I do not subscribe to the religion of HarunaSilo, thus, I was not
coming from that perspective.  I was coming from the perspective of a
Muslim woman, who sees how many men from a variety of cultures love to
go on and on about how polygamy is their right, yet treat Muslim women
who try to exert their own rights given to them by Islam/Allah as a
bunch of "Western Liberal Feminists", and all of these terms used
pejoratively.  If you don't like reading about others "chatting about
others personal relationships" then don't read the article and don't
participate in the discussion.  No one said you had to comment.  I
think what it boils down to is any group in the majority does not like
the status quo/their power and authority challenged, whether it's
minorities challenging the status quo here in America and demanding
that their rights be given to them as enshrined and upheld in the US
Constitution, or whether it's Muslim women from around the world
demanding that rights given to them 1400 years ago, that Muslim men
love to talk to non-Muslims about and to use as "Dawa material", be
actually honored and respected.

I disagreed with Sankanu's piece on many levels, not the least of
which was that he gave no Islamic justification for polygamy, instead
talked of how Asians do it, and African men should be allowed to do it
and hey here's a way you can get around immigration law if you wanna
bring your wives over to the US, and oh yeah, according to him
mistresses seem OK too.  And this is supposed to be an Islamic
scholar?  The reason we choose to do or not do something should never
be because "others are doing it to so why can't we?", etc.  I can't
speak for any other woman but myself, but it's not polygamy so much
that I have a problem with, but it's the way many men practice it.
They go on and on about how polygamy is so great because those who are
monogamous would just have mistresses anyway if the men were not
polygamous, and yet the way some men treat the practice, i.e., taking
wives in secret, not telling the wives' he's got already, etc., you'd
think that he was going and getting himself a mistress instead of
honorably marrying another woman.  And how many polygamous men also
have "mistresses" too?  Polygamy is not the cure for "the evil West
and its un-Islamic sexual morals", it's not and never should be a
"halal" way for "men to cheat", etc.  As I said in my piece, the
verses in the Qur'an that deal with polygamy are actually talking
about widows and orphans.  The issue of sex isn't even discussed.

If people want to practice polygamy because they feel their
culture/religion says they have a right to it, I've got no problem
with that.  However, if you think it's such a good lifestyle then stop
with the secrecy, the hiding stuff, etc., and just be out with it.
Sankanu mentions the Mormons in the US, and you don't see them
pretending to be monogamous while having multiple spouses.  The wives
will tell you who they are in a second.  The men will tell you who
their wives are.  You don't have any of this men going off somewhere
to get married to a woman secretly and without telling his other wives
about it.  Or lying to immigration and saying that one of his wives is
a cousin/sister, etc.  As if Muslims in the West need any more
problems with immigration/Western governments.

I'm not saying that polygamy can't/doesn't work, however, many men
abuse it, many women use it to stir up drama, and that's not the kind
of situation I want to be a part of.  And my point is to say that
judging by the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him)
there is room in Islam for people who wish to be monogamous and those
who wish to be polygamous, no one is more or less religious or pious
or Islamic than the other.

