Asalamu alaikum wa rahmat Allah wa barkatoo and HellOooo!
I was planning on making this post on something entirely different. But when I visited my friend’s blogs, oldie goldie and Texan in UAE, I found they both covered what I had wanted to talk about.
So, today’s topic…it’s a bit different.
Let’s go back in time. Not too far back. 500 years (and less) and let’s see….how women were viewed…
Take a look….
All of this is quoted from the book “Women in European History”, pgs 2-3, by Gisela Bock, which can be found: Right Here
“On the Dignity of Man (De dignitate hominis, 1486), Giovanni Pico della Mirandola spoke of men. God was speaking to Adam alone.
“The Church fathers had made Eve responsible for the Fall, and identified women with sexuality and sin.”
To Tertullian they were ‘the devil’s gateway’. [In fact], Tertullian and Chyrstomoas had answered the question ‘What is a woman?’ with a long series of vices (‘enemy of friendship, necessary evil, temptation by nature…)”.
For Thomas Aquin, woman remained as a ‘deficient’ or ‘misbegotten males’.”
Sin could only be avoided, according to St. Jerome, through chaste living, since a man’s love for a woman, who embodies evil and temptation, could not be reconciled with love of God and threatened the salvation of man. Salvation seeking men had to had to protect themselves from women; salvation-seeking women, from themselves.
In 1595, Disputatio nova contra mulieres qua probatur eas homines non essa, was first published in Germany, anonymously and in Latin. The work …answered the question whether women are human, in the negative. It too appeared in several languages, was reprinted, copied and excerpted into the eighteenth century.
Perhaps the best clue to the state of women’s status at the time is Mary Astell’s quote in 1706:
“If all men are born free, how is it that all women are born as slaves?“
Now, let’s go even more back…Let’s go back 1,400 years ago
What are women?
He (God) it is who did create you from a single soul and therefrom did create his mate, that he might dwell with her (in love)...(Qur'an 7:189)The Creator of the heavens and earth: He has made for you pairs from among yourselves ...Qur'an 42:1 1
Yeah…and they wonder why women are the ones embracing Islam.
