The Islamophobia Thread

I am all for considering the historical context, which is why e.g. calling Muhammad mysoginist is unfair imho because he did significantly improve the situation of women through his teaching. Sleeping with slaves like he did according to the Qu'ran is also excusable because that was acceptable back then. But then we also should not have depict wrong historical circumstances, because sleeping with prebuscent girls was definitely not the norm.

... Islam explicitly forbids any sexual contact with prepubescents. In fact, at least one hadith that I vaguely remember even touches upon the phenomenon of precocious puberty for girls; the gist of it is that if it appears that a girl below the age of 9 is menstruating, then it should be considered abnormal and treat her as a prepubescent until she passes age 9. So unless you're saying that our Prophet — peace be upon him — has seen fit to blatantly flout that taboo and nobody saw any reason to question him about it (like they usually do on the few times where he does something that is forbidden for all other Muslims, such as marrying more than four women at the same time)...

There are Christian denominations and sects that reject the idea of Jesus as a divine being, and instead assert that he was a mortal human, albeit one of matchlessly saintly character.

edited 23rd Nov '15 12:50:32 PM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

It was common. Yes it was. The difference between marrying a 12 year old to an 8 year old is silly. They are both fucking horrible

And it serves no purpose to discuss that.

In old times, the marriageability of a woman was based on one very simple to measure thing: her first menstruation. It was the sign of this (that is, a biological landmark in human growth) that could unquestionably serve a populace ignorant on biology to determine a specific age in which a girl would be "ready" hence it is now "ok to marry her".

But hey, it happened way earlier than that anyways. For example, "legal marriages" in "civilized nations" of up to 2 or 3 years. Practically a crone by then.

So, yes. The behavior was definitely not uncommon for the era. Not uncommon at all. Perhaps not the norm, but there'd be no raised eyebrows. No questions. No repercussions.

The norm, if anything, was "Fuck women, they do not matter just fuck any you like unless she belongs to another man"

edited 23rd Nov '15 12:54:25 PM by Aszur

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes

By the way, the jab at "not everyone gets their pedophile charges dropped for directing the best x-men movie ever" is a reference to the Bryan Singer pedophile scandal, in case there is any doubt to anyone.

"All you Fascists bound to lose."

And there is also an interesting history about how the catholic church fought with other churches about this and other issues (e.g. the Arianism), but today no mainstream church disputes the divine nature of Jesus, and the overhelming number of Christians belong to one of those churches. And even then, most notable sects only disputed wheter or not Jesus was compeltely equal to god, or just comparable to him, but they did not deem him merely as an exceptional man.

I agree, marrying a 8 years old girl or a 12 years old girl is both equally reprehensible to us, but back then there was a moral difference between those two ages. The reason is that for us, both girls are still deemed mentally as children, but that is a relative recent concept. Children were often treated as little adults until the laste Middle ages and even later, and the main difference was biological maturity. This extends to royal marriages, princesses were often wed when they were still young, but the consumation of the marriage was often only done when they were 15-16 years old, because people were not completely stupid and knew that bearing a child with young age could endanger the wifes life and prevent her from bearing more children.

Interesting, were those accusations believable?

edited 23rd Nov '15 1:07:22 PM by Zarastro

Nope. There was no moral difference between those ages. Remember that women were not their own persons, they were property. First of their father, then of their husbands. There was not a moral reason, there was a financial reason.

Hence why things like Bride Price, in Islam, the Mahr comes into place. Menarche means "One less mouth to feed, and I can possibly get something out of it what is not to like about getting this girl married ASAP?". And if you can do it before, to someone who can afford that...well. All the better.

As for royalty? That is quite different: these were after all people who needed to have a line, to have inheritors. They can't just marry her off to someone for no reason at all, no? The plebs, and the people, however, the yfuck all the time and give birth all the time and die all the time. So who cares?

The point to all that is that it was common and there were not many incentives not to sell your daughter off to a buyer for marriage, really.

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes

Depends on the system. Sometimes it's the bride's parents that pay a dowry. Dowry would be why the One Child policy in China resulted in a gender imbalance, or so they say.

It is said that preislamic Arabs would murder their daughters because, merely by virtue of being female, they were enemies of the tribe, threats, potential sources of strife, shame, and conflict. Conversely, the more male heirs you had, the better.

Some of this mentality remains to this day; especially to poor people, children are cash cows and a retirement plan. Pensions and social security, when they exist, are game-changers, but it takes a couple of generations.

Aszur, women were indeed essentially cattle to Arabs before Muhammad came around. He uprgraded their status from that to perpetual minors. It's still a massive upgrade. He would have gone further, but his supporters chafed, complaining that the women were becoming insolent.

edited 23rd Nov '15 1:31:57 PM by TheHandle

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Yes. And though dowry is more common elsewhere, the dowry still has the same effect: Either promote the murder of young girls or get rid of them as soon as possible so you do not have to feed a mouth for much longer (keeping people is expensive).

