Social Concerns, - Women's liberation through Islam -I

Today people think that women are liberated in the West and that the women's liberation movement began in the 20th century. Actually, the women's liberation movement was not begun by women but was revealed by Allaah )God( to a man in the seventh century by the name of Muhammad, sallallaahu alayhi wa sallam. The Quran and the Traditions of the Prophet, sallallaahu alayhi wa sallam, are the sources from which every Muslim woman derives her rights and duties.
Human Rights:
Islam, fourteen centuries ago, made women equally accountable to Allaah in glorifying and worshipping Him - setting no limits on her moral progress. Also, Islam established a woman's equality in her humanity with men.
In the first verse of the chapter entitled "Women", Allaah Says )what means(:"O mankind! Be dutiful to your Lord, Who created you from a single person )Aadam(, and from him )Aadam( He created his wife ]Hawwaa )Eve([, and from them both, He created many men and women and fear Allaah through Whom you demand your mutual )rights(, and )do not cut the relations of( the wombs )kinship(. Surely, Allaah is Ever an All-Watcher over you."]Quran 4:1[
Since men and women both came from the same essence, they are equal in their humanity. Women cannot be by nature evil )as some religions believes( or then men would be evil also. Similarly, neither sex can be superior because it would be a contradiction of equality. Allaah Says )which means(:"O mankind! We have created you from a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know one another. Verily, the most honorable of you with Allaah is that )believer( who is the most pious of you. Verily, Allaah is All-Knowing, All-Aware."]Quran 49:13[
Allaah also Says )what means(:"Verily, the Muslims men and women, the believers men and women, the men and women who are obedient )to Allaah(, the men and women who are truthful )in their speech and deeds(, the men and women who are humble )before their Lord(, the men and women who give charity, the men and women who observe fasting, the men and women who guard their chastity )from illegal sexual acts(, and the men and women who remember Allaah much with their hearts and tongues. Allaah has prepared for them forgiveness and a great reward )i.e. Paradise(."]Quran 33:35[
Civil Rights:
In Islam, a woman has the basic freedom of choice and expression based on recognition of her individual personality. First, the non-Muslim woman )from the people of the Book( is free to maintain her religion. Allaah Says )what means(:"There is no compulsion in religion. Verily, the Right path has been made distinct from wrong path.”]Quran 2:256[
Women are encouraged in Islam to contribute their opinions and ideas. There are many traditions of the Prophet, sallallaahu alayhi wa sallam, which indicate women would pose questions directly to him and offer their opinions concerning religion, economics and social matters.
A Muslim woman chooses her husband and keeps her family name after marriage. A Muslim woman's testimony is valid in legal disputes. In fact, in areas in which women are more familiar, their evidence is conclusive.
Social Rights
The Prophet, sallallaahu alayhi wa sallam, said:"Seeking knowledge is a mandate for every Muslim )male and female(."]Ibn Maajah[ This includes knowledge of the Quran and the Hadeeth as well as other religious knowledge. Men and women both have the capacity for learning and understanding. Since it is also their obligation to promote good behavior and condemn bad behavior in all spheres of life, Muslim women must acquire the appropriate Islamic education to perform this duty in accordance with their own natural talents and interests.
While maintenance of a home, providing support to her husband, and bearing, raising and teaching of children are among the first and very highly regarded roles for a woman, if she has the skills to work outside the home for the good of the community, she may do so )if she has to( as long as her family obligations are met, and as long as there is no intermingling between her and men in the work place.
Islam recognizes and fosters the natural differences between men and women despite their equality. Some types of work are more suitable for men and other types for women. This, in no way, diminishes either's effort nor benefit. Allaah will reward both sexes equally for the value of their work, though it may not necessarily be the same activity.
The success of a society can be traced to the mothers. The first and greatest influence on a person comes from the sense of security, affection, and training received from the mother. Therefore, a woman having children must be educated and conscientious in order to be a skillful parent.

