veiled4allah: early Muslim feminist veiled4allah: early Muslim feminist"O Hasan," she continued, "in how many parts did Allah create the intellect?" "In ten parts," he replied, "nine for men and one for women."(source)
"O Hasan, in how many parts did Allah create desire?"
"In ten parts: nine for women and one for men."
"O Hasan," she concluded, "I am able to contain nine part of appetite with one part of intellect whereas you cannot even guard one part of appetite with nine parts of intellect!"
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Subject: 9 parts desire
I am reading a fascinating nonfiction book right now, called My Own Country, by an Indian infectious diseases doctor who dealt with AIDS patients in rural TN in the 1980s.One idea that keeps recurring to him is that gay men (the majority of his AIDS patients), many of whom are promiscuous relative to how most straight men behave, are simply acting the way all men would behave if they didn't have to contend with women's sexual reserve.
After all, pro athletes and other men who have women throwing themselves at them are quite as sexually active with various partners as the pre-AIDS epidemic gay men were.It's an interesting thought: women's sexual reserve is the only natural check on STDs.
And PG's comment is interesting.
I'm not sure where the saying comes from; I think I saw it once attributed to Ali ibn Abu Talib (rAa) but I'm not sure.
It's strange how today we think of men as being the ones controlled by desire but in the past we see a lot of this idea of women as temptresses.
The idea of men as controlled by desire is a very old one in Judaism. It's the source of many of the rabbinic restrictions on the public role of women; the rationale is that men can't keep their mind on prayer if they can see women or hear women's voices. The woman as temptress is a related concept, as old as Eve; men are creatures of desire, and women seek to take advantage of men's weakness by seducing them. The combination of the two ideas was one of the justifications for responding to male desire by restricting women rather than keeping men under control.
I love the story about Rabi'a al-Adawiyya. It reminds me of a story of Beruriah, one of the few female scholars of Talmudic times. Beruriah - or so it is said - encountered Rabbi Yose the Galilean on the road. Rabbi Yose was known for cautioning his students not to talk much with women, because conversation with women was a corrupting influence. He asked her, "which way is the road to Lod?" - to which she replied, "Foolish Galilean, don't you know not to talk unnecessarily to women? You should have said, 'To Lod, how?'"
1) We all realize it's not the shorts themselves that are the distraction.
2) If Johnny's mind wanders that easily, he's going to be screwed (metaphorically speaking) in the real world.I love stories about women who are icons within their culture while subtly undermining the parts of their culture that are silly.
I believe women may have been seen as more full of desire exactly because they were assumed to have less intellect, and there had to be something to fill that empty space. Also, something to explain how certain women managed to get what they wanted -- of course, it was their desire overwhelming the man's superior intellect!My favorite women's fiction/romance writer has a great essay on why the romance genre infuriates so many people. Here's the (semi) relevant quote:
Love used to be a respectable thing to write about. Look at the great literature from the medieval period: Love was right up there with Honor and Valor as one of the Great Subjects. Then it became feminized and the whole subject went to hell. Why? My theory is that the fall of Love coincided with rise of Science and Reason. Men have long sought to conquer their world, and with the huge strides in scientific explanation in the eighteenth century, they got to feeling pretty good about themselves as Masters of the Universe. An educated man could explain everything--except why he mortgaged the family castle to get that necklace so he could seduce that woman who was driving him literally crazy. The best and worst thing about love is that it makes fools of us all, and that's terrifying to anybody who needs the illusion of omnipotence. Romance fiction exalts this power, shows how it brings us all low and then raises us when we surrender to it. It's the antithesis to the Enlightenment, a refutation of reason.Result: romance fiction is called "silly fluff."
Reading this text, I remembered a book by Sheik Nefzaui. Written probably between the years 1349 and 1433, 'The Garden of Delights' (I believe that's the original title) describes women being hottest than men, sexually. Nefzaui doesn't show any preoccupation with issues such as virginity and states that the woman's mind is placed 'between her thighs'. Besides that, there are images of lesbianism, without any reprove. Can you tell me what's the Islam+'s point of view about sexuality, in general?
Perhaps Foucault is right. In 'The History of Sexuality' he writes that nowadays, the discuss of sexuality is more important than its practice.
A good article that explains the traditional Islamic views about sexuality and sex is Human Sexuality and the Shari'a. I think it provides a pretty good overview. In general, the Islamic view is that sex is a natural part of the human experience. However, people should be responsible in it, and therefore should limit sex to within marriage. Once they have done so, they may enjoy it in just about any manner that is mutually satisfactory and pleasing.