faraclit

QUOTE=The_FD]Well this discussion has started i another thread, though we'll be continuing it here
The topic is Islam and women,
According to the point that in this religion everybody is equal, i asked why women had to wear such restraining things[/quote]


First I want to thank you for your lenience and good comments.But I think you should consider a few points..

The definition of equality is needed, in order to answer your question.If you adopt an equality concept which assumes absolute equality of things, you should count this situation as an inequality .But if you take equality as the equal treatment to things, depending on their talents and natures of things like the societal equality between a bus driver and a tailor who do different responsibilities and have different life styles .In this point of view, Muslim scholar Bediüzzaman Said Nursi who has written a set of commentary of Quran verses which has shown the logicality of God's existence, resurrection, and other pillar of belief, has also written a treatise about the topic. I am putting it here, hoping you will be interested in.

The Twenty-Fourth Flash

On Islamic Dress for Women

[While being the Second and Third Matters of the Fifteenth Note, this treatise was made the Twenty-Fourth Flash because of its importance.]

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

O Prophet! Tell your wives and daughters, and the believing women, that they should cast their outer garments over their persons [when abroad] [to the end of the verse].

This verse enjoins the veiling of women. However, dissolute civilization opposes this command of the Qur’an; it does not consider the veiling of women to be natural and says it is slavery of a sort.

T h e A n s w e r : We shall explain only four of the many instances of wisdom in this injunction of the Qur’an, showing that it is entirely natural and those who oppose it are opposing the innate disposition of women.

FIRST INSTANCE OF WISDOM

To veil themselves is natural for women and their innate dispositions demand it. For women are weak and delicate, and since they are in need of a man’s protection and help for themselves and for their children whom they love more than their own lives, they have a natural desire to make themselves loved and not loathed, and not to be rebuffed.

Also, seven out of ten women are either old or ugly, and they do not want to show their age and ugliness to everyone. Or they are jealous, and they do not want to appear ugly in relation to others who are more beautiful. Or they are frightened of assault or aspersions, and want by nature to cover themselves so as not to suffer assault, nor to be accused of unfaithfulness in the eyes of their husbands. If noted carefully, those who hide themselves most are the elderly. And out of ten women, only two or three may be found who are both young and beautiful and are not discomforted at displaying themselves.

It is clear that people are discomforted by the looks of those they do not like or find tedious; they are upset by them. If a beautiful immodestly dressed woman takes pleasure at two or three out of ten men who are canonically strangers looking at her, she is bored by the seven or eight. Also, since a woman whose morals are not corrupted is sensitive and easily affected, she will certainly be distressed at dirty looks whose effects have been physically experienced, indeed, are poisonous. We even hear that in Europe, the place of open dress, many women are fed up at being the object of attention, and complain to the police, saying: “These brutes keep staring at us and disturbing us.” This means that present-day civilization’s unveiling women is contrary to their natures. And together with being in accordance with their natures, the Qur’an’s command to veil themselves, saves women—those mines of compassion who may be worthy companions for all eternity—from degeneration, abasement, what is in effect slavery, and wretchedness.

Furthermore, by nature women are fearful of men who are strangers, and anxious at them. Fear naturally demands the veiling of women. For in addition to suffering the difficulty of bearing the load of a child for eight or nine months, which certainly embitters the eight or nine minutes’ pleasure, there is also the possibility of suffering the calamity of bringing up a child for eight or nine years without protector. And since this happens frequently, by creation they truly fear strange men and by nature want to hide themselves from them. Being weak, their creation demands that through veiling themselves they do not excite the appetites of men outside the stipulated degrees of kinship, nor allow any opportunity for assault; their weak creation gives powerful warning. It shows that their cloaks and coats are shields and fortresses. The fact that, according to news received, the bare-legged wife of a high-ranking man in the world was accosted in the country’s capital, in the market-place in daylight in front of everyone by a common shoe-shiner, deals a slap in the shameless faces of those opposed to the veiling of women!

SECOND INSTANCE OF WISDOM

The authentic and extremely intense relationship, love, and affection between men and women does not arise only from the needs of worldly life. Yes, a woman is not only a companion to her husband in this worldly life, she is his companion also in eternal life. Since she is her husband’s companion in eternal life, she surely should not attract the looks of others besides her husband, her everlasting friend and companion, and should not offend him and make him jealous. As a consequence of the mystery of belief, her believing husband’s relations with her are not confined to this worldly life and his love is not only animal and temporary, during the time of her beauty; he holds true, earnest love and respect for her in regard to her being his companion in eternal life. And he bears that love and respect for her, not only during her youth when she is beautiful, but also when she is old and ugly. Certainly in return for this, she should show her beauties to him alone and restrict her love to him; this is demanded by humanity. Otherwise she would gain very little and lose much.

