Intimacy Limits Quotes
This directive was a very enlightened improvement over the then exiting customs regarding menstruating women. The existing Jewish tradition, also observed by many others, was for men to shun a menstruating woman and banish her to a ritual bathhouse. While menstruating, a woman was not to touch anyone and could not even prepare food as she was regarded as “unclean”. While not a completely modern pronouncement—intercourse was still banned—it was a great reform where Islam led the world. It is hard for many in modern times to consider Islam as a modernizing force for reform given the archaic view of most things, but in its beginning, Islam was a great force of reform and progress. Later the religion went through a consolidation and intellectual closing and allowed no further reform. Indeed, it made reform a crime often punishable by death.
