لطفا منتظر باشید ...
by the amputation of the ears.The Assyrians also
called for a high birth rate in moral laws in which they considered
abortion a serious crime punishable by execution. They considered a
beating, which led to abortion as a crime punishable by fifty lashes,
forced labour and in some cases execution.The Babylonians
specified more than sixty rules regarding the preservation of the family
and stressed the seriousness of adultery and the implementation of
punishment by drowning for the perpetrator.14
2. Ancient Egyptian Civilisation
Ancient Egyptian
texts afforded marriage a high importance. Adultery was forbidden and its
perpetrator was threatened with the most violent punishments, according to
historians. The unfaithful husband would be subjected to flogging and the
unfaithful wife would be subjected to the amputation of the nose. Adultery
was one of the pretexts for divorce among them without distinction between
the man and the woman.In the
civilisation of Osiris, dead persons used to bear with them to their
graves a document testifying to their probity and fidelity in order to
obtain mercy in the afterlife.
3. European Civilisations
In Sparta,
celibacy was a crime in which the bachelor forfeited the right to vote and
to watch public spectacles and so on.In Rome, celibacy
was forbidden and considered a state in contravention of their religion
punishable by beating or flogging with regard to the age of the individual
name=_ftnref21>15, and by
increasing taxes and forbidding them from inheritance unless they married
within 100 days of the death of the legator.16 They regarded
adultery as a grave offence punishable by death or by banishment from the
country for life.The punishment for
one who caused the abortion of a pregnant woman was banishment or the
confiscation of his property.They laid down the
so called Julian17 law specifically for marriage aimed
at making marriage common and calling for a high birth rate and a
reduction in taxes in relation to the number of offspring up to the number
of three children, when taxes would be lifted completely just as bonds
would be lifted from any woman who had given birth to three
children.Constantine made
adultery punishable by death, and any such dishonour during the age of
Augustinian was punishable by execution or confiscation of
possessions.
4. The Civilisation of the American Continent
In the Aztec
civilisation, in Central America adultery was a sin whose punishment was
death by strangulation and then stoning without distinction between man
and woman.In the
civilisation of the Incas in the Andes, marriage was compulsory and
celibacy was forbidden and there used to be an observer from the Incas who
would roam the villages and the countryside to make sure that celibates
would marry.
5. The Civilisation of Ancient Japan
In Ancient Japan,
women were known for marital fidelity or faced death. If a husband came
upon his wife in flagrante delicto, it was his right to kill her
and her lover on the spot. Certain of their leaders have added that if a
husband has killed his wife in these circumstances and let the other man
go free then he himself deserves the punishment of death.Even the sect of
the Samurai who insisted upon remaining without marrying until the age of
thirty made it incumbent upon themselves to marry and produce at least two
children.Chastity was a
great virtue among the Japanese so that some women would even kill
themselves when their virtue was exposed to danger.
6. Among Pre-Islamic Arabs
The Arabs
concerned themselves with lineage and descent, and this interest drove
them to such depths and precision in the organisation of the family and
the tribes and peoples that it became to them an art and a science.title=" href="9l#_ftn24"
name=_ftnref24>18 They used to
encourage early marriage beginning with age sixteen for men and twelve or
less for girls so if a girl reached eighteen or twenty without marriage,
she would be viewed with concern.The veil was
widespread in the various Arab lands in many forms just as the custom of
circumcision was widespread even for girls.They used to
forbid marriage to close relatives and fornication was regarded as a sin,
which if they were able to punish it, did so with severe punishments.title=" href="9l#_ftn25"
name=_ftnref25>19 In certain
circumstances, the adulteress would be separated and isolated in the house
and would remain in this way un-married until death.
