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Arabs..muslims?


Mahuta ♥

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On the other hand, Saudi law says that women cannot be witnesses in courts.

That certainly doesn't sound very progressive to me.

I would like to point out that the king of Saudi Arabia,Abdullah, just appointed their first female minister. They are attempting to reform and not just in the area of women's rights: take the religous conference King Abdullah held at the UN in November and the Madrid conference which served as it's springboard. The thing is change can't be introduced too quickly- history shows us it never works out exactly as we plan.

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  • 3 weeks later...

On the other hand, Saudi law says that women cannot be witnesses in courts.

That certainly doesn't sound very progressive to me.

...yeah. about that.

i am not an arab, but i am a muslim. i speak arabic fluently and take the arabic islamic class with all the other arabs in my grade.

what i've learnt though, for example, in marriages (the islamic way) there ought to be two male witnesses. if you can't find two males, it ought to be one male and two females. if you cant find a male, then it should be four females.

why? simply because women, and i am talking as a girl here, take things in a more emotional perspective than men. i'm not saying all of us are fully emotional, but a lot of us may be tempted to choose our friends over telling the truth. for example, if something happened in the marriage and they were to divorce, one of the women may think of saying something else just to save one of the members of the marriage. i'm not saying men can't be emotional either. this is just what i've learnt in my islamic class recently :)

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I don't really have a view on Muslims, just certain people who happen to be Muslim. Like the Lebanese guys from my old school, always yelling 'OMG ULE!" or something like that... The point is, when they talked they made it sound like they won the lottery. Then there are my other friends (Mostly from Turkey) funniest bunch around and great all round people.

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...yeah. about that.

i am not an arab, but i am a muslim. i speak arabic fluently and take the arabic islamic class with all the other arabs in my grade.

what i've learnt though, for example, in marriages (the islamic way) there ought to be two male witnesses. if you can't find two males, it ought to be one male and two females. if you cant find a male, then it should be four females.

why? simply because women, and i am talking as a girl here, take things in a more emotional perspective than men. i'm not saying all of us are fully emotional, but a lot of us may be tempted to choose our friends over telling the truth. for example, if something happened in the marriage and they were to divorce, one of the women may think of saying something else just to save one of the members of the marriage. i'm not saying men can't be emotional either. this is just what i've learnt in my islamic class recently :)

Men and women are equally guilty of this, though. All genders have certain allegiances to their friends! Whether a witness can be objective or subjective should be taken into account by the judge and the jury dependent on their relationship to whatever is going on and to whoever is involved, rather than the prejudice that certain genders might have a higher probability of behaving sympathetically towards one party.

IMO an individual's rights and freedoms should not be based on a stereotype, but on the actual scenario.

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Men and women are equally guilty of this, though. All genders have certain allegiances to their friends! Whether a witness can be objective or subjective should be taken into account by the judge and the jury dependent on their relationship to whatever is going on and to whoever is involved, rather than the prejudice that certain genders might have a higher probability of behaving sympathetically towards one party.

IMO an individual's rights and freedoms should not be based on a stereotype, but on the actual scenario.

I agree, men have hissy fits and temper tantrums all the time. Men lie as well, so who's to say women would be the ones to lie and make up things about their friends to save a marriage? Stereotyping female behaviour is supposed to be a thing of the last century; it's so irritating that women all over the world have fought for years to achieve voting rights, equal civil rights and equal pay and female participation in the workforce (which still hasn't been achieved), only to be told they are too "emotional" (whatever the word means to the people using it) and so should be denied an equal place in society.

I for one am in no way inferior to a man, be it in a mental or physical capacity. If women want to think of themselves as inferior in an "emotional" sense, they can do so and be passive creatures, made to "serve" and be neither seen nor heard. I don't care how much some women claim to be "equal to men", if they are willing to be led along like dogs on a leash they are just lying to themselves about their belief system.

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All religions can be twisted to suit the purposes of those in power; Catholicism denies women the right to serve as priests/bishops/Pope, Conservative Judaism doesn't allow female rabbis while Reform Judaism does, women in Saudi Arabia are denied the right to drive. People interpret the hadiths as they wish, which causes problems.

I agree that many Westerners have the misconception that Islam denies rights to women; some of my classmates see the hijab as a form of imprisonment that is forced upon women, but some women that wear it decide to do so freely, and view it as a kind of protection. I wore the hijab one day in my school to see what people's reactions to it would be, and immediately people started saying I was "representing female oppression" which I find incredibly naive. All of the people that said so were left wingers politically speaking, and so obviously their ideas of feminism are different.

