Abdal Hakim-Murad and Gender

12 Next page « Previous thread | Next thread »
- ned
- Ex-Muslim
- offline
Abdal Hakim-Murad and Gender
OP - April 15, 2009, 06:26 PM

This is especially addressed to the women on this forum.

Have you guys read Shaykh Abdal Hakim-Murad's essays on gender? They're on Masud Ahmed Khan's traditional Islam website:
http://www.masud.co.uk/ISLAM/ahm/gender.htm
http://www.masud.co.uk/ISLAM/ahm/boys.htm

I'm going to write proper refutations at some point (when I have time -- right now I've got my hands full with a Master's thesis), but I thought I would point these out to others on the forum. Murad is a very articulate and evidently intelligent man, but if you read his essays carefully and strip away the literary dross, you'll see that what he's saying is patent nonsense. He subscribes to a premodern theory of gender which is a cosmological theory that holds that "male" and "female" are some sort of transcendent principles embedded into the very fabric of the cosmos, and the human male and human female are merely earthly realizations of these cosmic archetypes or principles.

Quite apart from the unashamed anthropocentrism of such cosmological theories (humans experience sexual dimorphism ... therefore, the entire cosmos is gendered! as if sexless species don't exist! ;-) ), these theories completely overlook the fact that intersexed people *do* exist, and that individuals who are totally atypical for their biological sex also exist. In fact there is a point where human sexual dimorphism becomes very blurry and the entire medical definition of sex breaks down (think of two overlapping bell curves, one for men and one for women, with the area of overlap representing intersexed and atypical individuals).

There's much more I could say on this topic, but Murad's articles have been annoying me for a while, and I've been meaning to critique them but haven't found the time. What bothers me is that Murad comes across as a sophisticated intellectual and the ordinary person who isn't an academic or a very deep thinker is going to buy what he says hook, line and sinker. However, I personally find him quite pretentious, particularly the way he will co-opt the West's internal self-critique via postmodernism (which is a very good thing) to argue that orthodox Islam is a legitimate alternative to Western culture, and also the way he opportunistically reads pop-sociobiology to argue for patriarchal polygamy and many other regressive ideas (while denying Darwinian evolution itself ... very convenient).

I'll wait for some feedback. Just thought I would put this out there. If I ever get down to writing my rebuttals to Murad's essays, I'll let you guys know.
- ned
- Ex-Muslim
- offline
Re: Abdal Hakim-Murad and Gender
Reply #1 - April 15, 2009, 06:39 PM

A very annoying book to read on the Islamic cosmological theory of gender is The Tao of Islam: A Sourcebook on Gender Relationships in Islamic Thought by Sachiko Murata.

There is also a chapter on it by Fatima Jane Casewit in Harry Oldmeadow's book "The Betrayal of Tradition: Essays on the Spiritual Crisis of Modernity":
Islamic Cosmological Concepts of Femininity and the Modern Feminist Movement
http://www.worldwisdom.com/uploads/pdfs/94.pdf

This is all medieval nonsense as far as I'm concerned. Even if there is an Ultimate or Absolute Reality, the idea that it has a "male" part and a "female" part is just an anthropocentric projection of human sexual dimorphism onto that reality. It's perfectly obvious that everything in the universe doesn't have a gender. Any zoologist could tell you that. There are unisex species galore, there are species that change sex, there is documented homosexuality in many species. And there are other spiritual traditions that do not see "male" and "female" as ontological polarities, or that see the gendered descriptions of the Divine as purely metaphorical, so why should the perspective of the Islamic tradition be taken as superior to those perspectives?

Apart from that, the idea of the "complementarity of the sexes" -- that men and women are "equal but different" -- is just sexism in disguise. I'm perfectly willing to concede that men and women are different, but in traditional religious contexts these differences are used to argue for what is at *best* benevolent patriarchy and to keep women out of the public sphere.

