“Which of the blessings of your Lord will ye deny?” - Qur’an

[This was posted by a brother from muslimmatters.org and I found his post to be very good topic that we should all check up on. Copy-pasted from this original website, please check for references: http://muslimmatters.org/2007/06/26/sex-the-muslim-ummah-part-1/#comment-7471]

26th Jun, 2007

Sex & the Muslim Ummah - Part 1 [Sex Education]

“Blessed are the women of the Helpers. Their modesty did not stand in the way of their seeking knowledge about their religion” (Bukhari and Muslim)

Let me qualify the title a bit: The role of sex education among Muslims… taboo subject? Yes, mostly. But let’s answer the following questions in order to separate culture from Islam in this regard:

• Is it really an “Islamic-taboo” as opposed to desi-taboo or arab-taboo, etc., etc.? Is it something even shameful to discuss?
• Was the discussion of sexual intimacy a taboo among early Muslims, including and foremost the Prophet (S)?
• Is it a subject that Muslims need to know about?
• Has that importance changed with time?
• Does where Muslims reside have an affect on the importance of this topic?

Before we move on, let me give you some of my own background:

• I was raised in a “Muslim” country, in a segregated school (all the way through high-school), when the information technology was still in its infancy: no e-mail, no internet, etc.
• Despite my relatively “shielded” upbringing, I was still exposed to “sex ed.”
• The problem is that my “sex ed.” came from cousins, friends and other assorted relatives.
• Up until my early teens, I had no idea what girls went through in their puberty, and for that matter did not really appreciate or understand my own ‘adolescence’ (though our sister Mouse has effectively “killed” this concept).
  • So, when female members of my household would not pray, I would impress upon them that there was absolutely NO excuse for them not to pray. Only to find out much later of course, that many females in our desi culture would actually pretend to pray in order to avoid the embarrassment of their menstruation, from ignorant (in such matters) relatives like myself.
  • I actually “discovered’ this concept of periods while reading the Book of Taharah in Sahih Muslim. No, I was not “religious” growing up. It was just that my father had somehow received these books, and I somehow took an interest in reading them.
• What I learned from my ‘own’ channels about sex was not what I would want my kids to have learned. In addition to being sometimes grossly inaccurate (spoken in a rush of excitement by my similar-aged cousin), these learnings were also highly sexually loaded. So, it wasn’t just an understanding of how things work, what to look for as you grow into puberty, other natural physical changes which all of us go through… rather, it was all hush-hush, gathered in secret discussions; the natural reaction to such secrets was a perverted sense of sex and its role in life.

So, to the first question, is sexual education or related matters really taboo when it comes to Islam as opposed to desi-taboo or arab-taboo, etc., etc.?

In fact it is not; rather sexual education, when taught in a ‘matter of fact’ way, with information and not excitement, was something that was discussed by the Prophet (S), and alhamdulilah for that! (otherwise we would be all lost in this matter). Let’s see some examples then from the Messenger (S)’s rich traditions:

It was narrated from Zaynab the daughter of Umm Salamah that Umm Salamah said: “Umm Sulaym came to the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) and said, ‘O Messenger of Allaah, Allaah is not too shy to tell us the truth. Does a woman have to do ghusl if she has a wet dream?’ The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: ‘Yes, if she sees water (a discharge).’ Umm Salamah covered her face and said, ‘O Messenger of Allaah, can a woman have an erotic dream?’ He said, ‘Yes, may your hands be rubbed with dust. How else would her child resemble her?’”

Note who is asking… a woman, who was not the Prophet’s wife either. Note also that the Prophet did not scorn at her nor did he exhibit any “abnormal” reactions (otherwise that would be likely mentioned in the hadith just as it describes Umm Salamah’s reaction). What does this tell us? What it tells me at least is that in order for Islam to be the”natural” religion, it has to take into account natural human issues. So, the Prophet (S) knew that having wet dreams was something natural- for men and for women. So, his reaction was that of a straight-face, normal answer to a normal question. This also addresses the second part of the question, that there was no shame that the Prophet (S) felt in answering a rather private question from a Muslimah. Now tell me, my dear brothers & sisters, if Umm Sulaym hadn’t asked, how many of our women today would be wondering about this very same question? And in a similar vein regarding wet dreams, as many of our young brothers and sisters may have similar questions:

It was narrated that ‘Aa’ishah said: The Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) was asked about a man who notices some wetness but does not remember having a wet dream. He said, “He should do ghusl.” He was asked about a man who thinks that he had an erotic dream but does not see any wetness. He said, “He does not have to do ghusl.” Umm Salamah said, “O Messenger of Allaah, does a woman have to do ghusl if she sees something like that?” He said, “Yes, women are the twin halves of men.”

Back to our questions then:

• Is it a subject that Muslims need to know about?
• Has that importance changed with time?
• Does where Muslims reside have an affect on the importance of this topic?

Let me try to wrap up the three questions with my 2-cents answer on the topic, though I must remind myself and everyone else that I am not an authority in this matter or any other Islamic matter: I find the question actually quite incredulous and rather naive. It is not a question of whether Muslims need to know about this subject, rather it is a question of HOW they will find out about it.

The day and age we live in has indeed affected this discussion. Perhaps in the ‘old times’, with the lack of television and ESPECIALLY the internet, it may have been possible to shield the knowledge of these ‘things’ until the time of marriage. But, even then, there are many things that occur before marriage, like the stages of puberty that kids find awfully hard to deal with as it is, especially when they have no clue about what is going on with their bodies! That was THEN. It would be an incredibly amazing feat if any parents were able to shield their children completely from the information highway that is feeding most kids these days, in ways that the parents probably wouldn’t approve. So, in today’s climate, all parents should ASSUME that their children will indeed find out about sex.

Of course, it gets worse if the children are living in the West and going to public schools. And I say that with some hesitation. Because knowing what goes on in Pakistan and other “Muslim” countries, I think I could be safely challenged on this assumption and I would be hard-pressed to justify it. Regardless, if it isn’t worse, it is equally bad. Islamic schools may provide some semblance of ’safe environment’, but again having known some serious acts of impropreitery in Islamic schools, I must say that this is one safety net I would not completely trust.

So, what’s the bottom-line? For me, it is that that Muslim children do indeed need to know about sex, because they will find out one way or the other. Furthermore, time and place does indeed make a difference and both indeed favor this discussion, not discourage it.

Consider this from a pscyhologist:

“If you tell kids about sex, they’ll do it. If you tell them about VD, they’ll go out and get it. Incredible as may seem, most oppositions to sex education in this country are based on the assumption that knowledge is harmful. But research in this area reveals that ignorance and unresolved curiosity, not knowledge, are harmful. Our failure to tell children what they want and need to know is one reason we have the highest rates of out-of-wedlock teens pregnancy and abortion of any highly developed country in the world.” - from What Kids Need to Know, Psychology Today, October 1986, by Dr. Sol Gordon, Professor Emeritus, Syracuse University, and an expert on sex education.

Thank you Professor Gordon, but as Muslims we already know or should know that Islam promotes knowledge, that the assumption that “knowledge is harmful” opposes basic Islamic tenets in all matters of religion and life.

What the Professor stated next about teen pregnancy and teen sex in general, may occur to many Muslims as only occuring with the “others”. Yet, this is a failing of the understanding of the situation of Muslims in the West. I don’t have any statistics, but I can tell you that I won’t be surprised if many Muslim kids are doing it. In fact, I remember many years ago when one of my friends (in what I considered the age of ‘jahiliya’!) boasted about getting “it” at one of the ISNA conferences, where his dad was one of the big speakers. And he was not lying, because he had no reason to. Why I had to point to such a jaw-dropping example is to show that these incidents are occurring in what one would consider an “Islamic environment” and by those, who are part of deeply religious families. The point is a wake-up call for Muslim parents: WAKE UP.

Would this ISNA-trip sidebar have been avoided if the highly-cultural parents of this friend of mine had engaged in an open and serious discussion about sex with their son? Maybe, maybe not. But, at least, I can say quite confidently that it would not have hurt and that possibly this kid, raised in a Muslim country and suddenly dropped in the middle of the American “dream”, would have been a bit more reserved his testeronal outburst.

Let me also start wrapping up this discussion by saying that due to my own cultural reservedness, I am quite uncomfortable myself regarding this topic, and even more so at the prospect of having a chat with my son in due time. I will leave my daughter to my wife, though I wonder if there is some way to break at least some of the ice between all family members, at least in terms of issues of puberty. Like this Egyptian/American (i.e. an Egyptian woman married to a Caucasian American convert decades ago) family that I know, where the women of the household are quite comfortable in mentioning the “status” of their periods among their brothers and father.

