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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