Imam Al Ghazali

By Dr Azly Rahman

IMAM AL GHAZALI: WAS HE THE FATHER of MODERN-TALIBANISM?

WOMEN ..
and MEN ...

(a summary below shared with me)
here's what the Islamic scholar Imam Al Ghazali said about women. I hope scholars out there would care to comment. And I hope women should debunk Al Ghazali and denounce his views ...

" ... Al-Ghazali is considered to be the greatest Muslim scholar ever. He is called “The Defender of Islam”. He has written around 1,000 books in the Fiqah of The Islamic Human Rights Commission .
In his well-renown Book, “The Revival Of The Religious Sciences” Al-Ghazali defines women role:
- She should stay at home and get on with her spinning
- She can go out only in emergencies
- She must not be well-informed nor must she be communicative with her neighbors and only visit them when absolutely necessary
- She should take care of her husband and respect him in his presence and his absence and seek to satisfy him in everything
- She must not leave her house without his permission and if given his permission she must leave secretly
- She should put on old clothes and take deserted streets and alleys, avoid markets, and make sure that a stranger does not hear her voice, her footsteps, smell her or recognize her
- She must not speak to a friend of her husband even in need
- Her sole worry should be her “al bud” (reproductive organs) her home as well as her prayers and her fast (starvation for Allah)
- If a friend of her husband calls when her husband is absent she must not open the door nor reply to him in order to safeguard her “al bud” (vagina)
- She should accept what her husband gives her as sufficient sexual needs at any moment

- She should be clean and ready to satisfy her husband’s sexual needs at any moment

The great theologian then warns all men to be careful of women for their “guile is immense and their mischief is noxious; they are immoral and mean spirited”.Like a true Muslim cleric Ghazali states “It is a fact that all the trials, misfortunes and woes which befall men come from women” [3.2]
In his Book “Counsel for Kings,” Ghazali sums up all that a woman has to endure because of Eve’s misbehavior in the Garden of Eden:

“When Eve ate fruit which He had forbidden to her from the tree in Paradise, the Lord, be He praised, cursed women with eighteen punishments:
- menstruation
- childbirth
- separation from mother and father and marriage to a stranger
- pregnancy
- not having control over her own person
- a lesser share in inheritance; (one half of the male as per the Quran)
- her liability to be divorced and inability to divorce
- its being lawful for men to have four wives, but for a woman to have only one husband
- the fact that she must stay secluded in the house
- the fact that she must keep her head covered inside the house
- the fact that two women’s testimony has to be set against the testimony of one man
- the fact that she must not go out of the house unless accompanied by a near relative
- the fact that men take part in Friday and feast day prayers and funerals while women do
not
- disqualification for leadership and judgeship
- the fact that merit has one thousand components, only one of which is attributable to women, while 999 are attributable to men
- the fact that if women are profligate they will be given twice as much torment as the rest of the community at the Resurrection Day
- the fact that if their husbands die they must observe a waiting period of four months and ten days before remarrying

The idea that a woman’s sole purpose and “duty is to stay at home to satisfy the sexual appetite of her husband” is again summed up in Ghazali’s Book “Proof Of Islam.” Ghazali is still so highly revered amongst the majority of Muslim clerics that that he is called “Proof of Islam”. The most influential thinker of Islam, Ghazali, molded the minds of billions of Muslims with his opinions on women’s character :

“If you relax the woman’s leash a tiny bit, she will take you and bolt wildly….
Their deception is awesome and their wickedness is contagious; bad character and feeble mind are their predominant traits …”
Ghazali also exhorted women: A wife should never refuse her bud (vagina) to her husband even if it is on the saddle of a camel

Al-Gazali urged those men who teach their women to write : “Do not add evil to unhappiness” learning his lessons from his prophet Muhammad and caliph Omar Ibn al-Khattab who commanded :“Prevent women from learning to write, adopt positions
opposite those of women. There is great virtue in such opposition.”

As the supreme cleric Ghazali defined marriage for generations of Muslims :
“Marriage is a form of slavery. The woman is man’s slave and her duty therefore is absolute obedience to the husband in all that he asks of her person. A woman, who at the moment of death enjoys the full approval of her husband, will find her place in Paradise.”

