Discussion on 4:3 and meaning of nisa
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Okay, so you are saying that every word within these verses needs to reexamined apart from nisa. That approach makes sense if it is understood that nisa refers to a weaker segment of the society, because otherwise it wouldn't make sense if we were to keep the original understanding of some of those words. This is a massive project, but I find it so intriguing.
YES, this is EXACTLY what I am saying. D
This is the biggest issue I find, because I can't read Urdu. Now, I can understand a great deal of it, but I'm no where near proficiency levels. Damon, do you consider yourself fluent in Urdu? I think you would be a great asset (and others like you) to their work, because they need people with expertise in both languages. I understand that aastana's approach is different toward the Quran. The work of the traditionalists is still a stepping stone for most of us here, even though we've derived completely different interpretations in some aspects. I see that aastana has tried to move away from all traditional thought and methodology. Of course, I don't understand a greal deal of what they do (just as I don't understand a great deal of what goes on here), but it's still very interesting to me.
Yes, Aastana's approach is quite different from what The Muslim World is used to. It's a very steep and uphill task, but this MUST be done and if Dr. Qamar Zaman and Aastana don't do it, someone else will. This sort of work WILL be done eventually, it's just a matter of when and by whom. You can imagine how much "heat" and negative (and unwarranted) criticism Dr. Qamar faces everyday. Yet, you will not find a kinder, gentler and more humble soul than Dr. Qamar. I have witnessed with my own eyes how he responds to these criticisms with the humility and wisdom (and Quranic Knowledge) that is almost unmatched.
I am studying Urdu and trying my absolute best to catch up to this intricacies of this language as fast as I can so I can serve the exact purpose you have expressed in your quote above. Again, this is something that MUST be done and if I don't do it it's only a matter of time before someone realizes the importance of this and do it themselves. However, I am still a beginner and have some ways to go. But I have a plan and I have a few native Urdu speaking friends whom I can rely on for guidance and correction.
Well, I've definitely been awakened to the possibilities. I'm not sure about lies though. I just feel like people are stuck on their convictions, yet I'm not even fully understanding their convictions, when there are so many unanswered questions. Others have very strong convictions, yet are either unable to break down the material to the simplistic terms, or are deliberately using high level language to confuse and bilittle others. As I've said before, I am glad that your approach is very casual and you try to speak using laysman terminology and language. Perhaps, others can mimic this approach, because it's just so much easier to follow.
Maybe the word "Lies" is too strong a term and somewhat loaded. How about "misguidance"? But I do believe that this "misguidance" is not accidental. And it is pointless to have strong convictions in something if one is unable to use linguistics and "commone sense" to explain, defend and justify those convictions. The idea of HAVING to marry a woman in order to practice Justice (which is that woman's basic human right) is a very sharp insult to our common sense and sense of ethics and scruples. The questions I asked earlier are questions I ask traditionalists all the time and I have YET to receive an answer to any of them by anyone; including here on this forum.
I will ALWAYS use laymen's terms because I am suspicious of anyone who makes it a point to use strict, textbook grammatical terminologies with those he knows are not as versed in the language and terminologies as himself. I take this as an insult as well. Instead of trying to talk circles around you with my fancy grammar talk, I will instead try my absolute best to explain it and break it down so that you UNDERSTAND the grammatical topic in question and be able to remember and forever apply it in your Quranic Studies. This is true sharing of information and Quranic Empowerment. I am no one's teacher. I am only a student which means I am your fellow student.
Yes, actually Huruf has mentioned this before in a different thread. However, I quickly dismissed it. In light of what you're saying, I am now able to understand Huruf better, it's like connecting one idea to another and exploring the possibilities.
Yes, THIS is how we learn; by connecting the pieces and putting the puzzle together. This doesn't happen in one sweep. It takes time and the willingness to put two and two together, then four and four, then eight and eight, etc.
One thing, I did try to register at aastana. I never received a verification mail, so I could not post my questions.
I will look into this for you Sis.
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Salaam Sunnah-hero. ;D
Hi guys....whats up....
when I decided to read the quran with an open mind free from every kind of sunni or tradtional interference, I also got the idea that nesa cannot be a gender. If I as an Arab can become suspicious to nesa being a gender, its only understandable that others would be that as well. Overall being a quranist is a huge responsibility and harsh because you are forced to reason for yourself. Being a sunni was lot easier as you litterly didnt had to think every interpretation and translation of the quran was already presented to you by the ulama, so all you had to do was to ape them ;D I really mean it, when i was a sunni I could read the whole quran as a parrot in a couple of hours, but when I left sunnism it took me almost a month to read the whole quran as I for the first time had to grasp everything written in it ;D
As a native Arab, your input and feedback will prove to be quite valuable. I need to take this time and explain my position so that I am not misunderstood. PLEASE do not misunderstand me pointing out the attitudes of oppression and suppression of women on The Arab World. I am not in any form or fashion degrading Arabs as a people. I am merely pointing out a particular "Cultural Practice" that is unfair to the women in the Arab World.
