How sex before Marriage is not haram (prohibited) according to the Quran

nimnimak_11

The important question regarding sex is whether the focus of the Quran is on the sperm entering the woman or just the act of sex or perhaps both. I doubt that it is both since for a woman to have sex with someone or to just have someone else's sperm put in her surgically are two entirely different things.

Is it Quranically acceptable for an unmarried woman to get pregnant without having sex (sperm donor). From 2221-237 it can be argued no it is not acceptable.

2233 And the divorced mothers are allowed to suckle their children two full years, if they wish to complete the suckling. And the man for whom the child is born is responsible for both their provisions and clothing equitably. A soul is not burdened except with what it can bear. No mother shall be harmed because of her child, nor shall a father be harmed because of his child. And for the guardian is the same requirement. So if they wish to separate out of mutual agreement and counsel, then there is no sin upon them. And if you want to hire nursing mothers, then there is no sin upon you if you return what you have been given equitably. And be aware of God, and know that God is watching over what you do.

2228 And those divorced shall wait for three menstruation periods; and it is not lawful for them to conceal what God has created in their wombs, if they believe in God and the Last Day. And their husbands would then have just cause to return together, if they both wish to reconcile. And the obligations owed to them are to be fulfilled, as are the obligations owed by them. But the men will have a greater responsibility over them in this. And God is Noble, Wise.

If in these verses, the father is also the husband then the prohibition may be implied. If this is not the case, then there is no prohibition on sperm donors.

johan

Salam Johan

1225 And as they rushed towards the door, she tore his shirt from behind; and they found her master at the door. She said "What is the punishment for he who wanted evil for your family? Is it not that he be imprisoned or punished painfully?"

1230 And some women in the city said "The wife of the governor is trying to seduce her young man from himself; she is taken by love. We see her clearly misguided."

In the case of Joseph it would have been adultry since it was the wife of the governor who was trying to seduce him.
There are some issues though. In 1230 the term that is translated to wife is im'ra-atu. The root of it is mm r hamza. It's not clear that this means wife but in other verses where the same term is used, it is interpreted to mean wife and no other meaning seems to fix the context of those verses.

With regards to the prophet it is not clear whether he had previously slept with other single women or not when he was being seduced. It could be said that in this case he knew it was wrong because it would be sleeping with someone else's wife which is obviously disgraceful.

salam nimnimak,

imho marriage/wedlock is a way to proclaim to the public that so and so is my spouse.
if without my consent my spouse commits adultry then it's deemed immoral..we can agree to this..

let's say we exchange the notion of wedlock with that of gf/bf..
how would anyone know whether one has another gf/bf in he(r/s) "portfolio" if it's not known by the public?
would it be immoral for another to have sex with you even though they didn't know that you are with another gf/bf?
wouldn't it just causes too much complication if publicizing your relation with another is made irrelevant?

peace

IAMOP

I can't remember if I posted this earlier but I'll post it anyway.

The clearest argument regarding who to punish for zina is in the example of a person and their legal partner, and a third party who cheats with one of them.

If the third party has no knowledge of the partnership then if 'zina' is restricted to adultery, the question of whether to punish this person for cheating with becomes ambiguous the person who has been betrayed has experienced evil from TWO people, not one and both of those committed it on purpose. Of course if a person fled their marriage and married another person without notifying the new partner about the prior marriage then the blame is wholly on that person.

Conversely if zina applies totally to any form of non-official relationship then the person cheating on their partner AND the one cheating with them are to be punished. This is straightforward, simple and arguably perfectly just in the sense that there is no grey area where an innocent person may be found to be punished nor can a guilty one feign innocence and get away with it.

