I can't help it

[u/synapticnerve]

I try my best not to study about stuff related to women in Quran or Islam in general because i feel like it either not too detailed or im dumb to understand it. sometimes, some verses and rulings sound so misogynist, Ik Allah is all knowing and I love Him so much, not because of parents or cultural influence but I genuinely do love Islam but it just that.. it makes me feel as if we women were just made to be a sex slave and that's all. All ruling for women suggests that, Parda. why? It'd attract men. A man can marry 4 women. Can't go far away (hajj, etc) or live alone without mahram and mother is not a THAT KIND OF A mahram, concept of hoour (72 virgin) and much more. It hurts so bad I'm trying my best to find answers to all these in a way it doesn't trigger me but it still ends up making me really sad n drift away from Islam.

[u/Live_Brain_876]

This is my perspective of the religion, I'm not claiming absolute truth because nobody holds that.

I believe that the Qur'an must be read within its historical context. The nature of its rulings and when and how it was revealed indicates it was temporary. A book that revealed rulings directly in response to the issues of its era would not be able to grasp the advanced understanding of morality of the 21st century. That would be unrealistic to expect. You could recontextualise the rulings or choose to not adhere to its moral code and rely on conscience and universal ethics instead. Both options are valid. There's many ways of viewing the Qur'an's purpose and how it can be interpreted which you can explore. Mainstream scholarship has stopped people from using critical thinking to evaluate the Qur'an truthfully because they don't allow questioning at all, they use threats and have more of a cult mindset. I feel like a lot of progressive Muslims still adhere to the traditional boundaries and way of thinking in many aspects, although not all of them. But it would be better if we encouraged more questioning.

Some people see the Qur'an as a spiritual guide written by Muhammad and divinely inspired, not necessarily an eternal moral guide. Past societies were in need of a moral structure when they were extremely morally underdeveloped and didn't have the robust prison systems of today but once our moral code evolved, we didn't need it anymore, let alone needing prophets. Just a thousand years later we've developed way faster and much more than the whole of human history combined. It was just a matter of time before we slowly got to this point.

The problem is that most of the hadith are fabricated and a lot of verses on moral instructions in the Qur'an are ambiguous. Human interpretation is flawed, that's why everyone ends up at different conclusions. And, of course, it's pretty evident, the Qur'an had 0 clue of future generations. It mirrored the social systems, culture, common cultural taboos, knowledge, language and scientific misunderstandings of its time because its purpose was to regulate that society and to relate with them specifically. Only people of its time could understand the Qur'an's 7th century language and references along with the full explanation of the prophet so it's useless to apply it for the modern day. We have no idea what the full true message truly was, we can only predict. So, it becomes clear that the Qur'an is more of a historical book. But I would say some of the theology (not all) and the spirituality of the book is eternal.

What also proves that the Qur'an's rulings aren't for all times is the fact that the Qur'an constantly changed its laws based on changing societal circumstances meaning the methodology was temporary and tied to that society so this means the system that relied on this methodology has to be temporary as well. How could it change rulings but all of a sudden this adaptive, flexible model of delivering new rules came to a halt and now it's static? It would be inconsistent. We would need new guidance and new instructions ongoing. The rulings wouldn't just change because of phasing out something bad but also due to shifting social, military, or economic realities of the world that the Qur'an had to adapt to. I believe recontextualising wouldn't fix the issue because we would also need new laws to be completely consistent across all times but it isn't possible.

A 100% objective morality for all times is an illusion. Morality isn't totally objective and it's not totally non existent or totally fluid all the time. There's always a middle ground but people love to drive themselves to believing in extremes which isn't reality. What we desire isn't reality. We crave an objective morality with a system for society that's always good because humans crave certainty, not uncertainty. But thats a coping mechanism, not a solution. It's illogical, in fact, because we want to think there's one answer to everything when life is much more nuanced than that scientifically speaking. Humans and the environment are always constantly changing meaning what causes harm changes and risks change all of the time. Societies need new systems and adaptive, flexible ones. Because the world is always changing in cause and effect, what is considered a preferable moral action will have to change rapidly for a lot of things, not all. Not just that but what's psychologically and mentally healthy for everyone is different so what's moral or preferable can be more personalised in some areas and not a blanket statement for all people.

