I'm curious as to what is your opinion/interpretation of the concept of milk al yamin/malakat aymanukum in the Qur'an? Im asking aside from the classical scholars, with whom I personally disagree with (based on my understanding). In 24:33 it actually specifcally suggests that malakat aymanukum maintian sexual agency, hence they cannot be forced into prostitution if they desire "chastity" (taḥaṣṣunan). Also the previous verse does seem to suggest it was a continuation of talk about those married, as some formal relationship is what distinguishes the "chase". Milk yamin aren't true "concubines" in the Qur'an, at least in my understanding.
Thanks for your engagement, Cory! So, I don't think of milk al-yamin to be sexual property and disagree with all the scholars on what they say about it. Even if that's what the term meant historically, that understanding needs to be discarded and replaced with a kinder, more fair, less objectifying view of enslaved people - and people should not be enslaved at all, not for labor, not for sex, not for anything else.
Once again, you've made another informative video! I did find kecia alis book very interesting in its topics, though i found some areas to be lacking. But it is a slightly old book so that makes sense. Honestly Umar in that analogy you mentioned really ticked me off (in regards to Umar, not you). Like why is Umar randomly going around making concubinage a man only thing when the quran never does it and then making the woman sound crazy when she had a valid point. Umar is straight up gaslighting her. Not saying that the slavery part was cool or anything (it wasnt), but similarly, the rationale for the supossed ban on polyandry lies on a mistranslation of somebody who refrains from marrige (muhsanati) into being married due to patriarchy likely creeping in because how dare women have multiple partners, just like what Umar did. That and the whole "silence means prohibiton" thing is also really hypocritical because it bans women from marrying people of the book...because they're apparently not believers if they're guys (like the logic is so awful it hurts to look at once you poke it a little). Not to mention the violation of "silence is permission" principle. You've coveted both topics in your blog though, so I'm sure your familiar with what I'm writing here. I remember that nahida s Nisa of the fatal feminist and you yourself have spoken about this, and it really interest me how there's a lot of discussion that has to be had on sexual ethics that we need to have as a community and how we have to grapple with our history without drowning in apologetics or denial (but unfortunately our communities especially in the more conservative orthodoxy are too busy playing sex shaming, homophobic narratives as well as apolgetics to really get into that any time soon) Once again, thanks for the video!
Thanks so much for watching and engaging, Zain! I agree - we have to have a serious reflection/discussion as a community on sexual ethics instead of being invested in useless, and even harmful, nonsense like sex shaming, homophobia, and bigotry apologetics because we've got some serious issues to deal with regarding sexual ethics and ethics generally. There's no good reason why "tradition" must be maintained when it is so harmful to so many of us, like in some of the ways discussed in this video.
@@WhatthePatriarchy I totally agree with you. Honestly it's honestly tragic we are still dealing with a lack of looking into intimacy and it's issues especially when muslims of the past once did that quote a bit (now what they managed to cobble together in doing that is debatable), but they at least went out of their way to do it to some extent. It's especially sex shaming and homophobia which I feel are among the biggest issues in regards to sexual ethics. Islam teaches us intimacy is a very big part of married life, and it should be treated as natural and with care. Not shamed into oblivion as people seem to like doing now. Homophobia on the other hand ultimately relies on a reading of prophet luts story that ultimately paints him as a sexual trafficker and accessory to attempted rape of his own children to save angel who could literally probably kill dozens of people (that doesn't mean I believe he wanted to do that, but that's what the orthodoxy reading relies on). Like you'd think if god didn't like gay people, he would have mentioned something in surah 4 (ayah 15 and 16 don't work as they are in a section about inheritence issues, and fahisha doesn't just mean sexual indecency (it can also mean greed, which makes more sense in the context of ayah 15 and 16 and the verses preceeding it). Not to mention those verses were abrogated in favor of surah nur if we take the "they're talking about sexual issues" so it makes no sense to pick them up for use. Like for a surah which literally banned incest, avuncular blood marrige and foster child marrige once you become their parent via consummation, you'd think the line "don't marry a guy" would show up somewhere. Yet it doesn't. And of course, there's the fact that quranically no "punishments" for same sex acts exist. It makes way more sense to assume those of sodom were serial rapists. Or they play the slippery slope fallacy of "but incest/pedophilia/bestiality!" Despite the the fact that the last two are noncensensual, and the first usually has psychological issues related to grooming and power dynamics (and because it's not a sexuality and are not limited to your sibling or close relative), along with the issue of health issues in offspring. Same sex relations don't innately have thse issues, and are like heterosexual unions in that regard. And if we were going to ban something based on the possibility of it being toxic, we'd have to ban life itself. I feel a big issue is muslims are still stuck in this fortress mentality so they've gotten comfortable with apologetics. But that's not going to work forever. The coming generations will eventually start moving beyond that and looking deeper, and apolgetics won't be enough by then as there is only only much you can wave away when it comes to how islamic history practiced certain things, like slavery and concubinage, and what that means for us as we try to figure out what to do and how to address it. Thanks for replying to my comment!
