Lesbollah

My car died last week. I was looking into car donation options, and found this website/organization: www.islamicity.com

Seems like a pretty cool organization with a commendable mission.

Yesterday I read about Polygamy in Dr. Jamal A Badawi's book Women Under the Shade of Islam. He had some valid points; I understand why Polygamy was a useful practice in past times.

According to him, Polygamy was revealed after the Battle of Uhud, which left many widows and orphans at a time when it was economically and socially hard for women to raise children on their own. The Qur'an says (4:3),

"If you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly with the orphans, marry women of your choice, two, or three, or four; but if you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly (with them), then (marry) only one."

This suggests polygamy is a circumstantial practice: to be used only when its benefit outweighs the consequence. He gives examples of such instances:

*a woman who is infertile

*when men outnumber women (with the philosophy that a woman needs a man to take care of her)

*polygamy as better than infidelity or having a mistress

Badawi claims divorce is more immoral than taking on multiple wives. But in today's world it is common practice for a woman to have a career and raise children on her own. Divorce does not have the same consequences, socially and economically, for a woman that it used to. Simply put, polygamy had a time and place. But in most of the world it has become outdated. The way people live has changed. 

A documentary by Jehane Noujaim. I just watched it.

Control Room presents a concrete picture of Western/Arab relations in the reporting world during the War on Iraq, focusing on the story of Al Jazeera in Baghdad. The footage is straightforward, almost to the point of rambling. But I prefer this to calculated editing that serves a specific viewpoint, which is often the case for political documentaries. 

This is what I am thinking after watching the documentary: a large and overlooked problem with American/Arab relations is an ignorance of each other’s disposition. We just don’t “get” each other on a very simple, everyday level. The Americans are, in particular, oblivious to Arab inclination. We are sheltered in a country where we don’t have to learn about the rest of the world’s charcter. For most of the American soldiers the Iraq War was their first exposure to the Middle East. I’m not saying it was their fault—there were numerous clips of young men from mid-America saying “I’m just following orders.” But it does have to be addressed.