Women's rights in Islam.

           You see, Muslim have a different logic concerning the status of women. This is where it sets us apart from other religious system. The status of women can be think of as the most valuable sweet in our preservation. Like the Queen that is untouchable except for the King, like the Princess veiled for the deserving Prince Charming, like the gold we kept in surveillance, like the passwords we hide for security, like the money we save for our retirement, like the best kept for the last. Women in Islam are equivalent to Queens and princesses, but they means much more than gold, password and money.We don't say royal system abuses women's right for if they were Queen Elizabeth. So we Muslim do not say women is abused in Islam. West and East have a very different logic of women. They are not the means of exploitation, to arouse men to sell products. Why do we need a model to be pictured with a car in car-shows? Seriously, are you going to ride the car or the model?  

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The concept of God

The discussion I had with a friend. 

A : What if God is actually a being that has no will ? He create by whim. Spontaneously and randomly without any pre-set purposes or intention. By impulse.

B : Let's begin with that assumption for the sake of argument. God is now like a 'crazy human' that has no intention to do anything, but just do them. But, this unpredictable spontaneous God has created humans who have will, intention and choices, capable of making decision. 

A : Yes some sort like that.

B : Is time part of the creation of God in this conjecture ?

A : Yes. Indeed since he is still a God.

B : If  time is his creation, then, he is not bounded by time, right?

A : Yes.

B : When you are not bounded by time, you are free to move across timeline freely : past,present,future. So God ,in other words, can be said to have infinite time ?

A : Yes. We can put it that way.

B : Then we can say that, given the infinite amount of time, this unpredictable God has a possibility of creating his own intelligent, choices, will and intention just like he had created for humans, right? 

A : Yes. That defeats the assumption that God is a being without will and intention and he is indeed intelligent and capable of will, intention and purposes. But, what if time itself is not his creation, meaning he is bounded by time.

B : Ditto. If your God in this conjecture, still is a God, he cannot die at any point right because the concept of God dictates infallibility ? Then, if time was not created, or had created itself, then we can assume that time will never end. And God being infallible will remain forever in this never-ending time. The difference is now, his time goes in one direction that is, to the future. So given infinite amount of time, God will still be intelligent.

A : But what if God is not omnipotent? His power has a limitation. But, because the gap between the power of a human and him is so large, we tend to regard that God is omnipotent.

B : You are arguing on perspective. In a simple analogy, an ant seeing Burj Dubai, would think and believe that it is a tower that does not have an end. But the truth Burj Dubai is only 800 meter tall. Still limited. Ant being the power of a human, and the height of Burj Dubai being the power of God. In our perspective, then, God is omnipotent although his power has a limit just like the tower ends.

A : Yes that is what I mean.

B : But, the fundamental question suppose to be, can the ant ever reach the height of the tower? By simple logic , we can say that the ant , being an ant, can never grew taller than the tower because its nature has been set in small. So does it make a difference if God's power is limited but still encompasses everything that we have ever known, and more than we could ever achieve, hence God being limited does not change anything except what we understand of Him. He is still God. And everything he has ordain for us in our nature and in our destiny still oblige us to bow and prostrate to him.

A : But what if God is not omniscient ? His knowledge is limited. Then, human collective knowledge will and is able to exceeds God's ,provided an enough duration of time.

B : Isn't that self-defeating in the assumption itself ? If a human can possess a knowledge that the God don't, then it can only be the case that that particular knowledge is not created by God. But God create every information exist in the universe. God does not forget what he has created, A creation cannot exceed the creator as long as the creation depends on the creator. If human is analogous to a book, every single alphabet written represent the information human mind had capture, but never has a book write itself. So, a book can never exceed the knowledge of its author as long as the author is the one who wrote it.

A : If God is omnipotent, can God create a stone that is so heavy that he himself cannot move it ?

B : Yes He can create a stone that is so heavy that He Himself is not able to move it, but at the same time He can. 

A : How is that possible ? How can it be and not be at the same time ?

B : You are arguing on illogical premise, something that is contradictory by itself, how then you expect the answer can be a simple yes or no ?

A : But if God is really powerful, He must be able to do it. 

B : Even if God is able to accomplish that, can your logic accepts something that is incomprehensible ? Then how do you expect an answer for a question that you can never understand the answer ?

A : Okay, lets reduce the question to a more simpler version that might helps us to understand the concept of omnipotence. If God can do everything, then the law of absolute dictates that He wont be able to do one thing which is think of a thing that he cannot do.

