I think no, but it's not Islam in particular that I think is regressive, I think all abrahamic religions are misogynistic in nature (I'm limiting this view to abrahamic religion for now because I don't know much about eastern or other non-abrahamic religion).
Abrahamic religious texts are riddled with explicit misogyny, and governmental rules which are designed to keep women subservient to men. Modern day muslim countries mostly have women wear Hijabs, Niqabs, or Burqas as a matter of law; the basis for these laws is found in their holy text, the Quran.
In addition to Islam, strict Judaism also seeks to keep women oppressed. Many ultra-orthodox Jews in Israel (and the United States, but they're obviously more common in Israel) categorically segregate men from women in almost all aspects of their community. Men conduct religious ceremonies in a section of the synagogue separate from women, men wait at different parts of a bus stop from women, and women are often not allowed to be shown in ANY publication, with their faces blurred in pictures published by ultra-orthodox Jews.
Christianity, no doubt, has a lot of roots in misogyny: here's a link ( The Dark Bible, ) for exact quotes.
The reason I started this thread is because I've seen a few prominent American feminists who are also Muslims. This, to me, seems contradictory, because no matter what issues you have with unreported rape/rape apology, wage inequality etc in the United States, the treatment of women is infinitely worse in many muslim-majority countries.
So? Do you think they want that?
No, and I'm definitely not saying "they should shut up about america because saudi arabia is worse", I just think you can't be religious (abrahamic) and a feminist at the same time, since religion is the origin of much of sexist beliefs and attitudes today
depends on how one ranks their views as important. Christianity has a lot of the same restrictions to women, and there are groups that follow those to the letter but there are also groups that disregard those for the larger message about treating others with love and respect.
Everyone is free to practice their religion as much as they want, and even whichever parts of it you want. You can be Muslim and a feminist if you choose to abide by the parts that don't contradict with feminism. Of course, some might claim that you're "no true Muslim" but few people are, if any. Extremists will always condemn moderates for not being completely true to their faith.
It's true that the way that islam is practiced today, would be at odds with feminism, but I also don't think there's any strong argument for having to practice islam in that way. It is often very political compared to the reason that people usually practice religion, which is belief of a god. So in that sense I don't see it as a contradiction of being a muslim and a feminist, as long you practice in ways that are consistent with the values of feminism. And it would make sense if you also pushed to reform the beliefs to be more in line with treating women like equals.
Perhaps instead of Muslim, you mean Islamist?
A friend of mine (UK) is both muslim (brought up a Wahhabi in a pakistani family but he's not fundamentalist in his beliefs I think) and a feminist.
Perhaps it's down to the view that religion is a personal thing, rules you choose to follow and don't push on non believers? Like a believer may choose to live a certain way but it doesn't necessarily mean they must impose those rules/beliefs on others, and if they acknowledge other's needs (eg for women to have representation in government) it's plausible.
Alternatively I'm not too familiar with the Quran but I know lots of behaviour is outlined in the Hadiths and is often subject to interpretation of individual mullahs - so maybe there is wriggle room there? Some stuff is black and white but perhaps there is some cognative dissonance, moral relativism or that particular part is taken as less important than the other parts.
For a more general thing:
Most sexism against in the religions themselves come from very old attitudes, first that women's virtue comes only from their virginity (more in a second) and that men are awful incorrigible rape beasts which can't control themselves. Those obviously aren't the beliefs now but they persist in stuff like creeps saying stuff like "she was dressed provocatively" or "dressed like she wants to get raped" along with people inconsistently slut shaming women or overvaluing virginity - so we're not totally out of it.
Fun fact (speculation)
It's speculated that early societies were more egalitarian or possibly even matriarchal - from priestesses dominating the template storehouses of ancient Mesopotamia along with lots of the early deity figures (eg Sumerian god Inanna/Ishtar) (particularly associated with fertility and farming for obvious reasons) were feminine form.
At some point the Assyrians, then a nomadic culture from the north (contrasting the river valley agricultural city states), invaded and took over. (Several different Assyrian groups invaded several times, interesting their description, possibly propaganda, makes them sound vicious, like later the huns were described) One of the Assyrian groups introduced the veil but then it was more like "if you don't wear a veil it means you have no virtue/are not a virgin/you are shameful" so women apparently opted to wear veils as a sign of status. Interesting that attitude toward covering up to maintain virtue persists both in Islam and Christianity.
