Frequently asked questions

Hobbes

This thread is for Moderators to list Frequently Asked Questions, so that new users can review to see if their question is already answered.

If you wish to add/nominate anything, please use the following thread

Links, Resources, Glossary and FAQs

***

Hobbes

Understanding Islam from the Front Door.

hivizman

Why do women have to wear burkas?

1: Note that "burka/burqa" can refer to the all-enveloping "Afghan burqa", whose wearer's visibility is restricted by an embroidered grille, or the "Saudi burqa", usually called the "niqab/niqaab", which is a face veil leaving only the eyes visible. There is also the "Omani burqa", which is a mask, usually made of leather, and often beaded and/or embroidered, that covers the upper part of the face. The eye openings are frequently quite large.

2: The general view is that women are required to cover their hair and bodies (except for hands and face), but some Muslims interpret certain hadiths to imply that the whole face should be covered, except for the eyes (in some versions, only one eye should be left uncovered, to allow the woman to see where she is going).

Hobbes

Prophet Muhammad's marriage to Aisha

Aisha is a common post that comes up a lot and often has quite charged language.

Hivizman summarizes it best.

hivizman wrote: »

The Wikipedia article on Aisha provides a fairly even-handed discussion of the issue of how old Aisha was when her marriage to Muhammad was consummated. There is certainly some disagreement among the sources as to whether Aisha was 9 or 10, or rather older. Even the main source, the hadiths reported by Imam Bukhari, is not altogether clear regarding the chronology. Moreover, people did not celebrate birthdays in Arab culture at that time, and it is possible that, when Aisha narrated (Bukhari, Vol. 5, Book 58, No. 234) that she was six years old when she was betrothed and nine years old when she married Muhammad, she was guessing how old she was (or using conventional ages) and simply meant that she was a young girl (but able to talk and remember things) at the time of betrothal and that she had started to menstruate at the time of marriage.

The Wikipedia site discusses arguments that subsequent hadith reporters could have had an interest in emphasising the youth (and by implication the virginity) of Aisha as a contrast to Muhammad's other wives, who all appear to have been widows.

However, as has already been noted in earlier posts, even if we accept the ages for Aisha given in the main hadith evidence as being literally true, marriage at this age was by no means unusual not just in 7th century Arab culture but in many other world cultures until the last 100 years or so.

hivizman

Age of Aisha when marriage consummated.

This is another thread where the topic came up. I provided an analysis of the main source for the discussion of this issue in the Wikipedia article on Aisha in post number 6 and an extensive summary of a discussion by a feminist Muslim scholar, Dr Kecia Ali, in post number 11.

hivizman

Translations of the Qur'an.

In this thread, I discuss some of the easily obtainable modern English-language translations of the Qur'an (sometimes referred to as the Koran).

In addition to these translations, the classic Abdullah Yusuf Ali version is presented with English translation on one side and Arabic text on the other. Although this version is easily obtainable, (a) the type face is very small, and (b) the translation and notes have been heavily revised over the years and tend to reflect rather conservative interpretations.

Of the more recent translations, it is possible to purchase the version by M. A. Abdel Haleem for Oxford University Press in an edition including the Arabic text. There are other translations that provide both English and Arabic text, many of them available on-line - see the Forum Charter thread for links.