The System of Rights of Women in Islam

Description

Islamic teachings, laws, guidelines and practices provide a complete system for dignified and respected life for females living in any society. This divine system protects women against any form of injustice, supports them in all aspects, provides them with best opportunities to develop their talent in any field and allows them to serve society in any possible role they can. Females are not only loved as daughters and sisters, and highly respected as mothers and wives but are also authorized to exercise their role as the center of a family. They are the real home makers – a place which is in fact the first school of human beings to nurture next generation in order to educate a prosperous healthy society. CONTENTS EDITOR’S NOTE ix BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR 1 Birth 1 His Studies 1 Mutahhari as a Teacher 6 Political Campaign 9 His Martyrdom 10 List of Mutahhari’s famous works 12 PREFACE BY THE AUTHOR 15 INTRODUCTION 29 1. FAMILY RELATIONS - A WORLDWIDE PROBLEM 30 2. Should we be independent or blindly follow the West? 30 3. Historical determinism 31 4. THE CONSTITUTION AND OURSELVES 32 5. THE AFFECTION OF THE IRANIAN NATION TO RELIGION 32 PROPOSAL AND ENGAGEMENT 37 1. Does a man’s proposal of marriage insult a woman? 37 2. It is a man’s instinct to approach and ask, and a woman’s instinct to be a source of attraction and HAVE self-restraint: 38 3. Man seeks union with woman, not to enslave her: 39 4. The custom of asking the hand of woman in marriage is a very safe and wise way of safeguarding the honour and prestige of a woman: 39 5. Errors by the writer of the forty articles in the Civil Law: 40 FIXED-TERM MARRIAGE – Part I 45 1. MODERN life and fixed-term marriage 47 2. Modern youth, THE PERIOD OF ADOLESCENCE, and the onset of sexual activity 48 3. Monasticism for a fixed period, sexual communism, or fixed-term marriage 48 4. Experimental marriage 49 5. Russell’s views on fixed-term marriage 50 FIXED-TERM MARRIAGE (Part 2) 53 1. Objections and difficulties of fixed-term marriage 54 2. DESTINY OF CHILDREN BORN IN FIXED-TERM MARRIAGE 57 3. Criticisms 58 FIXED-TERM MARRIAGE AND THE PROBLEM OF THE HAREM 61 1. Social causes OF harems 61 2. Is the provision of fixed-term marriage a license for promiscuity? 63 3. Harems in the MODERN world 63 4. Prohibition of fixed-term marriage by the Caliph 65 5. A tradition from Ali ibn Abi Talib (as) 67 WOMAN AND HER SOCIAL INDEPENDENCE 71 1. Freedom in determining one’s future 71 2. Marrying a woman before she is born 72 3. Exchange of daughters 73 4. The Holy Prophet gave al-Zahra, his daughter full freedom in choosing a husband 73 5. The Islamic movement in favour of women was entirely independence 73 6. THE PROBLEM OF Permission of father 75 7. man is slave of his passions and woman is captive of LOVE 76 ISLAM AND MODERNITY (Part 1) 83 1. The DEMANDS of the AGE 83 2. Islam and the demands of the age 84 3. The nature of Islam's adaptation to DEMANDS OF AGE from the point of view of non-muslims 85 4. ConfusIONS 86 5. What does time itself conform to? 87 6. Adaptation or abrogation? 88 ISLAM AND MODERNITY (Part 2) 93 1. Rigid people and ignorant people 94 2. The story in the Qur’an 96 ISLAM AND MODERNITY (Part 3) 99 1. The secret of the dynamism and flexibility of Islamic lawS 99 2. Attention to essence and REAL meaning as opposed to PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS and form 100 3. A permanent law for a permanent requirement and a variable law for a varying requirement 101 4. The question of change of script 104 5. YOUR LIFETSYLE doesn’t MATTER – WHAT MATTERS IS YOUR BLIND SLAVE LIKE IMITATION 104 6. The question OF ‘important’ and THE ‘MOST IMPORTANT’ 105 7. Laws with the right of ‘veto’ 105 8. The governing authority 106 9. The fundamental of ijtihad 106 THE HUMAN STATUS OF WOMAN IN THE QUR’AN 111 1. The SPECIFIC philosophy of Islam REGARDING family rights 111 2. Equality or SIMILARITY 112 3. The status of woman in the world - View of Islam 114 YES TO EQUALITY AND NO TO SIMILARITY 121 1. The Declaration of Human Rights is philosophy and not law 124 2. Philosophy cannot be proved by questionnaires 126 3. A glance at the history of women’s rights in Europe 126 THE DIGNITY AND THE RIGHTS OF HUMAN BEINGS 129 1. Important points in the preamble to the Declaration of Human Rights 130 2. The dignity and respect of HUMAN BEING 131 3. The decline and fall of the human being in western philosophIES 131 4. The west SUFFERS FROM contradiction about HUMAN BEING 133 5. The west has forgotten both itself and its God 134 THE NATURAL BASIS OF FAMILY RIGHTS (Part 1) 139 1. The connection between natural rights and the direction in which nature moves 139 2. Social rights 140 3. Family rights 141 THE NATURAL BASIS OF FAMILY RIGHTS (Part 2) 143 1. Is family life conditioned by nature or regulated by conTRACT? 144 2. The theory of the four eras 145 3. Woman in nature 147 THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN WOMAN AND MAN (Part 1) 151 1. Is it a question of ProportionALITY or of DEFECT and perfection? 