u/Old_Bowler_465

I used to be a self proclaimed salafi and hated more than zionists progressives lol. Anyways im curious to see if there are any people who used to be also salafis and what made you leave and what you think now of salafism

I see this trend today among muslims that blind obedience to scholars is now a religious obligation, and that only scholars can interpret islam, as they are more qualified. Ironically, the quran criticized this with the exemple of rabbis taken as lords.

Like, the first word in the quran isnt obey or submit but READ. The quran literally told people to challenge it and engage actively with it, it said that islam is a religion clear for those who think and reflect, nor for those who blindly obey whatever authority. Isnt it muslims who criticize christians and their obedience to the clergy afterall ? Nowhere did islam ever said to blindly follows scholars and that only a few group of people can read the quran. Instead islam has clearly been made simple and the quran a text for all, universally, without intermediary.

The argument that "laymen" cant read the quran for themselves could have made sense in the past where most people couldnt even read and had 0 education, but today with high widespread literacy and internet it doesnt hold up anymore as now everyone as access to the same knowledge. Like ok scholars work with things that the average muslim may have a hardtime to understand, but this is like history, linguistic, philosophy and basic legal principles, not intricate complex astronomy, the average educated person could do it now.

Instead we have this recent anti intellectualism where it is sinful to exercise reason in islam (as if the quran didnt said that islam is logical and clear for those who thinks), and knowledge outside of islam is shunned as useless bc "deen over dunya", which leads muslim to utterly ridiculise themselves in public.

Often when non muslims will say that women are inferior and treated worse in islam, or that feminism is needed for muslim women, muslims will answer that men and women are different, thus islam doesnt promote equality but equity as to fit the nature of each gender, but it doesnt means that women are inferior.

On paper, it is a sound argument, because well obviously men and women have inherent biological difference that would make 100% equal simmilarity impossible, like men are stronger and taller, women have periods and give birth etc.

In reality tho, it is very different and this argument of equity, not equality bc men and women are different has been completly used against women, treating like cattle and sugarcoating it with "oh youre different than men and you are so precious and in need of protection 🥺" when in facts you barely get treated like a human being and your life is miserable meanwhile men are having a blast but you get gaslighted into accepting your "feminine nature". Like i have so many exemple in head where something is framed as a "protection" or "aknowledging women's nature", and it is barely sugarcoated submission and inferiority and blatant unfairness that cause harm to women and that men would absolutely hate if it happened to them (but it is ok bc they are men and different/superior).

The hadith is not about a command but about prophecies/moral things (as bukhari put it in the part of prophecies). The problem being: the content of the hadith is absolutely false, many nations were successful under female leader: bilqis led the whole kingdom of saba to be muslim in the quran, isabella of castille, victoria in uk, hatchepsout in egypt, theodora in byzantium, ammanirenas in kush, catherine the great in russia, wu zeitan in china, kristun frostadottir in iceland. All these women were ruler of highly prosperous lands both before and after the prophet sws life, proving the hadith (which is NOT a legal rule but a prophecy) to be wrong.

I've seen a few more conservatives people argue that the reason muslims are decaying today and the ummah is at its worst is because of progressive islam and the emergeance of "reformist scholars" going against the mainstream jurispridence since the last 150 years, and it being a sign of the end of time and misguidance. Your thoughts ?

>(3:7)"It is He who has sent down to you, [O Muhammad], the Book; in it are verses [that are] precise—they are the foundation of the Book—and others unspecific. As for those in whose hearts is deviation [from truth], they will follow that of it which is unspecific, seeking discord and seeking an interpretation [suitable to them]. And no one knows its [true] interpretation except Allah. But those firm in knowledge say, 'We believe in it. All [of it] is from our Lord.' And no one will be reminded except those of understanding."

Sometimes i fear that i am actually completly wrong, coping and just nitpicking what suits my desire meanwhile the majority could actually be right all along and i am on the path of kufr...

