The Saga Continues.....

[Veiled Princess 1]

Layla's Arab? That's interesting.

BTW, I know now that you are confusing what is required in a nikah ceremony, and what is required to make the nikah valid. You are talking only about the former, I have expanded my remarks to the latter. We continue to speak past each other.

OK I'll bite... expand on this more so that I can understand what you're talking about?

At some point, I realized that you were still appealing to the ceremonial elements of a nikah contract - offer, acceptance(concurance of both parties and the wali), and consideration (mahr) - while I was arguing that what makes the contract, thus the marriage, valid is its ability to be enforced. I take your position to be that one is legitimately married if all the ceremonial elements are present; my position is that there is no valid contract without the continued acquiesance of an authority that has the power to uphold it. If there is no entity outside of the state to enforce your inheritance, to evenly distribute assets, to require support for your children, are you really married under Islam when Islam requires that the circumstances under which you enter into a contract be one that can also offer you justice and protection? I would say no.

I see you rejecting the elements beyond the ceremony that are also required by Islam to validate all social contracts entered into under al-mu`amalat , and marriage, being a social contract, is no exception.

OK I see what you're saying. So by these standards, can there be a valid marriage in the west? Are the courts going to start recognizing our marriage contracts in court? Will they give us our rights as we see them? Do we have to have marriage contracts that are 101 pages long so we don't miss anything for them? Are they going to let us set up an Islamic court for ourselves? I have heard of it being considered a prenup but does that make it ok?

I still don't think having a nikaah without a marriage certificate is haraam. Maybe you risk losing some of your rights but both parties should fear Allah anyway and not do anything to deny the other party their rights.

I don't agree with about 99% of what you say or believe but I think I see what you're trying to say.

p.s. NO Layla is not Arab... Layla is native american (Cherokee)

[AngelK96 0]

Layla's Arab? That's interesting.

BTW, I know now that you are confusing what is required in a nikah ceremony, and what is required to make the nikah valid. You are talking only about the former, I have expanded my remarks to the latter. We continue to speak past each other.

OK I'll bite... expand on this more so that I can understand what you're talking about?

At some point, I realized that you were still appealing to the ceremonial elements of a nikah contract - offer, acceptance(concurance of both parties and the wali), and consideration (mahr) - while I was arguing that what makes the contract, thus the marriage, valid is its ability to be enforced. I take your position to be that one is legitimately married if all the ceremonial elements are present; my position is that there is no valid contract without the continued acquiesance of an authority that has the power to uphold it. If there is no entity outside of the state to enforce your inheritance, to evenly distribute assets, to require support for your children, are you really married under Islam when Islam requires that the circumstances under which you enter into a contract be one that can also offer you justice and protection? I would say no.

I see you rejecting the elements beyond the ceremony that are also required by Islam to validate all social contracts entered into under al-mu`amalat , and marriage, being a social contract, is no exception.

OK I see what you're saying. So by these standards, can there be a valid marriage in the west? Are the courts going to start recognizing our marriage contracts in court? Will they give us our rights as we see them? Do we have to have marriage contracts that are 101 pages long so we don't miss anything for them? Are they going to let us set up an Islamic court for ourselves? I have heard of it being considered a prenup but does that make it ok?

I still don't think having a nikaah without a marriage certificate is haraam. Maybe you risk losing some of your rights but both parties should fear Allah anyway and not do anything to deny the other party their rights.

I don't agree with about 99% of what you say or believe but I think I see what you're trying to say.

p.s. NO Layla is not Arab... Layla is native american (Cherokee)

Haha I wasn't sure how to answer szsz when she asked if you were arab. Lets turn this thread into get off my land...joke! just kidding you are all welcome to stay in my country.

Edited July 17, 2006 by angelk96

[Veiled Princess 1]

Haha I wasn't sure how to answer szsz when she asked if you were arab. Lets turn this thread into get off my land...joke! just kidding you are all welcome to stay in my country.

GO GO GO... all illegal immigrants!!!! (europeans!!!) go back where you came from! THIS is not YOUR land!!!

OK OK some can stay

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Cherokee, eh? Kewl. I have four cousins (one is my boss!) who are half Native American and half Palestinian. That's a hell of a mix; talk about being pissed off about being ripped off. You don't want to get between them and an argument about immigration, whew!

Edited July 17, 2006 by szsz

[joyeann 0]

Hey!! Go easy on the Cherokees!! I am one!! over 75%! Hmm what will that make my kids?

I had a huge argument with a guy on another forum a long time ago, and he told me that I didn't have as many rights as he did since his family was one of the first over here LOL I almost had to send him my tribe card!!

