Endnotes: chapter twelve

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1. Polygamy was commonplace at the time of Muhammad (Rudi Paret, Mohammed und der Koran, p.157). The German theologian Hans Küng, who was known for his lenient approach toward Islam, admitted that it is impossible to reconcile the Qur'anic command to practise polygamy with the moral conceptions of the Christians of that day (Hans Küng and Josef van Ess, Christentum und Welt-religionen (Gütersloh, 1987), p.128). Supporters of women's rights in the Arab world in the 1930's tried to interpret the phenomenon of polygamy in terms of the theory of evolution in preparation to abolishing it in the modern age. Nazira Zain al-`Abidin, a Druze from Lebanon, wrote: "Man won this privilege in the first Islamic age because it was next to impossible to cancel all the rights that they had inherited from their fathers all at once. It is worthy of the Muslim jurist to banish this regulation (having to wear a veil) altogether." The position of Tahir al-Haddad is similar to this opinion (cf. Imra'atuna fi al-shari`a wa al-mujtama`, p.34).
2. al-Tabari 4:232-233.
3. Qasim Amin, Tahrir al-mar`a. Ahmad Shalabi, al-Islam (Cairo, 1961), p.244. The famous Swedish orientalist Tor Andrae wrote "Muslim commentators invented the theology of interpretation that makes the impossible possible" (Mohammed, sein Leben und sein Glaube (Göttingen, 1932), p.32).
4. Muhammad `Ali al-Sabuni, Tafsir ayat al-Qur'an, 1:428-429. This is the first detailed argument Muslims use to account for and justify polygamy. See also Sayyid Qutb, Fi zilal al-Qur'an (Beirut, 1967), 2:243; Mahmud Shaltut, al-Islam `aqida wa shari`a, p.181ff.
5. al-Sabuni, 1:427.
6. Fi zilal al-Qur'an, 2:247.
7. al-Sabuni, 1:429.
8. ibid. 1:429-430. `Abd al-Wadud Shalabi, Hiwar sarih baina `Abd al-Masih wa `Abdillah (Jidda, 1993), p.240. We found no trustworthy source supporting this claim, but it is obviously a lie to say that Germany permitted polygamy! Those who are wont to fabricate lies do not stop in their ridiculous arguments at the boundary of "the state," but some go beyond that, claiming that some heretic sects such as Mormonism and Anabaptism allowed polygamy, as though this polygamy has become a part of the church doctrine (`Abd al-Wadud Shalabi, p.236).
9. ibid. 1:430.
10. al-Aqqad, al-Mar'a fi al-Qur'an, p.88.
11. Fi zilal al-Qur'an, 2:247.
12. Muhammad Rashid Ridha, Nida li al-jins al-latif, p.125ff.
13. ibid.
14. `Abd al-Wadud Shalabi, al-Islam, p.225; a quote from I'`lam al-muwaqqa'`in `an Rabb al-`alamin, 2:84.
15. `Abd al-Wadud Shalabi, al-Islam, p.225.
16. Muhammad Rashid Ridha, Nida li al-jins al-latif, p.125.
17. Ibn Maja, Muqaddima 1.
18. Muhammad Ibn `Abd al-`Aziz al-Khuli, Miftah al-Sunna (Cairo, 1961), p.4.
19. al-Bukhari, Nikah 4.
20. Mahmud Abu Rayya, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (Cairo, 1961), p.90.
21. `Abd al-Wadud Shalabi, p.228.
22. `A'isha `Abd al-Rahman, al-Qur'an wa al-tafsir al-hadith (Cairo, 1970), p.57ff.

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