , in your opinion, is more indicative of a man's manliness when he's exhibiting his lust for women rather than being strong (physically) than the women. Great role reversal of the sexes isn't it?

And as for muslim women, stop feeling bad for them, they pretty much enjoy being treated like princesses rather than the bland treatment westren women receive from their manly counterparts. Women are so not equal to men, they are much delicate and Better

Some women want to be treated as princesses, true, and placed on a pedestal like fine china.

I personally want to be revered like a fiery, passionate, skillful, wise, and devouring goddess. You know, one that would bite your head off after hours of pleasure just to keep you on your toes.

That's just me, though. I was pious and austere for years in my life. Nothing matches freedom, autonomy, and commanding respect.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

Innocent pleasure of this life? What do nakedness and indecent mixing have anything to do with innocence?

So you're saying, a swimming pool = nakedness and indecent mixing? This is a serious question.

There is a big outdoor pool at my university's recreation center. Could you describe in a few words what you imagine goes on there?

This talk and its alike is not surprising to come from people who have no appreciation for modesty and decency or any spiritual values and meanings.

I appreciate modesty. We just have different cultural ideas of what is "modest". The hard-line Islamists think you do not appreciate modesty, because you are okay with women showing their faces and hands, and wearing decorative and aesthetically-pleasing hijabs.

Doesn't the Koran describe the fine silks and the beautiful houris which await Muslims in paradise? Other Muslims on this forum have suggested glittering jewels, etc. await female Muslims in paradise. And yet, Muslim do not seem outraged by the immodesty and materialism of paradise. They are not sickened by the way the houris of heaven are treated, essentially, as objects whose purpose of existence is only for the pleasures of men.

I wonder, according to your beliefs, could there be swimming pools, "nakedness and indecent" mixing in paradise? And if there is, will you be offended by it and wish to return to Earth so you can be free of the indecency of heaven?

 

[Starsoul]

Ok, so, how vulnerable and innocent am I, as a woman, business owner, community leader and head of my own household?

I was referring to young girls who go through teenage years with the uncomfortable sexual gawkiness raining on them from all sides, without any protection or sense of responsibility. Maybe you were lucky to not have gone through bullying and abuse but that does not mean that the world is safe from such matters. If teen girls were not innocent and vulnerable ,would they have been committing suicide in countries like america where human rights are SO protected, and yet the men are too chicken to provide respect or protection to them?

Teen suicide was the 3rd leading cause of death among young adults and adolescents 15 to 24 years of age, following unintentional injuries and homicide. The rate was 9.9/100,000.

The adolescent suicide rate among youth ages 10-14 was 1.3/100,000 or 272 deaths among 20,910,440 children in this age group. The gender ratio for this age group was 3:1 (males: females).

And, you know, normal men have no problem keeping their lust in check. Unless they are mentally unbalanced, they don't even have thoughts of raping or beating a woman because they saw a bit of her flesh.

yeah normal men just legalize any sexual practise they find exciting and label it basic human rights. They legalize prostitution, and they join a nudist club if they aren't busy abusing women if statistics were to be believed. If nudity, strip clubs and prostitution SAVED the society from rape, abuse and murders, why does US has the highest rate of such crimes in the whole world?

is this how the west celebrates its symbol of sexual freedom ?

Every2 minutes, someone in US is being sexually assaulted.

How often does sexual assault occur? | RAINN | Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network

Women don't need to be protected by being oppressed. Islamic men need to control themselves and get therapy if these thoughts are normal.

Women and men both need to be protected from the objectification of their sexuality, the sooner they realize that, the better it would be for them.

 

[Starsoul]

Women aren't better than men, and just an FYI the reason so many people are jumping on this statement is that we western women find being called "delicate" offensive. It's just a cultural thing; it undermines everything we've fought for to gain equality because part of what held us down during our civil rights movements were perceptions by men that we're too soft to handle any responsibilities. Thus in most contexts being called delicate offends Western women because it reminds us of our oppression a mere 50 years ago.

I agree women were quite suppressed in the westren history,i understand what you are saying, but Islamic women have full rights over everything, there isn't any reason to feel any oppression. What appears oppressive to the west is cherished by those who practise it. And just covering yourself with a piece of cloth is pretty much a choice of dressing up a certain way. Muslim women are free from appeasing their society by feeding men the sexual objectivity of their nature. And men in the west who feel that 'women who cover themselves are oppressed' is such a nonsensical argument i cant even begin to comprehend its roots.

