Islamaphobia?

[Onnedheil]

So, as feminists, women, fighting against patriarchy, against rape culture against male violence to women. My question is this.

Are we suddenly now supposed to be supporting a religion that is an actual rape culture, Openly accepted paedophilia, actual supremacy of toxic masculinity an actual patriarchy Which is responsible for female genital mutilation , based on a the word of a paedophile warmonger who propagates a monotheist singular God who is male .

And when Anyone, speaks out about these things We're labelled as a racist and as islamaphobe and told to silence our voice for the religion of peace?

Have I ended up in the twilight zone or something?

"Mary was married off when she got her first period, but they did marry her to a widower, reasoning that he would keep his hands off her for a while longer than a young man would. "

What kind of "reasoning" is that?

Does that make sense to anyone here? Like, a man won't want to have sex for a while if he has previously had sex on a regular basis? What?

"(They also married her off because they had to, not because someone "fell in love" with her)"

And you think that is what happened to Mohammad? That he married the daughter of the man who then became the first Caliph to succeed him because... um.. he fell in love with a kid?

Please say you are not this clueless about how power and alliances worked through marriages back in those days.

I always find it sad that the only time LadyAyesha is ever mentioned amongst non muslims as the nine year old wife of Muhammad. She lived until she was 63 and made many achievements, he pbuh had her educated in medicine and language and many famous principles and lessons feature her. She also led an army of 60000 men against the cousin of Ali, Ayesha was very crucial to the Sunni Shia split in early Islam and part of the egalitarianism of sunni Islam is because of her. Muslims name their daughters Ayesha so that they might grow up to be as smart, intelligent and as visionary as her. In some muslim cultures they DONT name their daughters Ayesha For fear she will grow up to be argumentative and forthright!

Moon, that is because most non muslim women know nothing about her and only talk about her in order to disparage Islam and Muslims.

It might be a good idea to start a thread in Feminist Chat about Ayesha and other kick ass Muslim women. I'd love to read it.

Slugs It was only until 1992 that rape in marriage was outlawed. You cannot argue someone is being offensive, because it was the law at the time.

Jesus lived a life as a single man. Now this can be interpreted in several ways, one I was told was because he wanted to remain pure like his parents - I laughed at that.

Another explanation was he didn't have the time to settle down and have a family. His need to change society was so great, so involved, it would be unfair to have a family and then leave them - that was the more to my liking.

My children have never had religion in their lives, for that I'm grateful, however even they recognise that Jesus was a great man that brought about change. All the other son of god nonsense, born of a virgin birth, part of the holy spirit, raised from the dead etc, they dismiss.

Yes and she challenged the sexism and misogyny of her time. A famous story in the Quran is about the slander of Ayesha, when the Quran defended her honour over and above the suspicions of the townspeople of Madinah and even her husband Muhammad himself. A story of how she was left behind/lost in the desert and was found by a good man who took her back to Madinah, but because they both rode into town on a camel together after her gone for three nights people assumed that the two of them must have been having an affair and even her own husband was conflicted. Lady Ayesha was so angry that she left and went to her parents house and even after the verses in the Quran came to warn people away from suspicion and slander of women the stories all say how she held her head up high that it was 'God' who had repudiated her not Muhammad who doubted her. As much as she loved her husband she was also very much her own person, always known as 'the very intelligent and very clever' wife.

cote I think you mean men. When power was concentrated in men's hands things went bad for women. I dispute that women in the middle ages had it worse than women in the days of the roman era. At least in the middle ages women had some (admittedly very minor) legal protections. In ecclesiastical courts women could divorce or annul a marriage for example.

I am not saying women lived a feminist utopia but it certainly was better than the roman empire.

No one is 'disparaging' anyone.

Marrying a 9/10 year old child, when you are an adult man is wrong. End of. It doesn't matter a jot whether she is educated afterwards to a high standard, a scholar (and I love this bit) 'in her own right'. Plus she was his favourite wife. Nice. Or was that just the tradition then?

It's all a load of patriarchal nonsense. All religions.

Really? You don't get it?

You can't judge historical figures by today's standards. Marriage at a young age was common and not against the law. Stop being deliberately offensive.

By your reasoning all those men who expected sex in marriage before 1992, were only doing what was common and anyway it wasn't against the law.

Or am I being deliberately offensive?