Ironically scientists like Simon Baron-Cohen who also argue for certain overall differences between men and women and conservative philosophers like Francis Fukuyama use these same differences between men and women to argue the exact opposite: that there should be *more* participation of women in the public and governmental spheres for the world to be a more peaceful and compassionate place.
- Tlaloc
- Aperture Science Test Subject
- Pub Regular
- offline
Re: Abdal Hakim-Murad and Gender
Reply #2 - April 15, 2009, 06:46 PM

I am always interested in gender "issues", but those articles are so baroque in style that my brain just shuts down with each sentence ^_^

I need a straight-to-the-point summarization

Do not look directly at the operational end of the device.
- Saif Rahman
- Ex-Muslim
- Je suis Haram
- offline
Re: Abdal Hakim-Murad and Gender
Reply #3 - April 15, 2009, 06:48 PM

+1 plain & simple English please!

My Book
My Blog
- Tlaloc
- Aperture Science Test Subject
- Pub Regular
- offline
Re: Abdal Hakim-Murad and Gender
Reply #4 - April 15, 2009, 06:51 PM

Quote from: ned on April 15, 2009, 06:39 PM
Apart from that, the idea of the "complementarity of the sexes" -- that men and women are "equal but different" -- is just sexism in disguise. I'm perfectly willing to concede that men and women are different, but in traditional religious contexts these differences are used to argue for what is at *best* benevolent patriarchy and to keep women out of the public sphere.

Ah, yes, I always giggle inside when people come up with the "equal but different" excuse.

They say: "But men are physically stronger than women!"
To which I reply: "But some women are physically stronger than some men, so why tailor roles according to gender instead of individual capabilities?"

Do not look directly at the operational end of the device.
- Tlaloc
- Aperture Science Test Subject
- Pub Regular
- offline
Re: Abdal Hakim-Murad and Gender
Reply #5 - April 15, 2009, 06:58 PM

And this is off topic, but when dealing with people who claim that heterosexuality is natural and homosexuality is some learned abomination I like to ask them:
"Let's imagine a human who grew up with no human contact and no knowledge of the opposite sex... could we claim he/she is heterosexual?"

Do not look directly at the operational end of the device.
- ned
- Ex-Muslim
- offline
Re: Abdal Hakim-Murad and Gender
Reply #6 - April 15, 2009, 07:04 PM

Tlaloc and IsLame:

That's the problem with AHM -- he's an obscurantist and quotes everybody from Deleuze to Irigary to Greer to whoever, as if all of them support his argument. It looks impressive, as I said, to someone who isn't an academic, but strip it down to the basic thing he's saying and it makes no sense at all. Not to mention the fact that it's dishonest for him to cite all these people as if they would be pro-traditional Islam -- most of them would be appalled to see their ideas being used to peddle a religious orthodoxy.

Here is the basic argument AHM and Casewit are making:

------
God is One.

However, in the cosmos, God appears to have a "masculine" part and a "feminine" part.

That "masculine" part incarnates in the male human being and the "feminine" part incarnates in the female human being.

Male and female exist in humanity because they pre-exist humanity everywhere in the cosmos (as I said this is easily shown to be false empirically and is not even a belief that all spiritual or mystical traditions hold).

Therefore men and women are different, not just because of biology or evolution (which they don't believe in anyway), but because of the way God has structured the fabric of the cosmos. Human sexual dimorphism is given cosmological significance: it is an ontological polarity that is embedded into the universe itself.

The rights and duties assigned to men and women by traditional Islam are attributed to these cosmological (non)reasons.
------

The whole argument is absurd on so many levels that I don't even know where to begin. But it seems to hold considerable sway over many people's minds.
- Manat
- Great googa mooga!
- Ex-Muslim
- offline
Re: Abdal Hakim-Murad and Gender
Reply #7 - April 15, 2009, 07:05 PM

Quote from: ned on April 15, 2009, 06:26 PM
This is especially addressed to the women on this forum.

Have you guys read Shaykh Abdal Hakim-Murad's essays on gender? They're on Masud Ahmed Khan's traditional Islam website:
http://www.masud.co.uk/ISLAM/ahm/gender.htm
http://www.masud.co.uk/ISLAM/ahm/boys.htm

I'm going to write proper refutations at some point (when I have time -- right now I've got my hands full with a Master's thesis), but I thought I would point these out to others on the forum. Murad is a very articulate and evidently intelligent man, but if you read his essays carefully and strip away the literary dross, you'll see that what he's saying is patent nonsense. ...