But the thing is that i tried really hard to gaslight myself into believing the mainstream opinion and blindly following the scholars, but i just cant agree with them. When i read about islam no matter how i tried i always came back to my more progressive views and they are the ones that bring me great peace of heart and who makes more sense to me

I have this back fear that other muslims and ex muslims are rights that im a kafir in denial who purposely twist quran to find something acceptable for me even if i gueniunly believe in the conclusion i found and that true islam is the way conservatives practise it...

I was thinking about how literally every islamic scholars until the late 20th century has been a man. I know that in the past there were female academics, including in religion, but i have found none of their religious opinions or rulings. Like at best it is a footnote like X woman was a physician and islamic scholar but that's it. I have never ever heard about a woman's work in religion ever be referenced and surviving today. Are there any female islamic scholars whom we still have their works to this day ?

While at first i believed it to be straight up haram, as i did my research on the issue i began to change my mind in favour of it as i found the argument for it to be weaker and those in support to make more sense. However i dont want to bury myself in an echo chamber and i want to avoid comfirmation bias and actually see if my arguments hold up or not, so i would appreciate if you could share your view and why you believe that

note: this post doesnt concern you if you believe that both men and women cant marry non muslims

So i posted this in the progressive sub but i'd like to have your thoughts and perspective on it since even if im not a quranist this discussion is completly based on the quran, no hadith about it

I have been researching on it for a few weeks and while my initial position was that it was forbidden full stop through my readings i began to change my mind. I'd like to have your thoughts on it

So first the basis is that everything is halal until proven otherwise. So to prove that it is forbidden, scholars thoughts that: the verse 2:221 forbids the marriage of both muslim men and women to mushrik women and men equally (60:10 does too and tho it says kuffar in context it is about polytheists of mecca during a very specific battle so it says the same as 2:221), by analogy scholars came to the conclusion it actually applies to all the non muslims, hence the verse 5:5, since it only mentions the case of marriage to women of the book is to be understood as a special exception made for men.

However, this interpretation among mainstream scholars was up to debate. Many considered that mushriks was only to be understood as polytheists (so people of the books are not considered as such). This view is more aligned with the overall tone of the quran because people of the books, although it is aknowledged they arent true believers like muslims due to their erronous religious belief and commiting shirk, they arent considered as mushrik and the quran made the distinction between them, considered more as halfway between kuffar and believers. So if we follows this interpretation (that seems to have been the favored interpretation of most scholars according to ibn ashur and tabari), there are actually no quranical prohibition on the marriage of muslim women to men of the books and the prohibition comes from ijma, as a few classical scholars have themselves said.

Except that consensus of scholars cannot really be used as an islamic ruling because 1.there is no consensus on what is a consensus and what is a scholar, 2. It comes from extra textual sources and rely on time and culture specific norms that are baseless in our context, 3. Ijma doesnt actually exist because i can give you like 20 scholars from the top of my head who allows interfaith marriage for muslim women, 4. Ijma can change with time, like there used to be a consensus on the allowance of slavery, child marriage and the prohibition of printed money, 5. Umar and ibn talib actually allowed each a christian woman who converted to islam to remain married to her still christian husband, if im not mistaken ibn taymiah wasnt opposed to this as well.

Back to what the quran says, if we considers that 2:221 and 60:10 indeed are self explaining and just about polytheists, then indeed nothing prohibits explicitly the marriage of muslimah to kitabi men. It is important to shows that both of these verse equally apply to both women AND men, showing here equal marriage rights and the explicit prohibition needed for these marriages. Thus when it comes to 5:5, considering the two other verses apply equal rights of men and women, and that prohibition is textually needed to forbid something like in these verses, we could deduce that the silence of the quran is to understand not as an implicit prohibition but implicit allowance.

Often the quran talks to men directly instead of women and what is said to men apply equally to women unless specified otherwise. For exemple the verse right after 5:5, 5:6 is about ritual bathing after sexual relationship, but the verse talks only of men bathing after sex with their wives, yet everyone understood that verse as meaning that women must do it too. Likewise, everyone who thought that the verse on the people of lot talks about the prohibition male to male sexual relationship, also held women to the same standards yet never have women been mentioned in this verse.

