Philosophy: Sex before marriage
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The current understanding of the muslim mass, is that sexual intercourse before marriage should be avoided. Though, as with all things, we must put this explanation to the test, and if it fails philosophically, then it is simply wrong. If not, then we are following blindly, acting as sheep, and thus ignoring the advice of Allah.
And so I ask the philosophical or/and moral (true morality, not morality that is based on culture) reasons to support this understanding, because I cannot find any.
Thank you.
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i can tell you from a societal and medical point of views why sex before marriage should be avoided.
in this society, sex before marriage and having multiple sexual partners is considered the 'norm'. this has lead to many children being conceived and mostly raised by single mothers. it is rough life for single woman to work, take care of the kids by herself. and a lot of these children don't know who the father is or have a relationship with their fathers. children don't have a stable environment when mom is out dating different guys with these guys walking in and out of the children's lives, some are mistreated by the guys mom is having sex with. i have taken care of one too many kids who were sexually abused by mom's boyfriends. the impact of people who have sex before marriage and with multiple partners resulting in conception of children is enormous on society and the impact is generational. the best environment for children to grow up is when you have a stable home with mom and dad in a good marriage.
there is also the medical reasons - the various STD's that's out there and will be cropping up in the future. the medical costs of treating STD is enormous. Have you heard of anyone being all excited and feeling good about being diagnosed with HIV, HPV, etc. If we all had sex only after marriage, the prevalence of STD would be very low to actually none.
then there is the emotional and psychological reasons. we are human beings. we have emotions, feelings, memories. you have memories of the person you have been with. sex is the closest you can be physically with another person. if that relationship ends, surely it cannot be good for the pscyhe/soul. so, sex before marriage can hurt at different levels.
at the purely sensual point of view, sex in a loving committed relationship is the best and highest, ultimate form of pleasure. hey, God who created us knows what is best for us!
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Marriage is no protection against any of these things. Fathers can be violent and abusive and rape their children too. Husbands and wives can sleep around and give each other STD's. Many marriages are dysfunctional and unstable family environments in which to raise children. Intimacy with a husband or wife who psychologically demeans their partner or who is insensitive to their partner's sexual needs is certainly not a close, sensual and loving experience.
That leaves jealousy over past partners. God allows men to have more than one wife under specific circumstances and Prophet Mohamed had more than one wife, so there is potential for jealously also to happen within marriages.
God allows for divorce. These days divorce in itself can lead to a form of multiple partners (serial monagamy).Also, does God imply in Quran that it is Ok for men to lust after women (not men). There is no mention of love or marriage? Does this mean that it's ok for men to "lustfully" desire other women as long as it is not acted upon? And as women and men have the same rights is it ok for women to lust after men as long as they don't act on it? The dictionary refers to lust as an intense or unrestrained sexual desire. Unrestrained lust is usually about meeting one's own needs until that lust is satiated, unless it is a controlled lust as noted above (i.e not acted upon). Does unlawful sex refer to having sex with the absence of love not just sex outside of marriage?
The only mitigating factor I can think of about marriage is that God tells us "the believing men should marry the believing women". If both partners are following God's righteous path as God Alone, Muslims then the above situations (STD's, abuse, jealousy, instability etc) will not occur. So the philosophical and moral reasons for no sex before marriage cannot be dealt with outside of the context of believers marrying believers.
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There isn't much to debate, is there?
Allah said no. So we said okay.
Instead of blindly following rules, I try to find the philosophical reasons behind them. I have been proven, times and times again, that the traditional translators were wrong on many, many verses. You do as you please, and I will do so too.
As Lena pointed out, most of the arguments you have given are easily refuted, and the two last paragraphs are nothing more but speculations. Furthermore they are not even based on morality, which is what I asked.
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I do not 'blindly' follow rules.
I start with the basis that Allah is correct. Anything otherwise is impossible. From there, I work backwards. What did Allah say. Is this logical. Why is it logical. If it is not logical, what would the cause of it seeming illogical be. And eventually, I feel I have an understanding of what he said. Then, I revisit the verse and attempt to solidify that understanding by comparing it to other places in the book where similar terms are used.
At no point has this sequence of deduction ever failed me, which is why I follow. Because Allah is correct, and has proven himself to be time and time again.
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I do not 'blindly' follow rules.
I start with the basis that Allah is correct. Anything otherwise is impossible. From there, I work backwards. What did Allah say. Is this logical. Why is it logical. If it is not logical, what would the cause of it seeming illogical be. And eventually, I feel I have an understanding of what he said. Then, I revisit the verse and attempt to solidify that understanding by comparing it to other places in the book where similar terms are used.
At no point has this sequence of deduction ever failed me, which is why I follow. Because Allah is correct, and has proven himself to be time and time again.
The creative force is correct, there is no debate here.
The problem is when you choose to take English translations of the Quran as the authentic message of Allah. As we can never be sure of the correctness of the translation of verses, we ought to put every rule, statement, etc. that is within the English translations under the test; if it fails philosophically (such as the beating of the wife etc.), then systematically the translation is wrong. You must understand that I cannot abide to the rules of a translation.
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The only mitigating factor I can think of about marriage is that God tells us "the believing men should marry the believing women". If both partners are following God's righteous path as God Alone, Muslims then the above situations (STD's, abuse, jealousy, instability etc) will not occur. So the philosophical and moral reasons for no sex before marriage cannot be dealt with outside of the context of believers marrying believers.
