Maryam Amir – Do men scholars want women to feel pain
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses the controversial idea that women should experience pain during childbirth, and how it can lead to complications. They also talk about the dangerous belief that women should be in a spiritual sense of pain, and how it is a responsibility for women to improve on their understanding of the natural world. The speaker emphasizes the importance of women being informed of the natural world and the importance of finding a spiritual understanding.
AI: Summary ©
Yesterday, I removed a video where I spoke
about Shaykh Ibn Uthaymeen's position on C-sections.
There's a viral fatwa going around about Shaykh
Ibn Uthaymeen speaking about the need for women
to experience pain when in childbirth.
He speaks about a number of reasons of
why pain is a benefit and he mentions
research from 30 years ago.
And in another fatwa, he speaks about how
women in private Saudi hospitals were requesting elective
C-sections in order to not experience the
pain of vaginal births.
Multiple C-sections can lead to particular complications
and so he was commenting on the fact
that it can lead to those types of
complications.
Now, many women ask why I was justifying
the Shaykh saying that women have to experience
pain.
As I said in the last video, there
is no type of birth that's not painful.
C-sections have an incredible amount of pain
and especially in recovery.
And I mentioned this in the last video.
I don't know where the idea that anyone,
whether it was women seeking elective C-sections
or whether it was a questioner or the
Shaykh saying that women are seeking C-sections
as a luxury.
I'm not sure where that idea comes from
because if you were to speak to really
most women who have given any type of
birth, including C-sections and the recovery of
C-sections, it's a very painful process.
But my point was that the Shaykh was
responding to the question of pain.
That's why his whole fatwa that went viral
was about pain.
It wasn't responding to the idea of C
-sections in general, which he spoke about the
importance of in other fatwa that he has
written.
So he was talking about a specific societal
phenomenon that he was witnessing over 30 years
ago in private hospitals of Saudi Arabia.
Now, women asked me why I am defending
the Shaykh when he said that women have
to experience pain.
Islam does not require pain for blessings.
Unlike with the two-door society exported into
Muslim-majority countries on menses and childbirth and
their understanding of the Bible, they believe that
Eve was responsible for seducing Adam.
That is blasphemy in Islam.
But my point is that what we saw
was one fatwa.
Whether or not we agree or disagree with
him is really not the point.
My point was simply to bring context.
I saw people make videos saying that Shaykh
Ibn Uthaymeen said C-sections are makrooh.
That's a very dangerous statement to make.
It's very dangerous.
Why?
Because makrooh means disliked and C-sections in
and of themselves are not disliked.
So when you put words in the mouth
of the Shaykh in an attempt to defend
him, you can put a woman's life and
that of her baby at risk.
Many women who follow me have had intense
religious trauma and I've been told by many
women that they feel some form of hope
when sometimes they see my videos and I'm
very grateful and humbled by that.
And the reason why I pulled my video
yesterday is because women who had trauma, who
have trauma, felt that and acknowledged the trauma
that his position or misunderstanding it could bring.
And I want to respond by sharing with
you that the reason why I made the
video in the first place was for women
with religious trauma.
To understand that our scholars didn't simply want
women to hurt for the sake of feeling
hurt, but rather there's an entire context to
what he was saying that was missing from
Islamweb's fatwa and from the videos I saw
And when we don't have that context, it
simply perpetuates the understanding, the weaponization of readable
religious figures to continually affirm that women need
to be in a spiritual sense in pain
or in a physical sense in pain.
When in reality, that's not what they were
saying in the first place when you look
at the overall fatwa that they mentioned.
And it was very dangerous of Islamweb to
not publish the actual question or the other
answers that Ibn Uthaymeen and other scholars have
said on this issue.
As you navigate fatwa, there are going to
be times that you see a clear-cut
ruling that is very reflective of the Qur
'an and the authentic sunnah.
And sometimes that ruling may be mixed in
by the influence a person has from their
particular society or their time period.
And what our community, I feel, has failed
to do at times is separate the ruling
that is based in the Qur'an and
sunnah with a scholar's personal interpretation based on
what they have been influenced by.
And really going back to an authentic understanding
of the maqasid, of the Qur'an and
sunnah, the objectives of them.
But it is also painful for us to
view the world as one in which men
scholars are simply out to get us as
women because they just want us to feel
pain for the sake of pain.
And the reason why we feel that way
is because of our experiences, our very real
experiences, but oftentimes from very loud voices.
And what I really hope that I can
do is help bridge that gap because you
deserve to know that your scholarship is one
which was built by women who taught men
and men who taught women.
The teachers of Abu Hanifa, rahimahullah, were the
students of Aisha, radiallahu anha.
Imam Malik, Imam Shafi'i, all of our
major scholars who were men, their teachers were
women.
So Islamic law comprises of men and women's
interpretation of divine text and sometimes honestly they
were wrong.
And one of the gifts of Islamic law
is that we have the opportunity to constantly
improve on the discussions of our scholars built
on the discussions of our scholars from the
past.
And we have a very serious responsibility that
before we come on and make videos we
have the nuance that they brought in their
discussions.