Especially since 5:5 is using gender neutral/masculine language at the beginning when adressing both female and male muslims and that the verse apply to both genders, in the two third of the verse. The food of the people of the scriptures is considered halal to both muslim men and women, and the second part of the verse on marriage says not only that chaste women from among the people of the books are halal but so are chaste women from among the muslims. Everyone understood these to apply to both men and women, yet on the 2/3 of the verse it suddenly switch to male exclusive before becoming again gender neutral in 5:6 ? Or should we understand the verse to apply to men only and thus muslim women cant eat the food of the people of the book and cant marry chaste muslim men ?

Also according to lebanese islamic scholar and linguist abdullah al ayali, in qurancic arabic there is a figure of speech (ikhlaf i think it is called) where once the audience is established you wouldnt need to say it again. E.g when 5:5 say that the food of the people of the scripture is lawful to us and ours are lawful to them, when it comes to marriage the quran only need to say the women of kitabi are lawful to us without needing to say "and your women are lawful to them" as it is already implied in the first part because of parallelism. I am not really knowledgeable in quranic arabic and i havent seen much broughting his argument so i cant speak on it, however, it would actually explain the part on our food being lawful to them as i always found it weird to include that as if kitabi would care about what the quran says.

To finish, we can all agree that the end goal of shariah is to do good, forbid oppression, and protect religion and makes justice right ? De facto what i see (and many scholars too considering they acknowledge the marriage crisis of muslimah) is that with this rule, while muslim men are free to marry who they want and love without much worry, muslim women are stuck in celibacy or abuse due to the numerical lack of muslim men for those living in the west, and even smaller of suitable muslim men due to the fact that muslim women and men went through quite different path. While the reasoning of scholars in the past made have made sense for them in the past, today they have no basis and rely completly on the time and culture they lived in as well as the assumption of women being inferior (and thus wives being slaves to husbands), and since islam is timeless and cultureless, it makes very little sense to makes our religion around what medieval urban middle eastern men said centuries ago.

I have been researching on it for a few weeks and while my initial position was that it was forbidden full stop through my readings i began to change my mind. I'd like to have your thoughts on it

So first the basis is that everything is halal until proven otherwise. So to prove that it is forbidden, scholars thoughts that: the verse 2:221 forbids the marriage of both muslim men and women to mushrik women and men equally (60:10 does too and tho it says kuffar in context it is about polytheists of mecca during a very specific battle so it says the same as 2:221), by analogy scholars came to the conclusion it actually applies to all the non muslims, hence the verse 5:5, since it only mentions the case of marriage to women of the book is to be understood as a special exception made for men.

However, this interpretation among mainstream scholars was up to debate. Many considered that mushriks was only to be understood as polytheists (so people of the books are not considered as such). This view is more aligned with the overall tone of the quran because people of the books, although it is aknowledged they arent true believers like muslims due to their erronous religious belief and commiting shirk, they arent considered as mushrik and the quran made the distinction between them, considered more as halfway between kuffar and believers. So if we follows this interpretation (that seems to have been the favored interpretation of most scholars according to ibn ashur and tabari), there are actually no quranical prohibition on the marriage of muslim women to men of the books and the prohibition comes from ijma, as a few classical scholars have themselves said.

Except that consensus of scholars cannot really be used as an islamic ruling because 1.there is no consensus on what is a consensus and what is a scholar, 2. It comes from extra textual sources and rely on time and culture specific norms that are baseless in our context, 3. Ijma doesnt actually exist because i can give you like 20 scholars from the top of my head who allows interfaith marriage for muslim women, 4. Ijma can change with time, like there used to be a consensus on the allowance of slavery, child marriage and the prohibition of printed money, 5. Umar and ibn talib actually allowed each a christian woman who converted to islam to remain married to her still christian husband, if im not mistaken ibn taymiah wasnt opposed to this as well.