As such it is then self-evident that all sexual contact is strictly restricted to relationships backed by official recognition. No secrecy, no pump'n'dump.

noshield30

IAMOP, your theory doesn't seem to hold water. Married men/women can still lie to people that they want to cheat with and claim that they're not married, and bf/gf relationships do not have to be secret, in fact most bf/gf relationships are made known to almost everyone close to them which includes parents. This is especially true in the west, where my non muslim friends are in a relationship, almost every one of their acquaintances will know about it. Your view that marriage=widely known, relationships=secret is obviously not true.

noshield30

Sir Comcision, whole civilisations used to believe in human sacrifice, and in greek gods who live in mount olympus, and in multiple headed hindu gods. History has showed us just because the majority of people believe in something doesnt mean its the truth. Whole civilisations have been wrong before about all sorts of things. And for long periods of time too.

johan

IAMOP, your theory doesn't seem to hold water. Married men/women can still lie to people that they want to cheat with and claim that they're not married, and bf/gf relationships do not have to be secret, in fact most bf/gf relationships are made known to almost everyone close to them which includes parents. This is especially true in the west, where my non muslim friends are in a relationship, almost every one of their acquaintances will know about it. Your view that marriage=widely known, relationships=secret is obviously not true.

salam noshield,

what's the significance of having the Quran mention the concept of imra'ah for say al-3azeez and/or 3imraan, etc?

peace,
johan

nimnimak_11

salam nimnimak,

imho marriage/wedlock is a way to proclaim to the public that so and so is my spouse.
if without my consent my spouse commits adultry then it's deemed immoral..we can agree to this..

let's say we exchange the notion of wedlock with that of gf/bf..
how would anyone know whether one has another gf/bf in he(r/s) "portfolio" if it's not known by the public?
would it be immoral for another to have sex with you even though they didn't know that you are with another gf/bf?
wouldn't it just causes too much complication if publicizing your relation with another is made irrelevant?

peace

Salam Johan

Could that not apply to marriages as well? Men or women could hide their marital status (though not with as much ease as they could hide a non-marrital relationship) Say I was married and I was attracted to some girl. I hide my ring and pursue this girl and then portray myself as single and she believes me and i sleep with her. This is the same as me hiding the fact that I have a girlfriend.

Your right in the sense that if sex is exclusive to marriage and everyone upheld this view and only had sex within marriage, then it would be hard to lie and deceive since documents would have to be exposed when trying to marry for the second time. It would be almost impossible to lie and say this is my first marriage.

But this only works if everyone subscribed to this view. If not everyone did, then someone who is married could lie and deceive their way into unlawful sex just as they could if they had a girlfriend.

Similarly if everyone was honest or sufficiently righteous, then they would not lie about their current relationship status and thus there would be no deception.

What some may consider as a serious problem with MMA here is that it is not clear whether one has to be limited to one sexual partner at a time. For example if it was agreed between the two that each can have different MMAs, then I don't see any further restriction is put on by the Quran. Obviously if someone got in a relationship and the agreement was that we don't see other people, then that person is obliged to not see other people and since this is something that would enter the hearts depending on how serious the relationship is, the breaking of such oaths would be obviously wrong.

nimnimak_11

salam noshield,

what's the significance of having the Quran mention the concept of imra'ah for say al-3azeez and/or 3imraan, etc?

peace,
johan

Salam Johan

Any chance you could point to a verse where in which those words occur. I am not an arabic speaker and without any verses i have no hope of studying those words and why they are possibly there for.

Thanks

nimnimak_11

I can't remember if I posted this earlier but I'll post it anyway.

The clearest argument regarding who to punish for zina is in the example of a person and their legal partner, and a third party who cheats with one of them.

If the third party has no knowledge of the partnership then if 'zina' is restricted to adultery, the question of whether to punish this person for cheating with becomes ambiguous the person who has been betrayed has experienced evil from TWO people, not one and both of those committed it on purpose. Of course if a person fled their marriage and married another person without notifying the new partner about the prior marriage then the blame is wholly on that person.

Conversely if zina applies totally to any form of non-official relationship then the person cheating on their partner AND the one cheating with them are to be punished. This is straightforward, simple and arguably perfectly just in the sense that there is no grey area where an innocent person may be found to be punished nor can a guilty one feign innocence and get away with it.

As such it is then self-evident that all sexual contact is strictly restricted to relationships backed by official recognition. No secrecy, no pump'n'dump.

Salam IAMOP

What's wrong with relationships being backed by legitimate consent? In your two examples of zina, why would the person who has married be free from punishment whilst the person who has not married be punishable even though they were both deceived?

johan

Salam Johan

Any chance you could point to a verse where in which those words occur. I am not an arabic speaker and without any verses i have no hope of studying those words and why they are possibly there for.

