A Muslim question.

[TNDemo]

This is not facetious - I seriously would like an answer. I have always wondered about the requirement of conservative Muslims to have their women wear burqas. From what I understand it is to prevent men from lusting. Are Muslim men just weaker than the rest of the men of the world? Do they have no self control whatsoever and the slightest look at anything female will make them lose control? I guess if you never see it, an ankle or face might have a big effect, but since men all around the world are able to function with women looking like women, why can't they?

[TexasProgresive]

1. They are weak and fear the power of women.

This is like saying a woman was raped because she wore provocative clothing. That just won't wash.

[THUNDER HANDS]

2. ask the folks at Bob Jones university

they could probably give you a good answer.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

3. the koran requires modest dressing. not the burka.

[rAVES]

4. Its just a "misinterpreted" rule from the Qur'an.. which says men and women should dress modestly..

These looneys don't want other men seeing their wives faces.
The burqa is never once mentioned in the Qur'an.

Give a fundie an inch and he'll take a mile.. Christian, Muslim or Jewish.

[Fredda Weinberg]

5. My people feel the same way. It goes back to a time when you didn't

have women functioning alongside men. It makes for uncomfortable relationships now, but modernity stresses us all.

[Toots]

6. It isn't just how women are to dress, men must wear beards and pray to mecca

a certain number of times every day..It is what is written. Christians are not supposed to wear clothing of different materials together or eat any shellfish. Muslims follow their holy books while Christians only follow the parts they like..

[Tesha]

10. That would be observant Jews.

> Christians are not supposed to wear clothing of
> different materials together or eat any shellfish.

That would be observant Jews -- I don't recall
those particular provisions of Levitticus ever
being applied to Christians. (Something about
the "New Covenant", I think.)

Tesha

[Bandit]

32. I wonder are the Ten Commandments "Jewish Law"?

Christians appear to follow the Old Testiment in every other aspect.

[Tesha]

37. Real Christians follow Christ's teachings.

> Christians appear to follow the Old Testiment in every other aspect.

No, and that's the mistake that the fundamentalists make
when they hit us all over the head with the Old Testament
God while (seemingly) completely ignoring the New Testament
Chrsit -- Christ proclaimed a "New Covenant", replacing
many of the old laws.

Fundies still pick-and-choose from Levitticus, but most
of it is officially passe in their religion(s). When
was the last time you saw someone stoned for wearing
cotton-polyester blend, no matter how tacky?

Tesha

[Dorian Gray]

23. There are no rules

like that for Christians. Gentiles were never supposed to follow Jewish law.

[Yupster]

35. In the time right after the crucifiction,

the apostles stayed in Jerusalem which is what Christ had instructed them to do.

Then came the miracle of Pentacost, after which apostles were sent out to the known world to spread the Gospel.

Reports of their travels started coming back to the movement's leadership (Peter) in Jerusalem. The gist was that the apostles could be having much rgeater success spreading the Gospel among the gentiles (non-Jews) in the Roman Empire were it not for the requirements of following Mosaic (the laws that Moses gave the Jews during their 40 year Exodus which is written in the books of Exodus, Leviticus) Law. There was one particular requirement of Jewish Law which was keeping masses of Greeks and other gentiles of the empire from converting by the thousands (circumcision).

This was a huge moment in the movement's life.

The question was 'must a believer follow Mosaic Law to be a follower of Christ?

The larger question was is this movement a part of Judaism or an entirely new religion.

The question was considered important enough that a meeting of church leaders was called including apostles called in from the field and church leaders in Jerusalem. The result was The Council of Jerusalem.

The result was an actual letter (epistle) that the apostles could take with them on their journeys. The key question was answered that "No" --- followers of this new movement would not have to follow the Laws of Moses. Instead there were four requirements that were written down for new believers to follow. They were...

1. No idols
2. No sexual immorality
3. No food from strangled animals
4. No drinking of blood

That was it. The break from Judaism, and at that moment the new movement became a new religion. Thousands of men throughout Greece and the rest of the Roman World sighed relief as they patted their groins. The church spread quickly after that.

Please understand that any mainline Protestant believer in America has probably studied the Council Of Jerusalem multiple times in their adult Sunday school classes.

If you chuckle at mainline Protestants in the USA with Leviticus and its hundreds of rules, they may be too polite to say it, but what they're thinking is "what an ignorant and bigoted man or woman".

I realize this stuff is posted on DU every single day and the lack of knowledge just feeds on itself, but it's just not very helpful. It's also not helpful that every thread about Muslim beliefs has to have mockery of Christianity within its first 5-10 posts.