There's much more I could say on this topic, but Murad's articles have been annoying me for a while, and I've been meaning to critique them but haven't found the time. What bothers me is that Murad comes across as a sophisticated intellectual and the ordinary person who isn't an academic or a very deep thinker is going to buy what he says hook, line and sinker. However, I personally find him quite pretentious, particularly the way he will co-opt the West's internal self-critique via postmodernism (which is a very good thing) to argue that orthodox Islam is a legitimate alternative to Western culture, and also the way he opportunistically reads pop-sociobiology to argue for patriarchal polygamy and many other regressive ideas (while denying Darwinian evolution itself ... very convenient).

I'll wait for some feedback. Just thought I would put this out there. If I ever get down to writing my rebuttals to Murad's essays, I'll let you guys know.

Please do. It's time someone took him down a notch or two. Or three. AHM gets away with saying the sorts of things he says because of that whole Oxford & Cambridge thing, the holy grails of Western education. People are intimidated by him because he is so intelligent and uses a lot of 50 cent words, so he gets away with a lot of pretentious dross that people fawn over. He appeals because he was one of the first to show up Salafism and Wahabism, and call people to something more intellectually and spiritually fulfilling. I know- I used to be one of those people! I know there haven't been too many people who walked away from this traditionalist / traditional Sufi styled brand of Islam yet, but I for one really look forward to non-believing refutations and take downs of people like AHM, HY (who is similar to AHM, except he's not an intellectual at all), GF Haddad, Nuh Keller, etc.

[this space for rent]
- Manat
- Great googa mooga!
- Ex-Muslim
- offline
Re: Abdal Hakim-Murad and Gender
Reply #8 - April 15, 2009, 07:10 PM

Quote from: ned on April 15, 2009, 06:39 PM
There is also a chapter on it by Fatima Jane Casewit in Harry Oldmeadow's book "The Betrayal of Tradition: Essays on the Spiritual Crisis of Modernity":
Islamic Cosmological Concepts of Femininity and the Modern Feminist Movement
http://www.worldwisdom.com/uploads/pdfs/94.pdf

I'm only two paragraphs in and it's a total load of shite. I can't believe I used to go along with this sort of stuff. I feel like thick webs of dust were wiped clear from my brain.

[this space for rent]
- ned
- Ex-Muslim
- offline
Re: Abdal Hakim-Murad and Gender
Reply #9 - April 15, 2009, 07:12 PM

Fading, I even intend to write to AHM via e-mail at some point to discuss my criticisms with his views of gender before I publish them online.

I think the fact that I'm a non-religious mystic myself (following the Vedanta tradition from India) will probably add more weight to my argument and he won't be able to dismiss me as just another materialist feminist. ;-) It should be interesting to see how he responds.
- Tlaloc
- Aperture Science Test Subject
- Pub Regular
- offline
Re: Abdal Hakim-Murad and Gender
Reply #10 - April 15, 2009, 07:14 PM

Quote from: ned on April 15, 2009, 07:04 PM
Tlaloc and IsLame:

That's the problem with AHM -- he's an obscurantist and quotes everybody from Deleuze to Irigary to Greer to whoever, as if all of them support his argument. It looks impressive, as I said, to someone who isn't an academic, but strip it down to the basic thing he's saying and it makes no sense at all. Not to mention the fact that it's dishonest for him to cite all these people as if they would be pro-traditional Islam -- most of them would be appalled to see their ideas being used to peddle a religious orthodoxy.

Here is the basic argument AHM and Casewit are making:

------
God is One.

However, in the cosmos, God appears to have a "masculine" part and a "feminine" part.

That "masculine" part incarnates in the male human being and the "feminine" part incarnates in the female human being.

Male and female exist in humanity because they pre-exist humanity everywhere in the cosmos (as I said this is easily shown to be false empirically and is not even a belief that all spiritual or mystical traditions hold).

Therefore men and women are different, not just because of biology or evolution (which they don't believe in anyway), but because of the way God has structured the fabric of the cosmos. Human sexual dimorphism is given cosmological significance: it is an ontological polarity that is embedded into the universe itself.

