Women as Prophets?

[CosmicPathos]

Tell that to Elizabeth I, Queen Victoria, Margaret Thatcher, Catherine the Great, Isabella I of Castille, Joan of Arc, Boudicca ....

Prophets may well be a seperate issue, but as far as leaders in other contexts... what a load of sexist cr*p. Sorry.

what is so special about them? Were they as dominating and mighty as lets say Alexander the Great? Or for that matter Hitler? Or Genghis Khan? Or Napoleon?

What is sexist? How come Gautam Buddha had to be a male?

 

[Ramadhan]

What is sexist? How come Gautam Buddha had to be a male?

As a buddhist, Trumble would have to agree that women cannot be prophets.
It's what Buddha said himself.

 

[Trumble]

what is so special about them?

I hope that's a joke question. Well, just in case it isn't, they all managed to get rather fewer people killed for a start. In one respect they were special precisely because they did extremely well what women were not supposedly able to do in an environment (except, perhaps for Thatcher) that made that extremely difficult to do. They not only had to be as good as the men, but better.

Were they as dominating and mighty as lets say Alexander the Great? Or for that matter Hitler? Or Genghis Khan? Or Napoleon?

Or Stalin. Or Mao. Or George W. Bush. If that lot are 'dominating and mighty', I think we could do without them, don't you? Again, though, all those figures (the joke inclusion of Bush excepted) were dominant not because of of any particular 'male' mental or physical characteristics but because it was more-or-less impossible in those cultures for women to achieve the positions those men did in order to start their careers of domination and mightiness.

What is sexist? How come Gautam Buddha had to be a male?

As a buddhist, Trumble would have to agree that women cannot be prophets.
It's what Buddha said himself.

There are no 'prophets' in Buddhism. Regardless, I don't see the relevance. I stated specifically in my reply to 'Abd-al Latif that prophets were a seperate issue and that I was referring to his claims regarding the suitability, or lack of it, of women to be political leaders. The Buddha was a purely religious figure, not a political one.

 

[Maryan0]

There have been successful female leaders. It's one thing to argue that in Islam women and men have different but complimentary roles it's another thing to state that women cannot lead because they are lacking in some higher mental faculty absent in their gender. Women have been dependent on men not because of something they are lacking in their minds but because of their biology, menstruating, child birth, their weaker physical bodies etc.
which is why I agreed with sweet106 on generalizations based on characteristics.
Salam

 

[GuestFellow]

That was my point though, women do have some leadership skills regardless.

I think everyone does. Some are better than others.

Actually it was in response to the brother saying that only men had characteristic like decision making etc. My example showed that wasn’t true at all and it also showed I managed to handle both genders not just women too. So it was also in response to the brother saying women can only adequately lead other women.

Okay.

Don’t know Islamic perspective about women being involved in military and defence. Since they can’t be leading a nation, they can’t obviously lead military because it is part of the responsibility of leading a nation. I guess people can give that reason why prophets were not women because they were physically weaker to fight in war.
I am not arguing with what Islam says. I just disagree with the idea that women do not have the skills to lead when some clearly do.

Glad we can reach an agreement. =)

Goodnight

Good morning.

 

[Woodrow]

I think we are looking at things with the wrong perspective. We are taking the fact there were no female prophets and changing it to women do not have leadership abilities.

It is true no woman can be a prophet, but it is also true no man can every be a prophet again as the last Prophet(PBUH) has already been.

We do not know why woman have never been chosen, we can only guess, speculate and analyze. But the only thing we know for certain is Allaah(swt) never selected a woman to be so. We need not know or understand his reason. A pointless thing to think about.

Now does the fact no women have been Prophets(PBUT) actually mean women do not have the ability to be leaders?

 

[Rhubarb Tart]

I think your example of leading 50 men and women is not a representative of the possibility of you ruling 50 million people. Quite an irrational comparison.

Again why do I have to REPEAT myself? That was in response to the characteristic is listed as only men have!

 

[YieldedOne]

Please delete this post of mine.

