Why so many rules about gender?

[Clover]

I am wondering, I always here about thinking of a woman is "haraam" or a woman showing skin, like the legs, is "haraam". What exactly is "haraam" and why is their so much of it? Why can't men and women be together, and it not be "haraam"?

['Abd-al Latif]

Haram means something that is prohobitied. 'Thinking' of women isn't prohibited but probably what people meant is to think of the oposite gender in a provocative manner is prohibited.

To elobrate, in arabic the word 'awrah' refers to the part of a human body that is considered as private. It isn't the same as the western sense of the private area which is considered and limited only to the genitalia. In Islam the man's Awrah is considered from the navel to the knee (i.e. including the knee) and the women, all of her is considered the Awrah. Hence, why she is required to observe the veil.

[Ummu Sufyaan]

because men and women are attracted to one another and that could be seriously disastrous outside of marriage, taking into consideration that adultery/fornication is prohibited.
in other words, you cant prohibit something, and yet allow the door way to it to be open. it wouldn't be fair, would it?

[MMohammed]

Haraam means things which are forbidden and unlawful in Shariah.
Exposing Skin is not Haraam.Undoubtedly, Attracting men for sexual relations is Haraam.When you start with legs, you keep on becoming worst and reach till the worst evil thing.It brings a sexual attraction to Men which is Haraam.And when women and men mix up together, they do something unlawful or illegal.

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[Clover]

It is not illegal/unlawful for men/women to have sex here. At least if their both over 18.

[MMohammed]

Its Illegal here :) .
No one can involve in intimate relations until they are married or else it is Haram and we call it Zina or Adultery.

[Clover]

Its Illegal here :) .
No one can involve in intimate relations until they are married or else it is Haram and we call it Zina or Adultery.

Too bad. Here it is legal for anyone over 18, and its ok, but if its man-woman that are married, the man/woman get divorces, unless they work over it.

[MMohammed]

Too bad. Here it is legal for anyone over 18, and its ok, but if its man-woman that are married, the man/woman get divorces, unless they work over it.

Too Good :) .Dont you think adultery is a crime?

[Clover]

Too Good :) .Dont you think adultery is a crime?

Not really. It is not honorable, but people can do what they want, it's their choice. I am not going to tell my future wife "don't do it" she should know not too, and the man that does it should know his fate if he proceeds to do it.

[MMohammed]

Well thats what we have :), Haya.We have freedom to do the right things.Too much Freedom leads to Evil doings.

[Clover]

Well thats what we have :), Haya.We have freedom to do the right things.Too much Freedom leads to Evil doings.

I'd prefer freedom and some evil things, then dictatorship and no evil things.

[zakirs]

Islam never supports dictator ship brother. But islam warns you about the repercussions.Then why should under 18 sex should be considered illegal if it is being done with consent.why this magic number 18, doesn't that hinder freedom ?

[GreyKode]

I'd prefer freedom and some evil things, then dictatorship and no evil things.

Haram is one thing and being lawful is another, i assume that in taoism there are things forbidden to do, nobody can stop if you want to do those thing right?, but isn't there a consequence for doing those forbidden things, like say your ancestors will abandon you or maybe bring you bad luck.

Same in Islam, it is considered a major sin, but when people fornicate in secret they are out of the reach of the law.
Anyway, I am not of the opinion to make those things legal and make it for the people to decide between themselves and ALLAH(swt), because such actions affect the community as a whole, why do you think people get divorced so much in america , or teens who get pregnant in high schools, and children without parents who end up in orphanages.
One more thing, how would you feel to know that your potential spouse has been around with men(lots of them), slept with them and did all sort of things, doesn't it seem incredibly unclean and filthy.
What does taoism say about this?

[Clover]

Haram is one thing and being lawful is another, i assume that in taoism there are things forbidden to do, nobody can stop if you want to do those thing right?, but isn't there a consequence for doing those forbidden things, like say your ancestors will abandon you or maybe bring you bad luck.

Same in Islam, it is considered a major sin, but when people fornicate in secret they are out of the reach of the law.
Anyway, I am not of the opinion to make those things legal and make it for the people to decide between themselves and ALLAH(swt), because such actions affect the community as a whole, why do you think people get divorced so much in america , or teens who get pregnant in high schools, and children without parents who end up in orphanages.
One more thing, how would you feel to know that your potential spouse has been around with men(lots of them), slept with them and did all sort of things, doesn't it seem incredibly unclean and filthy.
What does taoism say about this?

