Teenage years has probably got to be one of the most sensitive times of communication between the teen and his/her parents. Especially for the second generation whose parents are immigrants. So listen...
You will never be able to win your parents over to allow you to do that new thing (that you so desperately want to pursue) by talking to them with a tone in your voice. You perceive that tone as passion, but your parents will perceive it as a lack of maturity & incompetence. If you want your parents to love and support you in your new path, talk to them with humility, and be patient for whatever answer you will get after. It takes time for parents to loosen up and relax whatever constraints they have on you, but eventually it will happen. For most of our parents, if we talk to them with an attitude, they completely shut off from us because they dislike the way we talked to them, even if you are right and they are wrong. This is just how many parents are.
And don't bring up that ''I'm not a child anymore, I'm an adult!" because they haaate that. Whether you are 17 or 70 you will always remain a child in their eyes. So don't exclaim that you are an adult, SHOW them that you're an adult, show them that you're competent, mature, capable and intelligent. And in response hopefully they will reach that realization that they should start treating you like an adult. So yeah, hold your tongue, be patient, it will do you amazing favors in the long term. Trust me.
Negotiate, discuss, and reason with them; the important thing is that you do it in a good manner.
Wednesday, 5 June 2013
Monday, 3 June 2013
If you're a woman and you want to pursue a degree in Islamic studies, DO IT.
If you're a woman and you want to pursue a degree in Islamic studies, do it. Yes, DO IT.
There is an urgent need for women scholars and it’s very serious. Something that many Muslim women are struggling with is finding themselves, their status and their worth in the deen of Islam. The amount of times I was close to leaving Islam because of the ignorance of a few speakers when lecturing about women. This struggle exists because unfortunately there are traditions among Islamic thinkers that have distorted Islamic teachings pertaining to women... and has been further affected by cultural thought, for example, the literalist and cultural traditions that don’t look at women’s issues holistically. According to both traditions, the Quran views men as superior over women, that it is haram for a woman to work, women must stay confined in their homes at all times and that wife-beating can even be permissible. These are the products of looking at Islamic texts literally and devoiding it from its historical & cultural context they were revealed in. From my opinion, this is actually dangerous e.g. verse 2:228 in the Quran:
“And they (women) have rights (over their husbands as regards living expenses) similar (to those of their husbands) over them (as regards obedience and respect) to what is reasonable, but men have a degree over them. And Allaah is All-Mighty, All-Wise”- [al-Baqarah 2:228]
From a literal point of view, you could understand this verse to mean that men are superior over women and that this belief is legitimate within Islam. But when you look at the Arabic, context and the tafseer (explanation) you will find it implies something totally different. The commentators of the Quran in the earlier Islamic period such as Ibn Hajar and Ibn Katheer never understood this to mean absolute superiority over women. Rather the correct meaning implied is that men have a degree of RESPONSIBILITY over the women. That they “are the protectors and maintainers of women”. Other verses that have been interpreted literally to justify wife beating & the confinement of women in the home when it is IN FACT contradictory to the Sunnah (Prophetic tradition):
1) The prophet (PBUH) never laid a finger on his wives except with gentleness, and he advised his companions to do likewise. In one hadith he expressed his extreme repulsion from this behavior and said: "How does anyone of you beat his wife as he beats the stallion camel and then embrace (sleep with) her?” (Al-Bukhari, English Translation, vol. 8, Hadith 68, pp. 42-43)
2) He never forbade Khadija (RA) from continuing with her business dealings. A woman even came to him for advice on trade: A companion named Qaila said to the Prophet: "I am a woman who buys and sells things (in other words, a trader)." Then she asked him several questions about buying and selling (Ibn Sa'd, Tabaqat, Vol. 8, p.228) [Afzal: p. 69]
Referring to a second woman: It is reported about Shifa' Bint Abdullah: "Umar often entrusted her with market responsibilities (i.e., as a market inspector) Al--Isti'ab fi Asma' al-Ashab by Jalal U. Ansar Umri. [Afzal: p.86]
Referring to a third woman: Ibn Abd al-Barr, Al--Isti'ab fi Asma' al-Ashab: writes about Samra Bint Nuhaik, "She commanded good and forbade evil while going around in the markets. She had a whip in her hand with which she punished those who committed any evil or vice (Munkar). [Afzal: p.77]
3) Also he was the one who supported Aisha (RA) through her struggle to becoming a teacher, a scholar and a political activist who was very much engaged with her society. Many of us overlook the fact that she was even a narrator of hadith.
So we can now see how some literalist & cultural traditions can produce conclusions that are INCOMPATIBLE with Islam.