That was how I found this board A couple other boards were telling me that "Ellis Island" was closed.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

OK I see what you're saying. So by these standards, can there be a valid marriage in the west?

Yes.

Are the courts going to start recognizing our marriage contracts in court?

It's happened, but no contract is valid if it negates other inherent rights.

Will they give us our rights as we see them?

How do "we" see them? You and I have already shown that not all Muslims see rights the same way.

Do we have to have marriage contracts that are 101 pages long so we don't miss anything for them?

No.

Are they going to let us set up an Islamic court for ourselves?

Some places in the west already have them, but they are voluntary.

I have heard of it being considered a prenup but does that make it ok?

It is a prenup.

I still don't think having a nikaah without a marriage certificate is haraam. Maybe you risk losing some of your rights but both parties should fear Allah anyway and not do anything to deny the other party their rights.

Wishful thinking, sister. That's why the nikah is a contract, not a sacrament. Allah understands our frailities all too well.

I don't agree with about 99% of what you say or believe but I think I see what you're trying to say.

I speak of justice, responsibility, mercy, forgiveness, seeking to promote the spirit of Islam and Allah's intent, gaining knowledge, dealing in reality, allowing Allah to judge between us, and protection of mutual rights, all tenets of the faith. How can you disagree with 99% of that?

Take care and be safe.

Edited July 17, 2006 by szsz

[Sofiyya 1,687]

I still don't think having a nikaah without a marriage certificate is haraam. Maybe you risk losing some of your rights but both parties should fear Allah anyway and not do anything to deny the other party their rights.

I have to add something more in response to this comment. I do not understand why someone who is knowledgable about the God-given rights and responsibilities engendered in marriage would enter into an agreement understanding that they would lose some or all of them. It may not be haram, but how does doing so serve to engage Islam, please God, or reflect His Intent? What would be the point?

Edited July 17, 2006 by szsz

[Veiled Princess 1]

I have to add something more in response to this comment. I do not understand why someone who is knowledgable about the God-given rights and responsibilities engendered in marriage would enter into an agreement understanding that they would lose some or all of them. It may not be haram, but how does doing so serve to engage Islam, please God, or reflect His Intent? What would be the point?

Because it may the only way for someone to avoid falling into haraam.

I knew I wasn't going to be able to get a marriage certificate the night I arrived in Egypt. I didn't want to be around Yousuf alone before we were married but I also didn't want to stay by myself in Egypt.

I could ask you the same thing. Is it not haraam for muslim women to marry kufar?.... one of the reasons being because of the rights muslim men are to give us?.... why would you marry a christian man knowing that?

OK I see what you're saying. So by these standards, can there be a valid marriage in the west?

I don't agree with about 99% of what you say or believe but I think I see what you're trying to say.

I speak of justice, responsibility, mercy, forgiveness, seeking to promote the spirit of Islam and Allah's intent, gaining knowledge, dealing in reality, allowing Allah to judge between us, and protection of mutual rights, all tenets of the faith. How can you disagree with 99% of that?

Well, like I already said... I firmly believe in not changing the religion and you seek to make changes. I though we were clear on that earlier.

Also, that 99% includes all the topics you have posted about so far not just this one. So I have heard your opinion of a few things so far.... 1. Islam is meant to be fair and Allah is merciful... agreed 2. women don't have to wear hijab.... not agreed 3. muslim women can marry kufar.... not agreed 4. If we don't like something in Islam we can just change it and call it justice to make it sound good.... not agreed

Layla

[Together4ever 1]

[i could ask you the same thing. Is it not haraam for muslim women to marry kufar?.... one of the reasons being because of the rights muslim men are to give us?.... why would you marry a christian man knowing that?

[Layla

Unless I'm misunderstanding what you meant to say... christians are not considered "kufr" as I was taught. Those who contemptuously mock and deny, I was taught, are kufr.

Sorry, that is a term my sis-in-law loves to throw around for any reason at any person at any time. Cross her and you become a kufr. However, that wasn't what was meant in the quran. (She cracks me up.)

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Because it may the only way for someone to avoid falling into haraam.

I knew I wasn't going to be able to get a marriage certificate the night I arrived in Egypt. I didn't want to be around Yousuf alone before we were married but I also didn't want to stay by myself in Egypt.

