Imam Luqman Ahmad Mosque Without Borders

A DOWRY SHOULD NOT BE LIKE TURNING A TRICK

You can’t put a price on a woman. Especially a woman that you are seeking to marry. Especially a good woman. We don’t do price tag dowries in Islam. We don’t buy our wives, or sell our daughters. Our daughters and women folk are not whores, who we offer to the highest bidder.

The problem is that in our culture (Black American Muslim culture), some of our fixation on the dowry is like a price tag, and a selling price for a woman, which is totally foreign to Islam. It amounts to literally putting a price tag on a woman and it puts marriage in the same plane as prostitution. And this is mainly coming from women who’ve been married several times; had multiple sex partners, previous boyfriends, drama, baggage, and maybe just had sex recently, and then slap a price tag on herself. That’s hoe talk.

The dowry is not supposed to be positioned like that in the religion of Islam. A dowry can be high or low according to the sharia. And it is supposed to be a gift. But to say that the dowry is somehow connected to the value of the women, actually cheapens what it means to be a woman in Islam in the first place. We come from a pimp/ hoe culture, and we’re bringing that culture into Islam.

My point is that we are Muslims, not infidels. One sister even suggested that a low dowry means the woman is worth less than a woman who demands a high dowry, and that is total jaahiliyyah thinking, counter to the noble religion of Islam.

High or low, a dowry is a gift, not your selling price. It’s a private offering, not an auction block, price tag for used, sometimes, spoiled goods..No where in the world do people have these types of conversations about the dowry, except in ghetto land America. That’s one of the reasons (certainly not the main reason) that many if not most of our women who position themselves like this will never be married.

It’s not the amount, there is nothing wrong with higher dowries. it’s that the only women who I see pushing this hoe talk, are women over 35 who long since lost their virginity. A Muslim woman should not put herself out like she’s on an action block. Dowry is something you discuss with your suitor, and guardian at the appropriate time, not with the whole world. You don’t lead in with the dowry.

If a sister really wants a high dowry then she should offer some value, not simply a price tag on herself, and bring it up, after she demonstrates or has some history of value, character, or deen. It shouldn’t be, I got a big butt, and I demand a high dowry. It demeans her, not elevate her. In Islam, we’re supposed to elevate our women, not liken them to prostitutes with a price tag.

Imam Abu Laith Luqman Ahmad

Imamabulaith@yahoo.com