MY NOTES:

WHY WE MUST ALSO DEBUNK
Imam Al Ghazali ...
" ... As long as these philosophers and scholars produce opinions that are not in line with modern conception of human rights and liberalism, they ought to be critiqued and criticized. Plato and Aristotle are still criticized till today; their view of society and ethics critiqued as a precursor of totalitarianism, Al Ghazali may produce helpful conceptions of society and the "resuscitation/revival of religion" (Ihya Ulumuddin) but his work on the "Incoherence of the Philosophers" was heavily criticized by Al Arabi the Spanish scholar who wrote a beautiful thesis on the self and a "transcultural Quran" in "Bezels of Wisdom,"
. Even the Quran ought to be reviewed for its "borrowed contents" from older sources. The stories of creation, the prophets, and of ecumenical historiograhy are not original; they have been told in more extensive versions even as early as in the Zen Avesta of Zarathustra. The problem is that we revere religious texts so much we have forgotten to ask "Who is the Author" as the French philosopher Jean-Jacques would ask, or as a modern semiotician Mikhail Bakhtin would also inquire. In the end we leave these text to be the "monopoly of truths of clerics, priests, pandits, preachers, etc." And next, we wonder why the Global Khalifah Movement come into being, and we fear the consequences. No-- we must also see where knowledge come from re:the matrix of power/knowledge. -- ar

The Hudud Law Of PAS

By Syed Akbar Ali

  First of all I dont know why we are even discussing this. The hudud law of Pas is not even mentioned in the Quran. 

Secondly Pas has absolutely no intention of implementing their version of Old Testament jewish laws in Kelantan. Just wait and see. It is just hot air. Even if they get Parliament to give them the legal grounds to implement their jewish laws they will find excuses NOT to implement them. 

I have a suggestion. Why not Malaysia do the Islamic world a favour. Why not invite scholars from all over the world, muslim, non muslim etc to an international forum and discuss these laws properly. First of all is it true that Pas' Old Testament jewish laws are from "god"? What proofs do they have? If they cannot show any proofs then where did they get these ideas?

Why arent these Pas laws found in the Quran? 

They say cutting the hands of the thief is found in this verse :

"The male thief, and the female thief, you shall cut-off their hands as a recompense for what they earned, and to serve as a deterrent from Allah. Allah is Noble, Wise. Whoever repents after his wrongdoing and makes amends, then Allah will relent on him. Truly, Allah is Forgiving, Merciful. [5:38-39]"

Read carefully "..Whoever repents and makes amends then Allah will relent on him.." If someone already has his hands cut off then what more repentance do we expect of him? If his hands are cut off, how will he make amends for the theft he committed? 

If his hands are cut off it simply means that he has already paid for his crime. Once he has paid for his crime, how will Allah further "relent" on him? So it does not indicate an actual cutting off of the hands. 

The point I am trying to make is that we have to intelligently discuss all these questions. The key word here is intelligently. Is the Pas capable of intelligence? Are the ostats capable of intelligent discussion? I am afraid I have to offer my condolences here as well.

Here is something else from the Quran. 

Surah 12:31   "When she heard of their gossip, she invited them, prepared for them a comfortable place, and gave each of them a knife. She then said to him, "Enter their room." When they saw him, they so admired him, that they cut their hands (waqatta'ana aydiyahunna). They said, "Glory be to GOD, this is not a human being; this is an honorable angel."

This is the Quranic story of Joseph or Yusuf. He was so handsome that when he entered a room, the women who were using knives to cut apples cut their hands instead. The same arabic word for 'cut hands' are used in this verse. It is obvious that none of the women who admired Joseph cut their hands until they fell off. 

So the same words 'cutting the hands' in Surah 12:31 DOES NOT mean cutting the hands until they fall off completely. Can any of you care to explain this little discrepancy here? 

And there are other contemporary interpretations of Surah 5:38 above. Here is one taken from here Common Misconceptions About Islam, Muslims and The Quran
 

"The male thief, and the female thief, you shall mark, cut, or cut-off their hands/means as a recompense for what they earned, and to serve as a deterrent from God. God is Noble, Wise. Whoever repents after his wrongdoing and makes amends, then God will relent on him. Truly, God is Forgiving, Merciful. [Surah 5:38-39]"

Hands in the Quran also refers to someone's means or power or capacity to do things. For example the Quran says, 'Allah's hands are over their hands' 

Surah 48:10  "Surely, those who pledge allegiance to you, are pledging allegiance to Allah. Allah approves their pledge; He places His hand above their hands. Those who violate such a pledge, commit the violation to their own detriment. As for those who fulfill their pledge with Allah, He will grant them a great recompense." 

