Culture or Religion?

I went to the talk on culture or religion and the question of women’s roles in Islam. This was a really interesting talk for me because I am currently closing out a class in Women in Developing Countries and one thing we talked about was women and their role in Islam, whether it was at home or in the social world. The thing I found most intriguing about this talk was when they starting discussing Mohammad and how he came to be known as a prophet. What was really amazing to me was that I knew what they were talking about and I could actually think about their theories and how they related to the facts I knew about women and Islam.

When the panel was talking about Kadaicha, one thing I found really interesting was that they did not bring up the fact that she was widowed. I found this really interesting when I started to learn about Islam because Kadaicha had a lot of influence in Mohammad and his theories. When Islam started being talked about in the US, I always thought that women were oppressed and not allowed to do anything. To me, they had no rights and nothing they did was either seen as productive or important. As I started my class this semester, it was a real wake up call. To learn that Mohammad took no other wives until Kadaicha was dead was stunning. The panel took things that I already knew and applied them in ways that I had not thought about.

I also found it odd that there was not really opposition to what anyone said. When the panelists said something, most of the others just agreed and added on. This showed me that the Koran is something that is not as vague as what I thought it was. It is obvious to me now that the Koran is very specific and makes it clear what should be. I liked what Mr. Byrd said about the Koran being a guide and showing what a society should be. That made this seem a lot like the US to me. The Bible is supposed to be what a model society would be, which is exactly what the Koran is.

The panel also did a very good job at hammering the fact home that Islam and Mohammad were the first ones to really give women rights and let them own property. This was amazing to me; the society that we see now as oppressive to women was and is actually more progressive than the US.

I also enjoyed the part of the speech in which the panelists talked about women and politics. Specifically when they started to talk about how women, even when elected to office, did not really change the institution, but the institution actually only changed the women in those offices.

This talk was really beneficial to me because it allowed me to understand Islam a little better instead of just the surface stuff. It is also beneficial to me because it gives me a little bit better of a perspective on different religions and how they can be divided into and actually not what they seem on the outside.