u/amIanweirdo

For people who want the reference: An nisa 4:34

Why are they so obsessed with making the whole world Muslim? Can’t they just co exist with others with the rules and traditions and cultures of the country they reside in? Now imagine a Christian or other believers saying this in an Islamic country

The Quranic verse and hadiths which prohibits makeup outside
Surah An-Nur (24:31): The primary verse often cited commands believing women to guard their modesty and "not to display their adornment except that which is apparent." Scholars classify makeup as an adornment.
Surah Al-Ahzab (33:33): Instructs women to "remain in your houses and do not display yourselves as [women] did in the times of former ignorance
Sahih al-Bukhari & Sahih Muslim (Hadiths of Tabarruj): Hadiths that condemn tabarruj—often citing women who dress to be noticed or display physical embellishments to the public—are used by scholars to forbid wearing cosmetics outside.

Now the no perfume rule

Every eye commits adultery, and if a woman applies perfume and passes by a gathering [of men] so that they may smell her fragrance, then she is such and such," meaning an adulteress.
(Recorded in Sunan al-Tirmidhi and Sunan an-Nasa'i; Graded Sahih)

"If one of you [women] attends the mosque, let her not put on perfume."
(Recorded in Sahih Muslim)

Abu Hurairah narrated that the Prophet (PBUH) said: "Two are the types of the denizens of Hell whom I did not see... women who would be dressed but appear to be naked, who would be inclined (to evil) and make their husbands incline towards it... They will not enter Paradise and they would not smell its odour."

This is one of the hadiths that I could never reconcile.
It says women are “deficient in intelligence” because two female witnesses equal one male witness in certain legal matters, and “deficient in religion” because they don’t pray or fast during menstruation.

The logic just doesn’t add up to me.

First, legal testimony and intelligence are two completely different things. Even if a legal system requires two witnesses in certain situations, that doesn’t magically prove women are less intelligent. That’s like saying different courtroom rules are scientific evidence about someone’s brain. It just doesn’t follow.

Second, calling women “deficient in religion” because they don’t pray during menstruation also seems strange. They’re literally following God’s own rules. If God exempts someone from fasting and prayer during a biological process He supposedly created, why call them religiously deficient for obeying that exemption?

The hadith also clashes with reality. Women have become scientists, judges, professors, surgeons, engineers, CEOs, and Nobel Prize winners. If women were genuinely deficient in intelligence, you’d expect that to show up consistently across history. It doesn’t.
To me, this reads much more like a 7th-century cultural attitude toward women than a timeless statement about half of humanity.
If someone wants to argue that it was only meant metaphorically or in a very specific legal context, that’s a different discussion. But taken at face value, I don’t see how it holds up logically or empirically.

Honestly, this hadith has never made much sense to me.
If it’s supposed to be a universal statement that no society with a female ruler can prosper, history doesn’t really support that. England under Elizabeth I became a major world power. Catherine the Great expanded and modernized Russia. Even today we’ve had countries led by women that were stable and successful. So unless you redefine “prosper” every time there’s an exception, the statement doesn’t seem to hold up.

The Qur’an also makes me question it. The Queen of Sheba isn’t portrayed as some incompetent ruler because she’s a woman. She’s shown consulting her advisors, trying to avoid war, investigating Solomon’s message instead of acting impulsively, and eventually accepting the truth. If female leadership was inherently destined to fail, why would the Qur’an include such a positive example?
Another thing is the timing. Muhammad reportedly said this after Persia put Khosrow’s daughter on the throne during a huge political crisis. That sounds a lot more like a comment about a specific situation than a timeless rule about every female leader for the rest of history.
At the end of the day, countries succeed or fail because of institutions, corruption, the economy, military strength, diplomacy, and whether the leader is competent,not because the leader happens to be male or female. History has plenty of terrible kings and plenty of capable queens.
That’s why I find it hard to read this hadith as a universal truth.

This is really sad cause imagine how many religious women would have got 🍇 in their own marriage cause their consent doesn’t mean anything and if she said no, angels are up there cursing her till she have sex with him and this is a true hadith cause I have studied this during my religious studies in my childhood since I studied in islamic institute for 14 years till the end of my high school