I noticed when I talk with non Muslims that they have misunderstandings to many issues about Islam, may be due to lack of information, I’ll try to mention some of these issues here and hope that I can clarify it as it is a personal effort from me
The first issue I want to tackle is the permission that God gave to man to have the ability of marrying 4 women, first let’s see how was the situation before Islam so that we can judge did Islam made the woman in a lower degree or not, My reply will be in points coz it is easier to understand rather than an essay
- Before Islam the man had the ability to marry as many wives as he want
- The man could have married his sister, his mother or even his daughter if he liked her.
So what did Islam do? Islam limited the number of the women that a man can marry to only 4, and not only this, he also made a condition for the man to be able to marry this number which is to be fair with the all 4, fairness in everything and every field of life and I think that it is a very tough condition that not many men can do, and Quran mentioned it in the following verse:
وَإِنْ خِفْتُمْ أَلَّا تُقْسِطُوا فِي الْيَتَامَى فَانْكِحُوا مَا طَابَ لَكُمْ مِنَ النِّسَاءِ مَثْنَى وَثُلَاثَ وَرُبَاعَ فَإِنْ خِفْتُمْ أَلَّا تَعْدِلُوا فَوَاحِدَةً أَوْ مَا مَلَكَتْ أَيْمَانُكُمْ ذَلِكَ أَدْنَى أَلَّا تَعُولُوا
- Which means:
If ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly with the orphans, Marry women of your choice, Two or three or four; but if ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly (with them), then only one, or (a captive) that your right hands possess, that will be more suitable, to prevent you from doing injustice.
- The Quran is the only holy book that mentioned having one wife only, there is no such thing in any other holy book all over the world
- In the bible prophet Abraham married 2 wives, also in old testimonial Prophet Solomon was married to hundreds of wives, so it is not something that the Islam created
- The number of the men in world is less than the number of women, for example in Hong Kong there is 904 men for every 1000 women, that means that from every 1000 women 96 will not find a husband
- The number of men that die in war is much higher than the number of women so this will leave more women without man to marry
- Where is the role of the woman in this process? I think that this is a question that many would ask, beside why should a woman agree to have another wife with her? , the woman has the option to ask for divorce if she doesn’t like the situation or felt that this is unfair for her, it is not something obligatory on her
Mostafa Kassem Loving
- 16 years, 5 days ago