I wish you had posted your spiel about “solid scientific knowledge and Islam” at the begining of your post so I would have known to ignore the rest of it.

Science has nothing to do with religion as religion doesnt rest on empirical evidence, rather on faith. Anyone who confuses the two needs to go back and hit the books again.

As for American Bedu, as a rather vocal critical of the Saudi regime, I personally think she errs on being a bit light when it comes to looking at Saudi critically, so I find it a bit odd when you think she is too critical.

I think she has a happy medium in her outlook. Some people, such as yourself, cannot stand any sort of critical light being shown at themselves or their country.

One should understand the proper context in which a term has evolved and how it is used in a text, why it was valid in its time of origin and whether it is equally valid in the same form now, rather than making misinformed and closed-minded comments like this.

In fact, she is doing the opposite by showing how PEOPLE are using it way out of line and against Islam by showing the different and various ways it is used within the Islamic world.

For honesty’s sake, I have been reading AB’s blog for quite some time now and I continue to do so because her blog is very enlightening. Also, never did I read from any of her posts that she is putting Islam down in any way, shape or form.

Now, she does put out ALL sides since there are always many sides to every story and some people may not like the truth…………..but when it comes to the the “religion” or even the “country”, she only has good things to say about both.

Now, what was the significance of Mahr in Quran and Hadith?

First, it is important to know that the Arabic word for marriage ie, “Nikah” itself means sexual relationship in the literary sense – hence, it is used in the sense of marriage. The marriage contract in Islam thus, is the contract that establishes the terms for marital sex between two partners.

It is also important to know that the term Mahr doesn’t exist anywhere in Quran. This is a word of Persian origin. The Quran refers to this money in many different ways – sometimes only by way of implications.

This means that at the time of the rise of Islam, there was no set term for this money, as compared to the pre-Islamic Sadaq, which was the betrothal gift. Quran in fact uses the term Sadaq in some places to mean what is called Mahr now. This was because people were already familiar with Sadaq and Quran was using this familiar term in a new sense of payment. After Persia accepted Islam and began to use Mahr, this Persian word became common. Also, because Sadaq was originally a betrothal gift now being used for marriage payment in lieu of a term, English translations of Quran have translated Sadaq as marriage gift, creating a confusion about what this money was.

So how does Quran refer to this marriage payment? –

IV/4 – “And give freely to the women their Sadaq (on marriage)…

IV/19 – “…nor should you treat the women harshly by taking away part of what you have given them…”

Note – The phrase for “what you’ve given tehm – Atitmu hunna

IV/20 – “…even if you have given them a whole treasure as payment…”

Note – term for payment – Qintaran

IV/21 – “And how could you take it back after you both have established a sexual relationship and they have taken from you a covenant?

Note – phrase for established a sexual relationship – afza baazukum ila baz…
This particular verse is especially important because it establishes that the payment was meant as the part of the contract for establishing marital sex and hence it could not be returned after marriage was consummated.

IV/24 – “…provided you seek them in marriage with payment for their wage duty from your property, desiring chastity, not lust, seeing that you derive benefit from thes women…”

Note – women’s wage duty to be paid – Istamtaatum. deriving benefit from them – ojoorahunna.
The sense of paying for the sexual relationship, alongwith other services the woman will render in marriage is clear here.

Relatd to this theme is also a verse from Sahi-al Bukhari, a much used Sunna work –

Ch53/v 81 – Narrated ‘Uqba – “The Prophet said – The stipulations (ie a marriage contract) most entitled to be abided by are those with which you are given the right to enjoy your wife’s private parts (ie, marital sex).”

The concept of the marriage contract and the Mahr as the payment for marital sex is clear here.

I have already mentioned in my previous comment that we should not look upon this from view of prostitution – in their society, having sex outside marriage without payment of money, especially when many men were involved was shameful and equivalent to prostitution. Marital sex on payment of money was honourable.

Since the connotation of prostitution has changed in our times and the concept of bride-price itself doesn’t hold any significance, it is only fair to the woman if this money is paid at the time of divorce, not marriage.

First, I can understand these objections and would like to urge you all to look at this practice not from our modernistic perspective but from an understanding viewpoint of the 7th century Arabia. Moreover, it was not I who used the term “prostitution” for this practice, eventhough I made this proposition – it was the others. My own stand has been that the definition of prostitution and also the bride-price itself has changed overtime – please read my comment above to Abu Sinan in this regard.

In fact, there is a strong reason why money paid for marital sex should NOT be seen as prostitution money. In order to understand this, we have to understand the social conditions of Arabia of 6th-7th century.

In the period just before the beginning of Islam, many kinds of relationship patterns were in vogue. In fact, the current Islamic form of marriage based on payment of Mahr was already in vogue before Islam. The difference was that this money was paid to the guardian of the bride. The girl herself was paid only a small amount or a gift on her betrothal, which was called Sadaq. Apart from this, a woman established relationships with multiple number of men and if she conceived, she named one of these men as the father and the man was obliged to maintain her and the child. In another form, many men visited a prostitute and if she conceived, the Qaifs – who were adept at this – identified the father of the child on the basis of the facial features and this man was obliged to maintain the mother and child.

Please note that in Quran as well as in Hadith, a prostitute is described as a woman who had relationships with a lot of men – the question of payment of money wasn’t important here, but the fact that she didn’t belong to a single man.

In fact in pre-Islamic period, marriage of a woman without paying money to her guardian was considered to be dishonorable – only slave girls and conquered women were married without Mahr. Free women from respected families were always married with payment of Mahr and wouldn’t get married if Mahr wasn’t paid.

This shows that our notion of prostitution didn’t really exist in 6th-7th century Arabia and hence, payment of money for marital sex should be seen from their perspective, not our own.

What did Prophet Muhammad do? – 1) He banned all relatioship forms that involved the women engaging with multiple men and 2) getting married without payment of Mahr. Now, only the marriage with payment of Mahr was valid. Moreover, he stipulated that Mahr should be paid to the bride, not to her guardian and she should control it. Thus, the bride got her betrothal money as well as the agreed bride-price.

I am glad that you are in a happy and healthy relationship. I do think you have taken the post somewhat out of the context it was meant. It is a fact that there are various circumstances and interpretations of the dowry in spite of that it should be based on islamic knowledge and guidelines.

I think if the dowry is for sexual access, then all of us Saudi women are underpaid because our men just love to have sex all the time…. we’re really oppressed

Sorry, Carol…being a happy wife in a healthy environment just doesn’t make this post make any sense for me… plus…having so much wrong and misleading information in addition to so many generalizations makes it very difficult for any one who has knowledge to correct all these subjective replies that are based on wrong information and on personal judgments and experiences …

so sad to see such ignorance about my religion and my country…
I will probably create a blog titled (Anti American Bedu) to refute all what you are posting ..to refute it based on solid scientific and Islamic knowledge …

Thanks