For instance, In britain women are known by the last names of their husbands after they get married, to them its their preferred identity. Hence its quite important for them to marry into a family which has a certain prestigious image, i find that to be a symbol of suppression. Muslim women retain their original names which accurately denote their lineage, and they are not afraid of what it is and they are not oppressed into gaining recognition by the names of their (famous) husbands, their identity is their own.

I find it oppression of the extreme kind when women are used as dancers and prostitutes to please men, give any name you would to it, it is slavery and subjugation of women to please the animal desires of males. And men do it in a way that women think that they are being empowered, are they really so empowered, is open to everyone's observation.

Women in Islam have all their rights in property, inheritance, voting, choice of choosing a life partner to marry, choosing careers etc. And they do it respectfully, they don't have to sell themselves or their bodies to get their basic rights in life. I don't know how people can relate that kind of freedom to oppression.

 

[AuroraWillow]

by feeding men the sexual objectivity of their nature.

I think the main issue here is the fact that you insist on categorizing women as inherently sexual objects. This is simply not true.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

If teen girls were not innocent and vulnerable ,would they have been committing suicide in countries like america where human rights are SO protected, and yet the men are too chicken to provide respect or protection to them?

We don't know what the suicide rates are in many Islamic countries because the governments do not care to keep track. For example, out of Bahrain, Syria, Egypt, and Iran, the latest data available to the WHO was 1990. The WHO apparently had never had any reliable data, as of 2003, on the suicide rates in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Yemen, Turkey, Afghanistan, or Iraq.

WHO: Suicide rates (per 100,000) by country, year, and gender

The WHO says suicide is under-reported or not reported in many Islamic countries:

[R]eporting of suicidal behaviours may be affected by the complex and often conflicting cultural attitudes towards suicide. Suicide is openly condemned in Muslim countries of the region, a fact related to its explicit prohibition in the Koran.1 ... Women, in particular, are affected by these ambiguous cultural attitudes. Arranged marriages, dowry vindications and unequal rights are some of the most common themes involved in suicidal behaviours of women in India and Muslim countries.3,4
...
Suicide mortality data is reported regularly to WHO by only India, Sri Lanka and Thailand (WHO South-East Asia Region) and only Australia, China, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China, Japan, New Zealand, the Philippines, the Republic of Korea and Singapore (WHO Western Pacific Region). Information from other (non-reporting) countries and areas is often difficult to obtain and usually must be drawn from a variety of sources. Considering that suicide is more often under-reported than other causes of death due to stigma, cultural issues and legal prohibitions, insufficiencies in official data recording systems pose a serious challenge to the development of targeted suicide prevention activities.

WHO | Suicide research and prevention in developing countries in Asia and the Pacific

The Daily Times of Pakistan agrees that suicide is under-reported, and elaborates on the causes of female suicide in Pakistan:

A study carried out on suicide cases in Chitral district by the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP) contained astonishing facts about the causes of suicides committed by the local women. Most of them were illiterate housewives belonging to poor families. Another factor was early age marriages as 59 percent of the women were aged between 16 to 20 years. Psychological problems emanating from early marriages could have played a vital role in forcing these unfortunate young women to embrace death at such a tender age.

Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan

A women's rights group in Afghanistan reports:

As shocking and gruesome as the practice is, self-immolation is not unusual among young women in Afghanistan, where women are often seen and treated as the property of men.
...
At Herat General Hospital's burns unit, Dr Aref Jalali has been keeping statistics on self-immolation since about 2002, and said he admits eight to ten cases of self-immolation a month. In June, he said, there were 20.
...
"It might be that there are five to 10 cases a month of young women setting themselves on fire that we never see, they are a long way from the city and so they cannot get here in time to get life-saving treatment.

"Or it could be that they are not helped by their families, they are just left to die," he said, relating the case of one young woman who was found locked in a barn weeks after attempting self-immolation.

"She was found 15 days after setting herself alight. She was found by accident by a human rights group. Her brother-in-law and father-in-law had raped her, so she wanted to kill herself," Jalalai said.
...
Afghanistan's lack of social development is blamed for the way women are treated, with much of the horror attributed to tradition and religion.

The Muslim country is pious and conservative and the spread of the Taliban's hardline Islamist insurgency has seen more women retreat behind all-enveloping burqas amid objections to plans by President Hamid Karzai to open peace talks.

Afghanistan remains a society mired in misogyny, with most women confined to their homes, unsocialised and uneducated, with no control over their lives.

"Forced marriages lead to problems, young women married to old men, sold, swapped for sheep or even opium. Sometimes girls are engaged as babies to baby boys -- this is common outside the cities and it leads to some of the problems of the women who come in here," Jalali said.

