Friday, 25 May 2012

Wives = Husband's property?

الكافي للكليني (٣٢٩ هـ) الجزء ٥ صفحة٣٦٥

Al Kafi by Shaikh Kulaini (ra), Volume 5 Page 365

 علي بن ابراهيم ، عن أبيه ، عن ابن أبي عمير ، عن أبي أيوب الخراز، عن محمد بن مسلم قال : سألت أبا جعفر ( عليه السلام ) عن الرجل يريد أن يتزوج المرأة ، أينظر إليها ؟ قال : نعم ، إنما يشتريها بأغلى الثمن

Ali b. Ibrahim, from his father (Ibrahim b. Hashim), from ibn abi Umair, from abi Ayyub al Khazzaz, from Muhammad b. Muslim who said: I asked aba Ja'far (as) regarding the man who intends to marry a woman, may he look at her? Imam (as) replied: "Yes, he is just purchasing her for a hefty price (i.e. the dowry)."

Explanation of this hadith by Ayatullah Khoei

حيث إنّها مطلقة فتشمل بإطلاقها جميع أعضاء البدن حتى العورة (المباني في شرح العروة
الوثقى الجزء الثاني ص ١٥)

This hadith is all inclusive, thus it allows looking at all parts of her body, even her 'awrah.* (Al Mubani, Volume 2 Page 15)

Grading

Ayatullah Khoei (Al Mubani, Volume 2 Page 11): Sahih

Ayatollah Sadiq Rohani (Fiqh al Sadiq, Volume 21 Page 91): Sahih

Ayatullah Muhsin al Hakim (Al Mustamassuk, Volume 14, Page 12): Sahih

Shaikh Bahboodi (Sahih al Kafi, Volume 3 Page 11): Sahih

Dr. Syed Mustafa Jamaluddin (Fiqh al Nathar): Sahih

Allama Baqir Majlisi (Miratul Uquql, Volume 20 Page 82): Hasan

Ayatullah Tabatabai (Riyadul Masail, Volume 10, Page60): Hasan

Sahibul Madarik Syed Muhammad al Amuli (Nihayatul Maram, Volume 1 Page 50): Hasan

*Translator's note: The looking should be done from behind thin/fine clothes, which should be worn by the woman for facilitation, as is stated in the following authentic hadith. 


علل الشرائع - الشيخ الصدوق - ج ٢ - الصفحة ٥٠٠

Illalush Sharai by Shaikh Sadooq (ra), Volume 2 Page 500

أبي رحمه الله عن سعد بن عبد الله عن أحمد بن محمد بن عيسى عن البزنطي عن يونس بن يعقوب قال: قلت لأبي عبد الله (ع) الرجل يريد أن يتزوج المرأة يجوز أن ينظر إليها قال نعم وترقّق (1) له الثباب لأنه يريد ان يشتريها بأغلا ثمن
(1) أي تلبس ملابس خفيفة بحيث يُرى جسمها الداخلي
  بمعنى تخفيف الثياب
 ان ينظر إلى جسدها من فوق الثياب الرقيقة
ترقيق الثياب لمعرفة ابعاد جسدها

My (i.e. Shaikh Sadooq's) father, from Sa'd b. Abdullah, from Ahmad b. Muhammad b. Isa, from al Bazanti, from Yunus b. Ya'qub who said: I asked abi Abdullah (as) about the man who intends to marry a woman, is it permissible for him to look at her? Imam (as) replied: "Yes, and she should wear very thin and fine/promiscuous clothes for him, because he intends to purchase her for a hefty price."

Explanation of this hadith by Ayatullah Taqi al Modaressi

ترقيق الثياب لمعرفة ابعاد جسدها (الوجيز في الفقه 

This is so, so that the suitor can check out her figure. (Al Wajiz fil Fiqh)

Grading

Ayatullah Khoei (Kitab al Nikah, Volume 1 Page 26): Mu'atbar (Reliable)

Ayatullah Muhsin al Hakim (Al Mustamassuk, Volume 14 Page 14): Muwaththaq (Reliable)

Ayatullah Sadiq Rohani (Fiqh al Sadiq, Volume 21 Page 97): Muwaththaq (Reliable)

Dr. Syed Mustafa Jamaluddin (Fiqh al Nathar): Sahih

13 comments:

  1. Assalaamu `Alaykum,

    Amazing post, brother! This is how I believe you should make all your posts, no only putting the hadeeth, but the gradings from multiple scholars, so people will have no way to reject it.

    If you need help in getting gradings of hadeeth, let me know. I have pretty much all the books with me, I do not like to use internet versions.

    Wa `Alaykum Assalaam

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  2. ^^^^U call such rubbish by ur friend bhooka amazing and u offer help as well???

    How can a "hadith" be authentic when it contradicts the qoran? qoran says Allah made husband and wives each others clothes, not that wife is husbands PROPERTY.

    Everyone knows that Imams told us to throw hadiths on the wall if it contradicts the qoran, y dont you people ever follow this simple basic rule?!

    Keep misguiding people.

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  3. Pathetic stuff. Don't know what to say.

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  4. @Nader: Wa'laikummus salam,

    Thank you very much bro. Inshallah I'll try to include gradings in future as well, to provide a fuller perspective.

    But, at the end of the day, I myself don't consider gradings by contemporary scholars and their methodology in doing so, to be a sole hujjah. There's no doubt that the manhaj of the mutaqadimeen (classical scholars) was different. Also, while the common way of mutakhireen (latter scholars) is to grade as per sanad, but it is still accepted among many mutakhireen as well that even a sanadan da'eef hadith is considered strong when it is popular among fuqaha and when many have given fatwa by it. So, I sometimes also quote ahadith which maybe sanadan da'eef, but follow them up with fatawa from prominent fuqaha.

    Or sometimes I may quote ahadith which I believe are sahih as per mutaqadamin and which agree with what was consented upon by shuyukh at-taifa.

    Wassalam

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  5. Assalam:

    I think ur doing a great job but I ask two things:

    1) How sure is the reader that u have examined All if not most of the hadith on the issue as it easy to find one or two and make a conclusion however many times when one considers all the hadith, a more dynamic/flexible prespective can be concluded.

    2) Your titles are obviously meant to provoke, please be a little more mature and choose more appropriate titles that arent meant to piss ppl of :)

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  6. ^^^Seconded. Specially point 2.

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  7. @Anonymous: Wa'laikummus Salam,

    You've raised a good point. I'll inshallah explain shortly.

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  8. @Anonymous: For the points you raised:

    1- Regarding me having examined all relevant ahadith for each topic, this is a common misunderstanding that many who are not familiar with our ahadith and fiqh books have, when they see a non cleric quoting ahadith. Bro, our mutaqadamin scholars such as Shaikh Kulaini, Saduq, Tusi etc meticulously gathered the ahadith from the approximately 400 usul compiled by the companions of our Imams and neatly organised them with chapters/sections in their books. Then the mutakhireen such as Shaikh Hurr al Amili even went further and gathered ahadith from those resulting compilations into one place (his Wasail al shia) and again organised the ahadith neatly into well defined chapters. Then you have books which go even further, such as Mustadrak al Wasail where Muhadith Noori has gathered all the ahadith which Shaikh Hurr al Amili had not included in his book (often because he did not consider their source reliable enough for his strict standards, that's why Wasail al Shia is very good while Mustadrak al Wasail is not that reliable, but that's another issue altogether). Of course, we also all Majlisi's Biharul Anwar where you will find all worthy ahadith. Another one worth mentioning is Ayatullah Burujerdi's Jami' ahadith al shia, where Burujerdi has organised ahadith+the related ayaats into neatly defined chapters.

    And that is only mentioning the ahadith books, our fiqh books (which are also neatly organised into well defined chapters) such as Jwahirul Kalam by Shaikh Muhammad Hasan al Najafi contain all ahadith, their gradings and the relevant fatawa of prominent scholars for all fiqhi topics.

    The point of all this is, that to research a topic comprehensively, it is possible to even do it with only just one book such as Jawahirul Kalam for example, where say if you wanted to study the topic of ghusl al jumu'ah, you can just browse (the book is available online) to the topic in the book and you'll have all the relevant ahadith, their gradings, views of all prominent fuqaha right there at your fingertips. Of course, since this is so easy these days with the advent of technology, people like me go further and read more of such works, for example I may read Hadaiq al Nadhirah, Jawahirul Kalam, and Fiqh al Sadiq (by Ayatullah Rohani), which would then give me a more than sufficient idea of the topic as I would've then been able to read all ahadith, their gradings and the fatawa of all prominent fuqaha in just 3 places/books (or in 3 tabs on the browser, to be more accurate). And just for arguments' sake, even if one's unable to find what he's looking for in the aforementioned books, there are many more books available (such as urwatul wuthqa and their ta'leeqs and shuroohs) on the same websites. So with the convenience of digital libraries available (you can check the links to them on my blog itself), one can find all relevant books in the same place.

    All in all, I just can't stress how easy it is to gain the necessary shia islamic knowledge these days, if you know arabic. And if one still wants to argue that the maraji' have some hidden ahadith with them (although that doesn't fit, because I often quote from books like the ta'leeqs of urwatul wuthqa and fiqh al sadiq, which are written by prominent maraji themselves), then one may ignore them becuase we are supposed to follow authentic ahadith and the ahadith which were not considered worthy enough by our ahadith compilers to be recorded in their books, are not worth following.

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    Replies
    1. Salam brother

      I am very new to your blog and I just LOVE it! I wish I had found it earlier. I don't know arabic that's why I am unable to read islamic books myself, it is very helpful mashallah that you translate topics from these books to provide interesting information.

      To be honest i also initially had the same reservations as mentioned by 'anonymous' in the above comment. I would wonder if people like you were giving fatwas just by reading 1 or 2 hadis, that's why i would blindly follow the ayatullahs only because i would say to myself that only they must know islamic stuff because it is so hard and only they can know it since they have been studying religion all their lives.

      I find your answer really helpful, thanks for sharing. It erases most doubts i had earlier about reading ahadis.

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  9. 2- Regarding the titles, although it sometimes depends on my mood, generally I try not to make statements but to stimulate the readers (sometimes by asking questions) and then let the content do the talking. So in this case, rather than titling the post something along the lines of (Wives ARE husband's property!), I used the title "Wives=Husband's property", where the ahadith then answer the question.

    Wassalam

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  10. @ Bhooka_bhairiya

    Assalam

    Brother you forgot to put the proper referenc here:

    Explanation of this hadith by Ayatullah Taqi al Modaressi

    ترقيق الثياب لمعرفة ابعاد جسدها (الوجيز في الفقه

    This is so, so that the suitor can check out her figure. (Al Wajiz fil Fiqh)

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  11. Wa'laikummus salam,

    It is from his book "Al Wajiz fil Fiqh al Islam" (as I mentioned in parenthesis), in the section on "Marriage and family".

    Link: http://www.almodarresi.com/books/514/de0zwr4t.htm

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  12. Is not possible that "purchase for a hefty price" is a figure of speech and that the woman does not literally become the man's property but rather he has rights over her and she has rights over him because of the marriage agreement?

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