As Haditha go, have read the canon of Sunnism's Sahih Haditha and to
date, have read some of Al-Kafi, but not all of it.
Ama addressing two birds (Prof Harrow & Anunoby Ogugua) with this one
stone:
First of all the implications in Anunoby Ogugua first three paragraphs
have to be addressed: to wit the suggestion that Rasulullah, salallahu
alaihi wa salaam "practised the customs, traditions and values of his
community" is somewhat misleading. To the unwary and the unaware, it
gives the impression that Rasulullah, salallahu alaihi wa salaam,
totally embraced those "customs, traditions and values of his
community" which were un-Islamic or anti-Islamic. Nothing could be
further away from the truth. He did not.
To begin with, some of his followers were persecuted to the extent
that they had to seek refuge/asylum with the Negus of Ethiopia who was
kind enough to accommodate them. For similar reasons the Prophet of
Islam himself – salallahu alaihi wa salaam had to flee Mecca because
his message was at variance with the prevalence of some of the
decadent customs, traditions and values of his community which the
message of the Qur'an and al-Islam aimed at reforming. One of the
first acts of cleansing was done by his young disciple Ali Ibn Talib
alaihi salaam – he who destroyed all the idols in the Kabba – and
there was also a call for citizens of the Hijaz to desist from burying
their daughters. Contrary to "the economic practices and interests"
of the capitalist class who embraced slaves as private property, the
message encourage the setting free of slaves – and their conversion –
as free men, to al-Islam began to take place as in the case of Bilal…
Ogugua Anunoby in his second paragraph ascribes the human factor to -
from a truly Islamic point of view/ faith – the divinely guided
prophet – when he says, that "Mohammed like all great ancient teachers
knew not to needlessly challenge the established interests and place
of men in his community if he was going to be successful and have his
message endure."
The fact is that the message endures – has endured and not just due to
any human, strategic agency. The evidence is today's 1.5 billion
Muslim adherents, who may be said to be as plentiful as the stars in
the heavens.
The allegation of "the unequal treatment of women" I'll leave to a
separate discussion…..but not right now.
Turning to Professor Harrow, true, the tension between the earthy
temporality of the weak flesh and the rewards to be enjoyed in the
alluring Islamic or any other Heaven-like Hereafter (after corporeal
death) is always present. Whether we believe it or we are derisive
about it, we may either be presently surprised – if we do not believe,
or burn in Gehenna or Jahannam whether as kuffar, we believe it or we
believe it not.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_feminism
Patriarchal Muslims (but not only Muslims) will concur with James
Brown that "It's a man's world, but it would be nothing - nothing -
without a woman" and whether it's 4 Kislev 5771, or the 4 Dhu al-
Hijjah 1431 or it's merely Thursday, 11 November 2010, the examples of
the darlings of the libertine West, Shirin Ebadi or Fatima Mernissi,
the Hirsi Alis and the old sourpussies like Taslima Nasrins are very
presently imbued with impulses coming from Western feminism + the
Women's Rights & EQUAL Rights groups who even go as far as
advocating the Feminisation of the Genderless Almighty Who has
hitherto been recognised as " He" - " The Father" etc. in all kinds
of Patriarchies, even though perhaps less so in Islam through this oft
repeated Surah:
In so far as Nigeria is still a secular state and not an Iran-type
theocracy, we may regard Zamfara State which has adopted Sharia law,
as a pilot case. If it's successful in Zamfara, why should it not be
successful in other majority Muslim states in Nigeria? In my humble
opinion the crying need is to have trained Islamic jurists who are
fully capable of interpreting and applying the law to all believers
who profess submission to Sharia, who abide by its rulings and are
therefore willing to surrender their cases for Islamic adjudication
and submit to the Sharia Court's decisions, thereof.
Islamic Sharia is for the individual & the community – to maintain
Islamic morality: N.B. the importance of hijab, niqab and burqa is not
uniform, but varies from country to country.
Q: Is there anyone among us who does not believe that ZINA is a great
sin?
As far as modernisation is concerned, today, perhaps four (4)
witnesses are not needed when forensic tests can ascertain the guilt
of the rapist who left is fingerprints…
Something to be squeamish about: thievery and the chopping off of
hands (but where?), today regarded as not only severe dismemberment
but also barbaric, like casting the first stone….
http://www.drsoroush.com/English/Interviews/E-INT-20090500-SomeOfOurClerics.html
Conclusion: In a free, secular society it would be entirely up to the
Nigerian/ non- Nigerian citizens in Nigeria, to act within the legal
limits of the religious or secular law as the case may be, with
respect for the law. And there should/ ought not to be any conflict
between the two; although, for a Muslim the Sharia is the natural law
of choice, whereas for the Munafiqun the secular law is perhaps the
law of convenience.
