For young couples like them, the idea of dating is common, and it means balancing their religious views with their desire for emotional intimacy. But the term "dating" still invites an offensive suggestion for many Muslims, especially older ones, irrespective of how innocent the relationship may be. Dating is still linked to its Western origins, which implies underlying expectations of sexual interactions — if not an outright premarital sexual relationship — which Islamic texts prohibit.
Ismail Menk, a renowned Islamic scholar, argues in one of his lectures that love, within boundaries and with expectations of marriage, is an accepted fact of life and religion — if done the right way. This "right way," he says, is by involving the families from an early stage. Before the rise of a Western cultural influence, finding a spouse was a task almost solely assigned to parents or relatives.
But young Muslims have now taken it upon themselves to find their partners, relying on their own version of dating to do so. Older Muslims continue to reject dating because they worry that a Western world will also create Western expectations of premarital sex in these relationships. Adam Hodges, a former sociolinguistics professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar, argues there is an added layer of culture and context to the term "dating" that is often overlooked.
MARRIAGE IN ISLAM
So the way that we label events or phenomena, such as dating, is definitely going to provide a certain perspective on what that means for us," he says. Therefore, taking on the dating vernacular to describe their relationship and labeling their significant other as "boyfriend" or "girlfriend" does put some couples at risk of falling into the physical expectations that come with dating, Hodges says.
But, he adds, these fears can be allayed because "the most important connotation that is borrowed is the ability to choose your own mate," which is also the main precept of dating in the West. One way that some young Muslim couples are rebutting the idea of dating being offensive is by terming it "halal dating. By adding the permissibility factor, some young couples argue, they are removing the idea that anything haram, or prohibited, such as premarital sex, is happening in the relationship.
Can We Date in Islam?
On the other hand, some young couples believe there should be no stigma attached to dating and, therefore, reject the idea of calling it halal. Khalil Jessa, founder of Salaam Swipe, a dating app that caters to young Muslims, also believes that the negative associations attached to dating depend on the particular society. When they take the word dating, they're adding this connotation to it, and I don't think that's necessarily the case.
It's up to each individual and each couple to choose how they wish to interact with one another," Jessa argues. Getting to know someone and making the informed decision to marry them is not an alien concept in Islamic societies. Abdullah Al-Arian, a history professor at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar, says that the idea of courtship has been present in Muslim societies for centuries but was subdued in colonial times.
When the British and the rest of Europe colonized much of the world, they also placed social restrictions on sexual interactions between unmarried couples, Arian says.
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These social restrictions also took hold in certain Islamic societies, with religious restrictions on sex leading some to go as far as segregating the genders as much as possible, including in schools, universities and even at social gatherings. These practices began to disintegrate as women started entering the workforce, demanding their rights for universal education and pursuing higher education, Arian says.
Segregating because of religious dogma became harder. Messenger of Allah, I am the man who did it to her. He the Prophet said to her: Go away, for Allah has forgiven you. But he told the man some good words AbuDawud said: Stone him to death. He has repented to such an extent that if the people of Medina had repented similarly, it would have been accepted from them. The hadiths declare rape of a free or slave woman as zina. Malik related to me from Nafi that a slave was in charge of the slaves in the khumus and he forced a slave-girl among those slaves against her will and had intercourse with her.
Umar ibn al-Khattab had him flogged and banished him, and he did not flog the slave-girl because the slave had forced her. Malik related to me from Ibn Shihab that gave a judgment that the rapist had to pay the raped woman her bride-price. Yahya said that he heard Malik say, "What is done in our community about the man who rapes a woman, virgin or non-virgin, if she is free, is that he must pay the bride-price of the like of her. If she is a slave, he must pay what he has diminished of her worth. The hadd-punishment in such cases is applied to the rapist, and there is no punishment applied to the raped woman.
If the rapist is a slave, that is against his master unless he wishes to surrender him.
If a confession or the four witnesses required to prove a hadd crime are not available, but rape can be proved by other means, the rapist is sentenced under the ta'zir system of judicial discretion. The scholars are unanimously agreed that the rapist is to be subjected to the hadd punishment if there is clear evidence against him that he deserves the hadd punishment, or if he admits to that.
Otherwise, he is to be punished i. There is no punishment for the woman if it is true that he forced her and overpowered her, which may be proven by her screaming and shouting for help. Islamic teachings in the hadith tradition [24] presume same-sex attraction, extol abstention and in the Qur'an [25] [24] condemn consummation. For example, [25] [24] [26]. We also sent Lot: He said to his people: For ye practice your lusts on men in preference to women: Do you approach males among the worlds And leave what your Lord has created for you as mates?