I am what they call African American (Black Man) and I will be the FIRST to tell you that Black have a lot to learn and bring a lot of their problems on themselves. There are also "Cultural Practices" among Black People that I find outright disgusting. Black men love to disrespect women. Black men love to have kids by a whole bunch of different women and don't care of any of them. Black People can be quite lazy and they LOVE to blame the White People for ALL of their problems. They refuse to take responsibility for themselves and their actions (hey, I'm Black. I'm allowed to say these things laugh ) So please do not misunderstand where I am coming from when pointing out the oppression of women. Women are oppressed all over the world. But within OUR particular discussion of Quran, Islam, Arabic Language, etc. one has to point out where Arab Culture fits in within the global scheme of oppression of women.
But I must also say that you have my heartfelt admiration here because I know just as well as you do how difficult it is to shake off what we've been taught and look at things with our own eyes instead of the eyes of the 'Ulema. As a native Arab yours will be a most welcomed and refreshing voice concerning not only this topic but a re-examination of Islam in general.
The Quran needs you. Humanity needs you.
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Hi guys....whats up....
when I decided to read the quran with an open mind free from every kind of sunni or tradtional interference, I also got the idea that nesa cannot be a gender. If I as an Arab can become suspicious to nesa being a gender, its only understandable that others would be that as well. Overall being a quranist is a huge responsibility and harsh because you are forced to reason for yourself. Being a sunni was lot easier as you litterly didnt had to think every interpretation and translation of the quran was already presented to you by the ulama, so all you had to do was to ape them ;D I really mean it, when i was a sunni I could read the whole quran as a parrot in a couple of hours, but when I left sunnism it took me almost a month to read the whole quran as I for the first time had to grasp everything written in it ;D
Agreed. In many ways it was easier to be a Sunni because you are directed toward the most preferred tafseer. I was even told which school of thought I should follow by a imam, without any explanation other than, it being the one he follows.
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Salaam all,
Thanks to those who praised something of my messages. Some times praise comes, sometimes the opposite, but the important thing is that we keep searching undeterred by blame or praise, and that it is done in the best faith and for a legitimate purpose.
I regret that nobody seems to bring some morphological analysis of the possible root attribution of the word nisaa' and the word niswah.
In fact the list provided by wakas made me, for the first time, register that very odd thing of it being used in two instances, one with a verb in masculine singular, and another in feminine plural.
The evolution of words, as pointed out by Shirley is a fact, in general. I have pointed out myself in more than one occasion the evolution of the word "hombre" in spanish, where it used to be equivalent, and in fact still is, of human being, en a general sense, but whereas some centuries ago, to say specifically a male human, the word "var?n" would be used, which is clear and pecific, today "hombre" would be used, so that in fact the word "hombre (human being)" is being used today to mean specifically "var?n", male human being. The evolution of language with age does not get necessarily more feminist, in fact it may be and has been quite the opposite, and now it is not getting better, we get the same thing but in a different way. So now we see how "progressive" people look for words to mean both genders, but we did have the words for both genders, only we neglected them and keep neglecting thim, so we will keep fishing for new words to mean those things we do not know how to preserve by getting the idea that words will solve our problems, whereas it is our fighting for truth what will solve them, our social problems as well as our linguistic problems, or at least will not make them worse.
This I say as a general statement as to how linguistical evolution may mean very different things.
Going to Arabic, let me take the root a-m-m, from which the words omm (mother), imam, umma, are derived and we see some interesting things. Although the word mother comes from it, and the root has a meaning of being in front or of leadership, and one would have expected that motherhood would entail some kind of leadership, however we know the raging discussion as to whether women, mothers included, can lead prayers or not. Logic goes out the window. Obviously it is not necessarily a part of linguistics. Language is sociological, or sociologically conditionned.
Going back to nisaa', it is clear to me that it is not a common plural form if it were to come from a-n-s, but on the other hand "naas", which comes from it, is not a common form of derivation either, but on the other hand it is very common, so much so, that it is all over the Qur'an. Also in arabic there are many other uncommon derivations.
On the other hand, it may also be that it is a combination of two derivations which at some time may have been found (even as a joke) to unify two paradoxical concepts. We do that all the time with language. On the one hand the women-human (sociable) kind is equated with the postergated, retarded or whatever kind...
So, apart from that morphological study, including the wider research of that very odd "niswa", which I do not take for granted that it means the same thing as nisaa' in the Qur'an, I concur that we do need to look very carefully into the usage, function and appearance of the word nisaa' in every instance, with all the concurring elements, taking it separately from all the other instances.