Back to what the quran says, if we considers that 2:221 and 60:10 indeed are self explaining and just about polytheists, then indeed nothing prohibits explicitly the marriage of muslimah to kitabi men. It is important to shows that both of these verse equally apply to both women AND men, showing here equal marriage rights and the explicit prohibition needed for these marriages. Thus when it comes to 5:5, considering the two other verses apply equal rights of men and women, and that prohibition is textually needed to forbid something like in these verses, we could deduce that the silence of the quran is to understand not as an implicit prohibition but implicit allowance.

Often the quran talks to men directly instead of women and what is said to men apply equally to women unless specified otherwise. For exemple the verse right after 5:5, 5:6 is about ritual bathing after sexual relationship, but the verse talks only of men bathing after sex with their wives, yet everyone understood that verse as meaning that women must do it too. Likewise, everyone who thought that the verse on the people of lot talks about the prohibition male to male sexual relationship, also held women to the same standards yet never have women been mentioned in this verse.

Especially since 5:5 is using gender neutral/masculine language at the beginning when adressing both female and male muslims and that the verse apply to both genders, in the two third of the verse. The food of the people of the scriptures is considered halal to both muslim men and women, and the second part of the verse on marriage says not only that chaste women from among the people of the books are halal but so are chaste women from among the muslims. Everyone understood these to apply to both men and women, yet on the 2/3 of the verse it suddenly switch to male exclusive before becoming again gender neutral in 5:6 ? Or should we understand the verse to apply to men only and thus muslim women cant eat the food of the people of the book and cant marry chaste muslim men ?

Also according to lebanese islamic scholar and linguist abdullah al ayali, in qurancic arabic there is a figure of speech (ikhlaf i think it is called) where once the audience is established you wouldnt need to say it again. E.g when 5:5 say that the food of the people of the scripture is lawful to us and ours are lawful to them, when it comes to marriage the quran only need to say the women of kitabi are lawful to us without needing to say "and your women are lawful to them" as it is already implied in the first part because of parallelism. I am not really knowledgeable in quranic arabic and i havent seen much broughting his argument so i cant speak on it, however, it would actually explain the part on our food being lawful to them as i always found it weird to include that as if kitabi would care about what the quran says.

To finish, we can all agree that the end goal of shariah is to do good, forbid oppression, and protect religion and makes justice right ? De facto what i see (and many scholars too considering they acknowledge the marriage crisis of muslimah) is that with this rule, while muslim men are free to marry who they want and love without much worry, muslim women are stuck in celibacy or abuse due to the numerical lack of muslim men for those living in the west, and even smaller of suitable muslim men due to the fact that muslim women and men went through quite different path. While the reasoning of scholars in the past made have made sense for them in the past, today they have no basis and rely completly on the time and culture they lived in as well as the assumption of women being inferior (and thus wives being slaves to husbands), and since islam is timeless and cultureless, it makes very little sense to makes our religion around what medieval urban middle eastern men said centuries ago.

So my father is half moroccan half algerian, my mother is french. I look arab, have an arab name, grew up with arab culture (morocco and algeria have nearly the same culture), also born and grew up in france with french mother. So culturally i am half french, half arab/maghrebi. But despite being half maghrebi, and being accepted as such by other MeNa because ancestry is given through the father here, hence why my half moroccan half algerian father considers himself and i as moroccans and we have the nationality of morocco too, i feel like im just pretending because im only 25% of both maghrebi nationality and i feel like the stereotype of the "1/16th cherokee girl" iykwim.

Im very confortable being half maghrebi, but once im asked about my specific nationality i feel awkard and that im larping because like only my grandmother is algerian, and only my grandfather is moroccan, but at the same time they are nearly identical cultures and i grew up with both moroccan and algerian culture hence, but where im from if you are 1/4 no one considers you really as part of that ethnic group but if you are 1/2 you are and I AM 1/2 maghrebi, just it is divided between morocco and algeria (even if ancestry is patrilineal here)

I find it so performative and fustrating as someone who has naturally extremly frizzy north african hair. Like it is multiple texture, frizzy no matter what you'll do, fine and completly untamable and undefined to the point i have almost never seen a woman of my ethnic group who wear their hair natural (and we are dozen of millions) because they all straighten it.