The Council of Jerusalem is in Act 15 if anyone would like to read up on it.

End of rant.

[alfredo]

42. In some ways they broke with Jesus in order to swell their ranks.

Would Jesus have agreed with the changes they made, or was he more interested in cleaning up the corruption and returning to the tenets of Judaism as he saw them?

[Yupster]

51. A good question, and not an easy one to try to answer

Would Jesus have insisted on circumcision before a man could receive his message?

I wouldn't think so, but I'm surely not going to try to speak for him.

[alfredo]

52. Yeah, what was his intent? Without knowing, we can't say if

his disciples were right or wrong.

[soundguy]

7. Re:

I have read the passage from the Koran translated to english, and my take is that like most religious texts it has been bastardized to suit the needs of those who would oppress others. My educated interpretation was that it instructed that woman should be covering their "womanly" parts, when in public, but it also mentions family members also. I am left wondering if their was an abundance of incest going on in the day? But since the supreme being didn't give enough information, it has been interpreted to mean "keep em covered all the time" so as to prevent lust. I am amazed at the lengths people and societies have gone and will go to to deny our human nature. My inclination is their would be a lot of rape in a society like that. Of course it probably also breeds an endless amount of young frustrated males, who could be molded into hmmmm. Human Bombs?

[Tesha]

11. Welcome to DU! (NT)

[alfredo]

46. It could have been a reaction to violent confrontations over women.

Of course they didn't look at their own failings, they put the onus on women.

[Tesha]

8. The three desert religions are all strongly misogynist.

The three desert religions are all strongly misogynist
and all three need to go if we want a truly-civilized
world.

This (burqas, etc.) is just another way of keeping
women under men's thumbs (and using god as a handy
excuse).

Tesha

[Raster]

43. The three desert religions are also strongly homophobic.

[Tesha]

44. And generally pretty "sex/sexuality" negative. (NT)

[rAVES]

9. some quotes here I find interesting :

“We have truly shown him the way; he may be thankful or unthankful” (76:3).

“The Truth is from your Lord; so let him who please believe and let him who please disbelieve” (18:29).

“Clear proofs have indeed come to you from your Lord: so whoever sees, it is for his own good; and whoever is blind, it is to his own harm” (6:104).

“If you do good, you do good for your own souls. And if you do evil, it is for them” (17:7).

Best of all: “There is no compulsion in religion” (2:256),


Hmm...

[Tyler Durden]

12. THANK YOU so much.

I keep telling people that my reading of Q'ran in translation GIVEN TO ME BY ACTUAL MUSLIMS, tells of kindness, tolerance and PEACE, just as is spoken by JESUS.

It takes someone with an AGENDA, bending the texts to their own ends to make ANY faith serve dark ends.

[rAVES]

13. exactly, just like the Phelps.. or the bush fundies.

[rAVES]

17. Heres another one:

<2:62> Surely, those who believe, those who are Jewish, the Christians, and the converts; anyone who (1) believes in GOD, and (2) believes in the Last Day, and (3) leads a righteous life, will receive their recompense from their Lord. They have nothing to fear, nor will they grieve.

[Tyler Durden]

21. We must ALWAYS remember:

An ASSHOLE is an ASSHOLE. It has nothing to do with whether they are Republican, Democratic, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Atheist, etcetera.

[Clark2008]

14. It's more of a colloquial belief than a religious one.

There's nothing in the Qur'an than says a woman has to cover from head to toe (cover her head, yes, but not every part of her body).

The belief that women need to cover all body parts to keep men from lusting sprang from MEN who wish to control women.

Many Muslim countries do not require all that covering - just the head and respectable clothing (no mini skirts or short shorts, etc.). Some countries don't even have rules that women cover their heads unless they're in a religious setting.

[mdmc]

15. Women cannot be priests in the Catholic tradition for the same reason

lust is lust.

[Dorian Gray]

25. How does that have to do with lust?

Misogyny, I could give you. (Though I think it has more to do with tradition leading back to the apostles.) But lust? I can't arrive there no matter which path I take.

[mdmc]

40. The thinking is that men could not look at a hot chick priest

without lusting after her.

Thank God chicks don't lust after hot male priests :shrug:

[Dorian Gray]

45. I've never ever ever

heard that as a reason in the argument against the ordination of women to the priesthood in the RC church.