Thanks

Salam nimnimak,
here you go..
http//tanzil.net/#search/root/%D9%85%D8%B1%D8%A1

peace

johan

Salam Johan

Could that not apply to marriages as well? Men or women could hide their marital status (though not with as much ease as they could hide a non-marrital relationship) Say I was married and I was attracted to some girl. I hide my ring and pursue this girl and then portray myself as single and she believes me and i sleep with her. This is the same as me hiding the fact that I have a girlfriend.

Your right in the sense that if sex is exclusive to marriage and everyone upheld this view and only had sex within marriage, then it would be hard to lie and deceive since documents would have to be exposed when trying to marry for the second time. It would be almost impossible to lie and say this is my first marriage.

But this only works if everyone subscribed to this view. If not everyone did, then someone who is married could lie and deceive their way into unlawful sex just as they could if they had a girlfriend.

Similarly if everyone was honest or sufficiently righteous, then they would not lie about their current relationship status and thus there would be no deception.

What some may consider as a serious problem with MMA here is that it is not clear whether one has to be limited to one sexual partner at a time. For example if it was agreed between the two that each can have different MMAs, then I don't see any further restriction is put on by the Quran. Obviously if someone got in a relationship and the agreement was that we don't see other people, then that person is obliged to not see other people and since this is something that would enter the hearts depending on how serious the relationship is, the breaking of such oaths would be obviously wrong.

IMHO, rules and regulation only works if there's consensus among the many. since we have made a covenant with Allah SWT, then our assumption is that the consensus is held by many..
even if the majority doesn't, shouldn't we stead fast to the covenant?

Another point is that I actually have a problem with interpretation that MMA is loosely meant some ways of exchanging/relinquishing rights on partnership even for a short time as per this verse

But if you want to replace one wife with another and you have given one of them a great amount , do not take from it anything. Would you take it in injustice and manifest sin?

I don't think Quran allows prostitution at all let alone your wife being prostituted to others..

wallahua3lam

IAMOP

Salam IAMOP

What's wrong with relationships being backed by legitimate consent? In your two examples of zina, why would the person who has married be free from punishment whilst the person who has not married be punishable even though they were both deceived?

In response to noshield30 and yourself;

Suppose a wife cheats on her husband with Bob. Bob does not know the woman is married.
From the husband's point of view, both his wife AND Bob caused him pain, they are both to blame. God designed our instincts to feel resent for the 3rd party. So if Bob gets off scot-free, there is resent which God himself placed there for a reason.

Case A Sex outside of officially recognised relationship is permissible
Wife - GUILTY OF ZINA
Bob - NOT GUILTY

Case B Sex ONLY within official relationships permitted
Wife - GUILTY OF ZINA (adultery)
Bob - GUILTY OF ZINA by default (fornication)

In case B, Bob can ONLY have sex with the wife if he marries her. If the wife does not tell Bob, it does not matter. Bob MUST marry her and when he goes to do this, the offical registry (or those with authority incl. family) will show that the wife is lying about her status. Hence in this case, Bob retains his innocence. Even if the wife lies and Bob somehow marries her, he is still indisputably innocent. The wife is not in a position to transgress because the system pushes BOTH of them into a stalemate. Zina is a two party crime and the quranic commandment is that BOTH parties are punished. One person cannot be guilty of zina alone because it takes two persons to do the deed.

You can take "marriage" to mean any quranically legitimate relationship. I hope you understand now. Noshield30, please read my posts carefully, you are reading things that are simply not there. This reasoning is axiomatically indisputable, it is a proof by contradiction. Forget what MMA means for now and consider purely the guilt of the outsider to the marriage. The fatal flaw in system A is self-evident. On judgement day it is rather plain that God who designed man to feel hurt by both parties in zina will thusly abase both participants. There is no other way to account fully for the evil committed (leaving forgiveness aside).

We are not concerned with what people are doing, what we are concerned with here is how to have a perfect system. A perfect system cannot be ambiguous and allow the innocent to be punished or the guilty to go free.

Wakas

peace/salaam,

In response to noshield30 and yourself;

Suppose a wife cheats on her husband with Bob. Bob does not know the woman is married.
From the husband's point of view, both his wife AND Bob caused him pain, they are both to blame. God designed our instincts to feel resent for the 3rd party. So if Bob gets off scot-free, there is resent which God himself placed there for a reason.

