arma@ee.eng.ohio-state.edu (Lama Hamandi) (01/15/91)
Dear brothers and sisters, Assalamu Alaykum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatouh After reading the article about the position of women in Islam (written by a new muslim), I had some comments. The author dealt with two subjects in that article: - The position of women in Islam - Taking care of new muslims I will begin by commenting on the second issue: The author tells us a story about him taking a newly-introduced-to- islam friend to a convention or lecture and how he was surprised and never came back. Two incidents were related, or three. One that the majority (overwhelming) was black which made the friend feel a little awkward. Then somebody grabbed the friend by his hand and gave him a sort of Pakistani perfume. Then people shouted Allahu Akbar to something that the speaker said. Dear author, in my opinion you have made a terrible mistake of not making an introduction to your friend about the customs of the place you are taking him to. You should have told him beforehand that the majority there will be Pakistani (but point out that muslims are from all over the world and this no indication of muslim predominant natinality, you could have benefited from the situation here to emphasize that as muslims, we feel that any other muslim no matter what nationality he is, he is our brother, customs may differ but the brother-love will fill the gap). When the perfum-donnor put some pakistani perfume on your friend's hand, you should have directly explained what that perfume was and that it is not something that muslims should do, you could have told him that he could have refused to have the perfume and that this will be taken with love by the perfume-donnor. Then when people shouted Allahu Akbar, you should have explained themeaning and reason behind this shouting, this would have clarified things to your friend's mind and he may have had some more questions that will may benefit him from an islamic point of view. So please, as you said we should take care of our muslim (new) brothers in their first stages. But not by keeping them out of seeing the common muslims and just letting them see the rightous pious muslim. This will have a bad effect on him when he meets the other less pious muslims. Instead we should take him anywhere muslims are but be carefull to point out the actions of the muslims that are according to islam and if they are mandatory or not, also we should take care to point out the actions done by muslims and that are not from islam or on which there are differences in the opinions of knowlegeable people. This will help build the true faith and a clear image about islam into new muslims. Perhaps the most difficult thing to deal with as a non-muslim reverting to islam is the issue of women. For centuries women or the issue of women has been a controversial issue This is the case because of the ignorance of the people dealing with that issue. I am not saying that I know everything about that issue, I amy be more confused than you are with all the different opinions that I heared throughout my life. I am a born muslim, but I was born and raised in Lebanon which is a country living on a Western Basis. You find few women that wear hijab, there is a considerable number of non-muslims, even muslims are living according to the western lifestyle (dating, parties, mixed gatherings, mixed schools etc ...). Having had interest in islam and as I grew up I realized the difference between islam and my/my familie's way of life. So I began correcting my way of life and acheived a good standard while I was in lebanon. Arriving to the united states 3 years ago, I found many discouraging things. First, since muslims here are not from the same country, their ideas about islam and the standards for living are not the same. This first was a challenge for me to try to acheive the best standard. But then I was so overwhelmed with many best standards that I decided to investigate the matter on my own. For the issue of women the ideas are so much different that you are lost: people say that a woman should not drive people say that a woman should not work people say that a woman should not come to the masjid people say that a woman should not exist in a gathering where there is strange men people say ... people say .... You listen to all of this and you get lost so what I did is I used to ask everyone about his proof to the claim that he is asserting. Some of them could not furnish the proof or furnished a non-convincing proof, others had very good proofs. So the point here is not to take every muslim for granted, and take what he says as being the islamic view, you have to research what he/she says and make sure it is from islam especially when it is someone that was born and raised as a muslim in the middle east because many of his islamic beleifs are only customs of his own society and were invented by that society and are not from islam. This is a general observation for any subject in islam and not only the women issue. As far as the women issue, I have seen no proof for the claim that a women should be always hidden. Women at the time of the prophet SAW used to go to the masajid (of course the prophet said that the best place for a woman to pray is her house but he also said that do not prevent women from going to the masajid mosques) it is the same as a man's best place to pray is the masjid (mosque) but he is not forbidden to pray at home or any other place for that matter. Mixing with others, for me as a lebaneese I can accept a woman being in a group of men and women (not only one woman but several) but maybe for a saoudi he accepts only groups of men alone and groups of women alone. This has nothing to do with islam. Islam is derived from Quran, Sunnah and hadith so we have to look at the prophet's deeds. Is there any incident that says that a woman should never communicate with a foreign man ? How did Aisha (the wife of the prophet) and his other wives communicate thier knowledge of sunnah to us ? I asked many sheikhs about that and the islamic point of view is that a man and a woman should not be in KHALWA. KHALWA is defined to be under the circumstances below: - The man and the woman should be alone (i.e. only two persons) - The man must be astranger (not MAHRAM) - They should have security that no one will surprise them at any time If one of those conditions are broken then it is not a KHALWA and it is allowed. But as far as a woman travelling there are other conditiond that she should have a MAHRAM travelling with her. The final point is about marriage in Islam, the misconception is that in Islam A guy marries a woman and he sees her only on the night of marriage. Well no and that is not recommended, actually a whole process should be followed before marriage. First a man desiring to marry should tell his family, the family (specifically the female part) would look for a suitable woman for him(according to HIS preferences) he may have someone in mind so they go dirctly to HER family or he may have some guidlines about the woman he wants but no specific name. Then after the family sees that woman and determine that she is according to HIS standards, they will come with him to HER family and engage both. During the Engagement period (which is permitted in Islam) he deals with her as a stranger (no kissing, going out alone, hand shaking, hand holding) basically no KHALWA (he is still a stranger) but he is also a maybe-future-husband, this period would be the period of exchanging ideas and studying the other prospective partner. In this period also both families will be investigating the other FAMILY and not only the person. After the engagement period and if they BOTH like each other they will get married. It is important here to note that no marriage can take place without the girl approving of it, a father cannot force his daughter to marry someone she doesn't want (still the father or WALI) is the one who represents the daughter but if he is misrepresenting her she could take him to court for that and the judge will appoint another one to represent her. So to make a long story short, marriage in islam is not like what was described by our brother in that article and women (muslim women) are not invisible nor are they like light poles instead they are active in their society. One of those women is walhamdulillah my wife she is doing her PhD in Electrical Engineering and she is a muslim woman wearing hijab and dealing with all aspects of life the same (maybe even better) as any other woman. So please clarify this issue in your minds islam is NOT making women like light poles, islam was is and will be forever the protector and dignifier of women. wassalamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatouh