How Not to Argue Your Case

So I got a a comment on the latest video from a brother, and I wanted to share it with you here and respond to it because I think it is a good example of what I was talking about in the video in terms of people making very vague and abstract sort of complaints that they think evidence the influence of feminism in the Muslim world. I'm not trying to call that brother out for the comment, but I wanted to talk about it because I think it's a good opportunity to discuss how we should and should not address these kinds of issues. He tried to make it more specific by sort of mentioning a few talking points, that constitute what many men feel evidences the influence of feminism. What many Muslims feel evidences the influence of feminism in the Muslim world or in Muslim society. So let's look at these.

First, he says restrictions on polygyny and the demonization of polygyny. Okay. Let's talk about restrictions. First of all, where? Where are these restrictions?

You have to mention the country, because polygyny is legal and allowed in the majority of Muslim countries and even in countries where they have large Muslim populations like Singapore, India, Philippines. So it is legal in most Muslim countries. I'm not sure what the restrictions are unless you're talking about a restriction in terms of the wife being able to stipulate in the marriage contract that she doesn't want the husband to marry again or something like this. But I'll get back to that. So first, you have to say where are these alleged restrictions on polygyny.

And then if you can tell me where, then you have to tell me when, when those restrictions were enforced, when they were enacted, and what were the prevailing social conditions at that time. You have to be able to do this in order to establish whether or not feminism had anything to do with it. Did the restrictions predate feminism? Are they more colonialist related or or what? And it is you have to give more detail.

You you can't just say there's restrictions on polygyny, and we just take that as a fact. You have to tell me where, you have to tell me when, and we have to establish why, and then we can talk about it. Okay. Then the other issue is the demonization of polygyny. Okay.

When exactly was polygyny a favorite thing for women? When were women ever, like, really gung ho about polygyny? If you look at historical records, polygyny in the Muslim world was always practiced by a minority of the Muslims. Was historically, is today, probably always will be. There are many reasons for that that have nothing to do with feminism.

There is a segment of Muslims who like to imagine that, it was the normative practice in the Muslim world for men to have multiple wives. Any serious research into the topic will show you that that's not the case. That's an unsubstantiated assumption. That if you actually try to look into substantiating it, you will find that it is an inaccurate assumption. It was never a normative practice.

It was always allowed, and a segment of the community did have polygynous marriages, but it was never the majority. It was never the the overall standard standard practice. Now the issue of polygyny is a favorite topic for Westerners. That's a given for Western feminists and for Western anyone who doesn't like Islam. And they use it as evidence that, you know, Islam is oppressive to women.

They don't like it. They don't like polygyny, and they speak out against it. But you would have to prove the extent to which, western views have influenced the views of Muslim women with regards to polygyny. A lot of women don't like it, never have liked it, never will like it, and that has nothing to do with feminism. It's always been the case.

And then going back to the issue of, women stipulating in the contract that, their husband can't take another wife, This alone tells you that this has been an unpopular topic among women for centuries before feminism because there these are based on Fatawa dating centuries ago about the rights of women or the rights of a wife to not agree to her husband taking another wife. This is not a new phenomenon. This is an old, well established position in Madahib. So that's not related to feminism. Okay.

Then next we have the issue of divorce laws, which he says are not in accordance with the Sharia. Okay. Again, where? You have to talk about where are the divorce laws not in accordance with the Sharia. Where in the Muslim world?

And then you have to talk about which elements of the divorce laws contradict the Sharia, which then of course brings up the obvious question of do you yourself know the Sharia well enough and know the laws of the countries that you are talking about well enough to establish what is or is not in contradiction with the Sharia. Do you know the Sharia well enough, and do you know the of those countries well enough to actually say that? Because otherwise, what we're talking about is that you think that the divorce laws in Muslim countries do not comply with your understanding of the Sharia, which is entirely different from whether or not the laws actually contradict the Sharia. Okay. And then the same goes for the family courts and child custody rules.

You have to talk about you have to give specifics here. In what countries is this the case? What are the examples of that? Give examples of rulings of guide of guidelines for child custody for the way that the family courts operate and in which countries. And then say, there's this law, there's this rule, there's this procedure, there's this guideline for child custody for the procedures of the family courts, and this contradicts the Sharia in this way.

Otherwise, this is a meaningless statement that the family courts don't operate according to Sharia. Where? How? Give examples. Because what this actually is is just a duplication of the complaints and the grievances of Western men's rights activists expressing their grievances about their legal system, their family court system, their child custody laws.

You can't just lob those same grievances and those same complaints against Muslim courts. It doesn't work that way. The the men in the men's rights movements may have some valid legitimate grievances about their court system. That doesn't automatically apply to the Muslim courts in Muslim countries. You can't just replace, you know, use the men's rights, activists complaints of unfairness and bias in the Western court system and just replace the words unfairness and bias with not in accordance with Sharia, you have to evidence that.

You have to prove it, which requires you to have knowledge of the Sharia and knowledge of those court systems. Do you have that? Now you may be able to do it. You should be able to do it. You can do the research.

You can do the study. You can look at particular court systems around the Muslim world and see how they operate. Look at how their decisions have been taken, what decisions have been taken, and then analyze to what extent they are or are not in compliance with or in contradiction to the sharia. You can do that, and you may very well find examples and incidences of rulings and procedures that do contradict the sharia. You can maybe do that, but you have to do that first before you, number one, throw out these talking points as legitimate arguments, and number two, before you believe those arguments and those talking points yourself.

Now I can say for myself, my paid work, has me constantly involved with legal systems around the world in Muslim countries, specifically in the Khaleed and here in Malaysia. And based on my own experience, I can say that in the Khalidj and in Malaysia and in a number of other countries that I deal with that are Muslim countries, I don't see any evidence whatsoever that the courts are influenced by feminist, ideology in the way they the way they proceed and the way the the the decisions are taken and the decisions that are taken. I don't see any evidence of feminist influence. And finally, I just wanna say it's really, to me, very unbecoming for men to now involve themselves in the grievance competition and to turn manhood into just another identity group in the parade of identity politics because that's what you're doing. It's essentially the same thing as advocates or believers in critical race theory.

In critical race theory, their approach is to say that racism exists everywhere, and you just have to locate and identify how it is being manifest. This is what they do. The red pillars in the Thomasine, feminism is everywhere. You just have to find where and how it's manifesting. They just act like feminism is omnipresent, permeating the ether, and having a diabolical influence in every corner of society without ever having to pinpoint precise examples to evidence that.

This is this is not useful. It's not intelligent. Certainly not manly, and it's not the way we should operate as Muslims. Give me specific examples. Give me specific instances.

Give me specific cases, and we can analyze them and discuss them. Otherwise, I'm sorry, but this is just a lot of abstract hysteria that helps no one.