Professor H.O says that there are more than five Schools of Islamic
Jurisprudence; be that as it may, we are to be sure that there are
certainly more than five schools of Customary Law, throughout the
Federation, and of course on top of all that, there is the Nigerian
Constitution…..
On Nov 11, 4:04 am, kenneth harrow <har...@msu.edu> wrote:
> thank you ogugua for this thoughtful response (to cornelius, but we
> are all listening in)
> there is, in all religions, a notion that there is something absolute
> and eternal in the religion's dogma, and something human, shall we
> say, or transitory, which humans invent out of the material provided
> by the divine.
> this is how i take your response to the question of whether marriages
> in which a woman's consent is not obtained are sanctioned in islam.
> the answer on one level, all over the web, is NONONO, and qur'anic or
> hadithic texts are cited. on the other hand, slightly more searching
> turns up what you state, that there are, in fact, locations where
> that is the case, and in your observations could be put down to
> custom. if maliki code, or guardianship, is interpreted in sudan,
> say, as empowering a father to decide on his own whom his daughter
> will marry, that interpretation is demoted to the level of the human,
> the customary, and not the absolute, the divine word.
> the problem is that the difference between the absolute word of the
> divine, and the customary word of the human, is sustainable only by
> faith. believers adhere to this difference. but what if you are not a
> believer?
> and if you are a believer from a community that interprets the sharia
> law in such a way as to endow the guardian with the authority to
> decide whom the woman will marry, then that decision will be viewed
> as divinely authorized.
> right?
> so we are in a new age, in a sense, when the reinterpretation of
> hadith, or the qur'an, is increasingly being done by women, like
> fatima mernissi, who insist on an authority vested in women which
> previous custom denied and authorized by its reading of the text. the
> reasons for this are readily apparent, and you detail them quite well
> ken
>
> At 05:51 PM 11/10/2010, you wrote:
>
>
>
> >Mohammed like all great teachers had a message, belonged to a
> >community, and acknowledged and practiced the customs, traditions,
> >and values of his community. It is not too difficult to see that his
> >embrace of the mundane social and economic practices and interests
> >of men in his community, contributed to, enhanced and facilitated
> >his success as the founder of one of the world's great religions.
> >Mohammed like all great ancient teachers, knew not to needlessly
> >challenge the established interests and place of men in his
> >community if he was going to be successful and have his message
> >endure. History is replete with records of what became of great
> >teachers who challenged these practices and interests in their societies.
> >Every serious study of any religions is awash in evidence that
> >customs and traditions play a central role in the behavioral aspects
> >and diktats of that religion. Men were traditionally dominant in
> >most early and still many contemporary societies. Men therefore
> >defined and determined customs and traditions following experience
> >yes, but mostly to maintain and sustain male dominance and
> >interests. Is it not the case that in most societies, women usually
> >got the short end of the stick?
> >Men considered and held women and their daughters to be not only
> >property necessary for preserving their genes, and furthering the
> >tribe, but also sources of pleasure. It was thinking in the above
> >lines that helped to justify in men's minds only, the unequal
> >treatment of women and their daughters by men through history,
> >including such questionable practices like child marriage.
> >Mohammed it seems, believed in and practiced the social customs and
> >traditions of his people. Given who he was historically, what he is
> >reported to have said and done have therefore been codified by men,
> >as essential elements/components (some may say doctrine) of the
> >religion that he founded, but also used to preserve and entrench the
> >privileges that men have always enjoyed at the expense of women and
> >their daughters. These codes over time become gospel and quite
> >difficult to change.
> >If the goal/objective of Islam and its adherents is the salvation of
> >believers, who in good conscience today, would argue that a
> >consummated child marriage of an adult male and a female child, or
> >men having as many as four wives, would help to get the adult man,
> >female child, and up to four women, to paradise?
> >Successful great teachers were invariably adept strategists. They
> >knew their environments (communities/societies) well.
>
> >oa
>
> >--
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> >of Texas at Austin.
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>
> Kenneth W. Harrow
> Distinguished Professor of English
> Michigan State University
> har...@msu.edu
> 517 803-8839
> fax 517 353 3755
--
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