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Polygyny In Islam, Rachel Jones
Polygyny In Islam, Rachel Jones
Macalester Islam Journal
Polygyny is an institution that has been misinterpreted, misunderstood, and misused. These faults have been with both Islamic communities and with their Western critics. However, the actual practice of polygyny itself does not seem to be as much of an issue as does the way in which it is applied. In Western literature, polygyny is often depicted as a cruel and repressive custom that sacrifices women’s freedom for men’s pleasure. Ideas of harems and tyrannical husbands are evoked. Yet, the reality of polygynous households is a far cry from these fantasies. As anthropologist Lila Abu-Lughod explains, “polygyny is an institution …
Shari‘A And Fiqh: Embodiments Of The Theoretical And The Practical, Margaret Pettygrove
Shari‘A And Fiqh: Embodiments Of The Theoretical And The Practical, Margaret Pettygrove
Macalester Islam Journal
The relationship between law and morality is such that it is not easy to separate the two concepts. Generally in Islam, law and morality are one and the same, and speaking of them as distinct ideas is not really possible. It is largely a problem of language, in that English distinguishes between law and morality, whereas Arabic does not clearly do so. It is, nevertheless, possible to parse the Shari‘a into aspects that resemble morality and those that resemble law, as Bernard Weiss does in The Search for God’s Law. The Shari‘a is the “totality of ‘divine categorizations of human …
Reason In Islamic Law, Emma Gallegos
Reason In Islamic Law, Emma Gallegos
Macalester Islam Journal
Different words and concepts in cultures do not necessarily always translate perfectly or adequately to others. This truism provides a perfect starting point to attempt an understanding of classical Islamic law. In trying to understand the different concepts of reason, belief and knowledge in that realm, we have come to understand something that would vex many Americans given their own definitions of these concepts: that the law of Islam held to be divine by its practitioners puts an incredible amount of stress on its rational basis. In trying to understand a seeming paradox, we have discovered how closely interwoven rationality …