B : You see, that does not lowers the standard of God.

A; But doesn't that break the argument that God is omnipotent ? That nothing can be anything omnipotent.

B : God is omnipotent in terms that has been set for his Almighty Nature.  If you propose a task that is not logical consistent with his nature, for instance, can the All- Wise God make himself stupid ? Can the All-Powerful God make Himself weak ? Can God tells lies ? NO. To be able to do something that is against the nature of Exaltedness will only make him weaker, and not being able to make oneself weak is stronger.

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Speech communication. ( conversation that flow through my head when I was 'listening' to the lecture )

A : Why do we have to learn how to speak, doesn't it comes natural ?

B : Well, it is natural, but when you speak up to a larger audience, it takes more to convince.

A : To make it convincing ? Is that why we learn how to give a speech ? But, if what you are going           to say in the speech is the truth, why do you worry the audience won't accept it ?

B : Because not all truth are as simple as ABC. Some requires supporting evidence. You see, even             when Prophet Muhammad SAW tried to convince people of the message of Islam , people still           deny him.

A : So are you saying that it is Prophet Muhammad fault for being not convincing enough ? That he         need to learn speech communication to make it better?

B : No, its not his fault at all. He does not need to add, his message was clear enough. It's the listener       that were too arrogant to accept his message.

A : So the fault lies within the audience instead ?

B : Yes.

A : Then shouldn't we educate the audience how to listen critically instead ?

B : Yes that's true. But you have to consider there are some people that do not know how to speak the       truth convincingly, as a result, the audience is not able to trust him.

A : But don't you think that, if truth is spoken, it take less effort to convince people than otherwise ?

B : Yes, even that many are not capable of executing.

A : So why do we need to make this 'less' effort into a strenuous task. You have a syllabus to teach on       them.

B : But that is just for the sake of making it more organized to help these people that are weak.

A : Do you really think these people feel helped when listening to a 4 hour lecture a week on it ? Not       to forget , the assignments ? Because all I can see is that you are making it troublesome.

B : Its better to go through hardship now, and find yourselves at ease later.

A : I certainly agree on that rule. But it is not applicable to this one. A syllabus, assignments, 4 hours       of lecture, graded speech and exam is not hard but rather cumbersome. Increasing workload and         increasing difficulty is two different thing. It's like giving 500 simple mathematics question to a           student , and call it Calculus,

B : But all the things that we learn in Speech Communication can greatly improve our speech skills.

A : We learn a thousand and one tips from the lecture, even get to know some unnecessary trivia,             how much do you think of all of them is successfully employed into practice ?

B : As much as possible.

A : Yes, as much as possible, but that make up to nearly 10 - 15 tips per lecture out of 1001 shared           due to our limited capacity. Don't you think the remainders are just wasted and time consuming ?

B : I see your point here. You are asking us to remain focus on things that helps, and do not be greedy       with the amount of info we can absorb in a day.

A : Yes. Prof Syed Qutb once noted that, one of the criteria that made The Companions great                   learners were their immediate application of what being learnt, And most of the time, they never         ask for more lecture, because that will only make them feel pack, and lose their ability to  fully           apply what they have learn. Consider this stoichiometry, you learn 10 things a day, and an average     of 10 opportunity comes in a day for you practice them. If you learn 100 things a day , but the             opportunity remained the same, then what you leant are excess. The opportunity present for you to     apply this knowledge became a limiting factor.

B : But I still thinks its good that we are teaching people how to give a speech.

A : Let's put it this way. One man convincing speech does not guarantees the truth is accepted. But,          an audience full of critical listeners guarantees the truth is spoken.

B ; So you are suggesting, we should focus more on teaching people how to listen critically instead of       how to speak convincingly ?

A : Yes. what is the use of giving a highly structured speech when the audience itself is not critical           enough to dissect them.

B : But, first impression on a speech is psychologically important, You need to appear confidence of         what you are saying, and that's why you still need to learn SpeechCom.

A : All I can see is that, you are advocating the audience to engage with the speaker's outlook , rather       than the merit of his ideas in the speech. Appearance can be deceiving, but ideas are plain to               examine.

B : So you are saying that the outlook is not as important as the ideas the speaker is trying to put out ?

A : To make an important decision, on whether to accept a man's suggestion or to reject them, it               should  be solely on the weight of the arguments he presented. By putting gratuitous attention to           someone's outlook is ridiculous.

( the numbers used are exaggerated , to provide a real sense , but the ratio is the same )

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