A-number wrote,
Jeff D wrote:
Both of the examples cited on this thread seem to me to be cruelty and burning stupidity of the "patriarchal" / "tribalistic" kind. I suspect that the actual connections to religion are rather tenuous and fuzzy.
No they are not. Read the coran if you dare and in arabic not in some other language. If you really are interested in truth, and not in covering it up.
An interesting exhortation, from someone who chooses the unusual spelling "coran" . Why not ask me to read the "Koran" or the Quran in Arabic?
I'm guessing that you don't read Arabic. I don't either. Neither do most of the Muslims on this planet. A minority read modern (not Classical) Arabic, but most are "forced" to read the Koran in translation into their native languages. From what I have read, to read the Koran in Arabic and to understand it is a difficult undertaking even for experts in the Arabic language; there are abrupt shifts in tense, person, and subject matter from verse to verse, and many of the suras presuppose that the reader possesses knowledge of folk traditions and myths that became lost even to the first few generations of post-
hijira Muslims.
I have read a large book titled
What the Koran Really Says (Language, Text and Translations), edited by Ibn Warraq, which deals specifically with the history of the Koran, pre-7th century influences on it, the difficulties of translation, and the general messiness of the actual history -- so far as we can discern it -- of how the Koran of today came to take its current form, and how long it took. Another book written by Ibn Warraq,
Why I Am Not a Muslim, is an easier, quicker and rewarding read.
Consider that "Koran" -- no matter how one spells it in English -- is traceable to a Syriac word source, and that various scholars have counted anywhere from 107 to 275 "foreign" (non-Arabic) words in the Koran, borrowed from Greek, Persian, Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac, and Ethiopian.
Consider that the earliest extant material written about Muhammad (who died in 632 C.E.) was written in 750 C.E., and that writer's (Ibn Ishaq) work is only now available in parts quoted by Ibn Hisham (who died in 832).
Consider that most many scholars of Islamic history (not just those who adhere to the party line in Saudi Arabia, in Egypt, or in Iran) have concluded that the Koran we now have did not settle into something close to its current form until sometime between the mid-8th century and the late 10th century. Some of these scholars (I sometimes wonder how many of them are under a death sentence from traditionalist mullahs or imams) have concluded that the traditional, "received" history of the Koran (supposedly ordered to be compiled into an authoritative version by the second and/or third caliphs between 650 and 670 C.E.) is a complete fabrication.
Consider that of all the collections or compilations of the
Hadith (sayings and acts attributed to Muhammad, and therefore supposedly authoritative traditions of what was done by or said him or in his presence, and either commanded or praised or not forbidden by him), there are half a dozen "authentic" collections of the
Hadith, and all six of them were compiled by writers who died not earlier than 870 C.E.
Consider that there are various pre-Islamic sources, dating as far back as Tertullian (around 200 C.E.) that describe women in Arabia and Persia wearing garments that covered their faces and entire bodies. . . . This, more than 400 years before Muhammad supposedly first received his "dictation" around 610 C.E. Whatever their reasons for covering themselves (or being coerced to cover themselves) in this fashion, it wasn't because of Islam.
Finally, consider that although the Koran is mostly a deeply misogynist book, and although Islam pretty clearly advocates treating women as inferior beings with inferior rights (and fewer) rights and treats female sexuality as either non-existent or unholy or fearsome, there are only two passages inn the Koran that I have seen that seem to come close to requiring that women cover their heads (or their faces or bodies). The first is Sura 33:59 and applies when women leave their homes:
O Prophet! Tell thy wives and thy daughters and the women of the believers to draw their cloaks close round when they go abroad. That will be better, so that they may be recognized and not annoyed.
Note that this injunction or command is directed first to Muhammad's wives and daughters, and secondarily to "women of the believers." This sura doesn't say that women must cover their heads, or even their faces. The Arabic word used in 33:59 is
jalabib, the plural of the Arabic word for "dress." So a body covering, not necessarily a head covering, is referred to. The Arabic word used most often in the Koran to refer to a headscarf or veil is
khimar (not
hijab, which has the more general meaning "curtain" or "cover").
And it's slightly ironic that this command in 33:59 was given so that particular women "may be recognized." If all Muslim women are required to wear the
burqa or
niqab -- a face covering or a whole-body covering, something that these suras don't mention -- then none of them will be recognizable or distinguishable from the others.
The second is Sura 24:31, which is more vague in enjoining women to "conceal their beauty" from men other than their husbands, fathers, sons, and a list of other male relatives and womenfolk. It tells women to arrange their head coverings so that they cover their chests or bosoms, but does not say that women must cover their faces.
In Bukhari's collection of the
Hadith, Vol. 1, book 8:395, there is a clearer command for wearing a
hijab (scarf covering the head, not necessarily the face), but I've already said what I think of the reliability and
bona fides of the
Hadith, and numerous learned exegetes have interpreted this command as referring only to the wives of Muhammad.
Can you cite me a passage from the Quran that requires women who don't "properly" clothe themselves to be put to death?
My point was that cultural practices (in this case, a whole set of practices that treat women as second-class citizens, as chattels, as inferior beings, as dangerous temptresses) can arise and probably have arisen for a variety of reasons, not all of them necessarily religious or superstitious, and then
later, these practices are given a religious pedigree or imprimatur, as a kind of ultimate "argument from authority."
* * * *
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge, and others merely gargle.
-- Lawrence Kusche
by 