Ginny



On 7/13/10, suntou touray <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Sadakita. Ginny's views were relevant so far her experience is concern.
> Still respect to Harunasilo.
> Thanks
> Suntou
>
> On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 3:23 PM, Haruna Darbo <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> More chatter about others' personal relations and desires. Throw in
>> homosexual relations and their possible desires for multiple registered
>> partners (wives and husbands), then you got the makings of chatterboxes,
>> gaucherie, Sodom, Gomorrah, and societal disintegration. Until another
>> plague. As the seasons change. In HarunaSilo, we do not pretend to
>> legislate
>> the relationships between men and women, or men and men, or women and
>> women,
>> or man and animal. We focus more on the rights of the man, the woman, the
>> child, and the animal.
>>
>> Lo, they may enter into conjugal relations with as many folk as their
>> hearts desire. keep the rings of life turning at the proper speed. We will
>> maintain equilibrium with the forces so generated by dispensing with the
>> malignant lot. That will be good for you.
>> Haruna. HarunaMo.
>>
>>   -----Original Message-----
>> From: suntou touray <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: GAMBIA-L <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Tue, Jul 13, 2010 9:35 am
>> Subject: The polygamy debate.. Ginny made lots of sense
>>
>>   www.maafanta.com
>>
>> *Thoughts on Polygamy and the Treatment of Women
>> **by Ginny Quick, Florida
>>
>> *Greetings, all, am feeling once again driven to contribute to a
>> Maafanta discussion:  this time as regards polygamy and the
>> relationships between men and women, as they do kind of go hand in
>> hand.
>>
>> First, though, polygamy.  I am a Muslim, and have been so for about 10
>> and a half years now.  And while I don't feel that polygamy should be
>> banned, as it is a right given to the man by Allah, I also have to say
>> that as it's practiced in many places in the world, it's a practice
>> that I do not feel entirely comfortable with for myself.  Perhaps it's
>> my "Western/American upbringing", as I'm well, an American, but I
>> really feel that just as men have a right to the practice, Islamicly,
>> women also Islamicly have a right to say that a polygamous lifestyle
>> may not be right for them.
>>
>> And I find Sankanu's reasons for polygamy
>> to be a bit superficial and flimsy.  I thought I'd read on Maafanta
>> that he was a scholar (and an Islamic one at that), yet when he speaks
>> of polygamy, I notice that he doesn't use any Islamic justification
>> for the practice, but merely suggests that "others are doing it" and
>> then semes to suggest that he and other men should be allowed to
>> continue the practice "because we're Africans and that's part of our
>> culture".  No matter that he is all but telling people how to break
>> local immigration law to do it (something that can get you deported if
>> you're caught).
>> And not only this, he talks of polygamy being good
>> for women because they have other women around to gossip with, etc.,
>> as if all women are gossipy?  So not only is he using cultural
>> justifications, telling people how to break local immigration law, and
>> saying polygamy is good for us women because of stereotypical
>> "feminine qualities" that supposedly all women possess, but then he
>> further generalizes how monogamous relationships work, and further
>> implies that people in monogamous relationships just would go and get
>> themselves a mistress anyway.  And polygamy as a form of environmental
>> responsibility and a cure for wastefulness?  Now that's a new one on
>> me.
>>
>> Here are my thoughts on polygamy.  Firstly, it can work, if the
>> man/husband is upfront and honest about it, no secret wives, no not
>> telling the first/second/third wife that he's gone and gotten
>> remarried.  Everything should be up front and above board.  I mean,
>> why keep it a secret (and make it more like the supposed monogamous
>> relationships Sankanu generalizes about, where infidelity has to be
>> kept secret lest the wife/girlfirend finds out?), if polygamy is
>> supposed to be all that, and OK, etc.  People usually keep secrets
>> because they've done something they don't want others to know about,
>> or they've done something that they feel they're going to get
>> chastized, etc., for.  And for me as a woman, it's not the "sharing
>> the husband" that would get me, it would be the finding out he got a
>> second/third/fourth wife from his friend/cousin/her showing up on my
>> doorstep.  And it would be marrying the subsequent wife, not because
>> he's taking care of orphans/widows, etc., as Islamicly recommended,
>> but because he wants something more younger/beautiful, and he's gotten
>> tired of the wife/wives he already has.  i.e., I'm no longer good
>> enough so he has to go out and get him some "fresh meat", as it were.
>>
>> And what if I'm a "global cowife", and my husband spends most of his
>> time in another country?  What about my/the woman's Islamic rights to
>> companionship/sexual satisfaction, etc.?  While a man can marry up to
>> four women (and Sankanu continually refers to "mistresses" as well
>> which is something else prohibited Islamicly) and thereby satisfy this
>> for himself as he'd have a wife wherever he went, assuming he was
>> going to the same place one of his wives were, what about the
>> wive/wives left behind?  I'm telling you, if I only saw my husband a
>> few times a year, I'd get pretty lonely, and that would not be a
>> marriage I'd want to be a part of.  And that might actually be an
>> example that goes against everything Sankanu is saying, i.e., polygamy
>> would keep people from having mistresses, etc., because I might be
>> forced to go and find a man to give me what my husband, being that
>> he's halfway around the world, probably with his other wife, not able
>> or willing to give me.
>>
>> And I think this is where the jealousy comes
>> in.  I'm reminded of that song by the SOS Band "Just Be Good To Me"
>> where she says "I don't care 'bout those other girls, just be good to
>> me".  So if my husband is good to me and treats me well, if he chooses
>> to take a subsequent wife, and he loves and respects me enough to tell
>> me this, and even after he's taken the subsequent wife, he continues
>> to treat me with the same love and respect as before, then I have no
>> problem with polygamy.  The issue is that across many cultures, the
>> practice does not always work as it's supposed to.  You have men
>> favoring one wife over the other, you have cowives stirring up drama
>> and fitna amongst each other, you have all kinds of drama that I
>> personally  would not want to be a part of.
>>
>> One marriage with one man
>> and one woman is hard enough, it takes enough work and time and
