(4) Remind yourself that your wife is a woman and women thrive on a. deliberately getting out of line b. stirring things up c. causing rifts in the marriage And learn to live with it.
I read it and repped it. Of course, even with the "soft" translation, one can question from a modern perspective why the woman would have to "obey you" (I bet feminists would faint) and why it has to be only the man who makes money. Again, I think all these texts (including the bible) were written by men (and possibly women) mostly with good intentions, and of course influenced by the time they were written in. Most possibly, hitting women was the norm back then, and the writer of this wanted to make it happen less, so he wrote some restrictive rules on ONLY when it would be allowed. Taking a really old book literally is kind of silly anyway. I'm sure there are some wisdoms in it which can inspire people to live a better life, and be a better person, but trying to tweak a translation so it "looks better" seems like an unnecessary effort.
Those 3 measures aren't really something that is evident in our times, I agree. It was more related to back then, when Arabs would beat their wives to no avail and get away with it. This was revealed to lessen what was very rampant back in those days, as you said. I understand beating is not civilized nowadays and the Quran isn't advocating beating as another poster mentioned. I think a lot of the difference lies in how Muslims and non-believers view life in general. Life is revolved around religion for devout Muslims. Everyone strives to follow the principles and do good in order to gain paradise. So the "beating" or leaving of the wife is done if she isn't compliant with God's orders and acting in forbidden ways, to try to get her back on the "right path" as Muslims believe. It goes vice-versa as well, if the man is misbehaving, the woman can leave him and will be granted a divorce. I realize it's not something that's easy to believe for others. I understand your viewpoints though.
That's cool if you don't believe any of that. I'm not the best at explaining things but I was just trying to offer an explanation. It's just sad that extremists are nitpicking the Quran to satisfy their own desires and in turn, giving the religion a bad name.
Government and religion do not mix regardless if the underlying religious principles are implemented correctly or not. Separation of church and state is first and foremost to having a stable government. You cannot argue faith and a country cannot be governed by the principles of one particular faith. There will always be one sector or another that will be unhappy because they think their particular facets are more right than the other ones. This holds true to even different sects within a religion.
We were discussing about Pakistan (which is what this thread was about originally). The situation is extremely unstable and if they had a true Islamic government, it would be a better situation. Not a perfect situation, not America, but better than it currently is. DD said eliminating religion would help solve the problem so I was just offsetting that statement since religion is not the main issue behind Pakistan's current troubles.
Nope. They are Islamic governments by name but not by practice. Pakistan is actually "Islamic Republic of Pakistan" but the government is not religious nor do they run the country based on the religion.