But you are a people transgressing. However, there are different interpretations of the last verse where who the Quran refers to as "two among you". Pakistani scholar Javed Ahmed Ghamidi sees it as a reference to premarital sexual relationships between men and women. In his opinion, the preceding Ayat of Sura Nisa deals with prostitutes of the time. He believes these rulings were temporary and were abrogated later when a functioning state was established and society was ready for permanent rulings, which came in Sura Nur, Ayat 2 and 3, prescribing flogging as a punishment for adultery.
He does not see stoning as a prescribed punishment, even for married men, and considers the Hadiths quoted supporting that view to be dealing with either rape or prostitution, where the strictest punishment under Islam for spreading "fasad fil arz", meaning mischief in the land, referring to egregious acts of defiance to the rule of law was carried out.
The Hadiths consider homosexuality as zina, and male homosexuality to be punished with death. Narrated Abdullah ibn Abbas: If you find anyone doing as Lot's people did, [30] kill the one who does it, and the one to whom it is done. If a man who is not married is seized committing sodomy , he will be stoned to death. The discourse on homosexuality in Islam is primarily concerned with activities between men. There are, however, a few hadith mentioning homosexual behavior in women; [31] [32] The jurists are agreed that "there is no hadd punishment for lesbianism, because it is not zina.
In Islamic history, zina also included sex between Muslim man with a non-Muslim female slave , when the slave was not owned by that Muslim man. Sharia, in describing zina, differentiates between an unmarried Muslim, a married Muslim Muhsan and a slave Ma malakat aymanukum. The second one must be lethally stoned rajm , while an unmarried Muslim and a slave must receive public lashing, and for a slave, the lashing count is half of an unmarried Muslim. If a pregnant woman confesses that her baby was born from an illegal relationship then she will be subject to conviction in the Islamic courts.
In cases where there are no witnesses and no confession then the woman will not receive punishment just because of pregnancy. Women can fall pregnant without committing illegal sexual intercourse. A woman could be raped or coerced. In this case, she is a victim and not the perpetrator of a crime. Therefore, she cannot be punished or even accused of misconduct merely on the strength of her falling pregnant. The four witnesses requirement for zina, that applies in case of an accusation against man or woman, is also revealed by Quranic verses These requirements made zina virtually impossible to prove in practice.
Some schools of Islamic jurisprudence fiqh created the principle of shubha doubt. According to this principle, if there is room for doubt in the perpetrator's mind about whether the sexual act was illegal, he or she should not receive the hadd penalty, but could receive a less severe punishment at the discretion of the judge. A typical example is a man who has sex with his wife's or his son's slave. But a man might plausibly believe that he had ownership rights over his wife's or his son's property, and so think that having sex with their slaves was legal.
This is the only reason accepted for abortion after days of the pregnancy. Different schools of Muslim law hold different views on whether any other reasons for abortion are permitted, and at what stage of pregnancy if so. Some schools of Muslim law permit abortion in the first 16 weeks of pregnancy, while others only permit it in the first 7 weeks. However, even those scholars who would permit early abortion in certain cases still regard abortion as wrong, but do not regard it as a punishable wrong.
The more advanced the pregnancy, the greater the wrong. The Qur'an does not explicitly refer to abortion but offers guidance on related matters. Scholars accept that this guidance can properly be applied to abortion. The Islamic view is based on the very high priority the faith gives to the sanctity of life. Whosoever has spared the life of a soul, it is as though he has spared the life of all people. Whosoever has killed a soul, it is as though he has murdered all of mankind. Most Muslim scholars would say that a foetus in the womb is recognised and protected by Islam as a human life.
Islam allows abortion to save the life of the mother because it sees this as the 'lesser of two evils' and there is a general principle in Sharia Muslim law of choosing the lesser of two evils. The Qur'an makes it clear that a foetus must not be aborted because the family fear that they will not be able to provide for it - they should trust Allah to look after things:.
Kill not your offspring for fear of poverty; it is We who provide for them and for you. Surely, killing them is a great sin. The same and similar texts also ban abortion on social or financial grounds relating to the mother or the rest of the family - e. If it is confirmed in the early period of pregnancy that a foetus suffers from a defect that can't be treated and that will cause great suffering to the child, a number of scholars would say that it is permissible to abort, provided that the pregnancy is less than days old. A slightly more liberal opinion is that abortion within the first days would be permitted if a child would be born with such physical and mental deformity as would deprive the child of a normal life.
The opinion of at least two competent medical specialists is required.
There is almost unanimous opinion that after days an abortion is not permissible unless the defect in the embryo puts the mother's life in danger. In recent times in Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khameni has issued a fatwa permitting abortion for foetuses under 10 weeks shown to have the genetic blood disorder thalassemia. And also in Iran, Grand Ayatollah Yusuf Saanei issued a fatwa which permits abortion in the first three months for various reasons.
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