>> effort, so adding another marriage into the mix would just make things
>> harder, not only for the man, who now has extra things to balance, but
>> for the women as well, even if they don't engage in drama and aren't
>> jealous.  The problem is, men sometimes like to look at polygamy as
>> halal/permissible opportunities for sex with a new person, when
>> polygamy is not always supposed to be about that.  I mean, if you look
>> at the Qur'an, you see that the verses surrounding the verse
>> specifically dealing with polygamy aren't talking about the practice
>> being allowed because African men do it, or for men to be able to get
>> their freak on with a new woman, but the verses are dealing
>> specifically with the care of widows and orphans, and the verse on
>> polygamy itself goes on further to state as translated into English as
>> "if you cannot do justly between them, then marry only one"!  And this
>> is a very important caveat here.
>> Along with the fact that per the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad, he
>> did not always live polygamously as his marriage to Khadija
>> demonstrates.  Which further shows to me that while polygamy is an
>> option and a right for a man, it is not absolute and it is a choice
>> and it is something that women can choose whether or not they want to
>> be a part of.
>>
>> As regards the "war of the sexes", i.e., the relationship between men
>> and women, I can speak for myself only when I say, as Aretha Franklin
>> says (and I just heard this song today actually) "All I want is a
>> little respect".  And it really bothers me that when women say that
>> they may not want polygamy or they want more equality or autonomy in
>> the relationship or they'd like a man to be more attentive to them,
>> that they're just some kind of "liberal feminists" or something.  You
>> can't come to America and expect things to be the way it was back in
>> the village, expecting your wife to cook, clean, take care of the kids
>> and possibly work full time while you come home and just sit on your
>> butt watching TV, not helping out at all.  And this isn't just an
>> African thing, a lot of American men do this too.  If both of you are
>> working, there's nothing saying that you as a man, especially if you
>> still want the right to go gallavanting off to some far-flung place to
>> spend time with Wife # 2, can't change a few diapers or spend time
>> with the kids, or clean the house, etc., while your wife rests or has
>> some time to herself.
>> Probably the reason why back in the village the
>> men could sit around all day and drink ataya while their wives cooked,
>> cleaned, took care of the kids, etc., was because there were plenty of
>> aunts, cousins, sisters, grandma's, etc., to do it, as it used to be
>> here in the US, back when you didn't just have the nuclear family,
>> back when you had a lot of extended family and neighbors around to
>> help with the farmwork, etc.  But in most of modern America, you just
>> don't have that kind of lifestyle anymore.  There's just you, your
>> wife, and any kids you might have, which means that both you and the
>> wife may have to share some of the household responsibilities.  And
>> culture aside, if the Prophet Muhammad himself helped out with the
>> housework, then you as a mere human being shouldn't be too good for a
>> bit of dish-washing, or taking out the trash, yourself.  The problem
>> with some, but not all men, is that they want to have their cake and
>> eat it too, they want the "fun" of polygamy but not the responsibility
>> that goes with it, they want their wife/wives to live up to a usually
>> superficial/fantasy standard that just doesn't exist, i.e., the
>> perfect body after 5 kids, the sex drive of a 20 year old after
>> they've spent the day cooking, cleaning, taking care of the kids,
>> after working a full time job, etc., and even if the man is
>> polygamous, he still wants all of this in his wife/wives, and if she
>> doesn't meet with his satisfaction/approval, he just goes and gets
>> another wife.
>>
>> The thing is, women are not glorified children, or superhuman
>> play-things, just as men need to feel respected, women need to feel
>> respected and valued, etc., too.  And I don't know how Sankanu thinks
>> most of us women are, but I personally don't ask for much.  If I do
>> something nice for you, a "thank you" means a lot, or a compliment, or
>> something to let me know that you appreciate all that I do for you as
>> a wife/mother, etc.  As they say, little things can add up to a whole
>> lot.  It just bothers me that women are portrayed by Sankanu as these
>> demanding people who are too greedy and too unappreciative of their
>> husbands, it's like he's demanding his rights, while not respecting
>> the rights that women have.  And it's unfortunate that this is coming
>> from a supposed Islamic scholar on top of that.  Who should also know
>> that many Muslim scholars have said that a Muslim living in non-Muslim
>> lands should abide by the laws of that land, which means no polygamy
>> and thus no hiding it by calling your co-wife your cousin/sister, etc.
>>
>> If practicing of polygamy is so important to Sankanu and if it works
>> so much better in Africa then perhaps he should instruct African men
>> who wish to practice polygamy to stay in Africa where they are,
>> instead of telling them how to get around the laws of the US/Europe to
>> continue the practice here.  However, in his defense of polygamy and
>> upholding of the status quo as regards how women should behave and how
>> women should be treated, I saw nary a peep about Islam, no quotes from
>> the Quran, no exampels from the Sunnah of our beloved prophet, just a
>> railing against Rohi for being a supposed "feminist", and an emotional
>> screed about how Sankanu is an African and how because of this, he and
>> other Africans should be allowed to continue the practice.  And if he
>> wants to argue the merits of polygamy from an African cultural
>> context, that is one thing, but don't bring Islam into it, and don't
>> trump Islam with culture, because Islam should always be the standard
>> by which we judge a practice to be permissible or not, And this goes
>> for all of us as Muslims, whether we're African, American, Chinese,
>> etc.
>>
>>
>> --
>> Surah- Ar-Rum 30-22
>> "And among His signs is the creation of heavens and the earth, and the
>> difference of your languages and colours. Verily, in that are indeed signs
>> for men of sound knowledge." Qu'ran
>>
>> www.suntoumana.blogspot.com
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>
>
> --
> Surah- Ar-Rum 30-22
> "And among His signs is the creation of heavens and the earth, and the
> difference of your languages and colours. Verily, in that are indeed signs
> for men of sound knowledge." Qu'ran
>
> www.suntoumana.blogspot.com
>
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