If you're not married, and you are not because you cannot fulfil the elements of marriage in Islam, you have already fallen into haram, Layla. I have not heard of all this "Islamic marriage" between western women and eastern men before American converts introduced me to it, and, in an earlier thread, I'm not the only born Muslim who has mentioned that this is something new to them, too. Frankly, I believe it to be a concoction, a bida, if you please, between the sex-fueled imagery eastern men have of western women and the rush to intimacy taught to women from western cultures.

If a Muslim man approached me to have a nikah that did not provide for enforcement of obligations, protection of both parties, and a means of doing justice, but did attempt to convince me that I could be intimate with him, I would be insulted by his lack of honor just as I would be if a non-Muslim men approached me for illicit sex and disregarded my rights. There would be no difference between them.

If that intimacy resulted in a conception, that man would have no obligations toward me nor the child, in fact, he could legally marry someone else and I could do nothing to hold him to his responsibilities because I was not married to him other than in our imaginations.

It seems to me, Layla, in this way, you are far more "western" than I am in this regard. You sold yourself cheap, and now seek to convince others that they can do the same. I never did, but required that my God-given rights were not so easily disregarded. I would do so with ANY man.

I could ask you the same thing. Is it not haraam for muslim women to marry kufar?.... one of the reasons being because of the rights muslim men are to give us?.... why would you marry a christian man knowing that?

Well, the rights of a wife are given by God, not by Muslim men. No Muslim, male or female, is to marry kuffar, but we are allowed to marry among the people of the ahl al kitab.

Well, like I already said... I firmly believe in not changing the religion and you seek to make changes. I though we were clear on that earlier.

I see you as among those who are making changes, Layla. The reality is, I'm much older than you are, was born into the deen and was educated in madrassas and at the feet of my ancestors all my young life. I had the religion first, and what you were taught in the past few years since you converted is not what most of us were taught in the past half century or more. How can I concede that you are right with your new ideas when that is not the Way I have always known? I can't.

Also, that 99% includes all the topics you have posted about so far not just this one. So I have heard your opinion of a few things so far.... 1. Islam is meant to be fair and Allah is merciful... agreed 2. women don't have to wear hijab.... not agreed 3. muslim women can marry kufar.... not agreed 4. If we don't like something in Islam we can just change it and call it justice to make it sound good.... not agreed

On hijab, we can continue to disagree, I am used to that, but as far as who is making changes, I worry for you because you are far less concerned about the protection of your rights and falling into sin than I am for you. It hardly makes a difference as to the religion of the man we marry if he is not seeking to do justice toward us, but accepts an invalid marriage so we could be together. I believe you are the on who has fallen in with the "bad changes" group, not I, that is why you are of a sect, and not of mainstream Islam. And, Jean is right. Just being non-Muslim doesn't make you kuffar. It's your acts that take you there.

I apologize if my words seem harsh and insensitive, but I cannot just think of how what I say affects you when I comment, I am thinking of those who are reading who may be lead astray by the bad innovations you expouse.

May Allah guide us all.

Edited July 17, 2006 by szsz

[Veiled Princess 1]

If you're not married, and you are not because you cannot fulfil the elements of marriage in Islam, you have already fallen into haram, Layla. I have not heard of all this "Islamic marriage" between western women and eastern men before American converts introduced me to it, and, in an earlier thread, I'm not the only born Muslim who has mentioned that this is something new to them, too. Frankly, I believe it to be a concoction, a bida, if you please, between the sex-fueled imagery eastern men have of western women and the rush to intimacy taught to women from western cultures.

I am married! I have fulfilled the requirements of my nikaah! I guess no one in countries who don't recognize the marriage contract can ever get married. Actually, women from Saudi and other Muslim / Arab nations can't marry because they don't give women the rights you think they should. Don't tell me the west gives women their rights. If they did I wouldn't have to beg for child support on a weekly basis from the kaafir I was married to in the past!

If a Muslim man approached me to have a nikah that did not provide for enforcement of obligations, protection of both parties, and a means of doing justice, but did attempt to convince me that I could be intimate with him, I would be insulted by his lack of honor just as I would be if a non-Muslim men approached me for illicit sex and disregarded my rights. There would be no difference between them.

We don't have to worry about that we know you prefer the kufar over a good muslim brother any day.

If that intimacy resulted in a conception, that man would have no obligations toward me nor the child, in fact, he could legally marry someone else and I could do nothing to hold him to his responsibilities because I was not married to him other than in our imaginations.

Who says? You think men in America who make babies with 5 different women don't have to take care of those babies even though they weren't married?

It seems to me, Layla, in this way, you are far more "western" than I am in this regard. You sold yourself cheap, and now seek to convince others that they can do the same. I never did, but required that my God-given rights were not so easily disregarded. I would do so with ANY man.