I just find the recent curly hair glaze so annoying because it really is just unsufferable to hear straight haired girls tell you your hair are ugly because it doesnt look like the kalogeras or mixed black/white girls and that you actually just doesnt know how to take care of it and even have the audacity to give you advice meanwhile you already do everything right.

I hate the hypocrisy of telling us to love our natural hair and to accept ourself but getting roasted for not looking like their expectations of curly hair and to needing literally hours in the bathroom just to be human looking

I have waist lenght 3a curly hair and tbh they are starting to really annoy me so i'd like to get straight hair but i dont know how i should straighten them (fyi i live in an extremly rainy region). Im hesitating between straightening them manually every day with a brush straightener or doing a chemical straightening (tanin preferably). However on one side i fear getting heavy heat damage after a few monthes (and it is awful to straighten them every 2 day), but on the other side with a chemical strenghtening i fear a terrible regrowth or losing half of my hair. Mind you i love my lenght and no way i would ever cut them above bra strap lenght. Idk what to do so any advice and experience is wanted !

I have waist lenght 3a curly hair and tbh they are starting to really annoy me so i'd like to get straight hair but i dont know how i should straighten them (fyi i live in an extremly rainy region). Im hesitating between straightening them manually every day with a brush straightener or doing a chemical straightening (tanin preferably). However on one side i fear getting heavy heat damage after a few monthes (and it is awful to straighten them every 2 day), but on the other side with a chemical strenghtening i fear a terrible regrowth or losing half of my hair. Mind you i love my lenght and no way i would ever cut them above bra strap lenght. Idk what to do so any advice and experience is wanted !

I have waist lenght 3a curly hair and tbh they are starting to really annoy me so i'd like to get straight hair but i dont know how i should straighten them (fyi i live in an extremly rainy region). Im hesitating between straightening them manually every day with a brush straightener or doing a chemical straightening (tanin preferably). However on one side i fear getting heavy heat damage after a few monthes (and it is awful to straighten them every 2 day), but on the other side with a chemical strenghtening i fear a terrible regrowth or losing half of my hair. Mind you i love my lenght and no way i would ever cut them above bra strap lenght. Idk what to do so any advice and experience is wanted !

I want to start by saying i am only interested in the legal aspect of it. Im making this thread because nearly all the other post on this sub are focused on the personal aspect of it and actual islamic reasoning are left behind.

The overwhelming majority position is that muslim women are forbidden to marry non muslim whatever is their religion, as an argument, these verses as used:

\>\[...\]And ˹permissible for you in marriage˺ are chaste believing women as well as chaste women of those given the Scripture before you (5:5)

\>Do not marry polytheistic women until they believe; for a believing slave-woman is better than a free polytheist, even though she may look pleasant to you. And do not marry your women to polytheistic men until they believe, for a believing slave-man is better than a free polytheist, even though he may look pleasant to you. They invite ˹you˺ to the Fire while Allah invites ˹you˺ to Paradise and forgiveness by His grace. He makes His revelations clear to the people so perhaps they will be mindful.(2:221)

\>O believers! When the believing women come to you as emigrants, test their intentions—their faith is best known to Allah—and if you find them to be believers, then do not send them back to the disbelievers. These ˹women˺ are not lawful ˹wives˺ for the disbelievers, nor are the disbelievers lawful ˹husbands˺ for them. ˹But˺ repay the disbelievers whatever ˹dowries˺ they had paid. And there is no blame on you if you marry these ˹women˺ as long as you pay them their dowries. And do not hold on to marriage with polytheistic women. ˹But˺ demand ˹repayment of˺ whatever ˹dowries˺ you had paid, and let the disbelievers do the same. That is the judgment of Allah—He judges between you. And Allah is All-Knowing, All-Wise.. (60:10)

With these verses, scholars deduced that the basis is that non muslim cant marry non muslim as said in 2:221, while an exception is made for men with women of the book only , in 5:5, further corroborated by 60:10 telling that muslim women musnt return to their disbelieving husband, as they are now unlawful. Then from this scholars used multiple kind of reasoning to further justify it