The rights and duties assigned to men and women by traditional Islam are attributed to these cosmological (non)reasons.
------

The whole argument is absurd on so many levels that I don't even know where to begin. But it seems to hold considerable sway over many people's minds.

The fastest counter-argument I can come up with is that he's basically splitting God into two manifestations of the same entity, "God the Father" and "God the Mother"... if he can concede that such a thing is not Polytheism, so neither is the Christian concept of Trinity, which I guess he denies if he's Muslim.

Do not look directly at the operational end of the device.
- Manat
- Great googa mooga!
- Ex-Muslim
- offline
Re: Abdal Hakim-Murad and Gender
Reply #11 - April 15, 2009, 07:20 PM

Quote from: ned on April 15, 2009, 07:12 PM
Fading, I even intend to write to AHM via e-mail at some point to discuss my criticisms with his views of gender before I publish them online.

To my knowledge, he does engage in debates and responds to criticisms of his works in email, although he may stop replying when it gets too contentious for him or too uncomfortable. I had a friend who was in dialogue with him on the science issue, and his responses were courteous and gentle, but ultimately, uninformative, as he simply didn't answer the tougher issues and then stopped answering altogether.

Maybe you can let us know what he says. I'd definitely be interested in his responses.

[this space for rent]
- ned
- Ex-Muslim
- offline
Re: Abdal Hakim-Murad and Gender
Reply #12 - April 15, 2009, 07:26 PM

Yeah, someone I know wrote to AHM about the evolution issue -- about why it is so wrong to believe that humanity might have evolved from animals (as opposed to being created ex nihilo). He gave him some obscure answers claiming that Islam represents a "middle way" between science and creationism, but when this person really pushed the point -- can we or can we not believe we evolved from apes and still be Muslim? -- he just stopped replying.
- osmanthus
- Cave dwelling
- Pub Regular
- Fingerer of piglets
- offline
Re: Abdal Hakim-Murad and Gender
Reply #13 - April 15, 2009, 08:41 PM

Quote from: ned on April 15, 2009, 07:04 PM
Tlaloc and IsLame:

That's the problem with AHM -- he's an obscurantist and quotes everybody from Deleuze to Irigary to Greer to whoever, as if all of them support his argument. It looks impressive, as I said, to someone who isn't an academic, but strip it down to the basic thing he's saying and it makes no sense at all. Not to mention the fact that it's dishonest for him to cite all these people as if they would be pro-traditional Islam -- most of them would be appalled to see their ideas being used to peddle a religious orthodoxy.

Here is the basic argument AHM and Casewit are making:

------
God is One.

However, in the cosmos, God appears to have a "masculine" part and a "feminine" part.

That "masculine" part incarnates in the male human being and the "feminine" part incarnates in the female human being.

Male and female exist in humanity because they pre-exist humanity everywhere in the cosmos (as I said this is easily shown to be false empirically and is not even a belief that all spiritual or mystical traditions hold).

Therefore men and women are different, not just because of biology or evolution (which they don't believe in anyway), but because of the way God has structured the fabric of the cosmos. Human sexual dimorphism is given cosmological significance: it is an ontological polarity that is embedded into the universe itself.

The rights and duties assigned to men and women by traditional Islam are attributed to these cosmological (non)reasons.
------

The whole argument is absurd on so many levels that I don't even know where to begin. But it seems to hold considerable sway over many people's minds.

You can tear that one down without even bothering to deal with most of the obscurantist twaddle. Even if you allow, purely for the sake of argument, them to have their "ontological polarity that is embedded into the universe itself" that still provides no basis whatsoever for asserting that Islam is true. They have nothing except their own assumptions there.

Devious, treacherous, murderous, neanderthal, sub-human of the West.
- Cheetah
- Global Moderator
- offline
Re: Abdal Hakim-Murad and Gender
Reply #14 - April 15, 2009, 08:59 PM

I'm trying to plough through this, (its very boring), and so far it reads like a sales pitch for Islam aimed at feminists, and based largely on the premise that Islam says God has no gender. This is supposed to be impressive when contrasted with the patriarchal Christians and their God the Father.

It seems like an awful lot of waffle to express a very bog standard thought.