I have never read in the TTC of anything that is "wrong" to do, it simply tells you, their is Action, and Re-action. Their is Cause and Effect. Yin and Yang, this is what it tells me, and others I'd assume. If I kill a million people, I can expect to be hated, and probably assassinated. That is just Cause and Effect, without a teacher teaching it to you.

[zakirs]

well brother, islam does tell about cause and effect but it mainly warns about the effects in the world after death.From far away to people islam might look restrictive ( too many rules and prohibitions) but once you know why each rule was made you would know its brilliance.I can say this because of my personal experience

[Clover]

well brother, islam does tell about cause and effect but it mainly warns about the effects in the world after death.From far away to people islam might look restrictive ( too many rules and prohibitions) but once you know why each rule was made you would know its brilliance.I can say this because of my personal experience

I never said it didn't. I can tell you from my experience that Taoism tells of Cause & Effect, that's all I am saying.

[Ramadhan]

I have never read in the TTC of anything that is "wrong" to do, it simply tells you, their is Action, and Re-action. Their is Cause and Effect. Yin and Yang, this is what it tells me, and others I'd assume. If I kill a million people, I can expect to be hated, and probably assassinated. That is just Cause and Effect, without a teacher teaching it to you.

So Tao believes cause and effects only in this world?

Do you think it is fair that someone like Joseph Stalin who ordered the killings of millions of people was only hated? He was never harmed in any way when he was alive.

[Clover]

So Tao believes cause and effects only in this world?

Do you think it is fair that someone like Joseph Stalin who ordered the killings of millions of people was only hated? He was never harmed in any way when he was alive.

lol Tao isn't any single entity, I am Tao, your Tao, the dirt is Tao, the air is Tao, and nothing is Tao.

I do not decide what is fair and what isn't. None of us can, it's above us, I can only tell you my opinion and facts about what happened to him. He suffered from Paranoia, that is one reason he lived for so long.

[Ramisa]

:sl: Clover.

Well you have asked many questions..hope I can clarify to my best extent inshallah.

Haaram means forbidden...(forbidden in the Quran). There are many 'restrictions' because it is for the best of Human. Without these rules Muslims would not be pure as they can get. A strange Muslim man and strange Muslim woman cannot be together because: 'Between a man and a woman,the third person is the Shaitaan(devil)' if we were allowed to mingle with other Muslim women that would create fitnah(brought by impure intentions and the devil). The Muslim women is required to cover herself because men tend to think impure thoughts(by their own will and the Shaitaans) when skin is shown,also stated:The prophet Muhammad(peace and blessings be upon him) said 'A man is allowed the first (unintentional) glance but not the second'. Therefore a muslim man is forbidden(is haaram) to view a women with impure thoughts. Inshallah' that clears most of it up,any questions regarding to this may be brought up.Allah knows the best.

:w:

[Salahudeen]

I'd prefer freedom and some evil things, then dictatorship and no evil things.

hmm what do you mean by freedom?? the freedom to do anything you please?

your restricted by certain laws just as we are. The only difference is your laws are made by mortal men and we believe our laws are divinely revealed from our creator.

the laws we have to follow are different from the laws you have to follow, so really none of us have freedom I guess,

[Al Ansari]

because men and women are attracted to one another and that could be seriously disastrous outside of marriage, taking into consideration that adultery/fornication is prohibited.
in other words, you cant prohibit something, and yet allow the door way to it to be open. it wouldn't be fair, would it?

Well said here!

[vlamrko]

i agree naturally with the Islamic approach to zina and adultry but on a less related note, i have always sought to have more clarity brought to the issue of rape?
while i am Muslim i do not live in an Islamic country and have only ever been for hajj or to visit/educate, and therefore have little personal experience and understanding of the laws applied to this subject. please clarify if you are able, what the procedure is if a married woman is raped, and an unmarried woman?

[MSalman]

I am wondering, I always here about thinking of a woman is "haraam" or a woman showing skin, like the legs, is "haraam". What exactly is "haraam" and why is their so much of it? Why can't men and women be together, and it not be "haraam"?

actually, you should be answering us why should women be allowed to show their skins without being accountable for it? Why men and women should be allowed to mix together without being accountable for it? The society from whom you take your perception and consider it moral was rebuked by your own ancestors in the past. So you should be explaining us why do we need to bring these changes and not other way around.

I'd prefer freedom and some evil things, then dictatorship and no evil things.

define freedom and dictatorship for us please? Do you have any practical and absolute meanings and implications for these two terms? Or do you just throw them around to get people's attention and appeal to emotions like rest of the liberalists? No sane person would say that they prefer evil things in the society: this really shows how bad and corrupt your intellect has become.

