[Biggest
Islamic
web site in the
U.S.]
P.O. Box 356, Kingsville, MD 21087.
Phone: 410-435-5000.
Disclaimer: Views expressed are not necessarily
shared by editorial committee.
Responses (positive or negative) up to 250 words are welcome.
Names will be withheld on request.
--------------------------------------------
ZIONIST
INFILTRATION INTO Hip Hop CULTURE
[From our representative in New York City.]
New York -- August 21, 2003, I saw a public
access show on cable called
Israel Update. I've written to you before about
that show.
This particular show had two guests: Remedy, a
rapper and Ross, his
accomplice.
Remedy is a Zionist Jew. Recently he got off tour
in
Israel
with the Wu Tang
Clan! The Wu Tang Clan are supposed to be members
of the 5 percenters and have
some knowledge of Islam at one time or another. I
was a little surprised but,
I shouldn't be because they are big into drug
use.
Anyway, Remedy spoke on there being hundreds of
Jewish
rappers in Israel. The
two hosts responded by stating how difficult it
has been to spread Zionism on
college campuses and that may be hip hop would be
the better venue for
spreading the Zionist message. Remedy has a song
out titled "Never Again, Never
Again" (about the holocaust) and his last word's
on the "Israel Update Show" were:
"Support Israel!" His web site is
remedyross.com
In New York City, there have been a few more
pro-Zionist shows popping up on
free cable networks. It's in response to the
pro-Palestinian
reporting from
before. The Israel Update Show is also calling on
Zionists to boycott the
New York Times
.
There is a seminar being offered by
Bob Kohn. It is called "How to
Detect and Understand Media Bias" and the purpose
is to attack the New York
Times!
Shaitan is always busy!
Sis. 'Aisha
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hadith Studies
Does Hadith Say Women are Mentally Deficient?
What Does Hadith Say about One Woman's Witness?
Qur'an
and Hadith are Progressive Revelations
with Built-in Abrogation
[Random quotation of Qur'an and Hadith as
Absolute Entities plus Poor
Translation Misleads]
[Recently Sis. Bilquis,
Jamaat al-Muslimeen
North Carolina, received a
message from a woman named "Liesa" in which she
quoted a Hadith from Muhsin Khan's
translation of
Sahih Bukhari
and demanded to know
why Hadith considers women
"mentally deficient." Sis. Bilquis sent her the
answer from
Liberation of Women Thru Islam
by
Kaukab Siddique
which Sis. Bilqis
helped to publish and
publicize.]
-----------------------------------------------------
Taken from Liberation of Women Thru Islam
by Dr. Kaukab Siddique
Pages 83-87
Weak Translation of Hadith Misleads Readers
A Comment on the Meaning of 'Aql and Jariya
In his translation of Sahih Bukhari, Dr. Muhsin
Khan translates hadith number
826 (in volume 3, section XVII, on Witnesses) as
follows: "Narrated Abu Sa'id
Al-Khudri. The Prophet said: 'Isn't the witness
of a woman equal to half of
that of a man?' The Women said, 'Yes'. He said,
"This is because of the
deficiency of a woman's mind." The Arabic is
fazalika min nuqsan-e-aqaleha which
should be translated as: "That is owing to her
lack of understanding." The
translation of 'Aql as "mind" is incorrect. The
term "mind" is a platonic concept
which refers to innate ability. 'Aql is the word
for understanding, sense and
wisdom which is acquired through experience and
development of educational
abilities. The mind is fixed and unchanging;
Understanding can be developed. The
term "mind" has to do with the idea that some
people are born with intelligence
and some are not: In its essence it is a racist
concept.
We can try to define the meaning of the word
"aql" by looking at its usage
in the Qur'an. It is used to refer to an ability
which learns from observation
and which works though experiencing the wonders
of God's creation:
And of His signs is this: He shows you the
lightning for a fear and a hope,
and sends down water from the sky, and thereby
quickens the earth after its
death. Surely in that are signs for people of
understanding (liqaumin-yyaqiloon).
The Qur'an 30:24
And the difference of night and day and the
provision that Allah sends down
from the sky and thereby quickens the earth after
her death, and the ordering
of the winds, are signs for people of
understanding (liqaumin-yyaqiloon).
Sura 45:5
These verses are meant for the general audience
of the Qur'an. Anyone who is
willing to use his understanding and look at the
heavens and the earth can
perceive the underlying power which makes the
universe possible. These verses are
not aimed at some special elite which has a
"mind" which others lack.
Certainly women are not excluded from the
audience of these verses. No honest
commentator would be able to claim that the signs
of God mentioned in these verses
are not available to women because women are
deficient in their "minds"! Any
person, man or woman, can perceive the ayat
(signs) of Allah and arrive at
conclusions about God's Oneness, Creativity,
Power, and Nurturing Love.
Dr. Muhsin Khan has made a major blunder. He did
not realize that the holy
Prophet was actually urging the women to gain
understanding. He was not saying
that they are deficient by nature and will always
remain so! When a teacher
says to a student: Your understanding of the book
is weak, you are deficient in
your analysis; think, don't cheat, etc; the
teacher is actually urging the
student to gain the understanding which he/she
lacks. Islam came to educate
people, to raise them from out of the marshes of
ignorance, not to condemn them.
