Blogging the Qur'an: The Cow

Via HotAir, one in a series of blogging the Qur'an. "The Cow" is the section on marriage and divorce (not love?). This passage leaves me dumbfounded:

The regulations for divorce emphasize that while women “have rights similar to those (of men) over them in kindness,” nevertheless “men are a degree above them” (v. 228). This may be why men can divorce their wives simply by saying, “Talaq” – I divorce you – but women may not do this. Such an easy procedure leads to divorces in a fit of pique, followed by reconciliation – and the Qur’an anticipates this and attempts to head it off by stipulating that a husband who divorces his wife three times cannot reconcile with her until she marries another man and is in turn divorced by him (v. 230). This has given rise to the phenomenon of “temporary husbands,” who marry and divorce thrice-divorced women at the behest of Islamic clerics even in our own day, so that these poor women can then return to their original husbands. This practice has, as one may imagine, given rise to abuses.

Follow this last link. Very convoluted.

Related posts: Lifting the Veil, In Search of Reform Muslims, The Sublime Quran