I am convinced that the Qur'an is a pregnant book, which keeps having children all the time, we should just not prevent them form being born. Of course, while it is good to let the imagination fly in order to conceive ideas, when trying to reach conclusions we should be rigorous and strict and not let partiality get the best of us.
Doing that study and research, at the very worst, we will know a lot more about many things. Some times we may even learn of something we had never thought of before completely unrelated to what we are searching.
Again, thanks Shirley and Released for you good words.
Salaam
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Peace Huruf,
You said "I am convinced that the Qur'an is a pregnant book, which keeps having children all the time, we should just not prevent them form being born. Of course, while it is good to let the imagination fly in order to conceive ideas, when trying to reach conclusions we should be rigorous and strict and not let partiality get the best of us."
I agree with you on this. I came into this discussion with a very narrow perspective. I had convinced myself that nisa could never mean anything other than what it had always meant to me. I really didn't think very highly of aastana, as I had difficulty understanding what they were saying (communication issues due to language barrier). Regardless of how I personally feel about polygamy, I was going to defend its intended purpose (what I perceived) til the very end. However, after reading Damon's argument, I suddenly don't feel so confident anymore.
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Peace Release,
I don't need to comment on Shiley's post, because even without any Arabic, taking the Koran as a whole nod using my intelligence 43 could not possibly telling men to marry multiple women. I have always argued the direction must be one about supporting society, not one offering men the opportunity to have extra sex and women and children less time with thir husbands and fathers.
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Peace Sunnah hero,
My thoughts entirely. I have always thought it more difficult for ex Sunnis to think more freely. I come from a non Muslim background and feel at ease to examine the Koran objectively although I am hindered massively by having no Arabic.
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Peace Sunnah hero,
My thoughts entirely. I have always thought it more difficult for ex Sunnis to think more freely. I come from a non Muslim background and feel at ease to examine the Koran objectively although I am hindered massively by having no Arabic.
you are absolutely right. Its very difficult, generally mostly for NON-ARAB, ex shias and ex sunnis to think freely as they have always understood the quran in a certain way which is very hard to break particularly because they dont even have the required arabic skills . You are free of all the traditional pollution which makes you interpret quran with an open mind. The only reason for why I rescued my sunni background trap is because I am a native arabic speaker + I was very conscious about not to interfare any sunni understanding into the quran + the fact that I am a young teenage which makes it a lot easier to put my relatively short past behind me and move on and learn something new.
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Peace Sunnah hero,
My thoughts entirely. I have always thought it more difficult for ex Sunnis to think more freely. I come from a non Muslim background and feel at ease to examine the Koran objectively although I am hindered massively by having no Arabic.
Salamun alaika,
Just five preliminary lessons, and you will not feel any hinderance in self translating with the help of online available tools and meanings of individual words. Thereafter, you will learn all nicities yourself.
- Lesson One Identification of words of Quraan merely by watching the text.
- Identification of Phrases in text. (1) Prepositional Phrase; (2) Possessive Phrase; (3) Adjectival Phrase
- Three lessons for Sentence identification---Subject and Predicate and relational/explanatory clauses therein. Nominal sentence and Verbal sentence.
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Salaam Sunnah-hero. ;D
As a native Arab, your input and feedback will prove to be quite valuable. I need to take this time and explain my position so that I am not misunderstood. PLEASE do not misunderstand me pointing out the attitudes of oppression and suppression of women on The Arab World. I am not in any form or fashion degrading Arabs as a people. I am merely pointing out a particular "Cultural Practice" that is unfair to the women in the Arab World.
I am what they call African American (Black Man) and I will be the FIRST to tell you that Black have a lot to learn and bring a lot of their problems on themselves. There are also "Cultural Practices" among Black People that I find outright disgusting. Black men love to disrespect women. Black men love to have kids by a whole bunch of different women and don't care of any of them. Black People can be quite lazy and they LOVE to blame the White People for ALL of their problems. They refuse to take responsibility for themselves and their actions (hey, I'm Black. I'm allowed to say these things laugh ) So please do not misunderstand where I am coming from when pointing out the oppression of women. Women are oppressed all over the world. But within OUR particular discussion of Quran, Islam, Arabic Language, etc. one has to point out where Arab Culture fits in within the global scheme of oppression of women.
But I must also say that you have my heartfelt admiration here because I know just as well as you do how difficult it is to shake off what we've been taught and look at things with our own eyes instead of the eyes of the 'Ulema. As a native Arab yours will be a most welcomed and refreshing voice concerning not only this topic but a re-examination of Islam in general.
The Quran needs you. Humanity needs you.
