Muslim Child Abuse

[Rayaan]

Fr0d0, you said:

"There is specific instruction there that a valid last resort is physical violence - where physical violence is abhorrent."

You are right, in saying that physical violence is abhorrent, however, the "violence" is actually a physical contact which is not supposed to bruise or severely injure the wife (kind of like a parent hitting a child). Why? Because the Arabic word is "wadribuhunna," from the root word "darb," which has many meanings which include to "hit or strike lightly." Scholars have also placed limits on what form of "hitting" is allowed such as only using the hand and not striking the face or any of the delicate parts of the body.

Also, notice that the Quran did not recommend divorce here. One has to understand that human beings and their opinions and feelings always change and evolve as time goes on. If one was to take the shortcut of a divorce, it is a life-altering event, for the husband, wife, and children. To save everyone from such a thing happening, Islam allows the husband to make the strongest possible statement which is intended more as a psychological tool than a physical one.

Once again, this is a permission, meaning he does not have to do this, but is merely allowed if circumstances warrant. This is not to be done whenever a husband feels like it. I would never want to do this to my wife either.

@ Min and Rhythm,

There is no provision in the Quran that allows a wife to strike her husband, but it doesn't say "don't do this" either, so I think this is allowed in certain situations although it is not encouraged. But, most importantly, what is clear is that both the husband and wife are told to treat each other with respect and kindness and to be patient with each other in several verses in the Quran. There are more verses on telling men to be at good conduct with their wives than vice versa. For example: "Live with them (women) on a footing of kindness and equity" (Surah 4:19).

Here are more such verses: Muslim Women in the Quran and Sunnah

[Skipper]

Fr0d0, you said:

"There is specific instruction there that a valid last resort is physical violence - where physical violence is abhorrent."

You are right, in saying that physical violence is abhorrent, however, the "violence" is actually a physical contact which is not supposed to bruise or severely injure the wife (kind of like a parent hitting a child). Why? Because the Arabic word is "wadribuhunna," from the root word "darb," which has many meanings which include to "hit or strike lightly." Scholars have also placed limits on what form of "hitting" is allowed such as only using the hand and not striking the face or any of the delicate parts of the body.

I haven't been posting here for a week or two but it's good to see Rayaans blind justification and excuse making for Islam hasn't changed.

[fr0d0]

Is there any religious tradition that's truly civilized?

Secular society is civilised where it mimics religious ideals. We happen to have inherited it, and what we think of civilized is also in line with the religious POV. Strange that.

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Fr0d0, you said:

"There is specific instruction there that a valid last resort is physical violence - where physical violence is abhorrent."

You are right, in saying that physical violence is abhorrent, however, the "violence" is actually a physical contact which is not supposed to bruise or severely injure the wife (kind of like a parent hitting a child). Why? Because the Arabic word is "wadribuhunna," from the root word "darb," which has many meanings which include to "hit or strike lightly." Scholars have also placed limits on what form of "hitting" is allowed such as only using the hand and not striking the face or any of the delicate parts of the body.

Even given the term refers to "a light beating", just think how degrading and demoralising that is. The woman has to feel about a millimetre tall after getting a corrective slap from the master of the house. This isn't anything like a respectful marriage where the female is treasured and honoured.

[LastPoet]

This isn't anything like a respectful marriage where the female is treasured and honoured.

Doormat

[Epimethean]

Doncha love a guidebook that can be interpreted to mean about anything you want?

Fucking burns me up.

[Minimalist]

But, most importantly, what is clear is that both the husband and wife are told to treat each other with respect and kindness and to be patient with each other in several verses in the Quran.

Rayaan that's just fucking wonderful BUT if there is a dispute the husband gets to beat the shit out of her. As Epi says, all of this shit is so vaguely written that anyone can read just about anything into it and then turn around and say "god is on my side" which is, after all, what religion is all about.

[Ace Otana]

Secular society is civilised where it mimics religious ideals.

Mimics religious ideals? Please list these religious ideals.

[downbeatplumb]

Religion has stolen some of the secular virtues not the other way round.

