We talked in class about the Quran and how Muhammad had been an advocate for women's rights. Then after reading the pamphlet handed to us, i saw verses that really oppressed women. I know that maybe that was not the intentions of the Quran but i think that's why people call Islam out to be an oppressive religion. The verses in the Q'uran it self is hard on women and i think this makes some of the men do what they want because it is inscribed in the Quran. This is same with the bible, there are texts in Ephesians which asks women to be obedient and submissive to their husbands and not the other way round. What i think should be done is, the books be re-written and the oppressive words/statements taken out of them. What do you think?
Re-writing a holy scripture is a lot like censoring Shakespeare. The major problem is that not many would care to read the newer interpretation - we constantly look for the "most original" copy of the Bible, or the Q'uran rather than the most favorable interpretation. There's a lot of strange and archaic phrases in holy scriptures by nature, but I don't think we should paper over it because we don't like it.
ReplyDeleteI think also that this idea of submission is more of a conception than a concept. People might need to re-conceive for the better their concepts in order to be more charitable to their time period. This conception may have been prevalent in Muhammad's time, but it is not so prevalent in today's world. In other words, reading the text as a concept will allow us the freedom to create conceptions.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Al and Raj here. I would suggest instead that we could republish all these religious texts with a summary of relevant historical details alongside each passage for context's sake. That way people would be able to more easily draw out the concepts from behind the rules, while still having the benefit of seeing the text in its original form (or close to it) as well as learning more about the state of the world when it was written.
ReplyDeleteI agree; helping people better to read and understand a text is better than whitewashing it. If people read diligently and critically there is no harm in a text saying something bad -- we learn from the evil characters in literature at least as much as from the good ones.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, if we're using a text as scripture in the literalist sense, worshiping it uncritically, then it would be better to provide a version that only said good and true things. It probably wouldn't make for very enthralling reading, but it might help avoid unhealthy fixation by uninformed and unimaginative readers on old, bad ideas.