However, I don't agree with laws such as the one in Saudi Arabia which requires all women to cover up, regardless of whether or not they want to. If a woman decides to wear the hijab, then she should be entitled to do so (not like in France, where you can't wear one in school), but forcing women to do so builds resentment and dislike of the religion which is behind the law.

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I for one am in no way inferior to a man, be it in a mental or physical capacity. If women want to think of themselves as inferior in an "emotional" sense, they can do so and be passive creatures, made to "serve" and be neither seen nor heard. I don't care how much some women claim to be "equal to men", if they are willing to be led along like dogs on a leash they are just lying to themselves about their belief system.

I do believe that women are often more emotional than met, yet if you ask around, im the last one in town to even mention being led like a dog. I believe that, but I'm the last one around to accept the idea of women being made to serve.

For some reason, I noticed that people havent seen balanced muslims yet? Its like either 'open minded' AND western like..OR close minded and EXTREMIST religious.

I keep saying this everywhere but i AM balanced. Trust me I go argueing with teachers for hours about women's rights and I still believe that women are more emotional than men, most of the times. I dont accept the fact that women are made to serve and i have been argueing about that since i was first able to understand this.

To add to this, I am not lying on my self about the belief because I have it.

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To be honest, sometimes I think this whole idea that women are more emotional is more due to upbringing and paradigms. Men from a young age are told to be macho and its a shame to cry, be emotional, etc.

(Have you met the emo kids? I mean wow, now those are emotional people, girls/boys alike).

Having said that, I'm a person who under no circumstances allows emotions to disrupt my studies/work/obligations or change my performance (infact I seem to be much more focused when I'm not feeling that good), so I don't see why I can't have equal opportunities in work/studies as men.

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I'm not saying that im ok with having unqual opportunities in work and studies. Personally I see myself having that right, I can study and work just like any male can do. The situation when you have to be a witness for something is rare, and for me its not a reason to say i dont have unequal opportunities.

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  • 1 month later...

However, I don't agree with laws such as the one in Saudi Arabia which requires all women to cover up, regardless of whether or not they want to. If a woman decides to wear the hijab, then she should be entitled to do so (not like in France, where you can't wear one in school), but forcing women to do so builds resentment and dislike of the religion which is behind the law.

Hi, I'm new here, but I'd like to say something in favor of Saudi Arabia, even though I'm not exactly the biggest fan of it.

In issues such as this, it isn't good to judge something from your own perspective until you've studied it from another perspective yourself. Basically, try to view it from a Saudi Arabian point of view.

Saudi Arabia is the heart of Islam, where Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) was born and raised. Millions gather every year in this holy country to do the Haj, a vital pillar of Islam's five pillars. In many ways, the country is trying to preserve its sanctity and holiness. It may seem extreme, but if you look at other Arab countries, like Bahrain (where I currently live), UAE, Qatar where modernization is controlling the country, you'll see corruption, sex scandals, or family issues dominate the country and shape its society.

After looking at it from a modern Islamic state perspective, try to look at it from an Islamic persepective without any rules of government whatsoever. Islam is the type of religion that wishes to protect its followers and stop them from the path of harm, which leads to many problems and destroys the person. To protect women, Islam wanted them to cover up. Why cover up? To save up for your husband. Think of it like a virgin who wants to save herself until marriage. Girls want to be pure and special for their husbands.

I'm an Arab Muslim myself living in the most distorted Arab country of them all, Bahrain. To quote a friend of mine, "Islam is the best religion, but it has the worst followers." Thats not to say that every Muslim is bad, it's just that modernization has influenced us and our society greatly--which is why such countries take precautions: to protect its people.

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However, I don't agree with laws such as the one in Saudi Arabia which requires all women to cover up, regardless of whether or not they want to. If a woman decides to wear the hijab, then she should be entitled to do so (not like in France, where you can't wear one in school), but forcing women to do so builds resentment and dislike of the religion which is behind the law.

Hi, I'm new here, but I'd like to say something in favor of Saudi Arabia, even though I'm not exactly the biggest fan of it.

In issues such as this, it isn't good to judge something from your own perspective until you've studied it from another perspective yourself. Basically, try to view it from a Saudi Arabian point of view.

Saudi Arabia is the heart of Islam, where Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) was born and raised. Millions gather every year in this holy country to do the Haj, a vital pillar of Islam's five pillars. In many ways, the country is trying to preserve its sanctity and holiness. It may seem extreme, but if you look at other Arab countries, like Bahrain (where I currently live), UAE, Qatar where modernization is controlling the country, you'll see corruption, sex scandals, or family issues dominate the country and shape its society.

