We in the Bedouin community do not normally discuss sensitive issues like polygamy with the general Israeli public. We have already seen that any interest that may exist among Jewish Israelis in this subject extends only to the “demographic” implications of multiple marriages among the Bedouin.
But the topic is important on a purely human level, and needs to be placed on the public agenda, because it is something that hurts us, the female members of the country’s Arab population. In fact, it is something that should interest the entire public, which rarely knows much about what’s going on next door, among the Arab citizens of the state.
Unfortunately, nearly every Bedouin woman in the Negev is at risk of becoming a “first wife” if we don’t take action against the phenomenon.
The conventional assumption about polygamy is that it is permitted in Islam. It is essential, however, to be precise about the source of the sanction in Islamic law. Hence, while there is multiple marriage that is permitted by the faith, in most cases today, the practice is being followed for social reasons alone, with no connection to the religion.
Read it all. (Hat tip: DP)
The acceptance of polygamy within ECUSA seems to be a natural consequence of the acceptance of homosexual relationships by the radical revisionists who now run ECUSA.
Its only a matter of time.
non seq from the article. I am confused by the comment except as a hypothetical possibility.
Another Muslim who can’t join the dots.
This is typical of what I see in the English-language press from Muslim feminists about polygamy. They argue that the Qur’an restricts it in various ways. However, in Egypt as well as in other Arabic countries the practice is very common, although plural marriages are still a minority. In Egypt the husband is required only to notify the first wife. According to newspaper articles men find ways around that. Religious authorities still teach that the Qur’an allows polygamy and not in the restricted sense which these women argue for.
Well, Katherine, what DOES the Koran really say about polygamy?
Larry
It says that you may up to four wives at a time, and only if you can treat them with identical fairness.
There is a compound in Manama, Bahrain that I saw that contained four identical houses: one for each wife.
That said, the great majority of men have only one wife, and even the late Emir of Bahrain was partial to his first: when she was dying, whenever the Ambassador went to visit her in the hospital, the Emir was sitting alone on a chair outside her room, and he wasn’t that well then himself.
Right, Ed, the Qur’an and the Sunna allow men to have four wives at a time, in addition to any other women which they may legally possess — this would have been slaves and war captives. Men are enjoined to treat their wives equally, which in Muhammad’s case meant rotating nights, moving from one house or tent to the next, having sex with them all.
Ed is also correct that the majority of men in the Middle East have only one wife at a time. Wives can be divorced easily. There was a case in the papers here in Egypt recently in which a woman petitioned to know whether she was divorced since her husband had sent her three text messages on her mobile saying “I divorce you.” I don’t know what the ruling was.
And is this polygamy as bad for woman as the author above says it is?
I speak here from ignorance of the effects of such a society. Larry
An interesting look at this subject is in Jean Sasson’s PRINCESS: LIFE BEHIND THE VEIL. The Saudi’s have spent enormous amounts of money trying to locate the narrator of the book (Princess Sultana) and have gone so far as to create ‘dummy’ websites that discredit the book. Alas, the author did more damage than the Saudis by publishing rather flimsy follow-on accounts, but the first book is an interesting read.