Madinat al-Muslimeen Islamic Message Board
| Why are men allowed to have 4 wives? |
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| Hania |
| 09/23/01 at 16:57:38 |
| Assalamu alaikum I was just wandering why exactly are Muslim men allowed to marry upto 4 wives? Wasn't it the case that during battle men died so it resulted in less men that could take care of the women? I was just thinking why do some men marry more than 4 wives nowadays. If had a husband and there was no battle and I we had kids and he said he wanted another wife, I'd cry! Hania |
| Re: Why are men allowed to have 4 wives? |
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| eleanor |
| 09/23/01 at 17:48:42 |
| slm I can offer you two examples that I know of: Example one: A man who my husband knows had a brother who was married with young children. The brother died leaving a widow and all these kids. So the older brother married his younger brother's wife to provide her with security and love. This was in a country where there is no social system which takes care of widows. Example two: Here in Germany. A man from Pakistan had come to Germany, met a German woman, married her. When they went to Pakistan on holidays, his wife met a woman there who had loved this man all her life and didn't want to marry anyone except him. So she suggested to her husband that he marry the woman and take her to Germany with them to live! They all live together happily to this day! These are the only two cases my husband knows of. Apart from that I've heard of men marrying a second wife because the first one couldn't conceive. You are right when you say that in the times of early Islam there were far more women than men. And even now that is the case in some countries. However that aside, the right to four wives is a right given to men by Allah, and even if we don't like it, it's his God-given right, the same as it is our right to have a home and food provided for us by our husband. What would we do if he turned around one day and said "you know I don't really like this arrangement where I have to provide everything, I'm not doing it anymore". We'd be outraged of course. Well, we have to give him his rights too and suffer the jealousy and pain with the knowledge that Allah is preparing a glorious reward for us. You mentioned in your post that some men marry more than 4 wives nowadays..well this is forbidden, only up to 4 is okay. You could also ask why do women stay home nowadays when they could go and work and provide for themselves. The "provision rule" was invented when women didn't work...etc Emm, this is all my opinion. If I said anything wrong please forgive me, it was my own mistake. If I said anything of help then thank Allah, it came from him. wasalaam eleanor |
| Re: Why are men allowed to have 4 wives? |
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| zanfaz |
| 09/23/01 at 23:49:02 |
| [slm] Here are some of the reasons Dr. Zakir Naik has mentioned in his article on Polygamy. Average life span of females is more than that of males By nature males and females are born in approximately the same ratio. A female child has more immunity than a male child. A female child can fight the germs and diseases better than the male child. For this reason, during the pediatric age itself there are more deaths among males as compared to the females. During wars, there are more men killed as compared to women. More men die due to accidents and diseases than women. The average life span of females is more than that of males, and at any given time one finds more widows in the world than widowers. World female population is more than male population In the USA, women outnumber men by 7.8 million. New York alone has one million more females as compared to the number of males, and of the male population of New York one-third are gays i.e sodomites. The U.S.A as a whole has more than twenty-five million gays. This means that these people do not wish to marry women. Great Britain has four million more females as compared to males. Germany has five million more females as compared to males. Russia has nine million more females than males. God alone knows how many million more females there are in the whole world as compared to males. Restricting each and every man to have only one wife is not practical Even if every man got married to one woman, there would still be more than thirty million females in U.S.A who would not be able to get husbands (considering that America has twenty five million gays). There would be more than four million females in Great Britain, 5 million females in Germany and nine million females in Russia alone who would not be able to find a husband.Suppose my sister happens to be one of the unmarried women living in USA, or suppose your sister happens to be one of the unmarried women in USA. The only two options remaining for her are that she either marries a man who already has a wife or becomes public property. There is no other option. All those who are modest will opt for the first. In Western society, it is common for a man to have mistresses and/or multiple extra-marital affairs, in which case, the woman leads a disgraceful, unprotected life. The same society, however, cannot accept a man having more than one wife, in which women retain their honourable, dignified position in society and lead a protected life. Thus the only two options before a woman who cannot find a husband is to marry a married man or to become public property. Islam prefers giving women the honourable position by permitting the first option and disallowing the second.There are several other reasons, why Islam has permitted limited polygyny, but it is mainly to protect the modesty of women. wassalam |
| Re: Why are men allowed to have 4 wives? |
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| NewJehad |
| 09/24/01 at 12:01:13 |
| slm there is no reason why Islam allows Polygamy as polygamy has existed before Islam, so people had many wives before Islam. It was lawful in Allah's religions before Islam. What islam did was restrict the number to 4, so what happened was people who had more then this number had to divorce the excess. We can see the consequences of people making life hard for them selves all over the world by refusing to do what Allah had made lawful, in their scriptures as well as ours by the stitistics mentioned above. One fact that i think is thought pravoking. In USA 4 women become Muslim for every man, fits in nicely? |