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes

So is war, yet that never stopped people from feuding over the stupidest things. So are kings and priests, and yet fed and clothed they were. It's just a matter of where your priorities lie.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

The argument I am wielding here, Handle, is that the marriage of Mohammed to Aisha wether she was 9, 12 or 29 years old, was not an uncommon practice in those times, so decrying it without understanding the context in which the Q'uran develops itself is pointless and does not change his message either way.

That there was a political and economical system that fostered the "Let us sell our daughters ASAP" is just a reason I was mentioning as for how it was possible for this to be common.

I am mentioning this, because I have absolutely no idea what your point is at all.

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes

A mere nit-pick: priorities are subjective, values are dissonant, and while economical explanations are powerful, they do not suffice to explain strange behaviours distant from us in space and/or time.

In short, truth resists simplicity, and so does moral judgment.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

As far I can tell, the whole point of this remains that one must either accept that Mohammed's morality isn't infallible and eternal, and that it was a product of its time at least to some extent; or declare that his morality was absolutely correct, and thus that modern ideas that contradict him are incorrect.

It seems to me that, like with most Christian scholars questioning the authenticity of the Gospels and claims about their authors, most Muslim scholars (and probably most Muslims) agree that Mohammed would've been fallible and a product of his time, and not to be emulated exactly and without a second thought.

The problem is only with people who do claim that nothing Mohammed ever did could be wrong. Those who don't make any concessions about the relativity of moral principles are the ones who have to agree with whatever it was that Mohammed did to Aisha.

As long as you don't take as your axiom that a given prophet can't - by default, and without question - be wrong about anything at all, you'll be able to have a conversation with that prophet's message and life and your own life and values, and find a way for one to inform the other without overwhelming it with all sorts of baggage.

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

Well put.

This does seem to be turning more into the Islam thread than the Islamophobia thread though.

Well. It is a subjecti n Islam that can be seen directly related to its misunderstanding and sequential fear of it. The fear that Islam will turn our people into a pedophile barbaric turban wearing, beheading nation.

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes

Okay...I have a number of things to point out. One, child marriage in the middle ages were common between nobility in the west, but less common between the normal people. Yes, the menstruation was a good indicator for "okay, now we can think about marriage", but due to the not particularly rare periods of hunger, it was rare that a girl got her menstruation (which is connected to overall health) before the teenage age. Also, while nobles often got married at a very young age, it didn't mean that consuming said marriage had to happen immediately. Child pregnancies did happen (since nobles got better food), but even back then they were frowned upon, married or not. After all, even back then people knew how risky it is for a child to become pregnant.

All this aside...does it really matter what is written in the Quran? There is a lot of dumb stuff written in the bible too, which we have now collectively decided to ignore. Isn't the actual question what Muslims consider as the core teaching and which group of Muslims believe what?

edited 23rd Nov '15 2:44:00 PM by Swanpride

I personally cant see the issue. They aren't practicing paedophilia now, so...

You're not allowed to ignore bits of the Qur'an.

Not that that's ever stopped anyone.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Isn't one common accusation by those who critize the Islam that most muslims especially in the ME are not willing to critize the Qu'ran, and that entire states use it as basis for their legal system?

And than there is this:

http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/saudi-arabia/saudi-arabia-grand-mufti-says-no-opposition-to-underage-marriage-1.1429882

edited 23rd Nov '15 3:15:46 PM by Zarastro

Remember that kid who made a homemade clock that was mistaken to be a bomb? Turns out, he and his family are demanding $15 million compensation from the local mayor and police chief for his arrest.

Here's the demand letter from the family's lawyers.

Crossposted in the Race- Privilege, Relations, Racism, etc. thread.

That is certainly a criticism I can get behind. I am firmly again mixing politics with religion. And I mistrust every religion which discourages its believers to think for themselves.

But that's exactly the reason why it would be good to know which different branches of Muslims exist. After all, there are Christians with a very narrow worldview, too.

You cannot criticize the Qur'an, ever.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

The problem is that the rest of the world has since upgraded them further (or tried to), while for radical Islam (and according to Western culture, for ALL Islam) they're still at this stage, or even below.

edited 24th Nov '15 1:26:42 AM by Medinoc

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

Ahmadi Islam best Islam.

Schild und Schwert der Partei

Well, it is hard to argue that a lot Muslims still think that women belong into the kitchen. I have seen that at various schools, that the female teachers have problems get respect from Muslim children. Not all of them, but enough to conclude that this is a serious problem which has to get addressed.

Guys, quit being xenophobic, bigoted douchebags. Oh wait, you're incapable of that. Nevermind.

edited 8th Dec '15 7:50:45 AM by speedyboris