A woman's touch


What the real fight is about
Somebody else gets it. And Bernard Lewis has the academic credentials to back up what he says.

I firmly believe that women are our best hope in dealing with the Muslim world, because they have so much to gain from modernization.

Now, there has been a fair amount of change. Let me look very rapidly at certain specific issues.

Islamic law permits polygamy and concubinage. The Qur'an is quite explicit on this. It says a man may have up to four wives and as many concubines as he wishes and can afford. Concubines are female slaves whom it is permitted to use sexually.

Polygamy and concubinage remain legal, in many Muslim countries. But some Muslim countries have actually outlawed polygamy. Some have hedged it with all kinds of restrictions, like requiring the written consent of the first wife to the acquisition of any subsequent wives, which is not impossible to get, by the way, by various means.

In many countries, although polygamy is still legal, it's no longer socially acceptable. In others it's no longer economically possible. I would say that, on the whole, polygamy is in decline, and concubinage has almost disappeared except in the Arabian Peninsula, where it still flourishes.

In other respects, women have made enormous progress in some countries, although by no means all, and that is in education. And here, one of the encouraging features of the situation is that one of the countries where women have done best is in Iraq. Now, don't misunderstand me, I'm not speaking of rights — the word "rights" has no meaning at all in that kind of society — I'm speaking of opportunity, of access. Women in Iraq — and this goes back a long way; it started under the monarchy and continued under the various succeeding regimes — had access to higher education to a degree without parallel in the Arab world, with the possible exception of Tunisia. They could go to university. They could enter the professions.

This, I feel, is a very hopeful sign for the future. Women generally do not receive the brain-deadening indoctrination that passes for education in many of these countries, because they're not thought important enough to be given it.

Let me add my piece, amateur historian that I am.

Women are the reason men got civilized.

That is not to say that one sex is more important than the other. But you would be hard pressed to find a great king or prince who didn't give careful attention to what the "aunts and grandmothers" told him.

Men and women aren't the same, it's foolish to pretend that they are. It's even more foolish to pretend that one is better than the other. And the wisdom of the older ladies is just as important as the wisdom of the older men. It's the perspective that does it you see.

Me, I knew my first strong woman before I was born. I've admired them ever since.

Why do you think that Islamic culture slowed to a dead stop?

They stopped listening and started treating their women as property. And it only cost Islam centuries of progress.

"We do as much, we eat as much, we want as much.”
— Sojourner Truth

That's your great battle right there. Women with ink stained fingers and girls learning to think at school.

The rest follows.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Tue - May 9, 2006 at 04:35 AM  Tag


 ◊  ◊   ◊  ◊ 

Random selections from NeoWayland's library


Pagan Vigil "Because LIBERTY demands more than just black or white"
© 2005 - 2009 All Rights Reserved