[mdmc]

50. What reason have you heard my friend?

The only other reason that I've heard is that Jesus did not have any female apostles

[Kajsa]

53. That, my friend, is questionable.

The jury is still out on Mary Magdalene.

I doubt they will ever know for sure.

[mdmc]

54. I think that most do in fact know

As a Roman Catholic, I doubt my church will see the light in my lifetime. Yet I still think that perhaps a women could be a RC priest in my lifetime (it is close to happening in S.America).

Peace and low stress and God Bless!

[Kajsa]

55. Thank you.

Peace, low stress and a wonderful Christmas to
you and yours.

;) :hi:

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

56. But if they start letting women be priests

Sooner or later one will want to be a bishop, or a cardinal. Maybe even *shudder* pope.

Pushy broads.

:rofl:

[AngryAmish]

49. Nope

The reasons generally given are that the Apostles were men so priests should be men and some other nonsense dealing the the basic male and female natures.

[MyNameGoesHere]

16. Well. I have to ask myself a question when dealing

with this and other topics about different cultures and religions. Is it any of my fucking business? Now i know that the culture and religion are evil and violate so many womens rights and dignity. It is tragic. But what am i to do? Maybe a crusade to convert the barbarians? Oh that didn't work. Maybe bomb them and take over their country? Oh that didn't work either. Well maybe i can just keep living my life the way i do and hope that when the victims of this horrific treatment can do what we did in the past. Work for change and seek assistance from other cultures to help bring about change.

[LibertyLover]

18. The Koran requires that women and men dress modestly

Initially veiling seems to have been required of just the wives of the Prophet - indeed the wives of the Prophet are supposed to have different obligations and rights from other women and the Koran states that they are not like other women. According to one of the Koran's verses, men where instructed to only speak to the wives of the Prophet or ask them for something through a curtain. Later was extended to all women. But here is an interesting bit of trivia - in some of the earlier cultures in the Middle East, free women wore veils and slave women did not. For a slave to wear a veil and impersonate a free woman was a criminal act severely punished, both the woman, who could have her ears cut off, and a man. who if he saw a slave with a veil and did not report it to the authorities, was beaten. One of the first recorded instances is from a middle Assyrian law code dated to the 13th C BCE that restricts veils to noble women with common women and prostitutes forbidden to veil. Essentially the veil was a way to determine upper class status. Some authorities think that female veiling in Islam may be tied to the old customs.

[Dorian Gray]

26. I never knew that LibertyLover

That's fascinating. So, them taking on the veil can be seen as declaring their freedom. (Hmm!)

[Marrah_G]

58. No not really

It simply declared them off limits to other men. Slaves were fair game for anyone.

They were hardly free or declaring their freedom.. It just kept them from being raped as often as the slaves.

[TechBear_Seattle]

19. Burqas are cultural, not a religious mandate

The Quran states that people should dress modestly. Different cultures interpret that proviso differently. Typically, women are forced to dress more modestly than men. In some cultures, modest dress for a woman is seen as requiring total concealment.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

20. exactly. its not like we are impervious to this bias either.

how many pics of skimpily dressed women are posted in the lounge, to be criticized.

whereas men can go work out topless, take a job around town, without being called whores.

[Javaman]

28. Just because men are allowed to go around shirtless, doesn't mean

that many of them should!!! My eyes, my eyes!!! LOL

[La Lioness Priyanka]

30. point is, people dont make the SAME moral judgements of topless men as they do topless women.

[Javaman]

31. Oh really? I guess I missed the irony...

:eyes:

[La Lioness Priyanka]

34. the irony of what?

the difference between an aesthetic and moral judgment?

i am confused.

[Javaman]

38. sigh...

of the statement you made.

"point is, people dont make the SAME moral judgements of topless men as they do topless women."

I'll telegraph it to you next time...

[La Lioness Priyanka]

39. ok. i still dont know what your point it.

but have a great day!

[Lurking Dem]

22. Does anybody know

If the female centered pagan religions that predated the Abrahamic traditions, subjugated men in any way?

[Tyler Durden]

24. Probably their fanatics did.

[JCMach1]

27. Personal space is defined differently here and has much more to do with vision

i.e. what you see...

In the West (especially the US) personal space is usually defined by touch. For example, a women could be wearing a bikini (feel free to look all you want)... However, if you touch, you have violated her zone of proximity and you might get slapped.

Personal space is not clearly defined in society here... go to a crowded mall and it is one of the first things you notice is that people do NOT mind their space like in the US.

Cover becomes a way of mediating public and private space...

Add the Bedouin traditions into the cultural reality I described and you can understand the cover context.

