@Northwest Thank you very much for taking the time to reply. You made some interesting points. Even though most of the information your provided are true, but they are incomplete.
Firstly, I'd like to note that I didn't use the term "Islamic nation" in my previous comments, at least not the way you pointed it out. My point was that the Islamic law is not applied correctly nowadays among Muslims or in Muslim majority countries due to a number of reasons, number one is that Muslims tend to follow culture more than religion. So when someone points out to injustice act done by Muslims, it's not from the Islamic law, it's from their culture. Therefore, using evidence based on what we see nowadays in Muslim countries is not an argument.
Secondly, there's no black and white in the Islamic law, there's always a "gray area" that it used based on someone's situation or circumstances. For instance, eating pork is totally forbidden in Islam, but if someone is dying from hunger and has nothing else to eat, then it become permissible. The Islamic law is not based on "set of rules" that applied on everyone. It's based on principles. There are six principles of Shariah law:
1. The right to the protection of life.
2. The right to the protection of family.
3. The right to the protection of education.
4. The right to the protection of religion.
5. The right to the protection of property (access to resources).
6. The right to the protection of human dignity.
It's true that when a wife wants to initiate divorce, she has to give a sound reason, but there's a reason for that, Islam has laid the complete financial burden on the shoulders of the husband. He is required to bear not only the complete cost of the wedding..etc, he has to gift 'Mehr' or dowry (chosen by the woman or her family) which can be anything such as Land, car, house, expensive jewelry, or a sum of money. It's absolutely obligatory condition of a marriage in Islam. If the wife had been given the right to obtain divorce by merely declaring it, there is a possibility of abuse whereby the wife could divorce the husband the very next moment of the marriage, thus leaving the husband with a substantial financial loss. Moreover, if the husband emotionally/physically abuses the wife, drinks, takes drugs, gambles, sleeps around, wants to marry another wife, abuses the kids, involved in any criminal activity or is in jail, doesn't provide for the wife and children, the wife can get a divorce straight away and she keeps her dowry. Plus, a wife can demand anything she wants in her marriage contract, she can put unlimited set of conditions of her choice, so if her husband broke even just one of the conditions (set by her) she can get divorced without having to give any reasons. Besides, she can put a condition in the marriage contract that she wants to have the right of divorce instead of her husband.
It is not true that two female witnesses are always considered as equal to only one male witness. It is true only in certain cases. There are about five verses in the Quran that mention witnesses, without specifying male or female. There is only one verse in the Quran, that says two female witnesses are equal to one male witness. This verse is [2:282]. This verse of the Quran deals only with financial transactions. In such cases, it is advised to make an agreement in writing between the parties and take two witnesses, preferably both of which should be men only. In case you cannot find two men, then one man and two women would suffice. Generally in the past, women were not as familiar with contracts and negotiations as men. Business was a man’s profession. Men were more informed and experienced in commercial trade, transactions, loaning, and so forth. In general, men knew more about business than women, hence the ratio of two women as testifiers was mainly based on a woman’s inexperience in transactions, not on her ability, intelligence, or lack of trust. Plus, The Qur’an is strict when securing transactions, one man is not sufficient for a transaction to be binding; it requires two men. Nonetheless, there are some cases or issues that require the expertise, knowledge, and experiences to which only women can testify. A woman’s testimony or witnessing is not always or necessarily in the ratio of “one man-two women” in all cases. When it comes to women’s issues, a woman’s testimony takes precedence over that of a man.
Islam gave women the right of inheritance more than 1440 years ago, while it's been given to them only in the 19th century in other societies. The Islamic system is considered very advanced and ahead of its time. The rule of inheriting in Islam is very complicated, and it's always depends on someone's situation. What is equal to half a male’s share is not an invariable rule in all cases that pertain to women. There are different cases where males and females take an equal share of the inheritance. For instance, both the father and the mother take the same share of their son’s inheritance. Also, the share of the brother and the sister when a man or woman leaves neither ascendants nor descendants, both the sister and brother would take one sixth. The ruling of inheriting a share that is equal to half a male’s share only applies to the shares of inheritance and not to all the property that is inherited, such as gifted property, as it is permissible for the father to gift his daughter an equal share to what he gifts to his son during the father’s lifetime. It is prohibited to favor a son over a daughter. Moreover, it is permissible for a person to write a will to bequeath equal shares to their heirs (males and females), or to bequeath to a female heir a share that is equal to half a male’s share, if he/she wishes to. The rule of giving females half of what a male takes does not apply when distributing state lands as these lands are divided equally between men and women. Plus, the justifications given are due to men financial burden. So a woman is not obligated to provide for her family financially even if she has a job, and even if her income is higher than her husband, brother, or father. In fact, if her husband - for instance, took money from her to provide for the family, even if it's to buy something for her, he has to return the money back as it's considered a loan. I don't understand why this rule is "no longer valid" according to you, many women will be overly happy if this rule was applied nowadays!