Desperation drives abused Afghan women to death by fire « RAWA News

...So, clearly the women of at least a few Islamic countries face serious problems. We don't know the full extent of these problems, but they clearly have nothing to do with immodest dress, swimming pools, too much free time away from their loving families, etc.

 

[Starsoul]

I dont know how things are done in your land, Pakistan, is it? but in the developed world women have become very ecomplished, in politics, science, the academy, etc. if you believe, that as a Muslim Pakistani man, you are stronger than a Western woman, you are only fooling yourself.

Its interesting how you know where i am from when i didn't even get to mention it .

No pakistani man believes that he is stronger than a western woman, they don't spend time fancying such comparisons. And as for politics, education and accomplishment of pakistani women are concerned, we 've had a highly educated Female prime minister twice in our country, what about isreal or US ? Israel's record holds only one female making it to that seat ONCE inspite of the fact that the west is extremely supportive of strong aggressive, fiery, devouring, godesses as Mystic Sang'ha puts it. And US well, None!

oh yes, I would love being told who to marry and when, not being able to walk outside on my own, to cover my hair, etc. true royal treatment.
I dont know how delicate women are, many women here take up arms and discipline Muslim men.

Sad that being royal sounds that tasteless to you, don't blame you, thats probably about all the royalty that you are familiar with and thats probably about all of it that you have ever seen in your society. Probably a whip striking woman is more of a royalty than the plain janes.

The first women surgeon was a muslim women, Rufaidah. She invented the carotid artery ligation technique while working on war soldiers. I guess the media really works to project anything but positive about islam, i see that works for them to a great extent.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

No pakistani man believes that he is stronger than a western woman, they don't spend time fancying such comparisons. And as for politics, education and accomplishment of pakistani women are concerned, we 've had a highly educated Female prime minister twice in our country, what about isreal or US ? Israel's record holds only one female making it to that seat ONCE inspite of the fact that the west is extremely supportive of strong aggressive, fiery, devouring, godesses as Mystic Sang'ha puts it. And US well, None!

That's a good point, but is this really because of "immodest dress", swimming pools and so forth? Arguably, women dress just as modestly in Saudi Arabia as they do in Pakistan, yet I am not aware many women have reached the top echelons of Saudi government (correct me if I'm mistaken). Furthermore, the culture is just as "immodest" in Germany, Iceland, the UK, and other countries as it is in the U.S. and Israel, and those countries have had women leaders.

So I really don't see a strong pattern in the evidence that proves non-Islamic cultural norms of dress and behavior prevent women from becoming national leaders.

 

[Bismillah]

The Saudi Kingdom cannot be compared with Pakistan because the Kingdom is a monarchy. I think what Starsoul is saying is that Muslim women are not powerless and are held as equals in Islam, with Bhutto being an example of that assertion.

 

[Starsoul]

That's a good point, but is this really because of "immodest dress", swimming pools and so forth? Arguably, women dress just as modestly in Saudi Arabia as they do in Pakistan, yet I am not aware many women have reached the top echelons of Saudi government (correct me if I'm mistaken). Furthermore, the culture is just as "immodest" in Germany, Iceland, the UK, and other countries as it is in the U.S. and Israel, and those countries have had women leaders.

So I really don't see a strong pattern in the evidence that proves non-Islamic cultural norms of dress and behavior prevent women from becoming national leaders.

Thats true about Saudia. But Saudia's political system is not entirely an islamic one as of yet. They have very few islamic rulings implemented in the kingdom, and the rest need to be implemented.

I did not mean to say that the dress pattern of the west prevents women from reaching the top echelons of their govts. There have been many smart and wise women reaching just near the top, Margret thatcher being one of them, but enjoying the support from their society that these women actually do, there should've been more than just one instances where women actually reached such places.

I guess no woman would move to war if that kind of a thing happened. I cannot imagine a woman deciding to take the whole country to war and that probably prevents them from reaching the top seats. But thats my opinion. Maybe Mystic Sang'ha would beat the **** out of opposing armies .

 

[Bismillah]

I guess no woman would move to war if that kind of a thing happened. I cannot imagine a woman deciding to take the whole country to war and that probably prevents them from reaching the top seats. But thats my opinion. Maybe Mystic Sang'ha would beat the **** out of opposing armies .

Indira Ghandi established India's nuclear weapons program nicknamed "Smiling Buddha"

 

[Mr Spinkles]

The Saudi Kingdom cannot be compared with Pakistan because the Kingdom is a monarchy. I think what Starsoul is saying is that Muslim women are not powerless and are held as equals in Islam, with Bhutto being an example of that assertion.

