From: hyder@cs.utexas.edu (Syed Irfan Hyder)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.pakistan
Subject: Re: Women and Burqa: Analyzing the recent discussion
Date: 9 Apr 1992 14:15:43 -0500
Organization: U Texas Dept of Computer Sciences, Austin TX
NNTP-Posting-Host: pageboy.cs.utexas.edu

In article <1992Apr8.234135.19796@sarah.albany.edu> 
	ys3359@sarah.albany.edu (Yazmasterj) writes:
>In article <ku6geqINNt4h@pageboy.cs.utexas.edu> 
		hyder@cs.utexas.edu (Syed Irfan Hyder) writes:
>
>
>>    [I will briefly touch upon this "context" question. Ms. Yasmin
>>     at one place tries to restrict the "injunction" to the
>>     prophet's household only. It is done on the basis that
>>     the addressees were prophet's wives! Does this mean that
>>     "ALL" injunctions in Quran which are addressed to (say)
>>     Ibrahim are ONLY for Ibrahim and not for us, or those
>>     addressed to only specific people are only for those
>>     people and not for others! Such "naive attempts" at
>>     interpretation would probably leave us with none
>>     of the Quran, because the people who were addressed
>>     in Quran were specifically those of the 
>>     time of Mohaammad!!!!]
>
>
>	There are many cases where the passages of the Quran were
>	addressed directly to the Prophet or members of his household
>	which were not applied to others.  For example, the Prophet
>	was allowed to have nine wives while the limit on all other
>	Muslim men is four.  The wives of the Prophet were not allowed
>	to remarry after his death.  The verse in question here 
>	specifically declared that the wives of the Prophet were not
>	like others.  As I am at work right now and do not have the
>	Quran with me I cannot give you an exact quote, however I
>	believe the verse pointedly stated that the wives of the
>	Prophet were not like other women.  This would seem to imply
>	that this is another of the rules which were applicable only
>	to the Prophet and his household.  The exact verse has
>	been quoted in a previous post of mine in reply to Mr. Jafry.
>

The reply above, in fact supports my argument. The above rejoinder to
my comment gives example of some verses which are ONLY intended for the people
who were being addressed, while I pointed to some example of verses which
were specifically addressed to certain people but were intended for
all Muslims for all times. We therefore can say that there is some
"more complex" criteria for determining which one is which. This
in fact supports my contention that:

Concluding  that:
  
	simply  because 
		a certain verse adrresses, "specificaly" the "addressee", 

	it is therefore 
		intended for ONLY the addressee 

is a  "naive attempt". 

QED

However, we are again getting side-tracked aren't we?
It was for this reason that I outlined a strategy for
overcoming side-tracking. If someone doesn't agree with this
strategy, I am happy to look at some other proposal.

Here is a reiteration of that strategy:


How to Tackle the above Issues?
==============================
(From article <ku6geqINNt4h@pageboy.cs.utexas.edu> 
	hyder@cs.utexas.edu (Syed Irfan Hyder))

a) It is clear that the above issues require a reply from "within"
   Quran and Sunnah. This was explicitly stated by Ms. Yasmin
   in various places.

b) Because of position (a), it will be sufficient to provide
   all the relevant Quran and Hadith sources.

c) This will leave us, then, with the task of interpretting them.

d) How is Quran and Hadith interpretted?
			   ------------
   i.  First lingiustically, literal meanings of the "words" used
       in the citations are explored. 
   ii. It is then confirmed that these "meanings" were in vogue
       during prophet's time. i.e. these are not just some
       recent attributions, which would have surprised even
       the prophet or people of that time.
  iii. What are the other places in Quran and Hadith where the
       same words were used?
  iv. In what sense are these words used.

    [those who have followed the Qadiani debate are well aware
     how  issues (i) - (iv) become serious when the meanings
     of only one word "khatam" were called into question!]

   v. Once the sense is obtained, it is then explored whether
      in all such places where they are used, the context 
      remains clear and does not become ambiguous. This is
      is the most important point.
    
   
   vi. Once the unambiguous context of all such technical words
	(in this debate the eg. will be "zeenat") is obtained,
   	it is then explored, whether the interpretation so arrived
        at, still keeps the whole "spirit" of Quran togather. i.e.
        interpretation at one place may not contradict some
        other Quranic injunction elsewhere.



Regards

Irfan Hyder