[Eurobabe]

29. Has anyone noticed

that in many of the countries that people wear traditional clothing (light colored robes or dishdasha for men, and head covering shumagg) it is HOT and

There's ALOT of FREAKING SAND??

http://www.traderscity.com/abcg/pic1.htm

The clothing adds some measure of protection from all the blowing stuff. Of course, the men get the light colors, while the women get to warm up in the black style. The material is very light though, and does not make one sweaty. I was just in the UAE and tried on the traditional dress, complete with the veil. Only my eyes were showing. It wasn't awful.

Question I have: Why do some cultures want to tell other cultures what to do and how to dress? :shrug:

[Sultana]

48. Ethnocentrism!

Traditional Gulf dress for women and men is beautiful.

But Afghani burqas are a whole another thing.

[BoneDaddy]

57. Ah good ole liberal naivete

It goes beyond simply saying "why do some cultures want to tell other cultures what to do and how to dress". It has to do with the beliefs behind why they dress that is important.

Sure on the surface we could compare the burqa or the hijab to the sari or kufi or fez but it goes deeper than just being an article of clothing. The reasons for muslim women's clothing are based in absolute irrationality and in many ways represent the stranglehold that Islam has over women. Other styles of dress do not even come close to such a meaning.

I find it absolutely amazing that the same liberals who criticize patriarchy in Christendom and the West, will freak out if someone says something even remotely offensive about the feminine, who will demonize conservatism and fundamentalism in America will on the same hand defend a religion that is, by far, the most conservative, misogynistic, patriarchal of the Abrahamic religions.

We have entered the twilight zone of the naive liberal. I think it stems from the liberal (and I consider myself a liberal in most areas) need to feel like they are defending a "victim" culture, which in some ways is correct. Islam has been under threat from the West on numerous occasions in history, including recently.

Whereas I speak out against consistently agains the war in Iraq and the Bush administration, I also think that the "hands off" attitude when it comes to legitimate criticisms agains Islam (the institution, not the people) are very very appropriate.

I use this simple example to illustrate my point. I understand the beliefs behind female genital mutilation which means I understand why people who support and practice it do it, but I believe that that is based in a highly irrational belief system and I, with every fiber of my being, entirely disagree with it.

This idea that we have to accept and agree with every cultures nuances, rituals, behavior, dress or belief system is the realm of the idiotic.

[Yupster]

60. In reading the book Infidel, I learned

more about female genital mutilation.

I had no idea it involved sewing up the vagina after the clitoris is cut out. The idea is for the resulting scar to almost completely close up the area in a smooth as possible surface. Urine is supposed to trickle out, and first sex is incredible painful as the acr must be ripped open. Sometimes the husband must use a knife which is okay since the whole point is to have bloody sheets to show the in-laws anyway.

This was the description of female genital mutilation in Somalis. It may very well be very different in other countries.

[bunkerbuster1]

33. I think there's another factor, when it comes to fundamentalist Muslim requirements

I'm not going to take the time to line up cites for this, but I can recall hearing that in societies where a) polygamy is acceptable, and b) poverty is rampant, you wind up with a whole lot of young men without female companionship of any kind, nor likely prospects of same.

Such conditions probably facilitate such requirements for ridiculously unrevealing female garb.

[JCMach1]

41. When it is 45-60C, suprisingly having lose clothing to cast shadow on your body

makes sense...

Didn't find that out until I moved to the UAE. Long sleeves and the slightest shade can save your life from heatstroke.

[Yupster]

36. A great book I read recently was "Infidel"

It was written by a Somali woman who is now living in hiding in the USA after she wrote a play in Holland that Theo Wan Goah was murdered for.

She constantly asked her religious leaders growing up about her religion and why she was not treated equally as men. One question she asked a lot about was the dress codes. The answer she got was that the men's lust had to be controlled and that's why women needed to cover up.

Legal questions also got her. If the Prophet is infinitely just, then why is my testimony in court worth half a man's? That's not just.

She's now an atheist I think.

[Sultana]

47. Ayaan Hirsi Ali

She is a brave woman.

[BoneDaddy]

59. Fantastic book for any liberal to read

who thinks that Islam is a just, moderate and equal religion. It most certainly is not. Infidel also illustrates the problems that the Dutch are having with the hard core islamists in their very liberal culture. They are finding out the hard way that "accepting" everyone's cultural practices brings with it some very dangerous fruits. Honor killings, misogyny, and a permutation of radical Islamic practices are causing incredible problems.