As I mentioned earlier, there's no black and white in the Islamic law, also not all scholars agree on one interpretation, and wife's beating is one of these issues that caused many differences among Muslim scholars, but it's important to point out the beating a wife severely, such as striking the face or causing injuries and bruises is totally prohibited in Islam according to all Muslim scholars. This rule was taken from [Quran 4:34], some scholars say that a husband is allowed to beat his wife lightly (and each scholar came up with a method according to his understanding), but only for extreme cases. Some scholars said that it's totally prohibited for a husband to beat his wife, and they gave reasons that the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, never hit his wives and commanded Muslims to never beat their wives in several Hadiths. Also, they gave different translation to the Arabic word "daraba" which is used in the verse. "daraba" literally means "beat", or "go abroad", or "give" but not in the sense to give something by hand, but rather to give or provide an example. The word has many different meanings in it's used in many different verses of the Quran - So "daraba" in [4:34] means to desert or leave. Even though it seems to allow men to hit their wives after the two warnings for ill-conduct and disloyalty, it could very well be that God meant to command the Muslims to "leave" the home all together and desert their wives for a long time in a hope that the wives would then come back to their senses. In general, this verse has been misused by Muslims and non-Muslims equally; Muslims took it as a justification to abuse their women, and others used it to distort the image of Islam. Abouse is not allowed in Islam in any cases.. it goes against the Islamic principles, that's why there's one interpretation that I personally find logical and goes hand in hand with the Islamic principles, you can find it here in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1azySjz4edk
Yes true, in Islam the accuser is obligated to present positive proof, not only that, if it was discovered that he/she was lying, they will face punishment. So, there's no room to play around. Plus, no, a woman's statement is equal to a man's in this case.. as I explained earlier.
The loopholes are also huge. A victim can be doubly victimized, if the perpetrator is a family member, as a family member is allowed to pardon the perpetrator.
I'd assume that you're talking about cases of murder here, right? If not, please correct me.
When a murder occur, who are the real victims here? Yes, the one who was killed is the main victim, but his/her family members and loved ones are equally victims as they will suffer the pain of their loss. Accordingly, the Islamic law gave the family of the victim the complete control of what is should be done to the murderer. They can choose to give him/her death penalty, or to forgive. And this does not only applied to a family member, but to anyone. This is exactly what I meant when I said that Islam gives room to different situations. The fundamental rule of murder is execution, but there are cases when the murderer didn't kill intentionally, or the family of the victim prefer to forgive. We see many cases in modern law where the murder is given only few years in jail or given a suspended penalty which would leave the family of the victim in extra pain. In Islam, punishment is not the goal, but protecting human rights is the principle. So the case is left in the hands the family of the victim to decide what they feel. Plus, this rule is not applied for serial killers, or mass killing cases.
Assume that a non-citizen broke the law in the United States, when he gets to the court, will they judge by the American law? Or the law of that person's country? It was the same during the Golden Age, when someone from other faith has an issue with a Muslim, they would judge by the Islamic law, because this was the law of the land. At least, they used to give people of other faiths the right to judge according to their law if no Muslim was involved. While, with this new world order, no one can use the law of their country in another country, right? The only difference is back then countries were divided by religion, now they are divided by nationalities.
Even though the Islamic law makes perfect sense to me, I don't think that it should be applied to any society nowadays because I don't think that people are eligible to apply it correctly. There are many issues in many different levels within the Muslim world that need to be fixed.
Thank you again, this time for reading my comment. Please, feel free to express your thoughts and disagreements if you have any, I welcome them with an open mind.
