Hi Muslimwoman. I have a couple questions for you.
My apologies I have been away for a looooooong time.
First, your views would seem very much at variance with our friend Hado here, who unless I’m mistaken represents pretty much the Muslim mainstream. In fact, your views sound pretty radical. So what place do you find in your community, as a woman with these opinions? And how do people (especially women) with your viewpoint fare in the various Muslim communities you know about?
As a convert I find my views are at best respected and at worst tolerated because most Muslims will admit that converts take the time to learn, not only about the faith but the historical accounts too.
We fare very well indeed, not because we are women but because we study Islam and it's history. One of my favourite scholars is an elderly woman, when she speaks on tv here I find myself clapping because she wins arguments not with swords or bully tactics but with her knowledge. Most born Muslims are taught a set ideology and they never question it. People get very defensive when I speak this way here but I can always, I hope, back up what I am saying with either the Quran or historical accounts.
I don't believe it is wrong to acknowledge the truth of Islamic history, it has good and bad in it, as do all histories but I would find it very wrong to simply accept lies and repeat them as truths.
At the same time, you would appear to face the same problems as those who would rescue Jesus. Everything you know about Muhammad (pbuh) is filtered through texts shaped by tradition. Does the Quran really admit of the reading you would like to give it? When it comes to rescuing Jesus, one is in the ambiguous position of unearthing the real coin buried among the counterfeit. Overall, the text is weighted on the side of the dogmatic tradition that shaped it. Are you in a similar situation with the Quran? Or do you feel you can assimilate every word of it to your reading, and against the tradition?
Of course everything is shrouded in cultural norms and tradition, over here the Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) is lifted to a status that could almost be seen as a follow on from the elevation of Jesus (pbuh) to deity.
I don't see that I read the Quran in a radical way or that I need to assimilate it "to my reading". Let us take an example, that of the status of women. The Quran is very explicit about the equality of women but with man having a degree of responsibility for them, yet as soon as the Prophet died this equality began to be eroded. Hadiths began to appear that suggested women were less valued than cattle, there is no suggestion of this in th Quran and yet it is alive and kicking today.
This is the strange thing about Islam, hadiths have survived that clearly show the equality of women but the mass population of Muslims do not read hadith or study the history of Islam. They are told by patriachal scholars of the hadiths that put women down and they accept that. When you point out the ones that provide equality for women everyone looks at you blankly and runs for their books to look it up. I have pointed a number of these out to my husband and his family and they all shrug and say they have never heard of them, it is selective teaching and has been very effective for centuries but the information is there if you take time to root it out.
Another point I would make is that I have yet to read any Muslim on a forum that is representative of the general view you hear expressed on the street. People that take time to talk on forums generally want their voice heard, they have an agenda, myself included.
