@ObviouslyLucifer said in Change my Mind.:
According to Asma Lamrabet who is a Moroccan doctor, Islamic feminist and author.
"One crucial, unequivocal verse in the Qur’an lays the ground for the concept of equality between men and women: “The believers, men and women, are allies (awliya) of one another. They enjoin the ‘common good’ (al ma‘ruf) and forbid the bad (al munkar), they observe prayers (salat) and give charitable alms (zakat) and obey God and his Prophet”; Qur’an, 9:71."
Lamrabet is a third way feminist, who re-interpret the sacred texts in order to show women as independent beings rather than relational to men. She examines the sacred texts in a scholarly manner, while remembering the cultural context in which they were written.
Furthermore according to her . The Qur’an is unambiguous, and stresses emphatically this close cooperation or wilayah between men and women in socio-political action, before generalizing it to acts of religious ritual.
Dr. Sayed Muhammed Hussein Fadlallah , the Lebanese scholar, reaffirms the egalitarian vision of the Qur’an, which encourages women to be involved in all areas of social and political life, in contrast to the traditional exclusivist understanding that tends to reduce women to their function as wives and mothers, a role that, while important, cannot constitute their unique horizon in life.
Islam certainly has a lot of provisions which promotes over protection, polygamy, violence against women. But these articles were written in 6th century AD and scholarly interpretation on these today actually paints a better picture of at least some provisions in Islam.
So the problem today is improper interpretation about provisions by some theologians, thus we can say the interpreters are wrong and not the religion.
A scholarly interpretation of religious scriptures using a rational attitude can actually help us make a better society. So instead of blaming religions we should hold the individuals who interpret religions in a reductive manner to benefit their cause, accountable.
It seems Islam has the same problem as christianity: scholars go and declare the opposite of what is written in the scriptures as the correct interpretation of the scriptures. As with christianity their arguments are rather weak.
However I do agree that the interpretation that these scholars have of islam – despite being far from the quran itself – indeed benifit society.
I mean if you really took the quran literally you would also have to take into account the following:
God created the world through his word
Jesus is the word of God (thus he is not created?)
Jesus was conceived not from a man, only from the Virgin Mary
Jesus performed miracles (in contrast to Muhammad)
Jesus ascended into heaven
Jesus will come back at the end of times (Muhammad will not)
and if you don't understand anything in the Quran you are advised – by the Quran – to read the bible...
So it is better to follow the modern interpretation of the quran and not take every word in it too seriously... or you might end up christian :joy:
And change our mind about strongly held stereotypes about religion.
Our time is fighting stereotypes on any level. And I fully agree, that you should not apply a stereotype ever to judging an individual. However stereotypes do develop naturally (from statistics): 90% of islamic terrorists do look a certain way. 90% of islamic countries have laws that favor men over women. I think it is fair to say, that islam as it is widely practiced does in large parts meet the stereotype. And I think it would be good if it didn't!
But are you sure that the religion of those scholars you quoted is still the same religion? I mean I do call christianity a religion too, but there are various christian denominations/sects, that differ so strong from the original teaching, that I'm not sure it's entirely fair to put them in the same box... Take the "Westboro Babtist Church": they basically advocate for the death sentence of gay people. This is so unchristian that it screams to heaven ("kill the sinner" is so not "who has no sin throw the first stone").