A marriage should end when either of the parties want it to end, or else it's no longer consensual. I don't believe in forcing people to stay married. But divorce still needs to mean splitting the finances so nobody is left destitute and without skills for employment. Alimony was invented for a reason. Before it existed, divorce was immensely cruel.
The point is, of course, that the muslim/sharia rule about ending marriage is discriminatory. Only the man can end the marriage at all. If a man abuses the woman, in an islamic marriage, there is no possibility of divorce (disregarding minority rules, like Shi'a islam, and even there, only if specified in the prenup).
Secondly, a man can end a marriage without any consequences in Sunni islam, instantly. No alimony, not even care for the kids if he doesn't want to. He can just kick the woman out from one day to another.
The woman described in the article experienced both sides of this. She was not allowed a divorce when she wanted one, even when it was obvious her husband was beating her (apparently because she had a daughter instead of a son), and she got no financial support from the man, and neither did her child. She had to shoulder the entire financial burden.
In most muslim nations there are activists demanding changes to the islamic marriage rules. Sometimes along the lines here, but also along other lines, that ending a marriage by the woman becomes possible to end situations of abuse.
There's history behind this. There was a campaign a while back by muslim women to ask that Christian rules be allowed to regulate muslim marriage, because firstly they're not discriminatory towards women, and secondly they demand people take some responsibility for their family.
So you may want to rethink your comment. This is a struggle for equality first.
And of course, there is profound unfairness in islamic marriage. Women, especially when confronted with alternatives, want better. This is not wrong. This is progress.
Islam's rules are discriminatory on many fronts, to the point that there are clear differences in legal status amongst many enforced classes in society, which are not equal before the law. That is one reason islam and sharia are such disasters. The classes in islam are: muslims, non-muslim oppressed Christians and Jews, slaves, and kuffar. Slaves and kuffar can be murdered without punishment (slaves only by their owner). All of these classes are further split between men and women, with the men on top. "Somehow" things like this never seem to come up in discussions of what is and isn't tolerant.
Doesn't the US has something like a 51% divorce rate? if you accept the premise that the nuclear family is a cornerstone of western civilization I can see why you would not be ecstatic at the idea of making marriage a trivial thing. Should we allow the individual to have every one of its desires in reach of fulfillment?
Though I concede that there is a point in allowing unhappy marriages to part away, after all, why live unhappy when someone else just for the sake of conforming. However, if appealing on the surface; I wonder if that could be in fact a local optimum that negatively affects society on the long term. I'm genuinely curious to know what do you think?
I feel that extended family, rather than nuclear family, is the cornerstone (of sensible living anywhere, not particularly of western living). And I think, divorce doesn't have to separate extended families, people have their own relationships which either work or don't regardless of what the couple feel about each other. But I don't think that making marriage consensual makes it trivial. On the contrary, I think that making marriage nonconsensual makes it a mockery. In what sense are people who despise each other married at all?
And the main threat to both extended families and marriage in the west is capitalism, of the particular, late, people-as-replaceable-cogs globalized variety. Who these days can afford to live where they grew up? Fix that, and you will see families reuniting.
As for the case in the original link, it's discriminatory that men have unequal power to end the marriage, but it's far more important, IMO, that marriages which end don't seem to carry the obligations they ought, of extended support and support for the children. This is the real discrimination, since it allows husbands to hold over wives the threat of destitution - or to carry it out.
The nuclear family is a myth born in the mid-20th century and spread by television, so I can't accept that premise, although the attempt and failure of most families to emulate Leave it to Beaver and Donna Reed might be a source of some of the psychological problems plaguing modern western civilization.
Should we allow the individual to have every one of its desires in reach of fulfillment?
Our modern society is founded on the supreme principle of individual rights. If you want to live in a collectivist society with arranged marriages and a general distrust for individual freedoms, you can choose to do so. There are several available to choose from.
Otherwise you're going to have a hard time making the argument here. Too many people enjoy individual rights so much they are willing to leave their lives and livelihoods behind in order to come here. At the very minimum it's encumbant upon us to continue to preserve these rights for everyone.
I was not trying to argue whether that's the case or not. As you said so well, it is clearly the case. Rather, I am trying to wage whether that's a good thing or not. Is there a balance to strike?
>If you want to live in a collectivist society with arranged marriages and a general distrust for individual freedoms, you can choose to do so. There are several available to choose from.
I think you're putting words in my mouth. Words that you would like me to say perhaps.
The balance point will always be a matter for debate. I think it's pretty clear, however, that no fault divorce is absolutely the right thing to do. Keeping individuals out of toxic, unhappy, even abusive marriages is far more important than maintaining a low divorce statistic. I'd even go so far as to say preserving the individual happiness of all people is more important than any statistic.
I think you're putting words in my mouth
That comment was half in reference to the article, which is focused on India.
