Originally posted by: yllus
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Oddly, that chapter of the Koran does authorize men to beat women, which is something I doubted until the Koran on my bookshelf confirmed what the online version said (verse 4:34). Ah well.
This needs to be put into context. The lives of all the prophets (Muhammad, Moses, Jesus, etc, peace be upon them all) are used as examples of how to put what the Qur'an says into practice. Alot of scholars are asked to explain what the above poster mentioned. They use the example of one of the prophets (i forget which one, i'll update later) who was upset with his wife and procured an extremely long and thin stick, which he held at one end and tapped his wife with the other end.
In essence, "the beating" is supposed to be symbolic in nature as a means to express the husbands extreme displeasure at his wife.
When Islam was introduced it instituted great advances in the area of womens rights. At the time in many areas of the world infanticide was liberally practiced, which is the practice of killing babies after birth. This was generally done to control the gender of the offspring, i.e. a girl was thought of being just another mouth to feed and killed as a matter of convenience. Islam forbade this from its inception, and also established her role in being able to establish contracts, own land, etc. In comparison the right of women to own land in England, France and USA was only granted in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Ultimately, most of what you hear about the treatment of women in arabia this day and age does not reflect what Islam teaches. However, in places like India and Malaysia the representation is more accurate.
cliffs:
a person will think what they want to regardless of the facts.