Pastors & Muslim scholars

Other Voices

WBy Ahmad Al-Sarraf

omen historically have had inferior status in different ages and times, and this inferiority has been consecrated in different faiths with slight differences between them.

The Jews and the Christians believe in the sanctity of their religious books. Religious men of the two faiths and leaders of other faiths have greater flexibility in adapting texts and replacing them with a more severe or more tolerant ones, depending on the circumstances of the times, although the process of adaptation and change was of- ten slow.

For example, in 1962, the Second Vatican Council approved a historic event for the Roman Catholic Church, allowing the freedom of belief of all faiths and sects without exception, and surrendered its absolute power over the Europeans, which lasted many centuries, to the worldly authority.

Several churches, including the Evangelical Church, were forced to allow women to perform the duties of the priest or pastor, or to perform church services, and to perform all ecclesiastical rituals of prayer, marriage, and baptism. This could not be envisaged half a century ago. This happened not only because of the status of women in developed countries but also because of the reluctance of men to join ecclesiastical occupations as well.

The quest of European societies that all the components of the nation get their religious and political freedoms, which began with Spinoza’s ‘Letter in theology and Politics’ (1670 AD) to the modern era, did not stop for three centuries. There was also a continuous struggle for freedom and the transformation of civilization from religion to the world. The difficulties and sacrifices have never been easy on the day.

Secularism and rationality, according to colleague Abdul Jawad Mohammed, are not just words, but

Al-Sarraf

a process of cognitive accumulation of serious alternative and inter-generational levels of literature, thought, politics, economy and other fields.

It is also not specific for the period of European time, but for the extent and usefulness of the process of accumulation of alternative knowledge. Societies such as in Asian countries have achieved a cultural transition in less time, while Latin societies still stand halfway, and our societies are still revolving around themselves.

We say all this in response to the publication of a fatwa by the Ministry of Justice in Morocco that allows 299 women to work as marriage officers, a profession that was occupied solely by men for centuries. Their work will include certification of marriage, inheritance and commercial and civil transactions. This post will cancel several rules in relation to the strength of a woman’s testimony which was often less than that of man.

The competition was between 19 thousand candidates, both men and women, and this number is indicative of the seriousness of the matter and its sign of the desire to change the old concepts to others that cope more with the age and the civil state.

On the other hand, Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Washington’s strong Cardinal McCarrick and asked him to pray for the rest of his life as expiation for his sins after accusations of sexual abuse of minors and adults for two decades.

This is the first time in the history of the Catholic Church, an eminent high-ranking religious man who was a candidate for Papacy, has resigned because of such outrageous accusations.

It is so good that there is adaptation system in Islam, otherwise so many would be saints, including Muhammad Metwally Al-Shaarawi, the Egyptian eminent Islamic scholar who on March 20, 1978 addressed the “Believer President Anwar el-Sadat in the People’s Assembly, saying: “By in whose hands is my soul (I swear by God) if it were in my hand, I would judge to lift this man to summit where he is not asked what he is doing.”

habibi.enta1@gmail .com