I could ask you the same thing. Is it not haraam for muslim women to marry kufar?.... one of the reasons being because of the rights muslim men are to give us?.... why would you marry a christian man knowing that?

Well, the rights of a wife are given by God, not by Muslim men. No Muslim, male or female, is to marry kuffar, but we are allowed to marry among the people of the ahl al kitab.

WE are not allowed to marry ahlul kitab... men are allowed to marry women from them. It is haraam for a muslim woman to marry any other than a muslim man.

Well, like I already said... I firmly believe in not changing the religion and you seek to make changes. I though we were clear on that earlier.

I see you as among those who are making changes, Layla. The reality is, I'm much older than you are, was born into the deen and was educated in madrassas and at the feet of my ancestors all my young life. I had the religion first, and what you were taught in the past few years since you converted is not what most of us were taught in the past half century or more. How can I concede that you are right with your new ideas when that is not the Way I have always known? I can't.

I agree, you are much older than I am. I can't speak about your ancestors or what they taught you because I don't know where you're from. In fact, as I mentioned before, I don't know anything about you at all.

Also, that 99% includes all the topics you have posted about so far not just this one. So I have heard your opinion of a few things so far.... 1. Islam is meant to be fair and Allah is merciful... agreed 2. women don't have to wear hijab.... not agreed 3. muslim women can marry kufar.... not agreed 4. If we don't like something in Islam we can just change it and call it justice to make it sound good.... not agreed

On hijab, we can continue to disagree, I am used to that, but as far as who is making changes, I worry for you because you are far less concerned about the protection of your rights and falling into sin than I am for you. It hardly makes a difference as to the religion of the man we marry if he is not seeking to do justice toward us, but accepts an invalid marriage so we could be together. I believe you are the on who has fallen in with the "bad changes" group, not I, that is why you are of a sect, and not of mainstream Islam. And, Jean is right. Just being non-Muslim doesn't make you kuffar. It's your acts that take you there.

It is from the Quran and Sunnah for women to wear hijab. You don't disagree with me, you disagree with your Creator and His messenger.

I apologize if my words seem harsh and insensitive, but I cannot just think of how what I say affects you when I comment, I am thinking of those who are reading who may be lead astray by the bad innovations you expouse.

Nothing you say affects me. I have scholars to seek knowledge and adivce from and I don't pick it up here on VJ

May Allah guide us all.

Ameen!

Layla

[i could ask you the same thing. Is it not haraam for muslim women to marry kufar?.... one of the reasons being because of the rights muslim men are to give us?.... why would you marry a christian man knowing that?

[Layla

Unless I'm misunderstanding what you meant to say... christians are not considered "kufr" as I was taught. Those who contemptuously mock and deny, I was taught, are kufr.

Sorry, that is a term my sis-in-law loves to throw around for any reason at any person at any time. Cross her and you become a kufr. However, that wasn't what was meant in the quran. (She cracks me up.)

Ahlul kitab are kufar. They do not believe that Muhammad was the messenger of Allah and they commit shirk. If they die in that state they will go to annar forever. If they die we are not allowed to bury them with the muslims or pray for them. That is proof they are kufar. Kufar is not a dirty four-lettered word that muslims should be afraid to use. Kufr is disbelief.... kaafir is a non-believer. Either you believe (muslims) or you don't (kufar).

Layla

[Veiled Princess 1]

We don't have to worry about that we know you prefer the kufar over a good muslim brother any day.

I'm sorry for this comment. It was not nice but I couldn't edit after I had already answered out of anger.

Layla

[noura 0]

It really is a shame that Goldenheart's plight has turned into an islamic debate b/t 2 members

Can we just close this issue now and agree that you both disagree and just be here for a sister in need?

I know some of the posts were aimed at helping her discover the issue of the refusal and problems at POE, but this is getting a little ridiculous in my humble little bitty opinion.... just my 87 cents...

thanks, and have a lovely day!

NOURA

[Veiled Princess 1]

It really is a shame that Goldenheart's plight has turned into an islamic debate b/t 2 members

Can we just close this issue now and agree that you both disagree and just be here for a sister in need?

I know some of the posts were aimed at helping her discover the issue of the refusal and problems at POE, but this is getting a little ridiculous in my humble little bitty opinion.... just my 87 cents...

thanks, and have a lovely day!

NOURA

You're right Noura and I'm sorry!

I didn't mean to bring it here. I just wanted the proof and I asked for it to be given in private.

I'm sorry GH

I'm sorry everyone else

[iceyspots 0]

wow..