Very wise words. Being an Arab from my own experience at least I can tell you that women are considered children in the Arab world. As with children, you protect and provide for them but you need to also control them and take their decisions for them as they aren't clever enough. Women are from time to time also used as Scapegoats. But it would be wrong to put all the blame entirely on men as there are a lot of arab women who agree with the bad treatment of women in the arab world, of course as long as they themselves aren't effected by it.................. When I was doing dawa in UK all the women in the mosque were supporters of polygamy but not a single one of them wanted their own husband to take another wife....... some few of them wanted to be second wives as that made them feel better about themselves (I am so hot that I can steal someone else husband)
but not a single one of them wanted to be a first wife. I also attended one islamic lector made by a woman in hijab about the importance of hijab and I swear she said during the lector that women are naqs el 3ql (something like stupid) and that made me convince that she is right... i mean why would someone call himself stupid if it wasnt true??? So I would request all the ladies here not to blame us men. Beside that when I was in Lebanon I witnessed a Palestinian married woman with hijab who was cheating on her husband with an mafia boss but no one seemed to have any problem with it, except of course her husband confusedI will recall and provide you with details for why I didn't considered nesa to be a gender, one of them was because it seemed odd that nesa allegedly are women then why are nesa also translated as wife, daughter, girls etc? Not every woman is a wife, and women cannot be a girl because then she isnt a woman. The correct word to use there would have been UNSA not nesa........... then either the translater misunderstood something or the author of Quran did not knew the difference between the word female and women... As a believer in the quran I put the blame on the translater, not on the author of the quran.
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Salamun alaika,
Just five preliminary lessons, and you will not feel any hinderance in self translating with the help of online available tools and meanings of individual words. Thereafter, you will learn all nicities yourself.
- Lesson One Identification of words of Quraan merely by watching the text.
- Identification of Phrases in text. (1) Prepositional Phrase; (2) Possessive Phrase; (3) Adjectival Phrase
- Three lessons for Sentence identification---Subject and Predicate and relational/explanatory clauses therein. Nominal sentence and Verbal sentence.
Is it just me who finds it hard to understand Mr. Mazhars post ? confused
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Is it just me who finds it hard to understand Mr. Mazhars post ? confused
You can start a poll, I think 90% forum members will be with you &
I don't mean any offense, but just came to this conclusion after seeing response of other members to Mazher's posts including me.
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You can start a poll, I think 90% forum members will be with you &
I don't mean any offense, but just came to this conclusion after seeing response of other members to Mazher's posts including me.
Hehehe dude I really hope Mr. Mazhar is reading this and would hopefully polish his communication skills.. because its h7aram that he spends so much time on free minds without getting his message throughout to people because they dont understand him.
I hope you agree with me mr. mazhar ;D
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Hmmmmm. Don't know if I agree with this public humiliation. I'm pretty certain it is not good behaviour. There must have been a less hurtful way to communicate to Mazhar that his posts might not be clear?
Peace,
Dawn. -
Hmmmmm. Don't know if I agree with this public humiliation. I'm pretty certain it is not good behaviour. There must have been a less hurtful way to communicate to Mazhar that his posts might not be clear?
Peace,
Dawn.But I just want to help the dude..
Then you must come with another suggestion sister... or perhaps you can have a private discussion with the dude and give him some good advice because your english is very good... Because as it is now my english is very bad, in fact us in Spain are world famous for our bad and horrible english so I am not suitable to give any concrete suggestions to anyone regarding english
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Hehehe dude I really hope Mr. Mazhar is reading this and would hopefully polish his communication skills.. because its h7aram that he spends so much time on free minds without getting his message throughout to people because they dont understand him.
I hope you agree with me mr. mazhar ;D
Salamun alaika,
Please tell me what is not understandable in the post under discussion to enable me to agree with you with thanks.
An evidence of overlooking the basic lessions of reading a text of any language might be seen even in this quote from a person who is an Arab
I will recall and provide you with details for why I didn't considered nesa to be a gender, one of them was because it seemed odd that nesa allegedly are women then why are nesa also translated as wife, daughter, girls etc? Not every woman is a wife, and women cannot be a girl because then she isnt a woman. The correct word to use there would have been UNSA not nesa........... then either the translater misunderstood something or the author of Quran did not knew the difference between the word female and women... As a believer in the quran I put the blame on the translater, not on the author of the quran.
It shows he is not identifying the difference between a word and a phrase.
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Salamun alaika,
Please tell me what is not understandable in the post under discussion to enable me to agree with you with thanks.
An evidence of overlooking the basic lessions of reading a text of any language might be seen even in this quote from a person who is an Arab
It shows he is not identifying the difference between a word and a phrase.
I dont know how I shall explain it to you Mr. Mazhar but when I read your post I feel like I am reading an old chemistry book.. do you understand what I mean ? confused