On top of that, this tradition has resulted in limiting the role of women to merely a wife and a mother, nothing more. Although these are VERY important roles, it's not right to limit a woman's purpose in Islam to just those, and not encourage her to exercise her talents & intellect within the limits of halal. The mothers of the believers were not just mothers and wives as they had a very active role in society, but they did so in a way that it wouldn’t interfere with their roles as mothers and wives.
It was the combination of the efforts of both Muslim men and women that allowed their Islamic communities to flourish in Arabia, Persia and North Africa. In the 9th century Fatima Al-Fihri opened up the University of Qarawiyyin in Morocco and was also the founder of the world's first academic degree-granting institution of higher education. I know Islamic Societies in universities that would not have survived if it wasn’t for their women’s participation. And this could not have been achieved if these women were confined to their home. If we women were to do so, then who would be doing dawah to other women and younger Muslim girls? If men were to do it, that would fall under free-mixing. It is a fact that Muslim girls are lacking of good adult influence. And sadly not all Muslim girls can look to their families for that. One Muslim woman who won’t be named even complained that girls are not practicing Islam because they feel it’s not applicable to them. So please, don’t tell me that the literalist & cultural view of women in Islam is the correct approach.
Additionally there is a double standard, Why is it that when a white revert female is on the forefront of dawah, we praise her, but when a Muslim woman who comes from our Middle Eastern, Asian and Somali backgrounds, we discourage her?
When women are not given their rightful place in Islam, it is half of the Ummah who are being deprived. Like a plane with only one wing, it will fly forward a little bit, but eventually it will return in a circle and land back at square one. This is how I view a society that doesn’t do justice to the other sex. I can think of communities who largely take on the literal & cultural tradition and they aren’t progressing anywhere.The real practice of Islamic studies requires intense intellectual effort & excellence; memorization, language ability, historical knowledge & understanding, sociology, law, philosophy etc. Scholars are trained to disassociate themselves from their whims and cultural assumptions so they can understand Islam the way it would be understood rather than through the lens of their whims and cultural traditions. Now you can see why scholars are known as the inheritors of knowledge. So to look at the Islamic teaching in a literalist & cultural perspective severely undermines that. But people do it anyway, because it’s easy and doesn’t require as much intellectual effort- as stated by Tareq Ramadan.
Lastly, we’re in a crisis; When there are shariah councils in the UK are turning Muslim women away who are suffering from domestic abuse, it’s no small matter. Islamic law says that a woman who is being abused by her husband has the right to dissolve her marriage and even choose to bring forth consequences. So where is this knowledge today? Us Muslim women, really, we share the blame for not taking the initiative to study women’s rights, femininity, and what it means to be a woman in the light of Islam. So yes, we need more female scholars side by side with our male scholars. In the early centuries of Islam there were no less than 8000 Muslim women scholars. Such vast numbers truly testify to the huge role that women have played in the preservation and development of Islamic learning since the time of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). So please, any one of you women who want to pursue Islamic studies. Do it. May Allah make it easy for you.
This is not ‘Islamic feminism’, this is simply just Islam.
“"Whoever is met by death while he is seeking knowledge to revive Islam, then between him and the Prophets will be only one degree in Paradise."- Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) Sunnan Al-Darimi
There is an urgent need for women scholars and it’s very serious. Something that many Muslim women are struggling with is finding themselves, their status and their worth in the deen of Islam. The amount of times I was close to leaving Islam because of the ignorance of a few speakers when lecturing about women. This struggle exists because unfortunately there are traditions among Islamic thinkers that have distorted Islamic teachings pertaining to women... and has been further affected by cultural thought, for example, the literalist and cultural traditions that don’t look at women’s issues holistically. According to both traditions, the Quran views men as superior over women, that it is haram for a woman to work, women must stay confined in their homes at all times and that wife-beating can even be permissible. These are the products of looking at Islamic texts literally and devoiding it from its historical & cultural context they were revealed in. From my opinion, this is actually dangerous e.g. verse 2:228 in the Quran:
“And they (women) have rights (over their husbands as regards living expenses) similar (to those of their husbands) over them (as regards obedience and respect) to what is reasonable, but men have a degree over them. And Allaah is All-Mighty, All-Wise”- [al-Baqarah 2:228]
From a literal point of view, you could understand this verse to mean that men are superior over women and that this belief is legitimate within Islam. But when you look at the Arabic, context and the tafseer (explanation) you will find it implies something totally different. The commentators of the Quran in the earlier Islamic period such as Ibn Hajar and Ibn Katheer never understood this to mean absolute superiority over women. Rather the correct meaning implied is that men have a degree of RESPONSIBILITY over the women. That they “are the protectors and maintainers of women”. Other verses that have been interpreted literally to justify wife beating & the confinement of women in the home when it is IN FACT contradictory to the Sunnah (Prophetic tradition):
1) The prophet (PBUH) never laid a finger on his wives except with gentleness, and he advised his companions to do likewise. In one hadith he expressed his extreme repulsion from this behavior and said: "How does anyone of you beat his wife as he beats the stallion camel and then embrace (sleep with) her?” (Al-Bukhari, English Translation, vol. 8, Hadith 68, pp. 42-43)
2) He never forbade Khadija (RA) from continuing with her business dealings. A woman even came to him for advice on trade: A companion named Qaila said to the Prophet: "I am a woman who buys and sells things (in other words, a trader)." Then she asked him several questions about buying and selling (Ibn Sa'd, Tabaqat, Vol. 8, p.228) [Afzal: p. 69]
Referring to a second woman: It is reported about Shifa' Bint Abdullah: "Umar often entrusted her with market responsibilities (i.e., as a market inspector) Al--Isti'ab fi Asma' al-Ashab by Jalal U. Ansar Umri. [Afzal: p.86]
Referring to a third woman: Ibn Abd al-Barr, Al--Isti'ab fi Asma' al-Ashab: writes about Samra Bint Nuhaik, "She commanded good and forbade evil while going around in the markets. She had a whip in her hand with which she punished those who committed any evil or vice (Munkar). [Afzal: p.77]
3) Also he was the one who supported Aisha (RA) through her struggle to becoming a teacher, a scholar and a political activist who was very much engaged with her society. Many of us overlook the fact that she was even a narrator of hadith.
