Sleepyghoul, I have some advice for you. This thread is turning into a pointless argument about subjective opinions, reminiscent of what often happens on Free-Minds forum. Neither Hamzeh nor Good Logic is going to help you. They can't, and they have no interest in doing so. I know when a conversation is becoming unproductive, and I would suggest you leave this thread. You need to know when to leave a conversation that is going nowhere.
Regarding 4:3, there is variance in interpretation, but the word for orphans is masculine/neutral plural. It is rather difficult to turn this into "If you fear you will not be just with
female orphans
whom you wish to marry" unless you do a fair amount of acrobatics. 4:127 does reference female orphans/widowed women not being given their proper dowries, and 4:4 provides the solution: Just give them their dowries (it's not that hard). 4:2 and 4:3 are both speaking generically of orphans, either gender. I won't continue this topic on a public forum because it seems impossible for people to have a sane academic discussion of 4:3 or 4:34. It always devolves into anecdotal stories about so-and-so's wives. If you want to continue, email me from my website.
Regarding witnesses (since you brought this up in your first post), the issue has absolutely nothing to do with women forgetting their testimony. This understanding is only the result of demonstrable misinterpretation as I have explained.
https://ifoceanswereink.wordpress.com/2017/06/15/witnesses-financial-transactions-adultery-and-deficiency-in-reason/With regards to hur al ayn:
http://quransmessage.com/articles/sexy%20female%20virgins%20for%20men%20in%20heaven%20FM3.htm On this topic, as with most others, I have found Joseph Islam's scholarship to be good, but his is not the final word, and he has been wrong before.
As for 4:34, it is incredible that traditionalists think women can be "disciplined" for an unproven "wrongdoing" when the Quran mandates a judicial process to prove wrongdoing, and strictly forbids every type of slander. 4:34 only speaks of "feared (khafa) wrongdoing," which is unproven and absolutely cannot warrant punishment. Sleepysoul, it is
your responsibility to realize when tragic mistakes in Quranic interpretation have occurred. You cannot rely on others to give you the answers to everything, because they can't, and won't.
With regards to the female angels thing, the Quran is condemning the hypocrisy of Arabs, who (apparently) disliked female children yet worshiped female deities. You have to put all the verses on "daughters vs. sons" together to get the full picture.
BTW--I have done some research, and pre-Islamic Arabs actually buried male children alive with almost the same frequency they did female children. They did not uniformly dislike women, either. Interestingly, the Quran specifically condemns the murder of female children, although it acknowledges male infanticide as well (see 17:31; here “children,” awlad, is in the masculine plural).
God does not tell us to abandon common sense while reading the Quran. Such a suggestion is insulting; don't listen to anyone who tells you "there is wisdom behind God commanding oppression." The "wisdom behind oppression" mantra has been used to mess with the Quran for centuries. And don't read Sahih International's or even Yusuf Ali's translations; they're unnecessarily convoluted and demonstrably wrong. I would suggest this translation:
https://historyofislam.com/the-quran/I won't reply further on this thread. I know from experience that public forums are counterproductive and discussions get derailed. Email me if you want. And don't feel bad for any of this. Islam's teachings on women have been corrupted beyond recognition. It's not your fault.
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