[mundo]

Islam has rules on how boy and girl should interact. Its importance can be seen from the effects of what happens when there are no rules.

In some western countries, if a boy gets a girl pregnent the boy can just walk away and have nothing to do with the child. Nor the government, nor police nor the girls parents can do anything about it. Hell the boy does not even have to register his name as the father on the birth certificate.

People loose thier lineage, loose their identity, loose their self respect. Lineage is what gives a person self respect, close families. If you lose that then people only care about monetry value rather than individual.

That is why prostitution was originally legalised in the States as was porn because all relationships now revolve around money. Money is more important to them.

People have no self respect, parents kick their kids out of their homes, if the kids are wealthy, have a good job, they leave themselves. If they do live together the parents are put in old folks home when they are old.

Thats how society deteriorates if there are no rules between men and woman. Islam gives rules. No sex before marriage. Once married then marriage brings its responsibilities then.

I can go on forever, but you get what i'm sayin. You need to have rules otherwise there will be trouble..

[13th Yarba]

thank you for posting some of the reasons for the gender guidelines in islam - islamiclife gave some particluarly insightful reasons.

the way that muslim women must remain covered is i think the hardest concept for us to come to terms with in the west because we grew up surrounded by women who sometimes wear very little. i do wonder sometimes why it is that men dont have to be covered head to foot also to prevent from tempting the women with impure thoughts? i know they must be pretty tempted when they see me walking down the street!:shade:

i think the reason we in the west struggle with some of the concepts in islam is because we are used to having religion and the government as seperate entities, the longest word in our dictionary - disestablishmentarianism - the seperation of the church from the state means that the state makes the laws that we abide by and the church provides spiritual guidance and there is a lot of overlap because if you lead a spiritualy correct life you should be living your life within the law, whereas with your way of life islam is the state and the government, the laws and the religion, kind of everything rolled into one - atleast thats the way it appears from the outside.

despite not agreeing with some of the ways that women are treated differently to men in islam i respect the reasoning behind the rules because they are made with the best intentions at heart, as mundo said 'without rules society will deteriorate' but i also feel the same way about the americans and the freedom they protect so vigorously.

i always worry when a discussion threatens to veer off down the 'our way is better than your way, no our way is better than yours' route, but i feel some of the impressions of the american way of life are not quite accurate and i should try to defend them so please dont view my thoughts as attacking islamic life but just as trying to get the facts our there in the islamic domain about the true nature of american life - indeed i posted a comment moments ago on a similar topic posted by clover regarding the generalisations about america so this kind of follows on from that.

in all countrys i am sure irresponsible fathers abandon their families- it is true that it in the west it is the mothers choice whether to involve the father on the birth certificate - but if he is registered as the father he is legally obliged to provide support and the governement and the law will ensure that he provides maintenance.

losing lineage should only lead to a loss of respect in a society governed by nepotism - in america they take great care to ensure everyone is equal which is an ideal that i personaly find very inspiring, afterall if i was to have been orphaned as a child, or to have come from an underpriveliged background i would still have expected the same chances in life as the next person.

i think each state makes their own laws to suit the population in that area in a true example of active democracy - if a state chooses to legalise prostitution it is because the populace voted for it - if in the future they vote to ban it, it will be done. in this case they have acted to protect the women involved in prostitution who are at far greater risk in an unregulated situation. prostitution is known as 'the oldest profession' is impossible to stamp out completely and exists in every place on earth but i think to legalise to protect the women, although a tough moral decison to make, is very worthwhile and takes a calm head - church leaders would have dissaproved but the law courts made the decison based on the votes. in england prostitution is illegal and this puts the women involved in a lot of danger because they have to operate outside the law - in america they are protected by the law so although we might not agree with it they have atleast taken steps to try and protect their citizens.

i would also have to argue that relationships in america don't revolve around money, in fact they are about the love that exists between two people and religion, race, sexual orientation or your families standing is not allowed to get in the way of that - which i think is pretty cool, i think when you think of money ruling their society it is only in the sense that they have no royal family, no class-system or caste system - nobody is born into a higher positon than another so sometimes it might seem that the only way to 'grade' individuals in american society is in terms of how much money they have. i mean sure sometimes people marry for money, the so-called 'gold-diggers' but surely when arranging marriages in islam wealthy families try to avoid wedding their daughters to peasants? i might be wrong and please correct me if i am but isnt that no different to marrying for money? it is only natural to seek the best posible security for ones offspring - for a female swallow will oftentimes choose the mate with the biggest nest.

i think that we all hold ideas about each others way of life that are probably innacurate, stereotypes have a way of taking hold and blurring our perceptions, but when i sometimes wonder about other people around the world and if they are different to me i just look in the mirror and see the same thing that everyone else does staring straight back at me.