Social Concerns, - The Deceptive Ghosts of the Internet

In the present age, Allaah The Almighty has enabled us to achieve great development in the ways and means of communication for the exchange of information and ideas, especially through the internet. The creation of internet forums and social networking sites has allowed the internet to enter almost every home. As a result, many virtuous sisters have explored this amazing and wonderful world. Unfortunately, some men take advantage of the heedlessness of some women and exploit their emotions in matters that do not please Allaah The Almighty through forums, chat rooms, instant messaging, and so on.
It has been observed that women are especially vulnerable to the guiles of men in the virtual world; if a man throws a bait, a woman usually falls for it without much ado. Over a period of time, she discovers that she has become prey to an internet ghost whom she neither knows nor sees, but she finds herself in love with him and feels that she cannot live without him. She wishes to speak with one of these virtual 'ghosts' all the time, whereas in the past, the same woman might have considered talking to an unknown male stranger a grave major sin.
She might not have expected that one day she would become emotionally attached to a strange man even though she is a virtuous, pure woman. Sometimes, this 'ghost' — or perhaps a better word would be 'wolf' — may be a wicked and evil minded individual who has devilish ways, while the poor sister who is involved in this unfortunate affair may think everything that glitters is gold and be unaware of his real character and inclinations. She may become over-confident or complacent about herself saying that she knows herself and can control herself. When a woman says these words, one should know that she is in great danger.
It has been observed on internet forums that one of the means of men being able to prey on a woman is to frequently reply to the postings of a certain female member with words of praise, especially if this sister is particularly voluble. There are very few people who are capable of resisting their emotions and preventing their hearts from softening when someone follows the topics of their interest carefully and replies to their posts in a laudatory manner.
O virtuous sister, beware of this! Do not be deceived by the ghosts of the internet.
Sometimes, this wicked ghost posts a fabricated problem and embellishes his topic with eye-catching sentences; such as,“I want someone to share my concerns”.Then, he asks this poor girl, who does not know what is being prepared for her, to find a solution for his problem. She occupies herself with the problem and falls into the trap without perceiving this fact. The matter may go further by adding him as a new contact on her messenger. Instead of being a means of acquiring good deeds, the instant messenger program is turned into a means of evil.
A sister may add a stranger out of curiosity in order to know him better or to know what he wants. Some sisters may add strange men under the pretext that she seeks an innocent friendship and that chatting over the internet is like normal speech. However, chances are that regular chatting may develop further to become severe sins and misdeeds that only Allaah The Almighty knows about.
Sister! O you who are the one who raises the future generations of Muslim men and women; O you who is a protected pearl; beware of Allaah The Almighty and beware of following the devil’s footsteps! The devil does not directly lead a person to sin; rather, he leads him step by step and then lets him fall into sin. Moreover, he may induce the person to justify and rationalize the sin. Beware of minor sins as the Prophet,sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, said:“Beware of minor sins, their example is like a people who camped at the foot of a valley, and one man brought a stick, another man brought a stick, and so on, until they managed to bake their bread )by burning these sticks(. There are some insignificant sins which, once they accumulate and one is questioned about them, they lead to his doom.”