Now for the arguments in support of interfaith marriage for muslim women

The silence of the quran and lack of explicit interdictions in 5:5 are used as proof of the permissibility of it, as the islamic basis is that everything is halal until proven otherwise. Then 2:221 is justified by the fact that it talks only about polytheists (mushrik) and not ahl al kitab, hence them being allowed for muslim men explicitly, as multiple times the quran refers to abrahamics differently than from other non-believers, and marriage to them being forbidden explicitly for both gender. 60:10 is explained in the same way that it talked about the polytheists of the quraish who were oppressing their muslim wives, furthermore shown by the fact in this verse muslim men are also told not to marry the polytheists women (both for male and female disbelievers of this verse, the word "kafir" is used). Also, the argument that the quran is mostly talking to men directly is used, thus unless specified otherwise, what is forbidden or allowed for men is implicitly for women too (as in the case of same sex relationship, where despite that female to female relationship are never mentionned). Further reasoning by traditional scholars are considered outdaded in our context

Both side of the arguments are welcome to the discussion !

I want to start by saying i am only interested in the legal aspect of it. Im making this thread because nearly all the other post on this sub are focused on the personal aspect of it and actual islamic reasoning are left behind.

The overwhelming majority position is that muslim women are forbidden to marry non muslim whatever is their religion, as an argument, these verses as used:

>[...]And ˹permissible for you in marriage˺ are chaste believing women as well as chaste women of those given the Scripture before you (5:5)

>Do not marry polytheistic women until they believe; for a believing slave-woman is better than a free polytheist, even though she may look pleasant to you. And do not marry your women to polytheistic men until they believe, for a believing slave-man is better than a free polytheist, even though he may look pleasant to you. They invite ˹you˺ to the Fire while Allah invites ˹you˺ to Paradise and forgiveness by His grace. He makes His revelations clear to the people so perhaps they will be mindful.(2:221)

>O believers! When the believing women come to you as emigrants, test their intentions—their faith is best known to Allah—and if you find them to be believers, then do not send them back to the disbelievers. These ˹women˺ are not lawful ˹wives˺ for the disbelievers, nor are the disbelievers lawful ˹husbands˺ for them. ˹But˺ repay the disbelievers whatever ˹dowries˺ they had paid. And there is no blame on you if you marry these ˹women˺ as long as you pay them their dowries. And do not hold on to marriage with polytheistic women. ˹But˺ demand ˹repayment of˺ whatever ˹dowries˺ you had paid, and let the disbelievers do the same. That is the judgment of Allah—He judges between you. And Allah is All-Knowing, All-Wise.. (60:10)

With these verses, scholars deduced that the basis is that non muslim cant marry non muslim as said in 2:221, while an exception is made for men with women of the book only , in 5:5, further corroborated by 60:10 telling that muslim women musnt return to their disbelieving husband, as they are now unlawful. Then from this scholars used multiple kind of reasoning to further justify it

Now for the arguments in support of interfaith marriage for muslim women

The silence of the quran and lack of explicit interdictions in 5:5 are used as proof of the permissibility of it, as the islamic basis is that everything is halal until proven otherwise. Then 2:221 is justified by the fact that it talks only about polytheists (mushrik) and not ahl al kitab, hence them being allowed for muslim men explicitly, as multiple times the quran refers to abrahamics differently than from other non-believers, and marriage to them being forbidden explicitly for both gender. 60:10 is explained in the same way that it talked about the polytheists of the quraish who were oppressing their muslim wives, furthermore shown by the fact in this verse muslim men are also told not to marry the polytheists women (both for male and female disbelievers of this verse, the word "kafir" is used). Also, the argument that the quran is mostly talking to men directly is used, thus unless specified otherwise, what is forbidden or allowed for men is implicitly for women too (as in the case of same sex relationship, where despite that female to female relationship are never mentionned). Further reasoning by traditional scholars are considered outdaded in our context

Both side of the arguments are welcome to the discussion !

I always had this impression that we were always excluded from calling ourselves european and been called immigrants despite having actual background in the country, bonus exclusion point if youre muslim 😭