Case A Sex outside of officially recognised relationship is permissible
Wife - GUILTY OF ZINA
Bob - NOT GUILTY

Case B Sex ONLY within official relationships permitted
Wife - GUILTY OF ZINA (adultery)
Bob - GUILTY OF ZINA by default (fornication)

In case B, Bob can ONLY have sex with the wife if he marries her. If the wife does not tell Bob, it does not matter. Bob MUST marry her and when he goes to do this, the offical registry (or those with authority incl. family) will show that the wife is lying about her status. Hence in this case, Bob retains his innocence. Even if the wife lies and Bob somehow marries her, he is still indisputably innocent. The wife is not in a position to transgress because the system pushes BOTH of them into a stalemate. Zina is a two party crime and the quranic commandment is that BOTH parties are punished. One person cannot be guilty of zina alone because it takes two persons to do the deed.

You can take "marriage" to mean any quranically legitimate relationship. I hope you understand now. Noshield30, please read my posts carefully, you are reading things that are simply not there. This reasoning is axiomatically indisputable, it is a proof by contradiction. Forget what MMA means for now and consider purely the guilt of the outsider to the marriage. The fatal flaw in system A is self-evident. On judgement day it is rather plain that God who designed man to feel hurt by both parties in zina will thusly abase both participants. There is no other way to account fully for the evil committed (leaving forgiveness aside).

We are not concerned with what people are doing, what we are concerned with here is how to have a perfect system. A perfect system cannot be ambiguous and allow the innocent to be punished or the guilty to go free.

Nice angle.

nimnimak_11

Peace IAMOP

God designed our instincts to feel resent for the 3rd party. So if Bob gets off scot-free, there is resent which God himself placed there for a reason.

I think that in most cases this will be the case (anger at third party). But is it a justified hatred? It depends.

Case A Sex outside of officially recognised relationship is permissible
Wife - GUILTY OF ZINA
Bob - NOT GUILTY

Case B Sex ONLY within official relationships permitted
Wife - GUILTY OF ZINA (adultery)
Bob - GUILTY OF ZINA by default (fornication)

In your examples the only difference between cases A and B is that in a society that practices B, the odds of someone deceiving a third party into thinking that they are not in a relationship is significantly less than that of a society that practices A. For this reason I do agree that it could be said that in society B, there will be less resent towards Bob for they know by default that he was sufficiently careful because of the low odds of deception by the wife in society B. But this is not to say that he is indisputably innocent. Hypothetically you could argue that for various reasons, Bob was in fact under the impression that the wife may in fact be married. Odds of this are low but it is not impossible to render it indisputable.

Important to note is that in the conditions of society A you could have someone who is sufficiently careful also. For example someone might ask around or check in some kind of database whether wife x is a Mrs or Miss or Ms. In court Bob might then say I got in touch with the registry offices and they told me she was single. Other pre-cautions could also fall into place before engaging in any kind of sexual activity which would easily render Bob in society A as sufficiently cautious.

Thus whilst the conditions in society B are more strict thus lowering the possibility of deception, this does not entail that the conditions in society A are wrong. For example some countries will have harsher punishments for stealing than others and thus they will lower their odds of stealing in their respective country. But this does not render their punishments right. Some punishments may be unreasonably harsh.

You can take "marriage" to mean any quranically legitimate relationship.

From my understanding that is not how it is. There are specific verses that place certain requirements before one can approach their MMA for nikah. Thus a relationship with MMA and zawj are two different arrangement that are both Quranically legitimate (if this understanding of MMA is correct) thus marriage cannot mean any Quranically legitimate relationship.

On judgement day it is rather plain that God who designed man to feel hurt by both parties in zina will thusly abase both participants.

I disagree with this. If I understand you correctly your view is that the level of caution exercised in society A is too low and that in society B, by default it is sufficient to render the third party not guilty. I don't believe that this warrants and outright ban on sex before marriage. If there is a wife that will cheat with someone, then the wife is at fault and the husband who married such a wife was unlucky or unwise in his choice of wife. It may even be argued that if such a wife exists, it may be better that the disease in her heart is exposed. It may also be argued that sex before marriage is beneficial in the sense that it would better help someone judge to whom they should commit to for the rest of their live with regards to starting a family and other marriage like goals.