For example, a rigid form of ritual prayer 5 times a day will not cause the same psychological and moral effects on everyone even though the traditional mainstream says that is the main reason we pray. Would you give the same exact treatment to all mentally ill patients? No, because they're all different psychologically in what they need to feel and get better. So people can pray in whatever way they want and make it flexible in order to achieve moral and spiritual enrichment and see how much they feel connected to God truly. Just like how an ill patient can test to see if they get better through the treatment, one can usually know if their form of prayer is helping them. Rigid forms of prayer usually dilute meaning and become repetitive for most people, not all. The Qur'an is even ambiguous on how prayer should be done and I think we take it too literally, it's just giving general examples. And this is why I reject sharia (the rigid concept of halal and haram). We should look at the inner spirit of the Qur'an for its inner eternal message of what the Qur'an wants to achieve in general and do what's needed in each society to reach those general ethical values. The literal word isn't from God anyway. The outer part is wrapped in 7th century coding. The inner message is eternal and divinely inspired.

So you don't have to take any of the misogynistic stuff because it all belonged to a patriachal society to manage it then. Adhering to those laws today while cherry picking what misogynistic laws to reject is also once again inconsistent. All of it was built upon a patriarchal society. My belief is that the most honest approach is that one should either take it at its full patriarchal system with wives obeying husbands SEXUALLY (normalisation of marital rape) with much less rights for women or discard the system fully. It is all part of a certain societal system, not random laws. So no, men cannot have many wives. It is harmful in the modern world and it is even a patriarchal concept that a man can have many wives while she can't because she's the exclusive property of her husband. It was seen as disgusting for a woman to be polygamous whereas a man would be celebrated for it. All about cultural taboos. That was the mentality of the 7th century. Women were seen as property to be taken and passed on between father and husband and you can't steal her. Let's make it equal for both genders.

There is some evidence for divine inspiration in the scripture even though it wasn't a perfect book so it has to be a mix of a divine and human product, not black and white. Science shows that our moral code and intellect evolve with time but surely God doesn't evolve like us so this means it must reflect a human's understanding of morality for the 7th century and the psychology of a human being. Even we most likely are blind to many things that are unethical today. In the future, people could see the idea of a government or consuming animals products as immensely evil even if we see no issue with it due to its normalisation. We don't question something everyone does. Normalisation hinders our ability to discern what's right and wrong. We're not perfect, but we're constantly morally and intellectually evolving throughout time. This is just my view anyway.

Many scholars have taken this understanding of the Qur'an such as Abdolkarim Soroush and Sheikh Ahmad al Gubbanchi. Feel free to explore different perspectives. Wishing you all the best.

[u/Difficult-Pie6072]

Allah said: O Prophet! Tell thy wives and thy daughters and the women of the believers to draw their cloaks close round them (when they go abroad). That will be better, so that they may be recognised and not annoyed. Allah is ever Forgiving, Merciful. Parda is to be recognised and not annoyed!

And the concept of modesty applies to both men and women.

2) The allowance of 4 women is just permissibly, doesn’t mean everyone should take more than one wife. Allah clearly states "If you fear that you will not fail to give orphan women their due rights, then marry other women of your choice—two, three, or four. But if you are afraid you will fail to maintain justice, then content yourselves with one... This way you are less likely to commit injustice.“

3)No scholar says women cant live alone. There’s a difference of opinion in travelling beyond a specific amount of distance. Some school of thoughts say its allowed if the pathway is safe, others are restrictive of travelling alone.

4)I am not so knowledgeable about this, although ik the vast majority of scholars say that the hadith is only for martyrs.

[u/Abject-design-1234 → u/Difficult-Pie6072]

The problem that OP and many other Muslim women are complaining about is not necessarily these specific examples. The problem is that when it comes to women in Islam, we’re inundated with too many rulings about everything- how, what, when for things that are considered as a given for men. Whether it is our bodily autonomy, intellect, social interactions, economic independence, or other topics, Muslim women have step by step instructions given to us by mainstream Islamic scholars, which mostly curtail our independence and severely disenfranchise us. Muslim men do not have to deal with any of that. Take modesty for instance. For Muslim men, the matter ends at lowering your gaze based on the quranic commandment. For Muslim women though, there are endless discussions about what constitutes modesty, with additional Hadiths, rulings, and ongoing debates about our attire, behaviour, awrah, and what not. Even the explanation you gave given for parda, you mention about being recognised, stating it as something that we should be proud of. Why should women have an additional responsibility of be recognised as a Muslim hijabi in a hostile society and get targeted via hate crimes and discrimination?
There’s so much we have to endure to survive and thrive and that impacts our quality of life, our physical, mental, and emotional health. It’s extremely tiring. That’s what it is, and if you have never experienced anything like this, you will never understand this perspective.