| Re: Why are men allowed to have 4 wives? |
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| Kashif |
| 09/24/01 at 13:39:21 |
| [quote]In USA 4 women become Muslim for every man, fits in nicely? [/quote] hehe.. |
| NS |
| Re: Why are men allowed to have 4 wives? |
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| Arsalan |
| 09/24/01 at 15:44:31 |
| bad joke! BTW, is that statistic true? 4 to 1, really? |
| Re: Why are men allowed to have 4 wives? |
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| bhaloo |
| 09/24/01 at 15:50:08 |
| slm [quote] BTW, is that statistic true? 4 to 1, really? [/quote] Yes its true, that 4 times as many women are converting to Islam then men in the US. |
| Re: Why are men allowed to have 4 wives? |
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| Saleema |
| 09/24/01 at 20:20:49 |
| [slm] I thought that the joke was pretty funny actually. :) Good one Jehad! :D [wlm] |
| Re: Why are men allowed to have 4 wives? |
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| Hania |
| 09/25/01 at 14:31:41 |
[quote] Yes its true, that 4 times as many women are converting to Islam then men in the US. [/quote] Do most of the women in US convert after they have fallen in love and met their potential future muslim husbands or do they convert without any influence from would be hubbies! hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm? |
| Re: Why are men allowed to have 4 wives? |
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| Moe |
| 09/25/01 at 15:35:13 |
| [slm] Hania thats a good question [quote]Do most of the women in US convert after they have fallen in love and met their potential future muslim husbands or do they convert without any influence from would be hubbies![/quote] Cuz i dont personaly kno any women who have converted to Islam without falling in love with a muslim guy. On the other hand i kno a few, well more then a few who have converted to islam after meeting their potential husband who is muslim. wasalaam |
| Re: Why are men allowed to have 4 wives? |
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| se7en |
| 09/25/01 at 16:33:44 |
as salaamu alaykum, I know *a lot* of people who began learning about Islam because they liked someone who is Muslim :) |
| Re: Why are men allowed to have 4 wives? |
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| Saleema |
| 09/25/01 at 19:54:33 |
| [slm] I know quite a lot of women who converted from Christianity several years after marriage to a Muslim man. [wlm] |
| Re: Why are men allowed to have 4 wives? |
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| destined |
| 09/25/01 at 20:56:00 |
| [slm] I know a single woman who converted from Christianity sometime last year. And get this, she just happens to live by a mosque. One day, out of idle curiosity she walked in the masjid to see what this building was. About a year later she converted to Islam. Now the other women at the mosque are tryin to find her a hubby :) |
| Re: Why are men allowed to have 4 wives? |
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| momineqbal |
| 09/26/01 at 01:37:15 |
| [slm], The CAIR mosque report estimates the no of male converts last year to be 12,963 whereas female converts are estimated at 6,770. Majority of converts are African american. Wassalam Eqbal |
| Re: Why are men allowed to have 4 wives? |
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| Barr |
| 09/26/01 at 10:35:55 |
| Assalamu'alaikum :-) [quote]Do most of the women in US convert after they have fallen in love and met their potential future muslim husbands or do they convert without any influence from would be hubbies![/quote] Allahua'lam... I guess, Allah guides each and everyone of us in various unique and miraculous ways... Might need to do a research in this :) Though.. hmmm.. like what Ali (r.a) said: [color=blue]You will not know the truth by men, know the truth (first), and you will know who belongs to it. [/color]. Sometimes, when one recognises the T/truth, and fell in love with the T/truth... naturally, the love also spills to the man that has the truth with him. Could be the person who introduced the truth to her.. or someone she met along the way... Works both ways for brothers too... (well, we have a real life example on the board *ahem* ;)) Allahua'lam P.S. The Truth is also one of Allah's names - Al Haq .. hence my spelling of the truth has a T/ preceding it... hmmm... hope I make sense.... |
| Re: Why are men allowed to have 4 wives? |
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| mujaahid |
| 09/27/01 at 02:41:51 |
| Not ALL women convert for a man. I know a muslim sister in the UK who converted 2 years ago to Islaam, under pretty amusing circumstances! When she started Uni, she met muslims for the first time, and thought they were strange, and so set about trying to make muslims see the errors of their ways and that islaam was not really a good way of life for anyone to live, and so she wanted ammunition to use agianst the muslism, so started reading up on islaam, preparing for a big assualt on her muslim uni friends. 9 months later she took Shahaada!!! |
| Re: Why are men allowed to have 4 wives? |
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| Lisha |
| 09/27/01 at 13:27:52 |
| slm, Wow ;-D mash'allah, i luv hearing stories of ppl reverting:) whether they fall in luv or discover islam, they've found the right path:) take care, w'salaam |
| Re: Why are men allowed to have 4 wives? |
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| Anonymous |
| 10/01/01 at 12:40:40 |
| Is it true that the first wife has to be ok with it before he can marry someone else? |
| Re: Why are men allowed to have 4 wives? |
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| jannah |
| 10/01/01 at 13:43:16 |
| She should put it in her marriage contract if she wants to be sure about it before it happens. |
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