"Befriend them not, Oh murtads, and give them neither parrot nor bunny." - happymurtad's advice on trolls.
- ned
- Ex-Muslim
- offline
Re: Abdal Hakim-Murad and Gender
Reply #15 - April 16, 2009, 12:30 AM

Quote from: Tlaloc on April 15, 2009, 07:14 PM
The fastest counter-argument I can come up with is that he's basically splitting God into two manifestations of the same entity, "God the Father" and "God the Mother"... if he can concede that such a thing is not Polytheism, so neither is the Christian concept of Trinity, which I guess he denies if he's Muslim.

Yeah, it's not even consistent with their monotheistic metaphysics. Isn't the God of orthodox Islam totally transcendent? I thought God never incarnates in his creation.

This idea of "divine principles" incarnating or manifesting is actually far more consistent with a panentheistic metaphysic, not a monotheistic one.

Quote from: osmanthus on April 15, 2009, 08:41 PM
You can tear that one down without even bothering to deal with most of the obscurantist twaddle. Even if you allow, purely for the sake of argument, them to have their "ontological polarity that is embedded into the universe itself" that still provides no basis whatsoever for asserting that Islam is true. They have nothing except their own assumptions there.

Right ... the point is that even if this were true, how exactly does that lead us to the notion that the proper rules for relationships between men and women are to be found ONLY in the four schools of traditional jurisprudence in Sunni Islam? ;-)

Even so I have to point out that this is not a universal opinion even among *Sufis*. Some of the liberal Sufi Orders are pretty clear that whenever the Divine is described in gendered terms, it is only a metaphor because it makes no sense to say that God has "masculinity" or "femininity" (these terms originate from human experience).
- osmanthus
- Cave dwelling
- Pub Regular
- Fingerer of piglets
- offline
Re: Abdal Hakim-Murad and Gender
Reply #16 - April 16, 2009, 05:30 AM

Well that would make sense because there is no particular reason for a deity to have sex, apart from the fact that it's bloody good fun of course. Still, all the translations of the Quran frequently refer to Allah as male. They certainly never refer to Allah as female.

Now I can't read Arabic so I have to go off translations. I'm also not knowledgeable about linguistic conventions in classical Arabic so I suppose some argue that the masculine pronoun is the default whenever no specific sex is being referred to. On the other hand the people who did the translations definitely did read and understand classical Arabic and there are no translations I recall that refer to Allah as male and then clarify it by saying "Oh and by the way, he's not really a he".

Devious, treacherous, murderous, neanderthal, sub-human of the West.
- Saif Rahman
- Ex-Muslim
- Je suis Haram
- offline
Re: Abdal Hakim-Murad and Gender
Reply #17 - April 16, 2009, 11:55 AM

Quote from: osmanthus on April 16, 2009, 05:30 AM
Well that would make sense because there is no particular reason for a deity to have sex, apart from the fact that it's bloody good fun of course. Still, all the translations of the Quran frequently refer to Allah as male. They certainly never refer to Allah as female.

Now I can't read Arabic so I have to go off translations.

Good point, in my imagination God would be sexless as I cant imagine him with a penis. If he did have one it would be too big (although it could explain the immaculate conception from the skies)

According to the Arabic readers, does God refer to himself as 'he' in the Quran, or is that just a translational error?

My Book
My Blog
- cosmicdancer
- Pub Regular
- offline
Re: Abdal Hakim-Murad and Gender
Reply #18 - April 16, 2009, 12:31 PM

I know Abdul Hakim quite well and he is a nice guy so I don't want to say too much, but I agree that he intellectualizes and philosophizes to the extent that it can all seem very obscure and confusing.

But as long as he is attempting to provide a scholarly basis to refute the literalists and hard-liners and move Muslims towards a more inclusive and moderate form of Islam then I really have no problem with his views.

I certainly do find such sophistry annoying and frustrating, but that's what a great many religious scholars - from all religions - do in order to turn Misogynistic or violent verses from a Holy text into ones modern sensibilities can swallow and so hang on to their faith.
- osmanthus
- Cave dwelling
- Pub Regular
- Fingerer of piglets
- offline
Re: Abdal Hakim-Murad and Gender
Reply #19 - April 16, 2009, 12:39 PM

Ok fine, but what about the sex of Allah as mentioned in the Quran? You know enough classical Arabic to comment on that.

