AMINA WADUD:PRO & CONS

INTERESTING DISCUSSION IN THE NET...


PRO=BOLD writing


1. >>>>The practise of Islam has not been confined to those of the
Sunnis andShiites; there are those of the Allawis, the Ismailis, the
Sufis, the Ahmadis to name a few. Even in mainstream Sunni there are
the practices of the four imams.<<<<<

I agree that there are various practice of Moslems in the world, and
I've seen them in UIA. They pray differently, some of their ladies
wear socks and some not. But these difference is what we called furu'
or non-principal. This is acceptable and has been the basis of
ijtihad. But these differences is not an excuse for an ibadah which
has been decided upon by jumhur of ulama. The majority of hadeeth
concur that solat Jumaat is an obligatory prayer for man, hence of
course the imam and khatib (central of friday prayer) is even obliged
to be a man.

The hadeeth that elaborated on the action of Umm Warqah when she was
ordered to be the imamah of her household (which include males) by
the prophet Muhammad SAW, does not hold the basis for a woman being
permissible to lead friday prayer. Rather, we knew that the reason
the prophet Muhammad ordered her to do so as to acknowledge her
exceptional quality as an esteemed Ansar lady who memorize Quran.


2. >>>>The practice of Islam too is not divorced from tradition of
the peoples to whom Islam was introduced. A good example,perhaps, is
how we the Malay Muslims feel quite at ease believing in black magic
and supernatural practises of those other than God e.g `orang
halus',
orang bunian etc. These beliefs have no basis in Islam as practised
by our Arab brothers and sisters.<<<<

Agree of the tradition related thing. How do we differentiate between
the two? Through revelation and Quran. A tradition will not have any
back-up from either quran or authentic hadeeth. NOW this is where
Amina Wadud goes wrong, for she beleives that quran and hadeeth were
merely a literature of history and tradition thing, while we MOSLEM
beleived as in aqeedah that Quran is the revelation by Allah SWT to
take effect to all human kind until the Yaumul Qiyamah (I will
elaborate Aimna's perception on Quran later on). We also beleive that
Prophet Muhammad deeds or actions (or inactions) as told by the
quran, to be the guide for all moslems, which had been carried out
excellently by the chain of narrators, the hadeeth.

Now back to the question, is the Friday Jumu'ah prayer leading by
men simply a tradition? NO, there are quranic verses (62:9) on it and
hadeeth narrated by Salaman al Farisi, Abu Huraira, Yahya bin Said
(who actually ask Aisha r.a about Friday bath (is not this a prove of
woman's intellectuality has a place in Islam without resorting to go
against syariah?) and many more..

3. >>>>>Amina Wadud is a scholar of Islam. She is also an African
merican. She approached Islam afresh, referring to the Koran and not
to the tradition of the Arabs which are inconsistent with 21st
century USA. For example in 600AD men and women lived very much
separate lives with fixed unchanging roles. Now men and women,
Muslims or otherwise, have equal importance in this
`cerebral'
economy. Both were given opportunities for self improvement and
education.Therefore, women should not bebanished to the margins of
the mosque because their views are equally important as those of the
male.<<<<<


Again, I would agree about the exchanging roles of man and woman. I
have no problem with it, with the equal importance in 'cerebral'
economy, we all TKCians and working ladies are the living proof. But
in getting to where we are today, do we need to breach the law of the
Quran and hadeeth? Have the ritual obligations specifically assigned
for man and woman ever gets in our way to be where we are today? Yes,
I agree that some countries prohibited their woman toomuch to the
extent not allowing them to drive cars etc, but what has that got to
do with starting to go against syariat? Why the obsession in leading
congregational friday prayer? What has being placed at the back row
of a mosque has anything to do with woman not able to express their
views? Without doing so,many of us have and are leading a gender
mixed staff in our daily life trying to make the world a better place
to live in..


Why is Amina Wadud's approaching Quran from 21st century (USA way
that is) would be better than the tradition (which in the first place
is not how we moslem approach the quran...)? And is not America a
better country in freedom of _expression that without resorting to the
Friday prayer event, her woices and the women's voices there will be
heard loud and clear?


4. >>>>>>What she did is shocking to us but not to those in the USA.
Religion isadapted to the reality of life over there. The sexes meet
at interact freely at work and at play, homosexuality is a human
condition to be acknowledged etc, etc.<<<<<<<<


At this point, I only want to stress that US should not be the
measure of one "shocking act" (hey.. I am not in any way anti
Americans, but to their lifestyle as depicted by Hollywood...yess).
Do we have to accept everything they find "non-shocking"
there?


The rejection, disapproval by some of us here were done as a reflection
of the love for iman and aqeedah. I would have to concur with Farha
in not acknowledging her as a Moslem scholar, but rather a Moslem
feminist, who put feminisnm first, Islam second.

The disagreement of Amina's act is necessary before Islam is further
confused by the lifestyle of certain community. In contrast, I
beleive that the reality is adapted to Islam, hence the word
Islamization of knowledge , culture etc..But even the moslems in
America condemned Amina's action, as stated by ISNA
(http://www.isna.net/index.php?id=35&backPID=1&tt_news=11),

so Islam has been adapting well without having to sacrifice its
fundamental pillars. I remembered when I wanted to do an article
about interaction among moslems, I refer to one ISNA article, and i
found no difference in their guidelines as what I understood in quran
and hadeeth..The lifestyle you mentioned,is probably suscribed by
minority moslem engaged in organization such as muslimwakeup ( I read
about Farah Nousheen's "Nazrah" and Patricia Dunn of
Moslem
lesbianism) and the likes. I also knew about Gene Robinson,the
homosexual priest who has been elected as a bishop of the US
Episcopal Church. We certainly don't want Islam to "metamorphosized"
this way... and that is our job, Ida... to preserve our Iman and
Aqeedah..at whatever cost...


Lastly, I have to disagree that Amina Wadud is really referring to
Quran. In her recent talk in Canada, after the friday prayer event,
this is what she said :

"Wadud waded into the minefield by addressing some difficult passages
of the Qur'an. Breaking the ultimate taboo in the Muslim
narrative,
she stated that despite the fact the Qur'an explicitly asks for
cutting off the hands of thieves, she did not agree with the
Qur'an.
She said she understood that this was a very difficult subject to
talk about, but she would be dishonest to herself if she did not
express her views. She maintained that as a Muslim with Allah close
to her heart, in all honesty she could not continue with the
hypocrisy of lying about how she felt about some verses of the
Qur'an."
http://www.recomnetwork.org/article.pl?
sid=05/02/24/1754259&mode=thread

Finally, I would like to say something about hipocrisy and honesty.
Yes, this is an element in human-human relationship; we do not like
to be hypocrite and try not to behave like one..We do not want to say
something and do something else to another person...

...but between we and Allah, habluminallah...we cannot bring down
this relation to that as human. There will be no secrets between us
and Allah, we just CANNOT being hypocrite because He is all knowing.
So all this honesty and not to be hypocrite by going against Quran,
to me is an act to please human...If we diagree about Quran, seeks
for forgiveness and pray for Allah to be given the light to
understand.