An Atheist Explores the Qur'an Part Seven: Women: Know Your Place. Plus: Jews are Bad. Plus: Overly Complex Laws (The Women (al-Nisa) 1-100)

The Women (al-Nisa) 1-100
Women: Know Your Place. Plus: Jews are Bad. Plus: Overly Complex Laws.

Welcome to the next instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Qur’an version).

In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the Qur’an, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology.

For more detail, see the introductory post https://bit.ly/2ApLDy0

For the online Qur’an that I use, see here http://al-quran.info and http://quran.com

And now:

The Women (al-Nisa) 1-20

 “O mankind! Be wary of your Lord who created you from a single soul, and created its mate from it, and from the two of them, scattered numerous men and women.”

Some notes first of all. This, I see from the handy table of contents, comes after the previous two surahs in terms of writing chronology. But not directly after, because that would make some kind of sense. Also, this one doesn’t begin with any mysterious characters. I was wondering if the “Alif, Lam, Mim” thing was something like the music instructions found in the Psalms, whose meaning has been lost. I’ve heard it said that the Qur’an should be recited aloud, so perhaps these are instructions on what kind of voice technique to use to read those chapters (“Read this one in the voice of Tommy Cooper”). Or maybe not.

And, alright, we’re into it and already a mixed bag of advice and rules. We start with talking about orphans – “Give the orphans their property and do not replace the good with the bad”. Don’t cheat orphans; okay, that seems pretty reasonable. The footnotes to the next verse suggest that it is talking about girl orphans, but it’s not clear to me if all of the rules about orphans pertain only to girls or not. That verse, though (V3) is very confusing. If you think that you can’t treat girl orphans fairly, then marry as many wives as you like. Unless you think you can’t treat “them” fairly, in which case marry one. Or a slave-girl. Is “them” the multiple wives or the orphans? And how is this polygamy going to stop them from being treated unfairly? Have you not read Cinderella? And of course, if you mistreat orphans or nick their inheritance, its eternal burning for you, I’m afraid.

There then follows the most fantastically convoluted set of inheritance laws I’ve ever seen (not, I must admit, that I’ve seen many inheritance laws…). Oh no, wait; first you must act as a kind of guardian for “the feeble-minded” and look after their stuff for them. Right. Next is inheritance. “For the male shall be the like of the share of two females, and if there be [two or] more than two females, then for them shall be two-thirds of what he leaves; but if she be alone, then for her shall be a half; and for each of his parents a sixth of what he leaves, if he has children; but if he has no children, and his parents are his [sole] heirs, then it shall be a third for his mother; but if he has brothers, then a sixth for his mother, after [paying off] any bequest he may have made or any debt [he may have incurred].”

Got that? It goes on in that vein as well, but one interesting point that follows on from that verse is that these seem to be set up such that inheritance can go up as well as down generations; the idea being that you don’t know whose of more financial benefit to you, children or parents, thus providing some kind of monetised social cohesion.

There are a few verses of the usual Qur’an stuff – follow these and you get a garden with a water feature, disobey and you’ll BURN FOREVER. The we get into what to do with adulterers and fornicators. It’s not burning them. A woman who commits “an indecent act” is to be shut in the house until she dies, or until “Allah decrees a course for them”. Which will probably be death, let’s be honest. You need to procure four witnesses to be able to do this; how much they have to witness of the “indecent act” I don’t know, so unless you’ve been to a swingers party you might be okay. If two people commit “it”, whatever that might be (the footnotes say this could be fornication or sodomy) then, if you’re very sorry, Allah will let you off, as long as you don’t do it again (because obviously the you weren’t sorry before). Which seems very relaxed of Him compared to some other actions.

The Women 21-40

“Do not marry any of the women whom your fathers had married, excluding what is already past. That is indeed an indecency, an outrage and an evil course.”

There are a few verses about paying off a woman if you don’t want to be married to her anymore, and not taking wives by force, which I guess ISIS chose to gloss over. Then we get some incest laws, with the entertaining proviso that “excluding what is already past”. So, if you were having sex with your aunt before this part of the Qur’an was written, we’ll say no more of it for now, just don’t do it anymore, ‘kay? But I note that although you can’t “go into” your stepdaughters (and we all know what that means from the Bible Readthrough, right?), you can do other stuff with them, it would seem. Hm. Oh, and you can do what you like with your slave women. Sort of (see later).

Yes, you can marry slaves if you can’t afford a freewoman wife, as long as you have her master’s permission and pay a decent dowry. But, get this, a slave wife only has half the punishment for fornication compared to a freewoman because, reasons. I’m not sure how you only half starve to death whilst locked in your own house.

Here’s another verse ISIS seemed to have missed – “And do not kill yourselves”. Or maybe they didn’t, because there’s wriggle room here; it’s part of a longer verse against wasting your money, so it could possibly be interpreted as making yourself financially destitute. In which case, why not say that instead?

The next set of verses start with a reasonable sentiment – “Do not covet the advantage which Allah has given some of you over others. To men belongs a share of what they have earned, and to women a share of what they have earned.” Okay, that seems equitable. But actually it looks like it’s warning women not to “covet the advantage” that men have over them, because then we get to “Men are the managers of women, because of the advantage Allah has granted some of them over others, and by virtue of their spending out of their wealth”. Well hang on, last chapter you were saying men and women are equal. Righteous women, apparently, are obedient care-takers of their husband’s property (which would seem to include themselves). If a man fears misconduct from his wife he must first advise her, then withdraw sexual contact, and then as a last resort he must beat her. Well, I’m glad to see it’s a last resort only and I’m sure no women could object to that.