I hear what you're saying. I'm not saying Islam is incompatible with women reaching positions of power. Bhutto is a great example. I thought Starsoul was suggesting that Western culture is an impediment to women reaching positions of power, a claim which doesn't seem to be supported in any obvious way by the facts.

I did not mean to say that the dress pattern of the west prevents women from reaching the top echelons of their govts. There have been many smart and wise women reaching just near the top, Margret thatcher being one of them, but enjoying the support from their society that these women actually do, there should've been more than just one instances where women actually reached such places.

Also of course Germany, Iceland, Canada, Norway, Poland, Finland, Australia, Ireland, Switzerland ... have had women prime ministers and presidents (for what it's worth). Contemporary women world leaders

I guess no woman would move to war if that kind of a thing happened. I cannot imagine a woman deciding to take the whole country to war and that probably prevents them from reaching the top seats. But thats my opinion. Maybe Mystic Sang'ha would beat the **** out of opposing armies .

I see, I think I was mistaken about what you were saying. I totally agree there should be more women in positions of power, in all countries.

 

[Meow Mix]

I find it oppression of the extreme kind when women are used as dancers and prostitutes to please men, give any name you would to it, it is slavery and subjugation of women to please the animal desires of males. And men do it in a way that women think that they are being empowered, are they really so empowered, is open to everyone's observation.

I worked as a dancer in a strip club for 3 years -- now I have a B.S. in physics without owing anyone any money, whereas most students get out of undergraduate studies owing tens of thousands of dollars in debt. I never once felt oppressed, in fact I felt empowered. I have a degree to show for it, too. I wasn't the only one either; one of my co-workers had attained her CNA and was working on her RN.

Women in Islam have all their rights in property, inheritance, voting, choice of choosing a life partner to marry, choosing careers etc. And they do it respectfully, they don't have to sell themselves or their bodies to get their basic rights in life. I don't know how people can relate that kind of freedom to oppression.

I didn't "sell myself," it's just entertainment. I made a choice not to have debt after undergraduate studies and I'm glad I had options available to me to do so.

The point about all this quarreling I think is over the force of the fatwas in the OP: they strip away the ability to make a choice.

The best government is a secular and free government. Everybody wins in such a government because I can marry who I want to even if someone else doesn't like it (and the same for you, imagine if someone said "No you can't marry who you love because I don't like that idea"), I can work at a strip club if I want, I can go out to the bar and have good times with my friends if I want. At the same time, a Muslim can choose to live by what they believe and not do those things.

See? Everybody wins.

What happens in an oppressive theocracy, though? One group brutally enforces their beliefs on everyone else. That's tyrannical and wrong. I would fight the implementation of such a "government" to the bitter end because it's evil. Furthermore I hope that eventually all such oppressive governments (theocracies or not) fade away from this earth, everyone would be better off without them. Free governments for free people is best. If people want to live by special rules or by religious rules they're still free to do so in a free government; that's the great thing about "freedom." They just aren't allowed to force everyone else to conform to their narrow ideas of morality.

 

[Caladan]

Its interesting how you know where i am from when i didn't even get to mention it .

No pakistani man believes that he is stronger than a western woman, they don't spend time fancying such comparisons. And as for politics, education and accomplishment of pakistani women are concerned, we 've had a highly educated Female prime minister twice in our country, what about isreal or US ? Israel's record holds only one female making it to that seat ONCE inspite of the fact that the west is extremely supportive of strong aggressive, fiery, devouring, godesses as Mystic Sang'ha puts it. And US well, None!

I'm not talking about women from a very tiny Pakistani elite. the majority of Pakistanis both men and women alike have no comprehension of what you are talking about. Pakistan has a record of countless honor killings a year against women.

The first women surgeon was a muslim women, Rufaidah. She invented the carotid artery ligation technique while working on war soldiers. I guess the media really works to project anything but positive about islam, i see that works for them to a great extent.

exception of the rule.

 

[England my lionheart]

It show what a sham the modest dress code is when you see the crime of Rape in Saudi and especially Pakistan soit obviously doesn't work

 

[Bismillah]

Pakistan has a record of countless honor killings a year against women.

And India has record numbers of Sati burnings Go to any economically suffering area in the world and you will find suffering.

 

[Caladan]

And India has record numbers of Sati burnings Go to any economically suffering area in the world and you will find suffering.

Exactly, and many Islamic nations are just that, economically suffering areas, in conflict between superstition and the shadow of western modernity.