Social Concerns, - Status of Women before Islam

To judge the status of women in Islam, we must know their status in the religions and nations that preceded Islam. Then, we will discuss her status under Islam given that there is a long period of time between us and the time of the Prophet Muhammad, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam.
Before Islam, the status of the woman was degraded and base in most nations. They did not consider her a human being with a soul; rather, they used to believe that she is created from a base soul and that she is the source of evil and sin. The distinction that Islam gave to the woman set a precedent in the history of mankind fourteen centuries ago.
Status of women in Hinduism:
According to the Hindu Laws of Manu, the woman had no rights. She was a mere servant to her husband or father. She did not have the competence to dispose of her property, and she had no right of ownership. Anything that she owned was the property of her husband, father or son. Also, when her husband died, she was to be burnt alive and buried with him. This heinous crime lasted even after the start of the British occupation in India which imposed laws banning the act of burning women alive.
Nevertheless, the burning of wives continued from time to time even in the twentieth century.
Status of women in the ancient Greek civilization:
In ancient times, Greece was the most civilized and urbanized of nations. Athens was the city of wisdom, philosophy, medicine and knowledge. However, the people of Athens used to buy and sell the woman as if she were a mere commodity. They considered the woman nothing but defilement from the devil’s handiwork.
You will be amazed to know that the Spartan women were allowed in the past to marry more than one husband, and most Spartan women practiced polyandry. Undoubtedly, this was one of the most abominable customs.
Status of women in Judaism:
The woman in Judaism was in the rank of a servant. The father had the right to sell his underage daughter. She had no right to inherit if her father had no male offspring. It is stated in the Old Testament )the distorted Torah( that the woman should not inherit as long as there are males in the family; rather, she is part of the inheritance if her husband dies, and the nearest male relative to the husband would inherit her.
She was believed to be the source of evil and sin. They considered her impure especially on the days she was menstruating and whoever touched her during this time became impure for seven days. They blamed her for the expulsion of Aadam )Adam(, may Allaah exalt his mention, from Paradise, as they believe that she enticed him to eat the apple from the forbidden tree. They considered her the reason behind the eternal curse that befell Aadam and his offspring. Accordingly, all her offspring are born stained with the disgrace of sin.
Status of women in Christianity:
There was widespread Christian belief that the woman had no soul. In 586 AD — before the emergence of Islam— the Council of Macon was held to decide whether the woman was a body that had a base soul or that she did not have a 'saved' soul. They made an exception to Maryam )Mary(, may Allaah exalt her mention, because she is the mother of ‘Eesa )Jesus(, may Allaah exalt his mention.
Paul declared that the woman is the source of sin, the basis of every evil and the fountainhead of every abominable act. St. Bonaventure said to his disciples, “When you see a woman, you should not think that you saw a human being or even a beastly being. Rather, you saw the devil in person.”
On the other hand, the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, used to sleep in the same bed with his wives when they were menstruating, and if any of his wives crept away from bed while menstruating, he used to call her to sleep in the same bed. He used to be tender and touch his wife when she was menstruating while she had her waist sheet on. His wife, ‘Aa’ishah, may Allaah be pleased with her, used to comb his hair when she was menstruating. He used to recite Quran while he rested his head in her lap while she menstruating.
There is a huge difference between the Quran and the distorted Torah and falsified Gospels. The Quran is from Allaah The Almighty while the other two are books that have been distorted by the Jews and the Christians.
Status of the woman in Arab Society before Islam:
In the pre-Islamic period, the Arabs regarded the woman as a piece of property or as rubbish. When the husband died, his guardian would cover the wife of the deceased with his garment and she could not remarry until he permitted her or until she ransomed herself. They used to prevent her from remarrying until the young matrimonial guardian would grow up and then decide whether he wished to marry her or give her in marriage to anyone else and take the dowry as long as she was not his mother. If she was his mother, he would not marry her.
The woman had no rights and she did not inherit anything. She was considered a source of humiliation and shame.
Islam prohibited all this and allocated for her a specific share in inheritance. Allaah The Almighty Says )what means(:}For men is a share of what the parents and close relatives leave, and for women is a share of what the parents and close relatives leave, be it little or much - an obligatory share.{]Quran 4:7[
Moreover, the Arabs in the pre-Islamic era did not only deprive the woman of inheritance but also deprived her of life itself. When some of them begot a female child, they would dig a hole and throw her into it and heap dust over her. What is worse and more disgusting is that once, a father was away travelling when his wife gave birth. When he came back, he took his grown up daughter from her mother, dug a hole while she removed the dust from his clothes, and then, taking her by surprise, pushed her into the hole then heaped dust over her while she screamed for pity. But his heart did not soften for her. This situation is described in the Quran when Allaah The Almighty Says )what means(:}And when the girl ]who was[ buried alive is asked* For what sin she was killed.{]Quran 81:8-9[
Some mothers used to fear this painful destiny. So, the mother would dig a hole herself during her pregnancy. If she delivered a girl, she would throw her into the hole in order to save her from the tragedy that would take place when the father returned from traveling. Some mothers would strangle their baby daughters after delivering them.
Some fathers’ faces used to turn dark when they received the news that their wives had given birth to a girl because of their intense hatred for girls, and they would be hesitant whether to bury her alive or bear the humiliation and let her live. Allaah The Almighty Says )what means(:}And when one of them is informed of ]the birth of[ a female, his face becomes dark, and he suppresses grief. He hides himself from the people because of the ill of which he has been informed. Should he keep it in humiliation or bury it in the ground? Unquestionably, evil is what they decide.{]Quran 16:58-59[
Their hatred for girls was based on two reasons: First, girls do not take part in wars. Second, they feared that the girl may later become a source of shame. Despite their fear of shame, strangely enough, we find that many Arab tribes were quite lenient in the face of prostitution and that they used to force their slave girls into prostitution until Allaah The Almighty revealed the verse forbidding this act )which means(:}And do not compel your slave girls to prostitution, if they desire chastity, to seek ]thereby[ the temporary interests of worldly life. And if someone should compel them, then indeed, Allaah is ]to them[, after their compulsion, Forgiving and Merciful.{]Quran 24:33[
This means that Allaah The Almighty forgives the slave girls who were compelled only, not those who compelled them. The most notorious in this respect was ‘Abdullaah bin Ubayy ibn Salool the head of the hypocrites in Al-Madeenah who used to make money by compelling his slave girls to be prostitutes. When this practice was prohibited by the revealed verses of the Quran, he was furious but then later he yielded in submission.
Women in the pre-Islamic era used to expose their adornments and entice men. Noble verses of the Quran were revealed to prohibit Muslim women from imitating the disbelieving women just as Muslim men were prohibited before them from imitating the disbelieving men. Allaah The Almighty Says addressing women )what means(:}And do not display yourselves as ]was[ the display of the former times of ignorance.{]Quran 33:33[ Allaah The Almighty ordered them to stay in their homes when He Says )what means(:}And abide in your houses{]Quran 33:33[
The woman of today is like the woman in the pre-Islamic era in terms of exposing adornments and immorality. However, the exposure of adornments in the pre-Islamic era was unsophisticated and naïve, whereas the woman’s exposure of adornments nowadays is wrapped in manicure, pedicure, perfumes, cosmetics, revealing clothes and hair-cuts which look like the humps of the camel which incline women to evil and invite men to it.
It is time we noticed the humiliated state of women in these times and discussed the status of women in Islam in order to see the great difference between that low degrading status and the refined, sublime status that Islam granted them.

