Tuesday, April 18, 2006

المسجد

كتاب اللغة العربية للصف السابع - ص.120


This is part from lesson 20. I'll sum the rest here:

Aside from their religiouos purpose, neighbourhood mosques have a social purpose of caring for members of each neighbourhood. As a hospital cares for the sick body, so the mosque cares for the sick soul. It educates the ignorant, helps the poor, offers advice for distressed families, and much more. Such mosques are a necissity in life, functioning like schools, courts and charity organizations.
Why can't the mosque also be a school for women just like it's a school for men? Why can't each mosque devote lessons to educate women with regards to their religious and social duties, with guidance to how a woman can fill her house with happines and joy? (personal note: of course, what else is a woman good for other than adding joy to her home?)
(this is where the scanned excerpt fits: my humble translation: woman is now deprived of her spiritual and religious nourishment, being away from the mosque, deprived of it for no good readon ... as woman is deprived from her mosque, so will her children be deprived from religious compassion ... and if a woman strays from the right path once and finds no solace in the mosque, she will err again ... she now wanders from home to malha (bar/game/fun/play) with no mosque to balance between the boredom of home and the extremity of having fun)
The piece continues explaining how this is the purpose of mosques, educating both men and women and that lately people have been drawn away from mosques because the preachers can't get to their hearts.

I don't even know where to begin to comment on this piece of crap.
Ok. So all if fine and dandy. So mosques are an institution that assists in the role of schools and court. Fine. I'll shut up about all that.
But why dedicate a whole paragraph to women strayingfrom the path of righteousness? What about men? Don't they ever err too?

**egh anger anger**egh smashing whatever's close at hand**egh hates our stupid educational system**egh hates that her sons have to read this nonesense**f**s**who the hell approves of these books?

**The piece is taken from فيض الخاطر for أحمد أمين

9 comments:

ScarlO said...

Men don't err because they set the rules.
A man getting drunk is like, the most common thing you can ever think of in Kuwait.
A drunk woman is almost the most unbelievable thing ever.

It goes with everything else in society I guess. A married woman having an affair with some guy makes her a cheap slut. A married man can have affairs with like, fifty five thousand women (dont ask why the number :-\ ) but that doesn't make him 'fallen' in any sense. he'll always be 'rayyal shayel 3aiba'.

Surprisingly it is such institutions that claim to aim for equality between males and females that degrade women the most. And make trouble. I think there shouldn't be any religious lessons in school for kids at that age. And I have many reasons for that but I think it's so off-topic.

(I hope my long comment isn't totally off-topic as well....)

Nunu-San said...

كل مالهم وقاموا يغيرون مناهج الكتب!! شالسالفة؟ مالهم راي؟

Jacqui said...

Apparently they don't know that there are men that head from the bars to the mosques as if nothing is wrong or that those who spent their lives there might head on or whatever.

But the way they said it was so degrading to all women it's shocking really!

Why are we so low on the humanity status, why do we feel like "Oscars" (From Shark Tale, the little fish that Will Smith plays his voice) I mean seriously!

I think they should get a life and stop writing crap like that!

bo_sale7 said...

السلام عليكم ...

على قولة اخوانا اللبنانيين : بدك تطولي بالك !

المناهج موضوع له شجون ...كل فئة تبي المناهج تتغير علشانها ....التعليم صاير كوكتيل .....مو راضيين يفهمون ان اللي يتعلمه التلميذ بالمدرسة مو شرط انه يكون منهاج حياته
الله يستر من مناهج اقوى
تحياتي

Anonymous said...

i couldnt believe my eyes when i first read the passage..ma3qoola y3ny??..this is out of a school book??..i felt the passage was very degrating to women (obviously written by a "khwanchi")

but this is what i dont get..the passage has nothing to do with equality nor does it say anything about men...soo why are u ppl making this a man/woman (or woman/man 3ashan scarlo laa tiz3al) issue??

Anonymous said...

i couldnt believe my eyes when i first read the passage..ma3qoola y3ny??..this is out of a school book??..i felt the passage was very degrating to women (obviously written by a "khwanchi")

but this is what i dont get..the passage has nothing to do with equality nor does it say anything about men...soo why are u ppl making this a man/woman (or woman/man 3ashan scarlo laa tiz3al) issue??

iDip said...

The piece sounds shallow, or maybe because it was written for teenagers AND THAT'S THE PROBLEM.

Teenagers will form a wrong idea about treating the soul, the role of women and mosques.

BTW,
it says:
"so the mosque cares for the sick soul"

I think such a statement -while trying to praise the mosque- undervalued its role...

Hanan said...

scarlo. you're not off-topic at all. "Surprisingly it is such institutions that claim to aim for equality between males and females ..." What institutions do you have in mind that call for such equality? We don't even have that here. The most common argument here insists that we are not equal at all.

nunu. Change is good in most cases, except in this case it's always a change to the worst.

Jacqui. How do Oscars feel? I don't remember. Do I need to watch the cartoon again? But I haven't seen IceAge yet and want to catch part II at the theatre :)

bo-sale7. Welcome to my blog. Baly is very very 6eweel. Except when it comes to these matters.

neo. My point exactly. The passage is supposed to be about mosques. It should not be male/female biased at all. So why this paragraph in the middle of it addressing women only. It is not 'us' who are making it into a gender issue, the writer of the whole article is doing that.

idip. It's not shallow. It's profound in its simplicity, and the fact this this seemingly innocent passage is inserted in the middle or an article that claims to be on the usefulness of mosques is proof of its writer's very brilliant way of infiltrating into the minds of those children. Sad.

shopa. Why? Start girl. Start!!!

Nunu-San said...

Exactly! That's what I was saying!