Well, I would go with compass, but then personally I'm not muslim & not limiting myself to any particular tradition :)

I have a feeling most writers here would go with "compass" because that seems more like what "progressive" means, instead of "conservative" which is what "contained" seems more like.

hakim baker

Yes, I guess what I am trying to work out, especially after reading Laury Silvers newest post on women’s legal equalities is:
Can we appropriately use the ayas in the Qur’an to establish a more general message in a certain direction? I mean, being a new sister, is this “legal”-what jurists already do, or is it considered “innovation”?

Many of the comments on Laury Silvers interview say things like why do we even need to discuss the minutae of whether the Qur’an allows you to hit women, how much and for what reasons. Most people would be like, what the f@#% when they hear that. It is morally wrong. Can we just say that at the time it was revealed it established a trend of improving/guaranteeing women’s rights and trying to put a limit on the abuses they currently endured in the society and that the intent was that this would evolve even further as society progressed. Making women spiritually equal was radical at the time in many ways so can we point to trends and intents in developing ummm, would Sharia be the right term here, or do we have to say nope, Sharia would only include EXACTLY what is written literally.

I hope I am correct in assuming that most progressive muslims would be interested in evolving the intent. I guess I just have a concern that even more conservative Muslims use the intent or trend in areas that don’t threaten them, but in relation to women’s status take a limiting, literal stance…

The softest things in the world overcome the hardest things in the world.
Lao Tzu

Xayaa,

This is a wonderful post. I will take the Qur’an to be a compass.

However, when we look at shariah, their is no uniformity since shariah is colored by local culture, customs, traditions, and practices. And this is true of prevailing beliefs about gender and sexuality.

I would say when we read the Qur’an, we need to historically contextualize it and see what life was like prior to the ministry of Muhammad.

We find a society that allowed for female infanticide, something that was strictly forbidden in Islam.

We also have evidence that women engaged in multiple marriages too, women could take more than one husband at a given time.

With Islam, polygamy was given a limit and there was a pre-condition imposed which would make monogamy the default preferred form of marriage.

As for lightly beating your wife in the Qur’an, a man could not strike her on the face or hands, areas that were allowed for public exposure. He was not to leave any markings or bruises whatsoever on the body, that would be pretty difficult to avoid when you hit someone with a hand or object.

The width of the object to beat a woman could not be thicker than your pinkie.

I learned this at various masjids that I have attended.

There is much debate in Islam, as there are in many world religions about the “proper way to interpret scripture.”

But I would say, compass is the more apt metaphor to describe the value and meaning of the Qur’an.

I would argue that the Qur’an serves both purposes, depending upon the situation. There are some rather explicit boundaries, and some moral trajectories that if followed, could lead to conclusions that are flexible enough to be relevant to each age, and firm enough not to dissolve into a moral haze of relativism. Is there a set way to decide which is which? No. Will we become better people (and insha’Allah, better Muslims) by attempting the search? I think so.