Marital Relationships in the Major
Religions
Allah says in the
Qur'an in prohibition of adultery: Verily it is a vulgarity and a
vileness and an evil path to follow'.20 The use of the
expression vulgarity, together with the particular past tense verb in
Arabic (Kaana) gives the command an eternal and static quality with
reference to God's abstraction from time and the singularity of his law in
creation, a notion which is not confined solely to Islam but is present in
the remainder of the religions, because religion is one in the realm of
God, just as the inherent nature of creation is one. So when we examine
the sayings of many religions, we do so with the premise that they support
that, which preceded and succeeded them in the field of rational knowledge
and traditions and inherent nature and not with the premise that they are
a proof and an original source.21
1. The Jewish Religion
Jewish texts
affirm the impropriety of bachelorhood considering it a sin and making
marriage necessary after the age of twenty. Abortion and infanticide and
methods of contraception are also considered a crime and acts of
unbelief.Any woman or wife
perpetrating adultery would warrant stoning and the rapist of any married
woman would be killed. The rapist of a virgin girl would have to pay a
monetary fine and take her as a wife for life for his ill act towards her
and those caught in the act of adultery would be killed
together.Anyone slandering
a married person without proof would be subject to a fine and
punishment.
2. The Christian Religion
In this matter,
the Christian religion does not differ from the Jewish religion because
Christ came confirming what was in the Torah.22 Hence Christianity prohibited
abortion and placed it on a level with premeditated murder. In the same
way, homosexuality was prohibited in the strongest possible
terms.The revolution of
morals, which Jesus instigated, was in reality a war against the
distortion (of religious texts), dissolution, and degeneracy among the
people of Israel. In the Gospels it
says: 'You have heard it said: do not commit adultery. But I say
whosoever looks to a woman he desires has committed adultery in his heart,
and when your right eye calls you to sin, then pluck it out and throw it
from you. For it is better for you to destroy one of your organs than for
all of your body to go to Hell'23. 'It is said that whosoever
divorces a woman; let him give her a document of divorce. But I say that
whosoever divorces a woman other than in the case of fornication has
exposed her to the possibility of adultery'.24
3. In the Religion of Zoroaster
This religion
encouraged marriage and building a family and bearing children. In one of
its texts it says that 'the married man is greatly preferable to the
bachelor and he who supports a family is much more favoured than he who
has no family, and he who has children is even more favourable than
that.'name=_ftnref31>25 Elsewhere it says
that 'every time the number of children of a man increases, his closeness
to his Lord increases.'26 Parents used to
organise the marital affairs of those of their children who had reached
the age of adolescence, it not being acceptable for a man to remain
unmarried. Also any occupation or work which would distance the individual
from the family was unacceptable.Among them,
divorce was not approved of except in the case of barrenness, or adultery,
or infidelity to the state of married life. Amongst their laws was the
prohibition of masturbation, which could be punished by flogging. The
consequences for one who committed adultery, or homosexuality, or
lesbianism, was death. Likewise, the punishment for abortion among them
was execution.
4. Buddhism
In Buddhism, the
punishment for an adulteress was to be publicly thrown as prey to the
dogs. As for her partner in the crime, he would be roasted alive on a
red-hot bed of steel.Looking at a woman
with desire decreased ones vows and the lustful glance stripped one of
one's intellect.
5. Confucianism
The ancient
Chinese considered the holding back of a man from marriage to be a
character deficit and a crime against the ancestors and the state which
could not be excused, even for religious men.They used to
delegate a special official whose work was to make sure that every man of
age thirty was married and that every woman was married before the age of
twenty.One of the sayings
of Confucius says 'if a house stands on a firm foundation then the world
is safe and sound'.
Conclusion
After that brief
summary of the family system among various civilisations and religions, it
is clear that all of humanity agrees upon the call for marriage and
procreation as an extension of the human species, and upon the impropriety
of the unmarried state and the unlawfulness of fornication and infidelity
etc. This concord from the peoples of humanity shows its truthfulness and
intrinsic naturalness. Islam, obviously, does not accept a great number of
the rules and punishments of these ways of life and civilisations, but our
concern is the whole picture and the points of concord only.
