A Qadi is a judge who renders verdicts in accordance with Islamic law. He hears religious cases such as those about divorce, inheritance, paternity and marriage. Like any judge, American or Islamic, such a job entails a great deal of responsibility and subsequently every member of the community cannot become a Qadi. One must be a free male adult, who is well versed in the Qur’an, hadiths, Ijmā (common consensus of the community), and jurisprudence. Qadis develop a strong understanding of the context and setting. In one case, the Qadi focuses on the sequence of events that occurred in the selling of a mill.1 In another case the husband-wife relationship allows the Qadi to make several assumptions about a wife’s needs in a marriage. In such a case the Qadi can use gender to assume motive, plausible deniability and background. The Qadi goes on to sympathizes with her story and thus sanctions a divorce.2 In a third case, the Qadi organizes evidence to simplify an inheritance and paternity case to help one witness have a stronger case.3 Qadis also use many modes of legal reasoning & l...
The Abbasids tried to manipulate Islamic law by trying to either avoid it or find a way around it to get what they want. The Abbasids called themselves the rightful rulers of the Muslim world because they were descendants of Ali, whom had transferred the right to rule, to them. This gave them more power than anyone else, because they thought of themselves as the chosen ones. Therefore, they did anything they wanted, which included avoiding some laws or finding solutions to get what they want quickly. We know that the caliph wanted/desired a particular girl but he could not have her because she was still owned by Jafar, so the qadi who is Abu Yusuf found a way to marry the girl to a slave man who then would divorce her and give her to the caliphate.
Overall, Islam and Gender is a valuable addition to the field of ethnography by examining the everyday struggles, experience, and involvement of women within the Islamic law. Hosseini targets a Western audience and hopes to leave them with a better understanding of the Islamic judiciary system and Iranian feminism. She successfully provides her readers with an unprejudiced account of the shari’ah and family law, and even includes the ideologies of those opposing her personal beliefs. Hosseini specifically requests Muslim women to take a stand develop their own local, Islamic feminist movement and openly advocates new discourse within Islamic jurisprudence.
The results of witch hunts, such as social implications, usually bring about many unforeseen events and consequences. For example, countless numbers of peoples, estimated in the tens of thousands, died due to the accusation of witchcraft. These people “face humiliations, torture and banishment” (Prasad 1-2) simply because of the accusation of witchcraft under (usually) false charge...
Alsana faces the expectation of fulfilling her proper role as the subservient, good muslim wife; however, she subverts this tradition by actively fighting against her husband Samad and, therefore, maintaining her sovereignty. When Alsana expresses her support for her husband’s motion during a PTA meeting, the other wives look “over to her with the piteous saddened smiles they reserved for subjugated Muslim women” (Smith 110). This perception fails to take into account the conflict that occurs under the surface of their seemingly traditional marriage. Before she finally expresses support for him, “Samad pressed Alsana’s hand. She kicked him in the ankle. He stamped on her toe. She pinched his flank. He bent back her little finger and grudgingly raised her right arm while deftly elbowing him in the crotch with her left” (Smith 110). Physical violence is the hallmark of the power struggle within Samad and Alsana’s marriage; it is the manner in which Alsana expresses her defiance to the proper role that it is assumed she should take in her marriage. This physical violence is so common, in fact, that as they violently fight in their garden, their twins calmly watch, placing bets on who will win (Smith 167). This normalization of the violence further highlights how innate it is to their
The Qur’an is believe to the ultimate source of God by many Muslim believers. It contains 114 suras for the believers as the core practices of the Islamic religion and Muslims throughout the world recites its verses (Chang, Lecture. 1/21/14). They believed the prophet of Allah was Muhammad, who received the words of Allah through Angel Gabriel, and was passed on with the Qur’an during Ramadan. Angel Gabriel one night came to Muhammad “in clear human form” (“Scripture and Tradition in Islam- The Qur’an and Hadith” 104), and gave the messages from Allah to him. From the establishment of the Qur’an, Muslims have viewed the book as the last revelation of their god Allah, and thus are the true words from God for their ways of life and in reaching Allah in their afterlife. The book also teaches “mankind’s responsibility assigned by God” (Gordon 115). Therefore, Muslims practices in ways to prove their devotion towards the new religion of Islam by being faithful, and performing religious practices.
A sensitive subject, in the Islamic religion, is the status that a women holds - specifically with respect to the theme of how women are treated within polygamous relationships. Smith’s main thesis is that the Islamic religion has been accused of degrading women and he plans to share information to prove that this is a very valid fact. A polygamous relationship is a relationship or marriage with many partners. The Islam’s believe in polygamous relationships and the rules are specifically stated within the Koran. The Koran allows for a man to have up to four wives/partners, although, if he cannot equally share his love with all of his wives/partners, then he must only marry one . Smith has a very valid point, although there are many sources that support and refute his opinion. Mohammad Ali Syed discovered that the Islamic law allows for polygamy under certain circumstances, such as the treatment towards orphans. ...