Devious, treacherous, murderous, neanderthal, sub-human of the West.
- cosmicdancer
- Pub Regular
- offline
Re: Abdal Hakim-Murad and Gender
Reply #20 - April 16, 2009, 12:46 PM

Quote from: osmanthus on April 16, 2009, 12:39 PM
Ok fine, but what about the sex of Allah as mentioned in the Quran? You know enough classical Arabic to comment on that.

The male pronoun is used, but I haven't heard any scholar argue that means he is male. Linguistically the masculine takes precedence. Whether Muhammad meant Allah was male or what I have no idea. I haven't looked at the question deeply - maybe when I get some time.
- Saif Rahman
- Ex-Muslim
- Je suis Haram
- offline
Re: Abdal Hakim-Murad and Gender
Reply #21 - April 16, 2009, 02:19 PM

Quote from: Hassan on April 16, 2009, 12:46 PM
Quote from: osmanthus on April 16, 2009, 12:39 PM
Ok fine, but what about the sex of Allah as mentioned in the Quran? You know enough classical Arabic to comment on that.

The male pronoun is used, but I haven't heard any scholar argue that means he is male. Linguistically the masculine takes precedence. Whether Muhammad meant Allah was male or what I have no idea. I haven't looked at the question deeply - maybe when I get some time.

Presumably Allah revealed the Quran in arabic to Gabriel - so he chose to use the word "he" as opposed to "she" or more likely "it" (I presume there is an "it" in arabic)

If it was man-made I can understand using the word "he", as men felt they were superior to women and other things then. However as God is not supposed to have an ego issue, and was sexless, then I assume he would have used the "it".

My Book
My Blog
- ned
- Ex-Muslim
- offline
Re: Abdal Hakim-Murad and Gender
Reply #22 - April 16, 2009, 04:33 PM

Quote from: Hassan on April 16, 2009, 12:31 PM
I know Abdul Hakim quite well and he is a nice guy so I don't want to say too much, but I agree that he intellectualizes and philosophizes to the extent that it can all seem very obscure and confusing.

But as long as he is attempting to provide a scholarly basis to refute the literalists and hard-liners and move Muslims towards a more inclusive and moderate form of Islam then I really have no problem with his views.

I agree that AHM seems like a decent person. He's also the only traditionalist shaykh I've seen who has very seriously taken on the Wahhabis. And I find myself frankly agreeing with a lot of what he says about the excesses of modernity, the decadence and hedonism of Western culture, and the superficiality of much modern art. I also like his writing style and find it quite refined and elegant, and it's inspired me to try improve my own self-expression as well.

That said, his views on gender and women are as regressive as anybody else's -- he just manages to express them more poetically and with more sophistry than other shaykhs. His unqualified support of polygamy, and apparent ignorance of the abuses that women suffer under polygamy, is completely out of tune with the 21st century. And the way he keeps quoting postmodern philosophers and difference feminists as if they would stand up for his views is hypocritical to say the least. That's about the only bone I have to pick with him.
- Saif Rahman
- Ex-Muslim
- Je suis Haram
- offline
Re: Abdal Hakim-Murad and Gender
Reply #23 - April 16, 2009, 05:35 PM

Quote from: ned on April 16, 2009, 04:33 PM
And I find myself frankly agreeing with a lot of what he says about the excesses of modernity, the decadence and hedonism of Western culture, and the superficiality of much modern art.

Thats a myth popularised by the East to promote their own cultures, however if you spend some time here you will notice most people lead normal and ordinary lives, contrary to what you are told and see in the media.

My Book
My Blog
- cosmicdancer
- Pub Regular
- offline
Re: Abdal Hakim-Murad and Gender
Reply #24 - April 16, 2009, 05:49 PM

Quote from: ned on April 16, 2009, 04:33 PM
That said, his views on gender and women are as regressive as anybody else's -- he just manages to express them more poetically and with more sophistry than other shaykhs. His unqualified support of polygamy, and apparent ignorance of the abuses that women suffer under polygamy, is completely out of tune with the 21st century. And the way he keeps quoting postmodern philosophers and difference feminists as if they would stand up for his views is hypocritical to say the least. That's about the only bone I have to pick with him.