Marriage in Materialistic Societies
Despite the
obvious harmony of human nature regarding the establishment of the family
and married life, and that there is no structure to the human species
without this establishment and the fortification of its elements, one can
observe certain voices calling for that which goes against the current of
intrinsic human nature, and denies this law of the existence, and so just
as disrespect towards and neglect of the law of the atom has occurred, so
mockery is made of the existence of the family. Whilst the system of the
universe has its own direct and natural reaction through radioactivity,
the family and society despite its not having a direct and instantaneous
natural reaction27, has a greater and more severe effect
after the passage and elapse of time. Among the most
important of the slogans, which have gone outside the law of nature, are
those said by Marx, Freud, and Durkheim. Freud made the sexual impulse the
basic factor in the development of mankind, while Marx considered it to be
Economics, and Durkheim went for the social factor. The proof of the
invalidity of these philosophies is first and foremost that they are
mutually contradicting in addition to the fact that the pressures which
surrounded society helped to create them. The severe pressure which
society faced from those who called themselves religion, and the grave
contradiction that appeared between the words and deeds of the religious
authorities is but one example. Another example is the imposition of legal
codes which go against human nature like the church's prohibition of
divorce, and the inquisition and extreme quelling of any opposition
together with the social gulf between the elite and nobility and the poor
and miserable. All these matters have fuelled these philosophies.title=" href="9l#_ftn34"
name=_ftnref34>28
Section Two
The
Call of Nature29
Marriage as a Necessity
Marriage is a
vital necessity. The survival of the species depends upon it and the
survival of any organism is an intellectual necessity. Hence the world's
intelligentsia try to prevent the extinction of a particular organism. So
what of humanity? The Qur'an states:'But when he turns
his back, his aim everywhere is to spread mischief in the land and to
destroy crops and progeny, but Allah loves not mischief'.30 In the matter of
destroying progeny there is no difference between active destruction and
passive destruction. Qur'anic verses and prophetic traditions stress
marriage as being mandatory for the common good and recommended for the
individual good.This is from one
angle. From another, were it not for marriage, humanity would suffer from
some extremely harmful diseases, as medical science has proven, and the
avoidance of any possible harm is mandatory both from a religious and an
intellectual point of view. From another angle again, a person to deny
himself, in moderation, of the good things in life is also intellectually
and religiously wrong as the story of Ala shows in 'Nahj
al-Balagha'.31 In a well-known case, the Prophet
himself stopped a man who had vowed to abstain (from all the good things
in life including marriage) by the saying There is to be no
monasticism in Islam'.32 It may be argued
that the Qur'anic verse: 'The monasticism which they innovated was not
prescribed by Us for them, (We commanded them) only to seek the good
pleasure of Allah'33, contradicts this. However it should
be pointed out that the rule was temporary in the face of an overflow of
Jews in the world, and therefore Islam abrogated the rule. As for bringing
together they innovated it' and we did not make it incumbent
upon them', it is clear that they innovated it firstly, and then Allah
ratified it.
Early Marriage
The custom of
early marriage is upheld by the intellect and the religion. It was the
norm amongst Muslims from the dawn of Islam up to and before the cultural,
economic, and military assault by the laws of the West and East upon their
lands. If this (early marriage) had not been the case, then it would have
led either to depravity, the least form of which is masturbation, or to
illness as physicians have shown. It was the custom
of Muslims to marry off girls from the age of ten to fifteen or
thereabouts, and boys from attaining maturity up to age eighteen. Early
marriage was a vital necessity for them because of its simplicity. There
was no condition of completing studies or military service. Marriage was
like food and drink and clothing to them. A certain man would need a
certain woman and vice versa, and nothing would prevent them from coming
together in lawful matrimony.The West, in placing obstacles and
hurdles in the way of marriage, has laid itself open to public and private