Not sure where the virtue thing came from but it's speculated that attitudes toward sex in Sumer were fairly liberal, the main god (Inanna) was, amongst other things, associated with sex and love; and the temple priestesses participated in ritual "prostitution" (more like ritual sex) - this implies the attitude toward sex was generally positive, contrasting it with the later prudeness associated with the veil using culture. Possibly it came from a different type of culture in the invading nomads (Sumer was very communal based around the temple store houses) perhaps the nomadic cultures had different inheritance customs or property ownership attitudes or perhaps it came from cultural shift itself in the fertile crescent, as empires and kingdoms developed perhaps attitude toward property or other people (due to slaves captured in war) changed. Lotsa speculation and sadly I can't find the website I read some of this stuff on, some of the other stuff is from a book called "debt the first 5000 years" which is excellent.
I really want to make a snippy line but I dont have it in me. I'll cut the shit, feminism is something you identify as or with
Christianity, no doubt, has a lot of roots in misogyny: here's a link ( The Dark Bible, ) for exact quotes.
Here's your problem though. With that attitude, seemingly assuming that you can't identify as a feminist and a Christian? No, by that logic you can't identify as a feminist if you are a Muslim.
With that said, that's bullshit. You can be both.
In my opinion you can't consistently believe the the bible or Quran is the word of god and at the same time be a feminist. I think many religious people today like to cherry pick their favorite parts of the bible out that don't agree with modern sensibilities.
Arguing that that you need to follow every word in the Bible/Quran to be considered a Christian or a Muslim would just encourage fundamentalism
Well my preference is that they not follow religion at all, but I don't know how you can accept both the idea that "The bible is the basis of my beliefs; it is a good book, and it is the word of god" and "There are parts of the bible that are outdated".
I mean, yeah, it's good that the Christian world has gone from "slaughtering native Americans in the name of Jesus" to "refusing to make a cake for a gay couple"
I think with so many sects and denominations in religion, I think it's always possible to uphold a core belief in your religion but also have the ability to not adhere concretely to the written teachings and follow through a personal philosophy that can align with both your religious and ideological views.
Sure a large majority of the religion may reject you with your different viewpoint of the same belief, but even the Bible had a bit of a revision (which is also why it spawned many more contradictions from itself) from the Old and New Testament that is more appropriate to contemporary beliefs at the time. I think the same can go with the Quran and even if you aren't a large established denomination of said religion, you have every right to practice the core values while potentially deviating from specific writings and interpretations of your religion.
You can't take the Bible literally because so much of it is contradictory anyway. It's not a single text written down at one point of time, most of the Old Testament is made up a bunch of different older stories and books, written out over centuries, some of different traditions that were eventually mashed together. It's why the story of creation is literally told twice at the beginning. And even complicating that, one of Jesus' messages in the New Testament is "Don't worry about all the old stuff, just be excellent to each other." (A lot of people seem to miss that part specifically. Weird, hunh?)
I always heard this was a myth:
https://biblehub.com/matthew/5-17.htm
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them."
You have a slight misconception here. The Quran exists as Allah's revelation, yes. However, the book was not written by Prophet Muhammad, it was written by the scribes and companions that traveled with him (at least, traditionally, this is the case). In this manner, while the Quran is God's word, and must be followed, the holy book has always been interpreted and analyzed, even from the times of the true Caliphates, in a notion we call tafsir. Tafsir can be categorized within two spheres: التفسير بالمأثور (tafsir bi'l ma'thur), which is a stricter interpretation of the book, and follows Prophet Muhammad and his compatriots' thinking, and التفسير بالراي (tafsir bi'l ra'y), which is realized from personal thought and rationality. With this, it's the same as any other piece of writing, from the Bible to the Constitution, which leaves the Quran essentially up to interpretation.
It can be argue that Islam brought womens' rights into Arab societies and tribes. John Esposito's "Islam: The Straight Path" (a good introduction to Islam for the layman, by the way. If you want any other recommendations, let me know!) argues that "Muhammad granted women rights and privileges in the sphere of family life, marriage, education, and economic endeavors, rights that help improve women's status in society,". In which he had done so by granting them property rights, the right to divorce from their husbands, inheritance, and the divine right of literacy and education (which is an important cornerstone to Islam). There have been many prominent Islamic women in history as well, such as Nana Asma'u, who was a princess and daughter of Usman dan Fodio, and pushed for more education for women and remained wholly independent for her life. It wasn't until the onset of colonialism that Islamic societies had started to rapidly regress, as professor of law at Harvard University Noah Feldman even explains, "As for sexism, the common law long denied married women any property rights or indeed legal personality apart from their husbands. When the British applied their law to Muslims in place of Shariah, as they did in some colonies, the result was to strip married women of the property that Islamic law had always granted them".