StarTrek

Even Eleanor of Aquitaine had trouble getting an annulment from her first husband Louis. She was effectively forced to sleep with him by edict of the Pope. It was only after her second daughter was born that they both decided to call it a day.

She only married Henry II because she feared she would be kidnapped and forced into another marriage. He was the lesser of two evils.

but elendon a grown man having sex with a 16 year old girl here in the UK is within bounds, but in the USA or Ireland would be called a paedophile because the age of consent is higher. Until a couple of years ago Spain's age of consent was 13 but now matches the UKs, whereas France and Germany still lag behind, ages 15 and 14 respectfully. these are all western liberal countries in 2015, but all with their own cultural and legal norms. i see the issue of the marriage of Ayesha and Muhammad in the same light, it was ok for their people and in their time 1430 odd years agp. the greater lessons i take from her are her achievements in the society she came from and her prominence.

"that is because most non muslim women know nothing about her and only talk about her in order to disparage Islam and Muslims."

I think it's entirely possible to think Mohammed should not have married such a young girl at the same time as admiring what that young girl became.

I also think it's reasonable to hold Mohammed to a slightly higher standard than the accepted norms at the time. He was after all a prophet. I appreciate that Mohammed was probably more feminist than many of his followers since but why do we need a prophet or a son of god to teach us the difference between right and wrong?

I mean it's pretty obvious that we should treat everyone as equals, that we shouldn't preach laws to others we have no intention of keeping ourselves and that girls (or anyone for that matter) should be allowed to grow up in their own time without being married off and pressured into having sex. I don't need God to tell me that.

But it makes not a jot whether or not she had achievements in society or came to prominence. Not. A. Jot. It won't change religion.

This thread is about patriarchal attitudes towards women, especially in religion. Oh and for the purposes of equality, I know many men who are atheists who think that marriage/partnership means that sexual availability is on tap.

Marriage and partnership is a religious concept, and whilst women will be protected in marriage legally this only occurs when the marriage fails, and she is given financial recompense. Yeah! Let's all cheer!

Slugs, in 1500 years time people will hopefully be denigrating those men who raped their wives in marriage. And not because, dismissively, 'it wasn't ok', but because it will be seen as abhorrent behaviour.

Just like we think now, that an adult male having sex with a 10 year old is abhorrent.

Slugs so did I.

tbh Muhammad was a paedohile isnt the worst thing iv read on mumsnet, as I said earlier this was a man who went completely out of his way not only in dissuading any claims of divinity or chances of being raised upto divinity in preaching about the Creator God, but he challenged the powerful of his day and stood up for a very disadvantaged group in his society which were women. If he were European he would be lauded for what he stood for concerning women at that particular time in history the 7th century. (i said 6th century earlier by mistake!). the religion legislated for marriage, divorce, inheritance, separate property ownership, birth control, the Quran talks about right of alimony for the divorced wife, breastfeeding if it isnt a burden on the mother, many issues far earlier than many other societies including most western society until the 19th century. sure, europe now far surpasses the muslim world on womens rights now but consider the hold of patriarchy in such societies now and then consider the chokehold it would have been in that 7th century. so muslim feminists do not generally hold a hostility to Muhammad (pbuh) or the Quran, its the generally perverse direction that orthodoxy took in the centuries since as a backlash against what Muhammad (pbuh) sought for islam to be a forerunner on. rather like the backlash of white supremacy in america against having the west's first elected black president in Obama by cops murdering unarmed innocent young black males and females who they can get to.

I keep having to go back to the opening post because I've forgotten what it was.

The historic points are interesting but clearly there is disagreement on what those facts are. I'm not sure what relevance they have however to whether or not religion oppresses women now, and if it does what should be done. (The "if" is probably redundant )

Having checked the list of countries which are identified as Islamic States is it wrong to say I'm glad I live in western Europe ?Brunei for example, does not recognise marital rape as long as the wife is over 13. Sexual spousal assault is recognised but the sentences are paltry.

I acknowledge of course there are Latin American countries I wouldn't want to live in either.

It does seem to say something about all the religions "of the Book" that we do all this scrabbling around to show how important women are. If women reLly were important they would be front and centre. Not in the background when it comes to mainstream, with people reminding us how important they are. And, frankly, I look at Jesus being all groundbreaking by siding with Mary and all, but he did tell Martha off for not understanding how important her backstage role was. And also, that was 2000 years ago. You would have thought that in that time he could have done something abdtout the role of women in his church? Maybe?