152 2. Plato’s theory 153 3. Aristotle AND Plato against EACH OTHER 154 4. The opinion of the modern world 154 5. Reciprocal differences 155 6. FeelingS towards each other 156 THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN WOMAN AND MAN (Part 2) 159 1. The masterpiece of creation 160 2. A union stronger than SEXUAL passion 161 3. Reciprocal differences in the feelings of men and women towards each other 162 4. view of a female psychologist 163 5. A hasty movement 164 6. view of Will Durant 164 DOWER AND MAINTENANCE (Part 1) 171 1. A short history of the dower 171 2. The dower in the Islamic system of rights 173 3. A look at history 173 4. The real philosophy of the dower 175 5. Dower as in the Qur’an 177 6. Two kinds of sentiments in animals 178 7. Presents and gifts in illicit relations 178 8. European love-affairs are more natural than their marriages 179 DOWER AND MAINTENANCE (Part 2) 181 1. The customs of the pre-Islamic ERA that were abolished by Islam 181 2. Islam has its own SPECIFIC system of dower 184 3. Rule of nature 184 4. Criticisms 185 DOWER AND MAINTENANCE (Part 3) 191 1. The repression of European women up to the second half of the nineteenth century 192 2. Why did Europe suddenly grant financial independence? 192 3. The Qur’an and the financial independence of woman 193 4. A Comparison 194 5. Criticism and reply 194 6. Three kinds of maintenance 196 DOES MODERN WOMAN NOT WANT A DOWER OR MAINTENANCE? 197 1. An advantage to women in financial matters 197 2. The REASONS BEHIND propaganda against maintenance 200 3. Wealth in place of husband 201 4. Is the Declaration of Human Rights an insult to woman? 203 THE QUESTION OF INHERITANCE 207 1. The REASON FOR womEn being deprived of inheritance 207 2. Inheritance of an adopted son 209 3. Inheritance by a confederation 209 4. Woman as a part of the share of inheritance 209 5. Woman’s inheritance in the Sassanid period in Iran 209 6. The share of women in inheritance according to Islam 211 7. An objection by the worshippers of the west 211 8. The objection of atheists at the beginning of Islam about inheritance 212 RIGHT OF DIVORCE (Part 1) 217 1. The increase of divorce in modern life 217 2. Divorce in Iran 219 3. The environment in divorce-infected America 219 4. Assumptions 220 DIVORCE (Part 2) 225 1. Dishonourable divorces 226 2. A malicious tale without any truth 229 3. Why did Islam not make divorce Illegal? 232 DIVORCE (Part 3) 233 1. Natural laws in the case of marriage and divorce 233 2. The natural status of man in family life 235 3. The view of a female psychologist 237 4. The structure built on affections and feelings 238 5. It is something more than equality which strengthens the foundation of the family 239 6. Equality in corruption 240 DIVORCE (Part 4) 241 1. The nature of peace in the family is different from all other forms of peace 243 2. Islam welcomes any factor that will do away with divorce 244 3. The wife’s past services to the household: 248 DIVORCE (Part 5) 251 1. The right of divorce IS BASED ON SPECIFIC role of man 251 2. Divorce is a MEANS OF release 252 3. Penalty for divorce 253 4. Wife having the right of divorce as an entrusted right 254 JUDICIAL DIVORCE 257 1. Whether some marriages are a cancer IN which the wife must suffer and put up with? 258 2. Deadlocks 259 3. The deadlock of divorce 261 4. View of Ayatullah Hilli 261 5. Other arguments and citation 264 6. The view of Shaykh aL-Tai’ifah 265 POLYGYNY 269 1. Sexual communism 269 2. Plato’s view 269 3. Several husbands 270 4. The difficulty with polyandry 272 5. Polygyny 272 6. Islam and polygyny 273 7. Polygyny in Iran 275 THE HISTORICAL CAUSES OF POLYGYNY (Part 1) 277 1. The cause of the disappearance of polyandry 279 2. The failure of sexual communism 280 THE HISTORICAL CAUSES OF POLYGYNY (Part 2) 285 1. Geographical factors 285 2. The form of polygyny in western countries 286 3. Menstruation 289 4. The LIMITED child-bearing period of woman 289 5. Economic factors 289 6. Factor of number and tribe 290 7. women ARE MORE IN NUMBER than men 290 8. An analysis of CAUSES AND FACTORS 291 THE RIGHT OF WOMAN IN POLYGYNY 293 1. REASONS FOR the excess of number of women fit FOR MARRIAGE over the number of men 297 2. Women have more resistance to disease 298 3. Right of woman in polygyny 299 4. Russell’s view 301 5. One in every ten English children IS ILLEGITIMATE 302 6. Polygyny is prohibited while homosexuality is lawful! 302 IS IT THE NATURE OF MAN TO BE POLYGYNOUS? 305 1. Polygyny is a source of protection for monogamy 307 2. The real POINT OF DISCUSSION 308 3. Twentieth-century man’s deceitfulness 309 4. The crises arising from rustration of women WITHOUT HUSBAND 310 5. Various CONSEQUENCES CAUSED BY phenomenon of excess number of women 311 DISADVANTAGES AND SHORTCOMINGS IN POLYGYNY 313 1. A correct analysis: 313 2. From the psychological point of view 314 3. The point of view of up-bringing 315 4. From the moral point of view 317 5. From the point of view of rights: 318 6. From the philosophical point of view 320 THE ROLE OF ISLAM IN POLYGYNY 323 1. Limitations 323 2. Justice 323 3. The danger of injustice 326 4. Harems 327 5. Other conditions and possibilities 327 6. Modern Man and Polygyny 328 APPENDIX I 331 Female Gender in SELECTED traditions of Ahlul Bayt (as) 331 APPENDIX II 335 Husband Wife Relationship and family - A Collection from the Verses of Holy Qu’ran and Hadithes 335 APPENDIX III 345 GENDER DIFFERENCES – SELECTED ARTICLES AND REVIEWS FROM PEER REVIEWED SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH AND BOOKS 345 INDEX 361