Re: HIV/AIDS, casual sex, committed relationships etc.

salaam,

yes, its hard sometimes not to feel that the purpose is regulating the
sexuality of women but not men.   most of us believe now that monogomy is
the only acceptable thing for men as well.  beyond the strictly legal
issues, i think this is also about what kind of men women chose to be with
and what standards we hold men to.  women who believe in monogomy and
chastity should demand that of men as well.  i dont mean this just as an
individualistic thing but as a larger social expectation.

however, it often happens that whatever standards you choose to have for the
men in your life, they fail miserably.  :-)

masalaama,

itrath



on 3/13/04 5:12 AM, Saadia Yacoob at [email protected] wrote:

> Salaams to everyone,
> 
> I haven't written anything to the list in a long time now, but I find
> this discussion on polygyny and slavery etc very interesting, seeing that
> I am the child of a polygynous marriage.  I agree very much with what has
> been said so far, but I wanted to bring attention to something that I
> think has been missed in this conversation.  When we talk of casual sex,
> sex with slaves, and multiple mates etc, the conversation is relevant
> only to men.  Women are allowed only to be with one mate at a time,
> within the confines of marriage.  I'm sure most people are aware of this
> fact as we have this conversation, but I wanted to say it out loud,
> because I think it is important to remember that this question of
> monogamy within Islam is only a question for men, because (theologically)
> for women, monogamy is the only option.
> 
> Saadia
> 
> 
> On Fri, 12 Mar 2004 18:18:28 +0530, "Kabir Bavikatte"
> <[email protected]> said:
>> This message only has an HTML part -- this is a text generated
>> representation
>> 
>> 
>> Salaams,
>> 
>> We  at the Center for Progressive Islam in Cape Town have been working
>> on  a  booklet  for Muslim activists working on the issue of HIV/AIDS.
>> The  booklet  seeks  to  provide  theological  resources  to activists
>> working in the Muslim community having to deal with discrimination and
>> prejudice.  The  dominant  narrative  of  the  religious elite is that
>> hiv/aids is Allah's punishment to the "fornicators" and "homosexuals".
>> Anyway  we  have  tried  to  shift  the  focus  from an obsession with
>> individual moral  judgement  to  analysing  the  structural  causes of
>> HIV/AIDS and thereby linking our response as Muslims to fighting these
>> structures  of oppression.  This  within  the South African context is
>> neoliberalism, racism, sexism and homophobia.
>> 
>> Now  all  this hasn't been too hard. The problem comes when one speaks
>> of  responsibiliy,  i.e  agency.  Our position has been that high risk
>> behaviour  has  little  to  do  with choice and much to do with living
>> conditions  such as poverty, patriarchy and therefore our responses as
>> Muslims   have   to   be   to fight these   structures.  Here  is  the
>> catch however.  Programmatically one has to prescribe a plan of action
>> which includes both individual lifestyle choices and larger struggles.
>> So  as  far as larger struggles are concerned we can both Qur'anically
>> and  relying  on  the Prophetic model argue for a liberation politics.
>> Individual  lifestyle  is a more complicated terrain. We have begun to
>> argue   for  sanctity  of  sex  within  marraige  and  against  casual
>> sex. Arguments  against  casual  sex is justified both Quranically and
>> structurally  in  terms  of fighting  commodification.  Materially the
>> argument  is  also  about  the  devastating  impact casual sex has had
>> amongst  the  poor especially when it is set in the context of unequal
>> gender  relations-  i.e  teenage pregnancies, abuse etc.  This said we
>> don't want to foreclose the argument and thereby deny the existence of
>> other  committed  relationships  outside  the framework of the Islamic
>> marriage.
>> 
>> This  is  important because for the religious elite the bogey man here
>> is  the  homosexual who is the cause of the pandemic. We feel the need
>> to  create space in our arguments for committed same sex relationships
>> especially  because  of  the high levels of prejudice that is faced by
>> the  queer community. Also pragamtically speaking within the first few
>> minutes  of  any  workshop on HIV/AIDS within the Muslim community the
>> issue  of  the  "homosexuals are responsible" is invariably thrown up.
>> The activist needs to address it without sidestepping the issue simply
>> because   really  the  highest  levels  of  discrimination  are  faced
>> primarily by the queer community.
>> 
>> I  was hoping for some responses from the list. Specifically about the
>> notion  of marriage, committed relationships, same sex marriages, same
>> sex  relationships. We have already discussed on this list a number of
>> times  about  whether  or  not  same  sex  love  is  allowed in Islam.
>> Regarding  this  there  are  plenty of resources. What I would like to
>> know  is  what folks here feel about the Islamic marriage itself which
>> in  its  historical  essence i.e 9th to 13th century fiqh in all the 4
>> madhabs  is primarily the sale of the woman's sexual organs to the man
>> (  see  Kecia  Ali's  article  in  Progressive  Muslims) . The idea of
>> monogamous  committed  relationships  within Islam is of fairly recent
>> vintage,  and  I have a feeling is linked to a variety of factors from
>> the  women's  movement  to capitalism. Now this said what is the space
>> for   other  kinds  of  committed  relationships  within  the  Islamic
>> discourse that has historically explicitly allowed concubinage.
>> 
>> The debate we have been having is also one of strategy. Should we just
>> throw questions in the air and leave it open ended in our book because
>> of  the nature of controversy- OR- should we take an explicit position
>> despite  the  consequences-ala  susan  sontag.  Is leaving this debate
>> ambiguous  and  speaking generally of compassion a cop out because the
>> activist  at  the end of the day will need to address this question in
>> the line of her work.-
>> 
>> What do you folks think??
>> 
>> Warmest, kabir
>> _________________________________________________________________
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>> References
>> 
>> 1. http://g.msn.com/8HMBENIN/2734??PS=
> 
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