I won't argue with you there, Ned, I do know he holds some quite 'old fashioned' views.

Although I have known him a very long time I haven't had many discussions with him. Mainly because I find him very difficult to communicate with.

I have had many more discussions with my (Muslim) brother who takes a similar line in his arguments as Abdul-Hakim (I do think it is an Oxbridge thing too as my brother was a professor at Oxford and Abdul-Hakim is at Cambridge) and it drives me up the wall when instead of answering a simple question about Hell or the verses about wife beating etc... he goes off into long and convoluted explanations that touch on metaphysics, mysticism, Plato, Aristotle, Ibn Tufayl etc etc... At the end of it I can't remember my original question. (and also feel stupid too lol)
- Manat
- Great googa mooga!
- Ex-Muslim
- offline
Re: Abdal Hakim-Murad and Gender
Reply #25 - April 16, 2009, 07:13 PM

Quote from: IsLame on April 16, 2009, 02:19 PM
Quote from: Hassan on April 16, 2009, 12:46 PM
Quote from: osmanthus on April 16, 2009, 12:39 PM
Ok fine, but what about the sex of Allah as mentioned in the Quran? You know enough classical Arabic to comment on that.

The male pronoun is used, but I haven't heard any scholar argue that means he is male. Linguistically the masculine takes precedence. Whether Muhammad meant Allah was male or what I have no idea. I haven't looked at the question deeply - maybe when I get some time.

Presumably Allah revealed the Quran in arabic to Gabriel - so he chose to use the word "he" as opposed to "she" or more likely "it" (I presume there is an "it" in arabic)

There is no 'it' in Arabic. It's huwa or heeya. The male encompasses the female in mixed groups in Arabic. So if there is a group of men and women, you will use the form for a group of men. If there are women only, there is a different form that denotes that the group is only feminine. I never thought anything was implied by this, only that it is a gendered language, the way Spanish has everything either as an el or ella. I certainly never heard an aalim suggest that Big Al has a gender.

[this space for rent]
- Saif Rahman
- Ex-Muslim
- Je suis Haram
- offline
Re: Abdal Hakim-Murad and Gender
Reply #26 - April 16, 2009, 07:18 PM

OK - thanks, we can let Big Al off on this one, he's a soft cutey really and just needs a few lessons on political correctness..

My Book
My Blog
- zomzom
- ᵀᴴᴱ'ᴼᴿᴵᴳᴵᴻᴬᴸ
- Ex-Muslim
- offline
Re: Abdal Hakim-Murad and Gender
Reply #27 - April 16, 2009, 07:22 PM

Allah is genderless, similarly like angels.

Left the forum: http://www.councilofexmuslims.com/index.php?topic=22997
- Zaephon
- Ex-Muslim
- offline
Re: Abdal Hakim-Murad and Gender
Reply #28 - April 16, 2009, 07:49 PM

Quote from: IsLame on April 16, 2009, 05:35 PM
Quote from: ned on April 16, 2009, 04:33 PM
And I find myself frankly agreeing with a lot of what he says about the excesses of modernity, the decadence and hedonism of Western culture, and the superficiality of much modern art.

Thats a myth popularised by the East to promote their own cultures, however if you spend some time here you will notice most people lead normal and ordinary lives, contrary to what you are told and see in the media.

It is ironic, when you consider how some historians cite the decadent influence of the Orient as the root cause of the fall of the Roman Empire. For me, the West is superior to the Islamic world in every aspect imaginable. Who said that hedonism is evil, to begin with? It is the natural inclination of all human beings.

I have to agree that modern art is bullshit, though.

Islam: where idiots meet terrorists.
- zomzom
- ᵀᴴᴱ'ᴼᴿᴵᴳᴵᴻᴬᴸ
- Ex-Muslim
- offline
Re: Abdal Hakim-Murad and Gender
Reply #29 - April 16, 2009, 08:03 PM

How is hedonism bad? indulgence of anything is bad really. What are you bothered about a non Muslim who blows in your mouth or a Muslim who blows up in a tube?

Left the forum: http://www.councilofexmuslims.com/index.php?topic=22997
12 Next page « Previous thread | Next thread »