After looking at it from a modern Islamic state perspective, try to look at it from an Islamic persepective without any rules of government whatsoever. Islam is the type of religion that wishes to protect its followers and stop them from the path of harm, which leads to many problems and destroys the person. To protect women, Islam wanted them to cover up. Why cover up? To save up for your husband. Think of it like a virgin who wants to save herself until marriage. Girls want to be pure and special for their husbands.

I'm an Arab Muslim myself living in the most distorted Arab country of them all, Bahrain. To quote a friend of mine, "Islam is the best religion, but it has the worst followers." Thats not to say that every Muslim is bad, it's just that modernization has influenced us and our society greatly--which is why such countries take precautions: to protect its people.

Saudi Arabia still has sex scandals, corruption and family issues even though women wear the hijab. They just hide these things from the public. Which is fine if you want to keep up a facade of purity, but it doesn't do much for the actual underlying problems.

I live in Jerusalem, which is also one of the holiest cities in the world and obviously the government wants to maintain its character and status. But the Palestinian Authority doesn't tell women to cover up for the sake of maintaining an image of purity in the land; every country has problems and the only way to get rid of them is to accept them and deal with them. If, as you say, Saudi Arabia has this law in place (as well as the one about women not allowed to drive) in place to protect the purity of women, then the government needs to take a step back and see if that method is really working. Does forcing women to cover up make them more pure, or does it drive them to rebel against the society they live in and to disobey other laws? If you've read "Girls of Riyadh"/Banaat al-Riyadh, I'm sure you know what I mean.

I think that the hijab is a beautiful thing, but that forcing women to wear it rather than letting them choose diminishes its value and takes away from its purpose. Its purpose should be to allow women to cover themselves from strange men and prevent unwanted advances. Its purpose shouldn't be to make women conform to society's expectations and one view of what women should be like/look like. That makes it a tool of oppression and social control, which is what it isn't meant to be.

Edited by Vvi
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Saudi Arabia still has sex scandals, corruption and family issues even though women wear the hijab. They just hide these things from the public. Which is fine if you want to keep up a facade of purity, but it doesn't do much for the actual underlying problems.

I live in Jerusalem, which is also one of the holiest cities in the world and obviously the government wants to maintain its character and status. But the Palestinian Authority doesn't tell women to cover up for the sake of maintaining an image of purity in the land; every country has problems and the only way to get rid of them is to accept them and deal with them. If, as you say, Saudi Arabia has this law in place (as well as the one about women not allowed to drive) in place to protect the purity of women, then the government needs to take a step back and see if that method is really working. Does forcing women to cover up make them more pure, or does it drive them to rebel against the society they live in and to disobey other laws? If you've read "Girls of Riyadh"/Banaat al-Riyadh, I'm sure you know what I mean.

I think that the hijab is a beautiful thing, but that forcing women to wear it rather than letting them choose diminishes its value and takes away from its purpose. Its purpose should be to allow women to cover themselves from strange men and prevent unwanted advances. Its purpose shouldn't be to make women conform to society's expectations and one view of what women should be like/look like. That makes it a tool of oppression and social control, which is what it isn't meant to be.

I've read Girls of Riyadh (BTW if you've read Girls of Riyadh, then you should definitly read Princess or Daughters of Arabia). Honestly, I do hear about all the sex scandals and corruption. In fact, I hear about it every day in the paper here in Bahrain. But don't you think that they're tightening up these regulations because of all the sex scandals and corruption? So basically we're back to the "protection" aspect of Saudi Arabia's rules. I'm not judging the laws and customs there as right or wrong; I'm trying to understand it from an Islamic perspective.

Saudi Arabia is against modernization because it has seen the effects it has towards the world. Western influence has come to dominate much of the Arab countries. If you go to Bahrain, you'll see that Islam and its traditions, which are meant to protect both men and women, has changed greatly; we're not forced to wear the hijab, but most of the ones who do just don't undrestand the true essence of wearing the hijab and concealing themselves. Therefore many of the clerics, seeing those harmful effects, refuse to conform to those standards and try to preserve whats left of their culture. Yes, there are negative aspects in their society, but there are some good ones.

Sex scandals and corruption is what most of the media portrays Saudi Arabia as. But if you go there, it's a very beautiful country with a rich cultural heritage that many countries such as the UAE and Bahrain lost.