 

[Rhubarb Tart]

Can you lot actually see how dangerous the assumption about women not having leadership abilities at ALL? I can see that assumption go further in actually excluding women from lot of Jobs they are entitled to do! In fact it actually does happen in some societies. Hence: why I am deadest against those assumptions! The assumption that they lack decision making, thinking with their heart instead of head etc means they can’t be run a hospital, be headmaster, professor, lead scientist, health minister or lead any other government department, surgeon, doctor, dentist, lawyers the list is endless. Don’t you think all these professions need some or all of those characteristic listed as only men have?

Sorry but I will try to stop those kind of assumptions or generalisation that lead to discrimination on large scale on its’ track. Muslim community, societies will never prosper if they continue to treat women like children or prevent them from doing jobs they are entitled to do based on baseless and patronising assumption.
So all I ask is to stop with generalisation that goes for both females and males in this forum. That also goes for me sometimes because I admit I tend to generalise about males too.

 

['Abd-al Latif]

Tell that to Elizabeth I, Queen Victoria, Margaret Thatcher, Catherine the Great, Isabella I of Castille, Joan of Arc, Boudicca ....

Prophets may well be a seperate issue, but as far as leaders in other contexts... what a load of sexist cr*p. Sorry.

I was waiting for someone to mention these names. As for all these women you've mentioned, I'll have to dig up a BBC documentary that will clarify this better then I can. Give me a little while, it was some time ago I saw this and I'll have to google it.

 

[Futuwwa]

Sister Insaanah,

First, my thanks for you taking your time to make such a long post.

Is it a commonly accepted idea within Quranic hermeneutics that secondary meanings like that can be deduced from ayats? Your argument would rely on that presumption.

 

[Insaanah]

Is it a commonly accepted idea within Quranic hermeneutics that secondary meanings like that can be deduced from ayats? Your argument would rely on that presumption.

I am not an expert on Qur'anic hermeneutics. However, as you saw, I ended my post with a quote from the Tafseer of Ibn Kathir, one of the great mufassirs and experts on such matters, which I will re-quote here in case you missed it.

All of the Prophets are Humans and Men

Allah states that He only sent Prophets and Messengers from among men and not from among women, as this Ayah clearly states. Allah did not reveal religious and legislative laws to any woman from among the daughters of Adam. This is the belief of Ahlus-Sunnah wal-Jama`ah. Shaykh Abu Al-Hasan, `Ali bin Isma`il Al-Ash`ari mentioned that it is the view of Ahlus-Sunnah wal-Jama`ah, that there were no female Prophets, but there were truthful believers from among women. Allah mentions the most honorable of the truthful female believers, Maryam, the daughter of `Imran, when He said,

مَّا الْمَسِيحُ ابْنُ مَرْيَمَ إِلاَّ رَسُولٌ قَدْ خَلَتْ مِن قَبْلِهِ الرُّسُلُ وَأُمُّهُ صِدِّيقَةٌ كَانَا يَأْكُلاَنِ الطَّعَامَ

(The Messiah﴿ 'Isa ﴾son of Maryam (Mary)), was no more than a Messenger; many were the Messengers that passed away before him. His mother was a Siddiqah (truthful believer). They both used to eat food. (5:75) Therefore, the best description Allah gave her is Siddiqah. Had she been a Prophet, Allah would have mentioned this fact when He was praising her qualities and honor. Therefore, Mary was a truthful believer according to the words of the Qur'an.

Source (Emphasis mine)

Interestingly, Ibn Kathir does not class it is a secondary meaning, rather he says that the ayah clearly states it. Which it does. No presumptions need to be relied upon here.

 

[جوري]

Well just think about what the prophets go through, all the hardships and stress, people laughing at them and calling them mad, people finding it hard to believe that God chose a man from amongst themselves to be a prophet, people trying to kill them, kids throwing stones at them and chasing them out of the city.

that is along my line of reasoning.. a prophet is also a political and war, treaty, figure it would really be unfair to place that kind of a burden on a woman especially so back in those days, when women outside of Islam were no more than property to their fathers and husbands.. Imagine a woman giving da3wah to people in the far east, Europe or amongst the Arabs, probably wouldn't survive two days people back then were ruthless.. not that they're any less ruthless now a days but the means have changed..