Shabnam Nadiya's Response : SOME THOUGHTS

Dear Nasima
There are a few tings in your mail that left me slightly confused. This is just to clarify to myself your standpoint with regard to religion.

You say that in underdeveloped countries, poverty, and illiteracy together keep people ignorant and unable to think rationally, or moderately . this may be true for Bangladesh. We are indisputably a poor nation. But for a number of other so called muslim countries is poverty really an issue? Are you telling me that the oil rich Arab states are poor? That those states cannot afford to educate their citizens? If poverty and illiteracy are the things that are really keeping muslim populations narrow minded and bigoted, then this should at the very least let the Arab states out. They are not poor. They may be uneducated (and I mean uneducated not illiterate; I do not believe that literacy and education are the same things), but they are definitely not poor. What about the holy state of Saudi Arabia? They're rich, they're muslim. why then aren't they more enlightened in Islamic terms?

You say you are all for promoting justice and human rights. Does your definition of human rights include women's rights? You are saying that a religion, which for whatever reason, allows men to physically abuse women has a lot to offer you as a woman? If that is the case, then maybe some offers I can do without. Or maybe Islam does have a lot to offer to me as a woman - the only problem is that Islam does not offer me much of anything as a human being. If you're going to say that Islam does not accept abuse of women - well it does say that husbands are allowed to punish "disobedient" wives. as from reading your mail you have seemed to be a decent person, I sincerely hope that at this point you will not say like that yahya person that some women need to be disciplined. There are a number of reasons that turned me into an atheist, but one of those reasons was the realization that Islam did not allow me the status of a responsible adult human being. In this regard, the issue is fairly simple. if Islam allows oppression of women in any form -- by not accepting the reliability of women as witnesses, by accepting that husbands are allowed to beta their wives (you will notice that it doesn't say tat bad husbands deserve to be beaten up), by not allowing women a fair share of their inheritance, by decreeing that even though generally speaking it is women who get harassed or raped by men it is the women who should take care by covering up their whole body (implying somehow tat it is the women's fault; the age old chauvinistic approach if women are raped or harassed that somehow through her dress her clothing her walk her ytalk that somehow - the bitch asked for it), by allowing men to go through many forms of marriage and allowing men more than one wife (whatever the "logic of polygamy may be"), by treating women as no more than mere vessels of breeding, by not allowing them control over their own bodies and their own children (Islam decrees - and I just read this one from Suleiman Yahya's posting to Dr, Ali Sina - that a woman will wait three a certain time after being divorced to ascertain whether she is pregnant with the husband's child. If she is then the husband decides whether he wants the woman back or merely the child. ) - even if there is a single instance of Islam allowing the oppression of women , if Islam says that women are the inferior sex of the species, - then Islam is either lying, or is deluded, or is mistaken. If islam and the Quran are not infallible, if that holds true then the Quran cannot be of divine origin.

What does Islam offer you as a woman, which you are not privy to if you live under a secular state and conduct your life according to a humanist philosophy that gives rise to a set of non-theistic values?

I would also definitely be very interested in learning what Islam offered you as a woman that was taken away by our Bangali culture? Could you please explain that to me because I'm sorry but I did not understand what you meant.

Nadiya

 

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Published in Mukto-mona : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mukto-mona/message/549