Dought & clear, - The difference between qasd (objectives) and niyyah (intention) and the importance of intention in fiqh.

What is the difference between qasd (objectives) and niyyah (intention)? What is the importance of objectives in fiqh?.
Praise be to Allaah.
Firstly:
Objective (qasd) in the terminology of the fuqaha’ means the resolve to do something.Mu’jam al-Mustalahaat wa’l-Alfaaz al-Fiqhiyyah(3/96).
Niyyah, as al-Quraafi (may Allaah have mercy on him) said, means: The intention in a person’s heart of what he wants to do.Al-Dhakheerah(1/20).
Al-Nawawi defined it as: Resolve in the heart to do an obligatory or other action.al-Majmoo’(1/310).
From the definition given by al-Quraafi it is clear that niyyah and qasd are close in meaning. Hence niyyah is defined as being qasd, but Ibn al-Qayyim (may Allaah have mercy on him) was of the view that there is some difference between them. He said: Niyyah is exactly qasd but there are two differences between it and qasd:
1 – Qasd may be connected to the action of the doer himself or the action of others, whereas niyyah is connected only to his own actions. It cannot be imagined that a man would intend the deed of another, but it may be imagined that he would want it.
2 – Qasd can only refer to an action that the person is able to do and wants to do, whereas niyyah may refer to a person intending to do what he is able to do and what he is unable to do. Hence in the hadeeth of Abu Kabshah al-Anmaari, which was narrated by Ahmad, al-Tirmidhi and others, the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “There are four types of people in this world: a man to whom Allaah gives wealth and knowledge, so he fears his Lord with regard to the way in which he disposes of his wealth, and he uses it to uphold ties of kinship and he realizes that Allaah has rights over it. This man occupies the highest status. And a man to whom Allaah has given knowledge but did not give him wealth, so he says, ‘If I had wealth I would have done the same as So and so is doing.’ So he will be rewarded according to his intention [niyyah] and the reward of both of them is the same. And a person to whom Allaah has given wealth but not knowledge. That is the worst status before Allaah. Then he said: A person to whom Allaah has given neither wealth nor knowledge, and he says: ‘If I had money I would have done what So and so is doing’. So he will be judged according to his intention [niyyah], and the burden (of sin) of both of them will be the same.” So niyyah has to do with that which is possible and that which is not possible, unlike qasd (objectives) and iraadah (will), which have nothing to do with that which is not possible, whether it is one’s actions or the actions of another.
End quote fromBadaa’i’ al-Fawaa’id(3/190). See alsoal-Qawaa’id al-Kulliyyah wa’l-Dawaabit al-Fiqhiyyahby Dr. Muhammad ‘Uthmaan Shabeer, p. 93, 94.
Secondly:
Objectives are very important in fiqh. It is sufficient for you to know that one of the most important principles is that matters are judged by their aims and objectives, which is based on the words of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him): “Actions are but by intention and each person will have but that which he intended.” (Narrated by al-Bukhaari (1) and Muslim (1907).
Al-Suyooti (may Allaah have mercy on him) said: You should know that there are plenty of reports from the imams which speak of the great importance of the hadeeth about intention (niyyah). Abu ‘Ubaydah said: There is nothing in the reports of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) that is more comprehensive, rich in meaning or more useful than this. Imam al-Shaafa’i, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Ibn Mahdi, Ibn al-Madeeni, Abu Dawood, al-Daaraqutni and others were agreed that it is one-third of knowledge, and some of them said that it is one-quarter thereof. Al-Bayhaqi based its being one-third of knowledge on the fact that a person earns reward by the actions of his heart, tongue and physical faculties, so intention (niyyah) is one of these three categories and the most important of them, because it may be an independent act of worship, and the others need it. … al-Shaafa’i said: It may be entered through seventy doors. End quote fromal-Ashbaah wa’l-Nazaa’irp. 9.
This points to the importance of knowing aims and objectives, and giving them their due weight.
And Allaah knows best.