God will judge whether the likes of Bob in societies A or B was cautious enough before engaging in sex with their MMA. We cannot assume that Bob was sufficiently cautious in society B or A and I think the imposition of the conditions in society B are restrictive of the rights and freedom of individuals and they potentially prohibit a beneficial thing for reasons that are not good enough.

Zina is a two party crime and the quranic commandment is that BOTH parties are punished.

Consider the following

We punish the person who was married and the third party who was not married
We punish the person who was married and the third party who was married to them

If we must do 1 (based on there needing to be two to commit the deed thus two to be punished), then surely we must also do 2 for it is the same. I am not sure what you mean by stalemate but if we consider the third party in two as legally married simply for the reason that he was unaware that there was a husband, then this is the same reason Bob would give in 1) that he had lawful sex for he did not know there was a husband. Thus there is no core underlying difference if I understand you correctly. If I have got this wrong please correct me on this.

I think for a person to be unaware that there is a husband in the picture is sufficient to render them as not guilty of any fahisha or zina. Even if we say that Bob was aware that the wife was married but he himself was not married, then I think this constitutes fahisha for Bob and zina for the wife because Bob is not married whereas the wife is and I think there is a clear difference between the level of wrong on Bob's side if he was in fact married and aware as opposed to not married and aware.

It could be argued that according to the Quran, you only punish both parties for zina, when they have both committed zina. As in the two who committed the act were both Married to someone else.

242 The adulteress and the adulterer, you shall lash each of them with one hundred lashes, and do not let any pity overtake you regarding the system of God if you believe in God and the Last Day. And let a group of the believers witness their punishment.
243 The adulterer will only marry an adulteress or she who is a polytheist. And the adulteress, she will only be married to an adulterer or he who is a polytheist. And such has been made forbidden for the believers

From these verses I do not see that it is necessarily the case that in the act, both should be considered as committing zina. In the case of Bob, you cannot punish an adultrer when there is not one to be found.

nimnimak_11

Salam nimnimak,
here you go..
http//tanzil.net/#search/root/%D9%85%D8%B1%D8%A1

peace

Peace Johan.

Thanks. I'l get back to you on this and on your other post when i take a look at them.

Peace

nimnimak_11

IMHO, rules and regulation only works if there's consensus among the many. since we have made a covenant with Allah SWT, then our assumption is that the consensus is held by many..
even if the majority doesn't, shouldn't we stead fast to the covenant?

Another point is that I actually have a problem with interpretation that MMA is loosely meant some ways of exchanging/relinquishing rights on partnership even for a short time as per this verse

But if you want to replace one wife with another and you have given one of them a great amount , do not take from it anything. Would you take it in injustice and manifest sin?

I don't think Quran allows prostitution at all let alone your wife being prostituted to others..

wallahua3lam

Salam Johan

The aim is to determine what is permitted and what is prohibited. What the majority or minority practice is not really relevant. I agree on this without doubt.

What is it in 420 that renders the notion of sex with the MMA as problematic? Here the case is that if someone is not happy with their wife and wants to remarry, then they should not take back anything that was given to their ex-wife which makes sense. It may be that if someone is not happy with their MMA, they could take back what they gave or that it may be better for them not to take back what they gave. What is clear from 420 is that in a marriage, taking back what was given is wrong. With this verse it might be argued that in the case of serious relationships which result in a break up, taking back what was given to the ex-MMA would be also wrong.

Whether the Quran allows prostitution depends on whether we can find any further restriction imposed on what is done with an MMA. Whether it allows a wife to enter prostitution, I'm pretty sure that that's a no.

By the way, I looked at the link you gave me, I'm still unclear what you mean by
for say al-3azeez and/or 3imraan
If you could further clarify for me, I'd appreciate it.

Peace

Sir_Comcision

Sir Comcision, whole civilisations used to believe in human sacrifice, and in greek gods who live in mount olympus, and in multiple headed hindu gods. History has showed us just because the majority of people believe in something doesnt mean its the truth. Whole civilisations have been wrong before about all sorts of things. And for long periods of time too.