Lena, I agree. As I said 'good marriage' is best environment to raise children. If each person had only one sexual partner by marriage for life or utmost 2-3 with a person like the same (due to divorce or being widowed) then prevalence of STD would be very low. And sex in a LOVING committed marriage is not the same as have sex outside of marriage. So in other words basically God's system is the perfect system and true happiness is in following God's laws.
We are not talking about bad marriages. We are talking about consequences of having sex outside of marriages and why it is not a good thing and should be avoided.
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I think the first thing we got to look at is what does Zina means as that is the word used throughout the whole Quran time after time.
Regularly it means both Fornification and Adultry thus covering both ends. I've seen people challenge that word before but never seen a fully convincing argument on it. Maybe we can finally crack down and be 100% sure on things
I personally believe that it does mean both those things because 233-234 state you gotta guard your private parts except around your wife or MMA.
So I lets begin talking on if its truly allowed or not without any idea of morality in on whether "its not nice" or "its wrong" or "its dirty" or "it gives STDs" forget all those and lets straight up just talk on if its allowed or not, which my personal view is that Zina means both those as that is what it means since classical arabic times as well as 233-4, but lets see what you say
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So far, I think that in the Quran it is written that sex outside of a committed relationship is forbidden.
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So far, I think that in the Quran it is written that sex outside of a committed relationship is forbidden.
All it said was Zina, unless there is a verse that says as such.
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All it said was Zina, unless there is a verse that says as such.
I mean when you put all the verses together and make a conclusion from it - that's what I understood.
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I mean when you put all the verses together and make a conclusion from it - that's what I understood.
That is what I think too, but I wanna further investigate as this topic seems to wanna try to do. So lets wait for TC )
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I think the first thing we got to look at is what does Zina means as that is the word used throughout the whole Quran time after time.
Regularly it means both Fornification and Adultry thus covering both ends. I've seen people challenge that word before but never seen a fully convincing argument on it. Maybe we can finally crack down and be 100% sure on things
I personally believe that it does mean both those things because 233-234 state you gotta guard your private parts except around your wife or MMA.
So I lets begin talking on if its truly allowed or not without any idea of morality in on whether "its not nice" or "its wrong" or "its dirty" or "it gives STDs" forget all those and lets straight up just talk on if its allowed or not, which my personal view is that Zina means both those as that is what it means since classical arabic times as well as 233-4, but lets see what you say
This was not my aim for this topic. I will quote my earlier post and add on to it.
The key is to understand that morality is not intellectual and logical. If I ask for an example of evil, one will give me an answer such as ''murder'' or ''thievery'', but this just a verbalization of our emotion, because these are not logical explanations, we cannot intellectually differentiate evil from good. The sphere of the intellectual and the emotional are different, as much as one cannot explain why X was sad on the day Y mathematically, one cannot say that this act was evil or good based on a bullet-proof intellectual fact.
Thus, the peasant and the aristocrat will both systematically agree upon what is good and what is not, regardless of what they have or have not read. Upon this understanding, one will systematically arrive to the conclusion that the only law to be adopted is the one that is universal and appertains to each and every human being that is born on this earth, regardless of his class.
This is why I insisted on giving exclusively moral arguments, as Allah's sunnah does not change, the "rules" within the Qu'ran were to be followed from the first morally developed human beings. A time where there were no STDs, etc. Secondly, I prefer not to try to understand what is what based on the translations of the Quran, as they are an absolute mess. It is said in the Qu'ran that we have numerous examples in the universe, the animals and ourselves as well; and interesting fact, some animals are noted to be promiscuous...
I will give you an example We have always thought that homosexuality was seen as an abomination quranically. I have never been able to find any reason for it morally. Upon research, I understood that a great number of species are homosexual or bisexual. Upon some more research, I understood that we have archaeological proofs (carvings etc.) proving there were previous mobs, before the one of Lot, that practiced homosexuality (and thus the "crime" of the people of Lot was not homosexuality because it is said in the Qu'ran, that they practiced something which has never, ever, been done).
I hope you get the idea...
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Where does pre marital masturbation fit in all of this? Is it a gross sin, just a sin, controlled lust?
Well, as a rule of thumb
Using ones private parts would only be due to their spouses or concubine-like fugures. (235-6, 7030)
then we see"But whoever seeks beyond that, then those are the transgressors (237)Masturbation, premarital intimate relationships would all be beyond the point of spouse-ship and concubine-ship, and thus would be a trans-gression/crossing the lines.
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Well, as a rule of thumb
Using ones private parts would only be due to their spouses or concubine-like fugures. (235-6, 7030)
then we see"But whoever seeks beyond that, then those are the transgressors (237)Masturbation, premarital intimate relationships would all be beyond the point of spouse-ship and concubine-ship, and thus would be a trans-gression/crossing the lines.
depends on how you view that verse. Many of us don't take 237 to include masturbation and that entire section just refers to other people and thus going beyond unguarding it to people other than "wife" and "MMA" and not referring to oneself as one doesn't guard something of their own from themselves. Masturbation is not sex and those verse were directly talking about sex and chastity considering you "guard" against other people and you sure as hell don't lose your chastity/unguard or have sex by masturbating.
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Masturbation, premarital intimate relationships would all be beyond the point of spouse-ship and concubine-ship, and thus would be a trans-gression/crossing the lines.
This is absurd. Sex is allowed with spouses and MMA - ones with whom one has a committed relationship. Masturbation is not sex, and there is no evidence in the Quran that it is forbidden. You misinterpret the phrase and say that it means "using one's private parts", which is a loose, and ambiguous interpretation. "Guarding the private parts" clearly refers to sex.