So we can now see how some literalist & cultural traditions can produce conclusions that are INCOMPATIBLE with Islam.
On top of that, this tradition has resulted in limiting the role of women to merely a wife and a mother, nothing more. Although these are VERY important roles, it's not right to limit a woman's purpose in Islam to just those, and not encourage her to exercise her talents & intellect within the limits of halal. The mothers of the believers were not just mothers and wives as they had a very active role in society, but they did so in a way that it wouldn’t interfere with their roles as mothers and wives.
It was the combination of the efforts of both Muslim men and women that allowed their Islamic communities to flourish in Arabia, Persia and North Africa. In the 9th century Fatima Al-Fihri opened up the University of Qarawiyyin in Morocco and was also the founder of the world's first academic degree-granting institution of higher education. I know Islamic Societies in universities that would not have survived if it wasn’t for their women’s participation. And this could not have been achieved if these women were confined to their home. If we women were to do so, then who would be doing dawah to other women and younger Muslim girls? If men were to do it, that would fall under free-mixing. It is a fact that Muslim girls are lacking of good adult influence. And sadly not all Muslim girls can look to their families for that. One Muslim woman who won’t be named even complained that girls are not practicing Islam because they feel it’s not applicable to them. So please, don’t tell me that the literalist & cultural view of women in Islam is the correct approach.
Additionally there is a double standard, Why is it that when a white revert female is on the forefront of dawah, we praise her, but when a Muslim woman who comes from our Middle Eastern, Asian and Somali backgrounds, we discourage her?
When women are not given their rightful place in Islam, it is half of the Ummah who are being deprived. Like a plane with only one wing, it will fly forward a little bit, but eventually it will return in a circle and land back at square one. This is how I view a society that doesn’t do justice to the other sex. I can think of communities who largely take on the literal & cultural tradition and they aren’t progressing anywhere.The real practice of Islamic studies requires intense intellectual effort & excellence; memorization, language ability, historical knowledge & understanding, sociology, law, philosophy etc. Scholars are trained to disassociate themselves from their whims and cultural assumptions so they can understand Islam the way it would be understood rather than through the lens of their whims and cultural traditions. Now you can see why scholars are known as the inheritors of knowledge. So to look at the Islamic teaching in a literalist & cultural perspective severely undermines that. But people do it anyway, because it’s easy and doesn’t require as much intellectual effort- as stated by Tareq Ramadan.
Lastly, we’re in a crisis; When there are shariah councils in the UK are turning Muslim women away who are suffering from domestic abuse, it’s no small matter. Islamic law says that a woman who is being abused by her husband has the right to dissolve her marriage and even choose to bring forth consequences. So where is this knowledge today? Us Muslim women, really, we share the blame for not taking the initiative to study women’s rights, femininity, and what it means to be a woman in the light of Islam. So yes, we need more female scholars side by side with our male scholars. In the early centuries of Islam there were no less than 8000 Muslim women scholars. Such vast numbers truly testify to the huge role that women have played in the preservation and development of Islamic learning since the time of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). So please, any one of you women who want to pursue Islamic studies. Do it. May Allah make it easy for you.
This is not ‘Islamic feminism’, this is simply just Islam.
“"Whoever is met by death while he is seeking knowledge to revive Islam, then between him and the Prophets will be only one degree in Paradise."- Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) Sunnan Al-Darimi
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