Thanks for the video! I would love to see you do an analysis of Surah An-Nisa. As a convert trying to understand the Quran, I find challenging the concept that men are in charge of women. When I see the way the world is and how often men have abused their power, I don't understand why God would have placed women in their stewardship.
Thanks, Khadija! We'll be covering Q4:34 in this book, too, so I'll talk about it. For now, I'll only say that personally, my struggles with 4:34 are different than your ones. (But yours are valid, too!) I used to have issues with the "maintaining" part of 4:34 but here's some ways that feminist scholars committed to the Qur'an helped me through it: - the original Arabic is key to this verse and all other verses. The word you're speaking of is "qawwam" and it has been translated in SO many different ways, ranging from "maintainers of" to "superior to" (!!!) to "better than" to "in charge of" to "protectors of." Obvi, some of these translations are better than others. I tend not to trust any except my own and I look at multiple dictionaries before settling on a translation. I don't have a problem with "protectors of" and "maintainers of." Similarly, the word for "to hit/strike/beat" is supposedly "dharaba" but that word also means "to separate" in other verses in the Qur'an. Muslim male scholars have historically done a bunch of hermeneutical gymnastics to get what THEY wanted IN THEIR FAVOR out of the Qur'an and of sharia (like the stuff they went through to justify why women aren't allowed to lead mixed-gender prayers or why women can't marry monotheistic non-Muslims when men can, and so on), and it's remarkable that with 4:34... they decided violence was so normal enough that it could be a divine command from God in response to "problem wives"! Not to mention, as amina wadud has pointed out, when Q. 4:128 uses the word "nushooz" for husbands, the scholars interpret it as men who don't take care of their wives or men who are abusive (!!!) but when 4:34 uses "nushooz" for wives, they interpret it as "disobedient wives"!! So I don't trust ANY interpretations of 4:34 because look at all this. [This reminds me.... do you watch the TV show Friends? There's a scene in Friends where, we're supposed to think, it’s cute when Chandler tells Monica that he likes that she’s “high maintenance” because he likes “maintaining” her - and everyone goes “aww!! That’s so sweet!!” - and Monica is so touched and wowed by that. The same folks who think THAT's cute in the 21st century think it's unacceptable that the Qur'an might be saying the same thing about men "maintaining" women. Now don’t get me wrong - the idea is nonsense, and establishing it as a norm or a law is even more nonsense, depending esp on context. But the inconsistency of viewing it as wrong in one case but cute in another isn’t cool, is what I'm saying.) - as Dr. amina wadud has pointed out, the Qur'an has descriptive and prescriptive verses - the descriptive ones simply describing a reality without passing judgment on it or endorsing/opposing it, and the prescriptive ones tell us what to do or not do. It's very likely that 4:34, at least in part, is simply describing a reality: most humans live in a patriarchy that's established that men will "take care of" women. It's not always a productive or healthy or safe thing for women, and sure, it's mostly rooted in an idea that women are incapable of taking care of themselves, but I have learned in my short life that as long as I'm living in a patriarchy, the male members of my society BETTER "take care of me" by ensuring that I am not raped, assaulted, abused, etc. They don't do that, but I wish they did??? As long as I live in a patriarchy and am in under threat of violence BY men, other men need to be "taking care of" me - in whatever way is helpful to ME. I think the most helpful is for men to interrupt misogyny and other violence when they see it. It's also a good idea for me to learn how to physically fight in self defense to protect myself. But the men I share this universe with have a role to play as well. - the Qur'an doesn't describe HOW men are to be "maintainers" and the actual Arabic isn't gendered after the "because of ..." part. So the "because God has favored some over others" isn't gendered and men just read themselves into the "favored" part). You might find this a helpful start at exploring this verse: www.brandeis.edu/projects/fse/muslim/diff-verse.html I'll speak on this issue many times in this channel, promise. Thanks for watching
P.S. I discuss some other things in this video, summarizing amina wadud's arguments in Qur'an and Woman: Re-reading the Sacred Text from a Woman's Perspective, ideas that might help strengthen your relationship with the Qur'an and God: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-KXK00D-PE0U.html
@@WhatthePatriarchy Oh wow! I didn't expect such a long answer, but thanks for taking the time to write back! You've definitely given me something to think about. It's just difficult because I was a feminist in my previous life and combined with studying in a male dominated field, I've seen first hand good and bad of men, so it has been hard understanding the supposed "favorite" status men had in the deen (taught in my university mosque). Lately my faith has really been shaken by this, and combined with the isolation I've been feeling as a black convert, I've unfortunately been struggling with my practice.
I totally understand. I’ve been through similar struggles and anticipate more. Do you have a Muslim (feminist/egalitarian) community you can rely on for support and love and validation? I have an online one and it’s the main reason I’ve stayed a Muslim! If you don’t have one yet, email me and I can connect you. I’d start with the Feminist Islamic Troublemakers of North America (FITNA), which is a Facebook community. If you’re not on social media, email me and we can figure out other ways to keep you connected to your faith in a healthy way! in the meantime, know that you’re absolutely not alone
Yeah that’s not how kufr works (or do you mean to say you believe slavery is still acceptable?! In which case, we don’t have the same values and the same Islam so no point in engaging) - but thanks so much for watching!