And when you beat your wife, make sure you do so humbly, because “Indeed Allah does not like anyone who is a swaggering braggart.”.

This section ends on Pascal’s wager. Yes, an actual Pascal’s wager – “What harm would it have done them had they believed in Allah and the Last Day, and spent out of what Allah has provided them?”

The Woman 41-60

“Indeed Allah does not forgive that any partner should be ascribed to Him, but He forgives anything besides that to whomever He wishes. And whoever ascribes partners to Allah has indeed fabricated [a lie] in great sinfulness.”

We leave aside rules for women for this section and return to complaining about the iniquity of Jews for a while, but first there’s a short diversion about ritual cleanliness; don’t go to prayer when you are drunk, until you are sober enough to know what you’re saying. And although you’re supposed to ritually wash before prayer, if you have some kind of uncleanliness (sick, travelling, been to the toilet or “touched women”) and there’s no water available, wiping your hands on the ground seems to be enough. And you don’t need to wash before entering a mosque if you are just passing through. Once again we see how strangely chill the Qur’an is about “the rules”. As we see in the above verse, Allah forgives anything except polytheism. I’m pretty sure He doesn’t, as there wouldn’t be so much burning otherwise.

On that point, doesn’t the Qur’an realise that less is more when it comes to threats? This frequent talk of burning gets old very quickly, and almost a joke. It reminds me of Game of Thrones, with Shagga of the hill tribes making constant threats to chop off Tyrion’s manhood and feed it to the goats. We get a few variants here, though – “hell suffices as a blaze”, and also more details on what happens. Apparently you are roasted until your skin falls off, then your skin regrows and you start over again.

Anyway. There’s some more about how the Jews can’t be trusted and rejected the “truth”, pretty much repeated from The Cow, including some stuff about saying “raina” rather than “unzurna”, and apparently “We hear and disobey” rather than “We hear and obey”. I dunno. That sounds more like a Satanist thing to me, deliberately saying the opposite. I call shenanigans on that. For some reason the Qur’an seems to think that the Jews worship idols, or “spirits” as well as God; these are the people that pretty much invented Middle Eastern monotheism, so, no, they probably don’t do that. It also asserts that if these people were in charge they would give the people “a speck on a date stone”. Jews Are Stingy stereotype!

The Women 61-80

“Whatever good befalls you is from Allah; and whatever ill befalls you is from yourself. We sent you as an apostle to mankind, and Allah suffices as a witness.”

Aye, well that’s a handy get-out clause is it not? “My child is sick”, “Well, that’s your fault, not God’s”. “I’ve won the lottery, Allah be praised!”. In fairness, in context this verse is part of a section about getting ready for battle, so perhaps it’s meant to mean specifically in the upcoming fight, but even in that sense it’s Allah getting His excuses in early. “I’ve got your back, you’ll win this one, and if you don’t, it’s your fault”.

There’s something like the end of the previous surah, complaining about people that have refused to fight and how they are amongst the faithless kind of people – if they “drag their feet” and disaster befalls the company, they claim that it was Allah’s will that saved them. Which, if Allah knows all things, surely it must have been in some form?  There’s more about how great it is to die in service of the faith, and there’s this verse “Those who have faith fight in the way of Allah, and those who are faithless fight in the way of the Rebel. So fight the friends of Satan; indeed the stratagems of Satan are always flimsy”. This reminds me of the part of the Bible where God rebukes the Israelites for making precautions in war – if you do that, He tells them, then it shows that you have no faith in me granting you victory. I’m not convinced that’s a particularly pragmatic nor sensible approach to making warfare. I guess it works some of the time, I’d be willing to bet that putting time and effort into training and equipping your soldiers has better results in the long term.

The Women 81-100

“Do they not contemplate the Qurʾān? Had it been from [someone] other than Allah, they would have surely found much discrepancy in it.”

There’s potential to be snide here, but to be honest so far I’ve not found much discrepancy. Partly because the Qur’an hasn’t really said much apart from how great and wise and merciful Allah is, and He will burn you if you disagree, plus a few rules and guidelines that equivocate so much as to be little more than hand-waving. It’s a risky gambit, though, as it invites the nitpicker to comb through looking for a discrepancy that according to this verse will then disprove that this is the word of Allah.

This section continues from the last for a few verses, about how good it is to go out and fight for Allah, and then turns to hypocrites, that least favourite of Allah’s people perhaps even more than the Jews. “But if they turn their backs, seize them and kill them wherever you find them, and do not take from among them friends or helpers,” says the Qur’an, and we see the dangers of taking verses out of context because it continues in the next verse “excepting those who join a people between whom and you there is a treaty, or such as come to you with hearts reluctant to fight you or to fight their own people”. So, kill them all!!! [Turns page] Unless they don’t want to fight. Oh right. Er, guys, back it up a moment….

The same goes for polytheists, who should be killed, but only if they pick a fight with you, or don’t “stay out of your way”. There are then a couple of verses about what happens if a Muslim kills another Muslim (which you should not do, except accidentally), involving some complicated remittance involving freeing slaves and paying were-gild, or fasting if you can’t afford it. The penance for deliberately killing a fellow Muslim, however, are left purely to the afterlife (burning, natch).

Finally we close with the proper way to emigrate – “Whoever migrates in the way of Allah will find many havens and plenitude in the earth” – which is continued in the next chunk of verses.