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From: aj3u@opal.cs.virginia.edu (Asim Jalis)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam
Subject: Re: some questions...
Message-ID: <1991Jun4.201035.13786@wpi.WPI.EDU>
Date: 4 Jun 91 20:10:35 GMT
References: <1991May29.144851.26150@wpi.WPI.EDU> <1991May30.150810.8589@wpi.WPI.EDU>
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In article <1991Jun4.131416.815@wpi.WPI.EDU> parrikar@csn.org (Rajan Parrikar) writes:
> azhar@cs.duke.edu (Salman Azhar):
> >
> >	   The Holy Quran (and by natural consequence Islam) is very
> >clear that God is One Entity. He is not a male or for that matter
> >female. Unfortunetely, it is the shortcoming in our language that
> 
> One would have thought Islam to be a major motivation for changing
> a few things in Arabic then!!
> 
> On a related matter:
> Somehow God seems to have an unusual proclivity for sending out
> *male* Prophets. Why is that? (Don't tell me, It's not ours to
> question WHY??) 
> 

On the issue of changing Arabic to bestow a neutral gender to God, that is
such an absurd proposition, that I feel unmotivated to respond to it.  What
difference does it make if the masculine gender is used for God.  If it
makes difference to a person he is simply betraying his own sexism.

But if for the sake of argument we assume that such an approach was
possible.  How could it be implemented?  The Quran has already been revealed
with the masculine gender used for God.  Do we alter the Quran to reflect
our newly realized political correctness?  How do we enforce this new
politically-correct Arabic?  Do we institute punitive measures to make the
masses see our view on this?  What does all this trivial juggling achieve?
Answers to these questions are as pointless as the original question they
were a response to.  See the last paragraph for more discussion on this.

The second issue is more interesting.  However, equally pointless.  Not only
were prophets always male, but they were also from the noblest tribes of
their regions.  Also they were never born into slavery.  While you have
answered the question yourself: "it's not ours to question why" -- we can
still speculate.  Perhaps God did not want to place unnecessary hurdles for
his messengers in their goal to spread his message to their communities.
Had the prophets been women or slaves or from the less respectable tribes,
their eventual goal would have become even more challenging than it already
was -- maybe even impossible.  Of course all of this is strictly
speculation.

And in fact I would like to add that not only is this speculation, but it is
also pointless.  This is because these are all tangential issues, of
interest to only those who are interested in attacking Islam and to those
who are interested in defending it against these attackers.  That is hardly
the "essense" of Islam.  Islam is not a religion that is designed to produce
sophists who are able to handle these attacks with more prowess than
followers of other philosophies are able to.  The purpose is entirely
different.  If you are seriously interested in this religion I would suggest
a modification to your approach.

Asim Jalis.