Before I move on to a few discussion points that parents should consider engaging their children in, I’d like to open the floor to hear your perspectives– for my sake and for the sake of many other parents (present and future) who may be reading this.

• Do you agree or disagree with my conclusions here?
• Are there cultural differences such that this shyness or reservedness about sexual issues does not reflect your situation?
• Do you feel that this subject needs to be talked about at a different level, not at the blog level? And why?
• Do you find this discussion beneficial?
• Mention your preferences and points of benefit regarding the right age for such a discussion?

As I was looking up ‘talking points’ with children, I found many sites that offered this. However, there were obviously some “Islamic issues” with them, like we shouldn’t be talking about the dangers of teen pregnancy, rather we should be talking about the sin of what gets girls to that point, etc. So here’s my list of 10 issues to discuss, which has been modified from other lists out there:

1. Get to know your children. It’s hard to talk about sex with someone whom you never really talk to. If you start early and have ongoing conversations with your children, talking about sexuality will be a much easier conversation.
2. Be clear about Islamic sexual values and attitudes. Talking to your children about these issues will be more successful when you’re clear about how you feel about them and you have KNOWLEDGE about these issues. You are the strongest influence in your child’s life. So learn YOURSELF first, then share these Islamic values with them. They need to know that our submission to Allah does not allow us to be indifferent or unaccepting of His Rules.
3. Initiate the conversations with children, at the level that they can understand. Forget about “The Talk”. Kids need more than a one-time lecture- they need to develop values, morals and beliefs. Be on the look-out for “teachable moments”. You could consider using a hadith or a verse that will open up the opportunity to discuss, such as the ones aforementioned.
4. Create an open environment. Children should feel okay about talking to their parent about their “inner secrets”. Daughter/mother and son/father relationships need to be especially nurtured. Also listen, listen and listen. Let them talk. Even if they say something horrible, let them finish saying it. If they don’t say it to you, it doesn’t mean they did not do it or are not thinking about it. Better that you know about it than not.
5. It’s not just the birds and the bees. Don’t limit your conversations to just sex. Talk to them about male and female reproductive systems when appropriate.
6. Reassure your child that not everyone is having sex. Teenagers often believe that all their friends are having sex or overestimate the percentage of their peers who are sexually experienced. This is especially important if your children are going to public school, because peer pressure can be extremely difficult. [side-note: consider Islamic schools if only for this reason!]
7. Puberty and signs of puberty: Girls need to know about periods. Boys need to know about wet-dreams, the “impure” hair locations, etc. since the dawn of puberty is less explicit for them. They need to understand that there is nothing to be shy about but it is important to recognize the signs, because puberty will herald them into the age where the record of deeds begins.
8. Talk about masturbation. Because sex is something that we have to train our children not to get even get close to, they may be tempted by the “lesser” evil of masturbation. So, teach them about why its wrong. There are some opinions that allow this act under special circumstances but be discerning as to when to disseminate this info. Consider solutions mentioned in the hadith:
   • Abdullaah ibn Mas’ood said, “We were with the Prophet while we were young and had no wealth whatsoever. So Allah’s Messenger said, “O young people! Whoever among you can marry, should marry, because it helps him lower his gaze and guard his modesty (i.e. his private parts from committing illegal sexual intercourse etc.), and whoever is not able to marry, should fast, as fasting diminishes his sexual power” [Bukhari:5066]. The hadeeth orders men who are not able to marry to fast despite the hardship encountered in doing so, and not to masturbate despite the ease with which it can be done. The forbiddence of masturbation applies equally to women.
9. Talk about hygeinic issues relating to what they will face pretty soon after puberty: purification after menses, wet-dreams, as it relates to pubic/under-arm hair, etc.
10. Do NOT let your kids sleep together on the same bed once they reach the age of ten.
    • “Enjoin your children to perform salah… and let them sleep in separate beds.” (al-Hakim and Abu Dawud)

So, these are what I would consider the “hypothetical though mostly practical” list… but I am really interested in hearing what you have to say about this, especially interesting experiences and practical techniques. Also, feel free to mention other articles/websites, etc., but actually read them before referring/recommending them to ensure they are “Sunnah-sound”. Perhaps we can compile a good list of such articles later on, within this discussion.