Edited by Masooma
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  • 5 months later...
...which explains why not ALL arabs treat their wives like that..its mostly in countries like KSA...and bahrain and stuff....where they totally mistake the things said in the quran about the man being reponsible for the woman as "we have to beat them up...we have to not allow them any freedom..etc...etc"

erm. i can assure you, there ARE decent, open minded Saudi Arabians out there. My step mom is from Bahrain, and i visit Bahrain often, and i must say, Bahrainis are the most liberal arabs in the Khalij. A lot of the women don't even wear the head scarf.

I am muslim and though i do not agree with EVERY SINGLE DETAIL in the Quran, i have read it, and there is absolutely no tolerence for murder or even harming another living creature. We even kill our food Islamically, in the most humane fashion possible.

I am half American and half Lebanese, i have lived in America and in the middle east, and i really think its sad that westerns think arabs are all out to kill everybody and the arabs think all westerns sleep around and walk around in bikinis all the time. People are just easily influenced by media.

yes..this is true...BUT ONLY...IN KSA....thats what im saying...some people take islam the wrong way...and a woman will not be treated like a scum..she will be treated just like ANY other woman ..but this is in the rest of that arab countries..

you know, Mr.shiver its just that the media always concentrates on the KSA...when its showing the absolute extreme and the faulse view on islam regultaions

I have a 15 year olf cousin who is female, she has lived in KSA all her life, and i visit her often. The law is that all women have to wear abaya (a long black cloak type thing), and that arab women have to wear head scarfs. I have been to the mall many times in Riyadh the capital, with no head scarf and my abaya wide open and i have never recieved trouble. Yes, sadly KSA is an extreme example, but NOT ALL SAUDI FAMILIES ARE LIKE THIS. Just like there are extremeist christians, there are also extremist muslims, but sadly only the extreme muslims are what the media like to display.

Honestly guys, my cousin loves living in Saudi, its not as strict as you'd think.

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Which Arabs and which Muslims? A middle-class Lebanese Australian Catholic has a very different background to an upper-class Saudi Wahhabi. I realize that, the Arabic-speaking and Muslim-majority worlds contain tremendous variation, just like the Western world or like any culture. Many varieties of Arabic are even mutually unintelligible, meaning that some so-called 'dialects' of Arabic are in fact their own languages! Furthermore, 'Arab' can refer to an ethnic group whose members may not live in the Arab world or speak Arabic. There are millions of Arabs who were born in the English, Spanish and Portuguese speaking worlds, there are 10 million Arabs in Brazil alone.

Regarding Muslims, I regard them like I do members of any religious group. I don't believe in Islam's defining principles, but I am deeply frustrated with those in the Western world who are afraid of some 'Muslim takeover' as well as with others who justify the West's negative influence on the Islamic world. On the other side of the coin, I am also frustrated with Islamists and Islamic extremists. Many of my relatives are Muslims (my father is a Lahore-born Punjabi), but I still believe that their religion is demonstrably false. Although I have countless religious friends, relatives and acquaintances, I do wish more people examined the religious texts they believe they follow and seriously consider the evidence against their belief system.

Essentially, Muslims and Arabs are just like anyone else. People of different cultural, ethnic and religious backgrounds have more in common than many of us (such as many Islamists, Islamic terrorists, White nationalists and those pro-Western military intervention) want to believe.

Edited by Saim
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This doesn't have all that much to do with the topic, what is an arab really? I have never figured that out. Is it like you're European if you're from Europe, or 'Arian' with certain genes, or is it the culture that is defining an arab, or am I just way off in all my guesses?

About what I believe about muslims I say that depends on where you find them. If they are in my neighbourhood they're really nice and friendly if they're under 10 (esp. the kids, they are very fond of saying hi and asking for your name for some reason, they're adorable :D ) but if they're older they sometimes get really, really hostile so I prefer not to be out to late. I prefer to think that hostility comes just because they are in a bad situation. I don't really have an opinion about arabs/arab muslims in other countries though, since I haven't met anyone and I have learned never to trust the media.

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I have nothing against arabs or muslims they have a just position in the world just like any other race and have had the privelege to inherit the rich culture that constitutes in some parts arabic countries. But I sometimes feel that arabs certainly in my home town in Sweden don't deserve to be there. Arabs most of the time come to Sweden as asylum seekers, coming from especially Iraq, Iran(techically persian, but close links with the arabic world), Somalia and Syria. They come to Sweden and simply live off benefits, it's a pretty blunt statement and surely cannot be applied to arabic people in general but why when the education is free and sweden facilitates integration and job prospects do they concentrate in one urban area and decided to not work and behave as delinquents.

This was produced by CNN and it definetely feels a bit like propaganda with a hint of racism. Sweden has a very different outlook to this in general, from what I experience. The whole situation is overly dramatised.

Edited by Bishup
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