If Dr. Muhsin Khan had looked at other hadith in
the same chapter of
Bukhari's Sahih, he would have realized two
things:
1. The holy Prophet did not reject the witness of
one woman even as opposed
to a man's.
2. He did not think that women are deficient in
their minds.
In hadith number 827 and 828 we are told that the
holy Prophet abrogated a
marriage on the basis of ONE WOMAN'S WITNESS who
had testified that in their
infancy she had suckled both the husband and the
wife. The narration indicates
that the male narrator did not want to accept the
woman's witnessing but the
holy Prophet would not countenance his
hesitation. (Incidentally the woman was
black and a slave from the Era of Ignorance,
which also indicates the
revolutionary Islamic concepts of equality of all
races and peoples along with equality
of male and female.)
Further on in the same chapter of Bukhari's
Sahih, we have a lengthy
narration of the slander which was spread against
hazrat 'Ayesha (radi Allahu unha) by
the hypocrites. In the narration we find hazrat
Ali urging the holy Prophet
to ask for one woman's witness and the holy
Prophet going through the process
of asking one woman without saying that two women
are required. (The Qur'an
then confirmed this witnessing by affirming the
noble character of the blessed
'Ayesha.) The words of the narration are:
"'Ali ibn Abi Talib said: O messenger of Allah!
Allah has not put
restrictions on you, and there are many women
other than she; yet you may ask the young
woman (Barera) and she will tell you the truth.
On that the messenger of Allah,
peace and blessing of Allah be on him, called
Barera and asked her: 'O
Barera! Did you ever see anything which raised
your suspicion? Barera said: No. By
Allah who has sent you with the Truth, I have
never seen anything wrong in her
except that she is young and sometimes sleeps
after having kneaded the dough
and the goat comes and eats it. On that day the
messenger of Allah, peace and
blessings of Allah be on him, stood up to give
the khutba and asked the people
to support him against Abdullah ibn Ubayy ibn
Salul. The messenger of Allah
said: Who will support me against that person who
has hurt me in the matter of
my family? By Allah I know nothing but good about
my family, and they have
accused a man about whom I know nothing except
good and he never entered my house
except in my company."
Those who have read their hadith books carefully
know that Barera was a freed
slave woman. In fact, she had been freed by
hazrat 'Ayesha and used to spend
her time with hazrat 'Ayesha as her companion,
friend, and helper. In both
hadith the witness of one woman is accepted by
the Prophet, and the question of
their 'deficient mind' is not raised. The reason
for acceptance was that
Islamic education had given women mental maturity
and understanding. By the time the
slander against hazrat 'Ayesha occurred, the
Muslim community had
strengthened its roots. When the verse about two
female witnesses was revealed in Sura
al-Baqarah, the Islamic community had just begun
in Medina. Our male
commentators have built their weak position on
Sura al-Baqarah while completely ignoring
Surat un-Noor where hazrat 'Ayesha's example was
used by Allah to indicate the
equality of males and females before the Law for
all times to come.
Dr. Muhsin Khan has also slipped in his
translation of the word jariya. He
translates it as "woman-servant" which though
better than laundi (female slave),
as some Urdu language translators put it, is
still off the mark. The workd
jariya simply means a young woman or girl. Barera
was not a slave or a servant.
(Bukhari's Sahih attests that the holy Prophet's
household did not have a
servant, male or female) She had been freed by
hazrat 'Ayesha. Somehow Dr. Khan
could not see that the word jariya occurs three
times in hadith 829 referring to
hazrat 'Ayesha herself. (As hazrat 'Ayesha points
out, she was a young woman
at that time and weighed very little; hence the
camel driver did not know if
she was sitting in the curtained seat atop the
camel or not and moved on
without her.) Thank goodness that Dr. Khan does
not claim that hazrat 'Ayesha was a
slave girl too! I hope he will look up the story
of Barera and find out that
she had been freed. (Freed slaves often lived
with those who had freed them in
a system of wilayya because they had no family
systems of their own.)
I am not trying to condemn all of Dr. Khan's
translation. Readers however
should notice how many different factors can come
in to create misgivings and
misunderstanding about Hadith. We all have much
to learn. Those who are
translating holy books into English are often
very deficient in their English; however,
they are not willing to face the fact that they
are deficient in their
understanding of English. Inshallah, we can learn
from each other. Let them tell us
where we make mistakes in Arabic, and let them
listen to us where we point out
their mistakes in English. The language of the
people is an essential vehicle
for the dissemination of a message. The Qur'an
was revealed in Arabic to a
people who spoke Arabic. Similarly, Islam in
America must be conveyed by people
who can speak and understand the idiom of the
American people.
And if We had sent the Qur'an in a foreign
tongue, they would have surely
said: if only its verses were expounded (so that
we might understand). What! I
foreign tongue and an Arab?--Say to them (O
Muhammad): For those who believe it
is a Guidance and a healing; and as for those who
disbelieve, there is
deafness in their ears, and it is blindness for
them. Such are called to from afar.
The Qur'an 41:44
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
2003-08-26 Tue 18:22ct