And their Lord responded to them, "Never will I allow to be lost the work of [any] worker among you, whether male or female; you are of one another. So those who emigrated or were evicted from their homes or were harmed in My cause or fought or were killed - I will surely remove from them their misdeeds, and I will surely admit them to gardens beneath which rivers flow as reward from Allah, and Allah has with Him the best reward." al-Quran [3:195]
And whoever does righteous deeds, whether male or female, while being a believer - those will enter Paradise and will not be wronged, [even as much as] the speck on a date seed. al-Quran [4:124]
Indeed, the Muslim men and Muslim women, the believing men and believing women, the obedient men and obedient women, the truthful men and truthful women, the patient men and patient women, the humble men and humble women, the charitable men and charitable women, the fasting men and fasting women, the men who guard their private parts and the women who do so, and the men who remember Allah often and the women who do so - for them Allah has prepared forgiveness and a great reward. al-Quran [33:35]
The breadth of these verses demonstrate that Allah sees no superiority over one or the other. Poor or rich, man or woman, master or slave. All will be judged equally, all will be seen equally.
But there exists some contradictions, correct? A majority of them can be argued from the time period that Prophet Muhammad lived in. Multiple wives, sex slaves, the "duties of a woman". People tend to take the Quran into a vacuum and criticize it in a modernist's point of view, but you have to realize the Quran and the surahs were written in the 7th century, and for the topics it disposes and the views it holds, its quite liberal in a wider sense. And don't think of me remitting the Quran for its dated and more reprehensible verses, because I tend to interpret them in many other forms.
Islam and feminism aren't mutually exclusive. Just like being homosexual and Muslim isn't mutually exclusive, but that's a topic for another day. In a descriptive sense, it's hard to be a feminist in many Islamic societies today, and I think a lot of us can agree with that. But in a normative sense, anyone can be a Muslim. People tend to forget that Islam isn't a monolithic entity that determines what's right or what's wrong. If that's true, sects like the Nation of Islam, or anything other than Sunni would be crusaded and ostracized. The Quran is a rigid book, but its teachings aren't.
If you want more detail, or would like me to expand on certain topics, of course, let me know. This was a really skeletal post, since it's still morning and I haven't had my coffee. I hope this post at leasted helped a little, however.
I hate to break it to ya, but with or without religion some men would and will always try to oppress females. Some people are just hateful, both males and females.
Or perhaps encourage people to realize that if they're so freely cherry-picking their beliefs, then perhaps there isn't much point in following that religion to begin with.
I'd say it would require some serious logical Olympics to consider yourself a serious Muslim and a feminist. I mean if you disagree with the Qurans teachings on this I don't know why you'd continue to call yourself a Muslim, at least on a personal level any way since I understand some do it just to keep their families happy and for the sake of tradition. I'd say the same thing for Christians who support homosexuality as well. I'm of the personal opinion that if you disagree with the core tenets then quite frankly you're better off just leaving it rather than propping up an institution you clearly don't agree with.
There has to be a limit on cherry-picking, though. I don't think someone can reasonably call themselves a Jew because they believe pork is bad but follow literally nothing else about Judaism. The terms 'Christian' and 'Muslim' must represent some non-trivial set of beliefs, otherwise they're meaningless labels.
If rectifying Islam and feminism requires ignoring large parts of the Qur'an and just sticking to the parts that match modern sensibilities, then it seems like a semantic cop-out to claim that they're compatible. I'm not personally familiar with Islam enough to know whether that's the case, but from what I've read it seems similar to the Bible in that a lot has to be subjectively dismissed as a product of its time while a remainder is subjectively retained as the 'actual' intent.
But what are the "core tenets" of Islam? A quick search describes them as Faith, Prayer, Charity, Fasting and Pilgrimage. Nothing in that describes the subjugation of women, or even imply it really. Same with Christianity. I don't know of any Christian that would argue rejection of homosexuality is a core tenet, certainly not more important than belief in Jesus Christ as the son of God and Messiah. I think it's worth asking what is the minimum requirement to call oneself (or others) a Muslim/Christian/etc but do we honestly believe that not following their respective holy texts to the T is grounds for disqualification?