Obviously Allah cannot have hands. Hands here refers to Allah's power, capacity, authority etc. 

"Cutting the hands" can be cutting off their means to do mischief, cutting off their capacity to do wrong. Not actually chopping off their hands. 

So we have to discuss verses like these in the Quran. If you are a Muslim, nothing can over ride the Quran. 

 Back to Pas, they are village intellects. They never expected to get so much publicity over  their drama acting.  They are lucky because Muslims in general are so poorly read, dont know next to nothing about the Quran and are more likely to believe in jampi air, kelapa terbang, teropong buluh, jin, poo kanan, poo kiri, seluk mulut buaya and other kufur crap like that. Therefore the Pas can easily get away with their Old Testament lawspackaged as their own version of law. 

Just ignorant village bumpkins.

Tan Sri Abdul Khalid tidak akan berundur

TAN Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim sudah jangka dia tidak akan kekal lama sebagai Menteri Besar Selangor. Dalam partinya sendiri PKR kini sedang berusaha menggantikannya dengan calon lain. Presiden PKR, Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail yang juga Adun Kajang, dikatakan akan mengambil alih jawatan MB itu.

Walau pun Khalid tahu dalam kalangan pemimpin PKR tidak lagi perlukan khidmatnya dan giat menekannya agar meletakkan jawatan sebagai MB namun dia buat seperti pekak badak.

Sorry Tan Sri, gambar hiasan aje..

Nampak, Khalid berkeras tidak akan berundur sebagai MB begitu sahaja melainkan dia dipecat oleh parti. Orang tidak boleh salahkan Khalid jika dia enggan berundur.

Sebab dia mungkin ingin ambil teladan dari boss nya, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim ketika berada di dalam kerajaan dulu yang berkeras enggan berundur dan meletakkan jawatan sebagai Timbalan Perdana Menteri setelah isu moral nya timbul di khalayak ramai.

Semasa itu Anwar tidak berganjak dan mahu terus kekal sebagai TPM walau pun dia didesak dalam parti ekoran tercetusnya isu peribadinya. Tetapi akhirnya Anwar dipecat juga dari kabinet dan sebagai ahli Umno.

Apakah Khalid mahu dia dipecat ? Tidakkah dengan dipecat itu lebih bermaruah berbanding berundur tanda mengalah ? Yang tentunya Khalid tentu terguris dan sedih dengan sikap para pemimpin dalam partinya yang meremehkan dan ingin menjatuhkannya.

Kata pepatah, air yang tenang jangan disangka tiada buaya. Khalid juga seorang politikus. Dan dia boleh melakukan sesuatu diluar jangkaan ramai orang. Kalau parti terus menekannya hingga rapat ke tembok bukan mustahil dia akan bertindak sesuatu yang mengejutkan.

Antara pilihan yang ada pada Khalid ialah dia mungkin menggunakan kuasanya bagi membubarkan DUN Selangor untuk memberi laluan diadakan satu lagi pilihan raya negeri dan seterusnya menubuhkan sebuah kerajaan negeri yang baru.

Apakah dia akan terus jadi MB atau tidak adalah tidak penting lagi. Dari dipecat dan dipaksa berundur dari jawatan MB, adalah lebih baik diserahkan segalanya pada rakyat Selangor menentukannya.

Masa depan Khalid dalam PKR tidak memberi sebarang harapan apatah lagi musuh ketatnya, Azmin Ali masih gagah sebagai orang nombor dua parti. Bukan juga mustahil Khalid bakal akan keluar dari PKR dan menjadi ahli Bebas atau pun menyertai mana-mana parti. Semua pilihan adalah terbuka.

Sekiranya terus ada tekanan politik terhadap Khalid, bukan mustahil dia akan bertindak di luar ramalan para pemerhati politik.

Last Scenes from The Message Movie