There are a couple of key incidents in India's history that led to the current situation
1. Soon after India become an independent nation in 1947, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru sought to create a single civil code for the entire country. Although it had one criminal code, created by the British in 1860, there was no civil code that applied to all citizens in all of the previously British provinces or the hundreds of tiny and large states ruled by Nawabs, Princes and Maharajas. There was considerable opposition to this, especially to clauses that would have allowed women an equal share in ancestral property. It took almost a decade to see this though parliament and into law because of how much opposition this had. Its worth remembering that as the party that won India its Independence, Nehru had more support in Parliament than any government since, except one. At some point though, Nehru decided to exclude Muslims from the ambit of the Code, simply because it would have likely sunk the bill. All the leaders who had any pull with the Muslim community had left to Pakistan and there was simply no one who could convince the remaining Muslims that ditching Sharia for the new Code would be beneficial. So the Hindu code bills[1] were passed. (Incidentally, it applied to Jains, Sikhs and Buddhists as well)
2. In 1978 a woman named Shah Bano Begum [2] was divorced by her husband and left destitute. She sued for alimony and was granted it by the local courts. Her ex-husband appealed to the Supreme Court, which rejected his appeal. The Prime Minister at that time, Rajiv Gandhi then passed a law ironically called The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986, that nullified the Supreme Court's judgment in the Shah Bano judgment. He did so for he feared that he would lose votes in the next election if he didn't.
And that is the reason that Muslim women in India get such a raw deal. However, the party in power at the centre and in most states is the BJP, a party that does not seek any Muslim votes to win elections. They have also been promising a Civil Code that will apply to all citizens for about 2 decades now. Some time next year, they will have the numbers in both Houses of Parliament to make that a reality.
The main sticking point that will be difficult to reconcile is that Muslim men are allowed to marry multiple times while the current Hindu Civil Code doesn't allow that. If a Uniform Code is enacted, the status of these existing marriages would be in question.
That's incredibly unfortunate... in areas like that, people hardly know a thing about Islam but can label themselves Muslims and then pretend they're practicing it. Preference of boys over girls as children in Islam is a huge sin -- written so explicitly in the Qur'an. But the families and people described in the story clearly don't care and thus are hardly Muslims. I hope she finds a safer setting soon.
With that said, divorce in a Muslim setting is no free lunch. The couple agrees before the marriage on a certain amount of money (or any other thing) given to the woman in case of divorce. The only time that isn't given is when the woman asks for it herself (for obvious reasons -- the woman can 'play' the man into a marriage in very lenient divorce terms, and divorce on purpose afterwards for it). Not sure what the terms of divorce were for this woman and her past 3 marriages, but she should be careful what she agrees on.
Are you claiming it's an opinion or something "up for interpretation" whether it's a sin to prefer boys over girls in Islam? Or it's an opinion or only an interpretation that woman are allowed an agreement before the marriage regarding the circumstances for divorce in Islam?
I'm assuming OP was addressing the difference between religious rules and purely cultural traditions.
Many muslim-majority countries suffer from traditions that have been mixed up with religion (things like female circumcision in Mauritania or Egypt, preferring male children to females in some muslim Asian countries, all type of pagan rituals/"sorcery" in Morocco, etc.). Those things are in direct contradiction with the most common/popular interpretations, and yet people will present them as being linked to Islam (quite hard to find a commonly accepted interpretation of the Quran asking women to be circumsised, or allowing people to adore saints and "cast spells")
It's a matter of belief. I made the assumption that those people "probably don't care", implying they probably don't believe that something like that's a sin. When you don't believe in it, you're not a Muslim. If they still believe in it and yet do it, it's a major sin indeed, and they are still Muslims. But Muslims possibly bound for hell.
'Killing the infidels' isn't a requirement of action nor are you bound by belief to do so to be a Muslim. Can you cite a full Surah from the Qur'an where this is unequivocally required of Muslims, under all circumstances?
Religious interpretation or exegesis in Islam dates back to the dawn of the religion. It is complex and relies on carefully reasoned precedent.
It's interesting that casual critics of Islam and Muslim extremists (mostly influenced by Wahhabist Saudi thought) take the same amateurish approach to interpreting scripture, by de-contextualising random passages, throwing away exegesis and going for "aha!" moments to justify their positions.
Exactly. Literal reading of sacred texts isn't exactly the answer to dealing with the incompatibility of religious dogma with modern secular western values.
I agree with you, there are so many places in religious texts where we would be ridiculous and possibly have some evil agenda to read the text literally. But in other places, we have 'proof' (if you will) from the "Sunnah" (way) of the last Islamic Prophet regarding those exact things, so there's no debate nor room for interpretation. For this particular point, we have too much "proof" (in the same regard), so that's why there's no room for interpretation here and the question of reading things literally is irrelevant.
One of the theological cornerstones of Islam, is that the Quran is the perfect, direct and unalterable word of Allah.
If you have faith in Allah, if you truly believe that he is the author of this world, and if you accept Muhammad as its prophet. Then, I genuinely wonder what room is left for compromises. How do you interpret "Kill the apostates"? How can you, in good faith, pretend it is an allegory?
This is what Islam requires from its followers: blind and complete trust. It is not only a sacred book. The Quran is a civil code that aims to regulate every minute of the lives of its adherents. And let's stop kidding ourselves. It is not a peaceful religion either. Islam has conquest and expansion ingrained in its DNA. The Muslim world is extremely orthodoxical. There are peaceful Muslims living in the West. They are peaceful in spite of their holy book, not because of it. Those individuals should be celebrated.
We're asking a violent bedouin who lived in a pre-medieval era to share our hierarchy of values and ethical system. This is anachronistic and cannot end well. Muhammad was not a hippie. He was a warlord.
You linked to an article where half the "arguments" made are either valid but are disjoint with the mainstream schools of Islam (in face, that they all live in the West is a good hint that they would probably be considered apostates elsewhere - I counted one Ahmadi). Anecdotally, none of them either published or studied at Al-Azhar.
The other half are just threats.
So, really, I'm quite disappointed because I am looking for someone to contradict me.
>Quite a few intelligent people disagree with you.
(Contrast: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/mar/24/tini-ow... )