I think many christians simply consider adherence to the bible and obedience to god to be a core tenet, which should mean you can't pick and choose the shit that works for you
Those are the core tenets in brief but there is clearly more to Islamic law and conduct that just those five, even those five go a lot deeper than just that. Christianity is the same thing, it's not a matter of "is it more important" as they're all considered equal in importance, to the point where disobeying those rules is stated to incur exclusion from the kingdom of god, hence the part where it explicitly states that "faith without works is dead". I think you pretty much have to straight up just ignore the bible to really argue that Christianity is accepting to homosexuality.
I'm not arguing for fundamentalism as I said it's quite to the contrary, I'm saying if you disagree with the laws set out in the bible people should consider whether they really want to be associated with something that is based on ideals you don't agree with, particularly when said values are considered infallible by the book that forms the ideological basis for it. If you want to take a more atheistic approach to the bible and sift through the good and bad aspects that's one thing, but if you take it seriously and genuinely believe its the true religion then I think it's intellectually dishonest to pretend that the god of the bible doesn't have an issue with homosexuality. I imagine much the same logic can be applied to Islam and the Quran and Hadiths in much the same way. Albiet the Hadiths are little more flexible considering nobody seems to be able to agree on which are authentic and which aren't, which is why I focus more on the Quran as it is the one thing all muslims can agree is the word of god.
If it were that simple, we wouldn't have a billion little denominations of Christianity. The basic fact you seem to be over looking is that any given person will believe what they want, such as whether they support feminism or think teh gayz shuld burn, and then cherry pick the aspects of their religion or Holy Book that allow them to comfortably support that view.
That's the same as asking if someone can be Catholic and a feminist. Technically no, if you follow all aspects of the religion.
The thing to understand about religion in general is that it's a spectrum of belief, culture, and practice. You don't have to be a true Scotsman to be of a religion or to be a feminist. Much can the same can be same of ideals. One does not need to be of a single school of thought, and most are not. We are of our experiences and what one feels work best for them. Most don't join religions but are raised with them as a culture and some practices. Ultimately we are not binary in how we think but a mesh from the life one lives and who they become.
funnily enough i happen to know more feminist who are muslim than not.
Feminists and Liberals are oft given a different definition dependent upon who you're talking to.
I think often it provides a sense of community, if nothing else.
I have a friend who was raised jewish, eats pork when he wants to, is gay as hell, speaks pretty fluent yiddish and hebrew. I don't think he's any less jewish because he doesn't follow every single tenet. v:)v
I think it's unrealistic to expect most people to follow every word of their religious book, most don't anyway.
I don't think faith and progressive causes are mutually exclusive, and I think the notion that they can't speaks far more to how faith has been utilized as a political tool and the people who have wielded it throughout the ages than it does to any sort of incompatibility between faith and positive change
Abrahamic faiths in particular have quite a long and documented history of changing with cultural influences throughout the centuries. It's most often brought up as an example of their hypocrisy, but it's just as much of an example of how religions are just a part of human culture and are just as susceptible to change as any other piece of human culture
We plant different crops side by side, pork is one of the widest eaten meats on the planet, textiles are regularly woven of multiple different kinds of fibers, dogs are a companion animal in more cultures than they aren't.
These might seem like trivial things, but at a time, they were part of scriptures that were very, incredibly important to their parent religions, but the culture around those religions moved on, and even within those religions you'd be hard pressed to find people genuinely aware of how much in the letter of a religion and its history there actually is
I don't think faith and progress are mutually exclusive,. I certainly don't think it's contradictory to want to hold on to your faith but also enact positive changes in the culture surrounding your faith. If anything, it's just carrying on the oldest religious tradition there is. Religious history is absolutely riddled with schisms and reforms and endless arguments about the nature of god and faith
You'll never remove religion, but you can influence the hell out of it, and it absolutely can be changed. Just look at the popular depiction of angels versus the actual descriptions of them. Beautiful, pure beings representing god's creation in familiar human forms versus the biblical descriptions of massive, terrifying, thousand-eyed, wheel-within-wheel monstrosities. The popular artist's depiction is more deeply embedded in the religions canon than the actual scriptural depictions. You tell someone to draw the devil, they'll draw you a goat legged man with the horns of a Jacob sheep. You ask them about hell, they describe fiery pits of brimstone and suffering, but that's all Dante's inferno
So I think yes, I think you can be a feminist if you're a muslim. If anything, a concept like feminism is even more important for the regressive culture that so often springs up around subverted religions because it's an agent of change that constantly undermines the status quo the subversion of these religions so often seeks to establish
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