Yes, but this trend of picking out the root word of certain Arabic phrases of the Koran and using that as if it's somehow more authoritative than centuries and centuries of scholarship seems to be very tenuous to me. I may be a reactionary, but I simply do not get why everything in the Koran has to take on a new "modernized" spin. Either the Koran as it is is perfect and the West is just another (completely decadent) civilization composed of erring human beings, or this "sexually liberated" culture is simply wrong.

Bigmo

Yes, but this trend of picking out the root word of certain Arabic phrases of the Koran and using that as if it's somehow more authoritative than centuries and centuries of scholarship seems to be very tenuous to me. I may be a reactionary, but I simply do not get why everything in the Koran has to take on a new "modernized" spin. Either the Koran as it is is perfect and the West is just another (completely decadent) civilization composed of erring human beings, or this "sexually liberated" culture is simply wrong.

The problem here is that whenever we try to interpret the Koran by linguism only we run into lots of problems because the Koran uses the ame term variantly depending on context. We have to look at the context and other verses pertaining to a particular subject and reach deductions. We must also look at logic and reason. Verses that are implicit must not over ride the explicit verses.

What I noticed is that some people tend to have a liberal tilt and and others have a conservative til. This is mostly based on personality and experience. It does not have to be a case of being either Western influenced or islamic sectarian influence. Each accuses the other of being influenced when it may not be the case at all. Western soceities were not always liberal and Muslim societies may change. But it has more to do with the nature of the verse itself. It may be designed for both a liberal or a conservative interpretation as the Koran came to mankind and people have different philosophies. Not everyone can be liberal and not everyone can be conservative. But it should not be the case that one is following the Quran and the other is externally influenced.

Sir_Comcision

Eh I've always pretty much had the same view of the Koran even when I was a vegetarian center-leftist. For me it has more to do with not being influenced and not wanting to be "modern" than it has to do with political views. You might as well look at every single verse in the Koran and re-interpret them based on the root words. I prefer to take the mainstream translations of the Koran as pretty much fact unless there is clear proof that there needs to be a much deeper analysis (and I don't think that the Koran clashing with "modern" values is a sufficient reason for doing this). If the Koran can be interpreted to anyone's liking, there is no reason it should exist. You might as well write your own personal holy book.

Just my two cents.

johan

What is it in 420 that renders the notion of sex with the MMA as problematic? Here the case is that if someone is not happy with their wife and wants to remarry, then they should not take back anything that was given to their ex-wife which makes sense. It may be that if someone is not happy with their MMA, they could take back what they gave or that it may be better for them not to take back what they gave. What is clear from 420 is that in a marriage, taking back what was given is wrong. With this verse it might be argued that in the case of serious relationships which result in a break up, taking back what was given to the ex-MMA would be also wrong.

Whether the Quran allows prostitution depends on whether we can find any further restriction imposed on what is done with an MMA. Whether it allows a wife to enter prostitution, I'm pretty sure that that's a no.

By the way, I looked at the link you gave me, I'm still unclear what you mean by If you could further clarify for me, I'd appreciate it.

Peace

Salam nimnimak,
I don't think that's what 420 is referring, I think what the 420 is addressing is something against 2 husbands exchanging their wives with each other..

refers to the taking of the money from one husband to the other husband..
because I believe this is another form of legitimizing prostitution, i.e. the wife as the subject of prostitution..

as for the MMA, is a tough call..
not sure how to make of it..
haven't researched much about it..
but my understanding is that MMA is a one direction relationship, that is you are under control of your right hand and not the other way round where your right hand is controlling you..
so it's more of a master->slave or boss->employer rather than partner <-> partner

another restriction for prostitution is the verses with the term safa7a and muttakhidhati akhdaan
http//tanzil.net/#search/root/%D8%B3%D9%81%D8%AD
http//tanzil.net/#search/root/%D8%AE%D8%AF%D9%86

it doesn't make sense if safa7a has nothing to do with the notion of lust as blood being spilled wastefully
it doesn't make sense if akhdaan has nothing to do with the notion of wanting for some short term gains, i admit this one is harder to proove

I would look at how mary had a bad feelings against those who approached her thinking that they might take advantage of her..

Sahih International
She said, "Indeed, I seek refuge in the Most Merciful from you, , if you should be fearing of Allah."

wallahua3lam