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This is a short book type thing that was given to me for free once at a multicultural festival. I've been intending to read it for years and finally got around to it! And, well, it is the kind of religious book that you might expect to be handed out for free. It confidently tells you the one and only interpretation the religion of Islam could possibly have on the subject of sex and marriage. And I'm sure there are Muslims who believe exactly as this book outlines! But I'm also sure there are Muslims who would disagree with it to varying degrees.
The contents were interesting. I enjoyed how much time it spent directly quoting sources like the Quran and so forth - it was great to see in what words these sources talked about the issue. There were definitely some bits where I was like "Dear author, how are you getting your interpretation out of this quotation because I'm not seeing it?" And it's like, either I am missing some important context from Muslim religious scholarship or this author is bad at exegesis. And I don't know enough to be able to judge which it is. I can do that kind of judging in Christianity because I grew up steeped in discussions about theology and interpretation but even though I'm not entirely ignorant about Islam I just don't know enough.
Anyways I was also vastly amused by some aspects of this book's perspective. For example: this book's ideas of unlawful and lawful sexual behaviour are ALL in the realm of heterosexual sex. The author clearly has no idea that anyone could ever engage in sexual activity with someone of the same sex as themselves! Hah.
And I am pleased to note that despite its fairly conservative stance, this book does a lot less deliberate shaming and trying to make the reader feel bad than an equivalent type of Christian book would do.
The contents were interesting. I enjoyed how much time it spent directly quoting sources like the Quran and so forth - it was great to see in what words these sources talked about the issue. There were definitely some bits where I was like "Dear author, how are you getting your interpretation out of this quotation because I'm not seeing it?" And it's like, either I am missing some important context from Muslim religious scholarship or this author is bad at exegesis. And I don't know enough to be able to judge which it is. I can do that kind of judging in Christianity because I grew up steeped in discussions about theology and interpretation but even though I'm not entirely ignorant about Islam I just don't know enough.
Anyways I was also vastly amused by some aspects of this book's perspective. For example: this book's ideas of unlawful and lawful sexual behaviour are ALL in the realm of heterosexual sex. The author clearly has no idea that anyone could ever engage in sexual activity with someone of the same sex as themselves! Hah.
And I am pleased to note that despite its fairly conservative stance, this book does a lot less deliberate shaming and trying to make the reader feel bad than an equivalent type of Christian book would do.
