In those days before Islam, women were treated like slaves or property. Their personal consent concerning anything related to their well-being was considered unimportant, to such a degree that they were never even treated as a party to a marriage contract. Women were used for one purpose, and then discarded. They had no independence, could own no property and were not allowed to inherit. In times of war, women were treated as part of the prize. Simply put, their condition was unspeakable. In addition, the birth of a daughter in a family was not an occasion for rejoicing, but was regarded with humiliation. The practice of killing female children was uncontrolled. With the advent of Islam came the verse from the Quran condemning those who practiced female infanticide: And when the news of (the birth of) a female (child) is brought to any of them, his face becomes dark, and he is filled with inward grief! He hides himself from the people because of the evil of that whereof he has been informed. Shall he keep her with dishonor or bury her in the earth? Certainly, evil is their decision. (An-Nahl 16:58-59) And as part of a description of various events on the Day of Judgment, the Quran mentions: And when the female (infant) buried alive (as the pagan Arabs used to do) shall be questioned. For what sin she was killed? (At-Takwir 81:8-9) Outside Arabia conditions for women were no better. In India, Egypt, and all European countries in the Dark Ages, women were treated worse than slaves. They were not regarded as human beings but as sort of a sub-species between humans and animals. Let us also review how exactly women were thought of and understood in the western tradition, to compare and contrast perspectives so that we can really appreciate the gift of Islam to humanity. We know that the western tradition sees itself as the intellectual inheritors of the Greek tradition that existed before Prophet Jesus Christ, peace be upon him, and so therefore many of the intellectual traditions of the West are found to some degree in the writings of the early Greek philosophers like Plato, Aristotle and others… How did these guys and the likes view women? What were the ideas of Plato and Aristotle regarding women? When one reviews the works of these early Greek philosophers, he finds that they had very disparaging views of women Aristotle in his writings argued that women were not full human beings and that the nature of woman was not that of a full human person. As a result, women were by nature deficient, not to be trusted and to be looked down upon. In fact, history describes that the free women in many aspects of the Greek society (except for few women of the elite class) had positions no better than animals and slaves. This Aristotelian view of women was later carried on into the early Christian tradition of the Catholic Church. What about Saint Thomas of Aquinas in his writings proposed that women were the traps of Satan. The story of Adam and Eve in the Bible added a element to the earlier Greek ideas of Aristotle because women were the cause of the downfall of man and therefore were Satan’s trap and should be looked at with caution and dissatisfaction because they caused the first downfall of humanity and all this evil “original sin” precedes from women. This type of thought was persistent within the writings of the Church fathers throughout the Middle Ages. In their writings we find this theme proposed in one aspect or another. However, after the Protestant reformation Europe decided to free itself from the shackles and chains of the Catholic Church. Ideas which have been entitled as the Age of Enlightenment or thought of as such, caused them to feel that they needed to free themselves from many of these ideas. ______ Please subscribe to my youtube channel https://youtube/user/TheDeenShowTV?sub_confirmation=1 Become a monthly Support ummaland/fundraising/91/support-the-deen-show/ Follow me on Twitter and Facebook twitter/thedeenshow
Posted on: Sun, 31 Aug 2014 16:17:01 +0000
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