The religion of Islam has obtained the reputation of violence and misogyny in recent decades due to radical sects in the international spotlight. Although violence has been limited to radical groups, many people outside of the religion view Islam’s law, Shari’ah law, to define the status of women below men. However, from the original holy text, the Qur’an, and the Prophet Muhammad’s Sunnah, a framework of equality and mutual respect across sexes is evident. Although the Qur’an is the unadulterated Word of God, it is interpreted by Muslims in many different ways. It has been through these patriarchal interpretations of the five schools of Islamic law that the status of women has been impinged upon (Barlas, 2002). The Qur’an itself contains versus which demonstrate the equality of men and women, but also seemingly contradicts itself by undermining the status of women. These contradictory phrases have recently been interpreted by female scholars differently than the original schools to support the equality of sex. Muhammad’s life also displays his affection and respect for his wives as opposed to a lifestyle of misogyny. In the end, the status of women in Islam has been largely degraded by human interpretation of the text to create a power dynamic between a husband and his wife, or wives. Although a woman’s status has been lowered in the eyes of many Muslims, recent civil rights movements and women activists are challenging these emboldened concepts to achieve social and political leadership.
Justice is the concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, religion, fairness, or equity . In the Arab society and especially in the Gulf region women always want to have what men have. In elections and voting, working and occupations, they want to be as them. For example, The English Gulf news wrote about a female Saudi writer called Nadine Al Bdair who says that woman should be allowed to marry more than a man just like what Islam does to men, she urges scholars to look for this issue. On her article she said:"Traditionalists argue that Islam forbids women to marry more than one man at once to determine the fatherhood of the child in case the woman becomes pregnant. This argument has now collapsed because modern science can identify the father of any child through DNA testing” . Thi...
We learn of a case where finding out the truth was a devastating experience for one family. Hag Ali Khalafawy was rich because he had stolen another man’s money. When he was on his death bed he told his son of his thievery and asked that the fortune be returned to its rightful owners. The son didn’t believe it, and his father answered, “It’s the truth, no mo...
The truth is, Islamic culture is highly misunderstood, and the customs within Islam are often misinterpreted by Westerners. Often we point to the Arab world as an example of poor treatment of women, without evaluating our own laws and practices. In an article in the Start Tribune published in 1989, Dr. Fatma Reda, a scholar from Egypt who came to the U.S. with her husband the year before, experienced some of the Western stumbling blocks for women and longed for her Islamic country. She decided to buy a parcel of land for herself, but in the U.S., she needed a co-signature of her husband. She had been used to more equality in Egypt between men and women. “Under Islamic law, women can own property independently of their husbands… in Islamic teaching, women are entirely equal to men… many times Muslim women make choices that look on the surface like we don’t have as much freedom, but it is just different” (p. 1).
Gulevich, Tanya, and Frederick S. Colby. Understanding Islam and Muslim Traditions. Detriot, Michigan: Omnigraphics, Inc., 2004. Print.
Witchcraft, Magic and Rationality. Social Anthropology seeks to gauge an understanding of cultures and practices, whether they are foreign or native. This is achieved through the study of language, education, customs, marriage, kinship, hierarchy and of course belief and value systems. Rationality is a key concept in this process as it affects the anthropologist’s interpretation of the studied group’s way of life: what s/he deems as rational or plausible practice. Witchcraft and magic pose problems for many anthropologists, as its supernatural nature is perhaps conflicting to the common Western notions of rationality, mainly deemed superior.
One major component to the film is the laws against necromancy enforced by the three different prominent religions in the film. This law impedes any type of dissection, which Cole thinks is necessary in order to fully understand how the body works and in that way successfully cure ailments. However, Larsen argues that although “Islam does view medical dissection as a problematic issue, most contemporary experts on Islamic law agree that it’s permissible with a few limitations, and there’s no clear evidence that medieval Muslims were much different” and further adds that Ibn Siva would have likely not opposed to dissect a body if it meant that it could lead to a potential treatment. Furthermore, Larsen also explains that the representation of Muslim Mullahs was inaccurate. Larsen explains that Mullahs lead mosques, delivered sermons, and performed rituals, further suggesting that it can be compared to the role of a Christian priest or minister. However, in the film they exercise power that is not bestowed upon them like having legal authority, explains Larsen, further adding that this particular role was more fit for a qadis which were trained in Islamic law and served as judges. The film creators possibly saw this as an opportunity to place maximum emphasis on the power religion held in
D. Adamson, C. (2007, Winter). Gendered Anxieties: Islam, Women's Rights, and Moral Hierarchy in Java. Anthropological Quarterly, 80(1), 5-37. Retrieved May 24, 2008, from Academic Search Alumni Edition database.
Marriage and divorce are very significant aspects of Islamic law, but criminal law could be considered the most controversial. The Sharia categorizes its offenses by the types of punishment each receives. There are offenses which are paired...