Despite the width and diversity of their philosophical views, secular ethicists generally share one or more principles:

Human beings, through their ability to empathise, are capable of determining ethical grounds.
Human beings, through logic and reason, are capable of deriving normative principles of behaviour.
This may lead to a behaviour preferable to that propagated or condoned based on religious texts. Alternatively, this may lead to the advocacy of a system of moral principles that a broad group of people, both religious and non-religious, can agree upon.
Human beings have the moral responsibility to ensure that societies and individuals act based on these ethical principles.
Societies should, if at all possible, advance from a less ethical and just form to a more ethical and just form.
Many of these tenets are applied in the Science of morality, the use of the scientific method to answer moral questions. Various thinkers have framed morality as questions of empirical truth to be explored in a scientific context. The science is related to Ethical naturalism, a type of Ethical realism.

[Judas BentHer]

With regard to Rayaan's observations:

Many non-Muslims are aware that the Koran states that it contains God's Divine timeless guidance. While the Koran also commands the faithful to exercise the intellect Allah bestowed upon them, so as to interpret that guidance by learning Arabic so as to best understand the guidance amid the lay community and to also interpret and understand that instruction based on a scholarly investigation.

So when violence against Muslim women, by Islamic men, is excused by anyone claiming the Koran does not permit that to occur, it's actually a banal excuse for pardoning what is, what's occurred, what's been suffered, in the name of Islam as perpetrated by one who claims to be Muslim.

If the Koran did not permit spousal abuse, or abuse of women and children at all, as some would like us to believe, then there would be no Muslim alive who would commit abuse in the name of adhering to the tenets of their faith as guided by the word of Allah. "Honor Killing" would not exist.

But it does.
It's not a matter of freedom of religion, it's a matter of freedom from a religion who's holy book can be interpreted by it's faithful to inspire war against the whole world. It's not a matter of tolerance, which is only exercised in the face of what is otherwise intolerable, when there is not one church or synagogue erected in Saudi Arabia or Mecca and the primary definition of "Tolerance" is; a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality, etc., differ from one's own. When Islam bears a history of Muslims who behead their wives, beat their wives, rape their wives, brutalize their children and slaughter infidels for daring to live free of feeling the need to comply to the tenets of Islam, because that freedom and exercise of liberty is simply not tolerable to those who are Muslim and claim their deviant behavior is in keeping with the will of god and the tenets of Islam.

Religious tradition is not civil. It's not civilized. It's old world backwards tradition that seeks to enslave the intellect of the faithful and coral the evolution of the secular. Every aspect of any of the three traditions of the Abrahamic faiths can be dissected so as to reveal backwards, violent intolerant philosophy. Unfortunately, Islam is the one that get's the majority of the Press coverage that broadcasts the impression Islam, of those three Abrahamic traditions as Christianity, Judaism and Islam, is the only one that has a population of faithful who are Fundamentalist traditionalists in the worst way. And be that as it may, in an unfair media scrutiny that makes it seem as if Islam holds the exclusive on such dysfunctional behaviors amid certain of it's faithful, it is what it is. And those faithful are proud to be what they be. And no manner of excusing; that's not Islam! Changes a thing about it.

[The Grand Nudger]

Religious tradition was civil in at least one way that it currently is not. Julian the Apostate, and the events surrounding his upbringing, rule, and ultimate devise are a great example of where polytheism was, by definition, tolerant. Statues of Jesus were erected in temples with all the other gods. When you believe in hundreds, if not thousands, of major and minor deities, you don't begrudge the believer for wishing to add yet another. Religion, observed from this snapshot in time, has been steadily moving in reverse where moral issues are concerned. The idea that we've been slowly moving towards civility from a point of barbarism is one that has been heavily influenced by the monotheistic tradition of straw manning all that had come before it. Just something to chew on.

minor shout out to the wiccan in our midst.....lol.

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Before anyone does a double take when they see my post..et tu rhythm?...understand that I'm not defending the gross abuses that have been perpetrated in the name of religious tradition. Only showing that religious tradition can indeed be civil, highlighting my frustration with it's current state. None of this addresses the absurdity of any particular tradition, of course.