The Islamic View of Women and The Family pdf download

 The Islamic View of Women and The Family by Muhammad Abdul-Rauf

THE ISLAMIC VIEW OF WOMEN AND THE FAMILY

Book Foreword

In early times Human Society was organized on the basis of blood grouping. The members of each social unit believed themselves to belong to a common ancestor.

 Moreover, each group was a closed, self-maintained unit. Its members cooperated in securing the means of their own survival.

They worked together, each identifying his own interests with those of his group. Together they defended their honor and sought their sustenance. The group built their own dwellings, spun and wove their own clothes, and baked and cooked their own food.

The group was so large and so self-sufficient that the individual member, who was a very precious asset to it, could spend all his life span inside the group and fulfill all his basic and recreational needs within it, including his physical, economic, and emotional security.

During its long history on earth, human life underwent profound changes in response to the changing modes of its ecology; but until the industrial revolution, the changes came slowly and the social fabric and the people’s values and traditions remained basically intact.

Thus, the social unit which maintained its wide structural basis remained large enough to be self-sufficient in spite of these changes.

Members of the group were not impelled to leave it for their living. On the contrary, it was difficult and even unimaginable to survive outside of it.

The most dramatic changes in society came about as a result of the industrial revolution, the creation of the machine, and the steady progress in the fields of science and technology. ‘People were lured by the glowing promises of quick-cash earnings to leave their traditional homes in order to live near their factories or offices.

The huge demographic shifts led to urbanization and the creation of large cities in which the individual who had counted preciously in his traditional home became an anonymous figure in an indifferent setting.

Thus released from the traditional ensure and falling under the urban pressures and stresses, he very often sought diversion in unhealthy sensual practices which gradually led to criminality and violence against society. On the other ban,