[13th Yarba]

thank you for posting some of the reasons for the gender guidelines in islam - islamiclife gave some particluarly insightful reasons.

the way that muslim women must remain covered is i think the hardest concept for us to come to terms with in the west because we grew up surrounded by women. i do wonder sometimes why it is that men dont have to be covered head to foot also to prevent from tempting the women with impure thoughts?

i think the reason we in the west struggle with some of the concepts in islam is because we are used to having religion and the government as seperate entities, the longest word in our dictionary - disestablishmentarianism - the seperation of the church from the state means that the state makes the laws that we abide by and the church provides spiritual guidance and there is a lot of overlap because if you lead a spiritualy correct life you should be living your life within the law, whereas with your way of life islam is the state and the government, the laws and the religion, kind of everything rolled into one - atleast thats the way it appears from the outside.

despite not agreeing with some of the ways that women are treated differently to men in islam i respect the reasoning behind the rules because they are made with the best intentions at heart, as mundo said 'without rules society will deteriorate' but i also feel the same way about the americans and the freedom they protect so vigorously.

i always worry when a discussion threatens to veer off down the 'our way is better than your way, no our way is better than yours' route, but i feel some of the impressions of the american way of life are not quite accurate and i should try to defend them so please dont view my thoughts as attacking islamic life but just as trying to get the facts our there in the islamic domain about the true nature of american life - indeed i posted a comment moments ago on a similar topic posted by clover regarding the generalisations about america so this kind of follows on from that.

in all countrys i am sure irresponsible fathers abandon their families- it is true that it in the west it is the mothers choice whether to involve the father on the birth certificate - but if he is registered as the father he is legally obliged to provide support and the governement and the law will ensure that he provides maintenance.

losing lineage should only lead to a loss of respect in a society governed by nepotism - in america they take great care to ensure everyone is equal which is an ideal that i personaly find very inspiring, afterall if i was to have been orphaned as a child, or to have come from an underpriveliged background i would still have expected the same chances in life as the next person.

i think each state makes their own laws to suit the population in that area in a true example of active democracy - if a state chooses to legalise prostitution it is because the populace voted for it - if in the future they vote to ban it, it will be done. in this case they have acted to protect the women involved in prostitution who are at far greater risk in an unregulated situation. prostitution is known as 'the oldest profession' and is impossible to stamp out completely, exists in every place on earth but i think to legalise to protect the women, although a tough moral decison to make, is very worthwhile and takes a calm head - church leaders would have dissaproved but the law courts made the decison based on the votes. in england prostitution is illegal and this puts the women involved in a lot of danger because they have to operate outside the law - in america they are protected by the law so although we might not agree with it they have atleast taken steps to try and protect their citizens.

i would also have to argue that relationships in america don't revolve around money, in fact they are about the love that exists between two people and religion, race, sexual orientation or your families standing is not allowed to get in the way of that - which i think is pretty cool, when you think of money ruling their society it is only in the sense that they have no royal family, no class-system or caste system - nobody is born into a higher positon than another so sometimes it might seem that the only way to 'grade' individuals in american society is in terms of how much money they have. i mean sure sometimes people marry for money, the so-called 'gold-diggers' but surely when arranging marriages in islam wealthy families try to avoid wedding their daughters to peasants? i might be wrong and please correct me if i am but isnt that no different to marrying for money? it is only natural to seek the best posible security for ones offspring - for a female swallow will oftentimes choose the mate with the biggest nest.

i think that we all hold ideas about each others way of life that are probably innacurate, stereotypes have a way of taking hold and blurring our perceptions, and our respective media organisations seem to be promoting biased views in the current climate but when i sometimes wonder about other people around the world and if they are different to me i just look in the mirror and see the same thing that everyone else does staring straight back at me.

[MMohammed]

I would also like to add Islam does not forbid adultery just because it is evil.If you look at it in unreligious way, it is dishonesty.Aint it? Would you like your wife to live with other men?
No intelligent or righteous person would like it.

Think about it in different way and not only in religious way

[iamdaguy]

Put 2 persons of different gender in a room and apply no rules or very little if any and see what happens.