According to the Shari’a, the husband should be a good match for the wife. That is, they should be suitable to one another. The most important aspect of this being suitable is from the point of view of religion.

Happy the husband who sees the wife’s firm religion and follows her, and himself becomes pious in order not to lose his companion of eternal life.

Happy the wife who sees her husband’s firmness in religion and becomes pious so as not to lose her eternal friend.

Alas for the man who becomes dissolute, which will lose him for ever that righteous woman.

Alas for the woman who does not follow her pious husband and loses her eternal blessed friend.

And a thousand woes on the unhappy husband and wife who imitate each other in sin and vice, helping one another to enter Hell-fire!

THIRD INSTANCE OF WISDOM

Happy family life is perpetuated through mutual confidence between husband and wife, and heartfelt respect and love. Immodest dress and free-and-easy behaviour destroy the confidence, and spoil the mutual respect and love. For out of ten women who favour immodest dress only one will not try to make herself liked by strangers because she does not find other men more attractive than her husband. Nine out of ten will find others better than their husbands. And only one out of twenty men will not find other women more attractive. Then besides the true love and mutual respect disappearing, it may arouse extremely ugly and base feelings, as follows:

By nature, men do not feel any lust towards those within the stipulated degrees of kinship like their sisters, because, since such relatives’ faces induce kindness and licit love due to their close kinship, it nullifies any sexual or lusty inclinations. But to leave uncovered parts of the body which according to the Shari’a it is not permissible to expose to close relatives like the legs, may give rise to the awakening of extremely ugly feelings in men of low character. Because the face of a close relative reminds the man of that close kinship and does not resemble the face of someone outside the degrees of kinship, but a bare leg is the same as that of canonical strangers. Since the leg does bear any distinguishing mark to recall the close kinship of its owner, it is possibile it will arouse carnal feelings in the man. And to look on things such as that is a degenerateness that makes one’s hair stand on end.

FOURTH INSTANCE OF WISDOM

It is clear that everyone wants lots of children. There is no nation or government that does not support increase in population. In fact, the Most Noble Prophet (Peace and blessings be upon him) said: “Marry and increase, for at the Last Day I shall take pride in your large numbers.”3 However, the abandoning of Islamic dress for women does not increase marriage, it decreases it greatly. Because even the most lay-about and modern youth wants his wife to be chaste. He does not want her to be modern, that is, careless in questions of dress and morals like himself, and so remains single, and even frequents prostitutes.

Women are not like that, they cannot restrict their husbands’ behaviour to that extent. The most basic characteristic of women is loyalty and confidence—since being the director of all the matters to do with the home, the woman is charged with protecting and preserving all her husband’s property and possessions, and his children. Carelessness in dress and morality destroys that loyalty, her husband too loses confidence in her and makes her suffer pangs of conscience. In fact, if the two qualities of courage and generosity, which are desirable in men, are found in women, it damages this loyalty and confidence, and so are undesirable for women and are considered to be bad qualities. But since the husband’s duty is not loyalty and stewardship, but protection, kindness, and respect, he cannot be restricted and refined, and may marry other women as well.

Our country cannot be compared with Europe, because there honour may be preserved to a degree by violent means such as the duel, despite immodest dress. A person who makes eyes at the wife of a self-respecting man takes his life in his hands, and then looks. Also the people of Europe are cold and frigid, like the climate. Asia, that is, the lands of Islam, are relatively torrid countries. It is well-known that the environment has an effect on people’s morality. Perhaps in those cold countries immodest dress does not stimulate the animal appetites and carnal desires of those cold people, and be a means of abuse. But immodest dress which continually excites the carnal lusts of the easily influenced and sensitive people of hot countries is certainly the cause of much abuse and waste and the weakening of the young generation and a loss of strength. Instead of answering natural needs one a month or every three weeks or so, a person considers it necessary every few days. And then, since he is obliged to avoid his wife for perhaps two weeks out of every month due to contingencies like her monthly period, if he is defeated by his appetites, he will incline to houses of ill-fame.

The veiling of women may not be abolished on the pretext of the women of small towns and villages and nomad women, for innocent working-women and somewhat coarse women being partially unveilled due to their working to secure their livelihoods and their physical, wearying labour does not excite carnal desires. Moreover, since idle, lay-about men are few, not even one in ten of the immoral men of the large towns can be found among them. Such a comparison should not therefore be made.