Everyone Is Asking The Same Questions About Women In Islam
Don't you agree with me that Islam's attitude towards women is reactionary?
That was a question by my well-educated friend that he started the discussion by asking me.
He, then, took to counting the proofs of his charge: Polygamy, seclusion at home, the veil, man’s monopoly of the right to divorce, man’s right to beat and desert his wife’s bed, the issue of intercourse with the slave-girls ‘you may own,’ man’s famous ‘authority’ (Kowama) over his wife, and, finally, the favoring of males with a double share compared to that of females when inheritances are distributed.
Trying to recollect me after this outburst by my friend, I began to address him:
The charges this time are many needing lengthy replies. Let us, however, begin at the beginning — before Islam. I think you know perfectly well that Islam was revealed during a Jahiliyyah (barbaric and heathen). An environment condemned newborn girls to be buried alive while allowing men to marry up to twenty women and force their slave-girls to prostitution and keep the 'proceeds' to themselves. Islam's license for men to marry up to four wives was, in effect, a kind of restriction, not of abandonment. Its teachings saved women from death, servitude, humiliation, and the stigma of shame.
Are European women in a happier lot now amid the prevailing sexual 'permissiveness' and the extra-marital relations that plague most marriages? Wouldn't it be more honorable for a woman to become a second wife to a person she loves and enjoy all the rights and respect of matrimony rather than a secret mistress stealing pleasure behind closed doors?
In Islam, however, polygamy is only a license almost impossible to be utilized because it is conditional upon a proviso very difficult to fulfill:
"But if you fear that you cannot maintain equality among them (the wives) marry only one." Women, 3
"Try as you may, you cannot treat all your wives impartially." Women, 129
God, thus, makes it clear that even the most conscientious will not be able to treat his wives equally. The only men who can fulfill this proviso, those who are super-conscientious, are the prophets, the 'men of God', and those who follow their path.
The charge of seclusion concerns the Prophet's wives who, as the supreme ideals, were enjoined by God to 'stay in your homes' (The Clans, 33). This indicates that the ideal position is to be a mother and a housewife wholly devoted to her home and children. We can imagine the state of a nation whose women are in the streets and offices while the children are sent to orphanages and nurseries. Would such a nation be in a better condition than one whose women are devoted mothers and housewives and where the children are brought up under their mothers' attention and in well-cared-for families? The answer is quite apparent.
Islam, however, is quite aware and tolerant of the reasons that oblige women to go out of their homes and seek work. There were women jurisprudents and poetesses throughout the periods of Islamic history. Women went out to war and to study. The injunction to stay at home was addressed to the Prophet's wives, as we said, in the sense that they were higher examples. There are several and different levels for the ideal, the possible, and the actual. The Prophet's wives accompanied him in his battles; this entails that going forth to aid the husband in a noble struggle is a blameless affair.
As for the veil (Hijab), it is in women's favor. Islam permitted them to reveal their faces and hands (up to the wrists) and enjoined the covering of all other parts of their bodies. It is well known that forbidden is always desired and that concealment of desirable features enhances their attractiveness. On account of total nudity among primitive tribes, the sexual passion of the males lapses into abeyance with the lack of curiosity. A man in such tribes will only have intercourse with his wife once a month, and if she becomes pregnant, he does not come near her for two years.
When naked 'flesh' abounds on beaches in summer and is available for goggling eyes, the bare body loses its lure, novelty, and charm, becoming an ordinary spectacle that arouses' no curiosity. It is undoubtedly in a woman's interest to be more desired, or else she would turn into a standard 'unexciting sight.
A man's right to divorce is countered on the other side by a similar right for the woman. She can sue for divorce and get it if she advances sufficient justifications. A woman can lay down a condition in the marriage contract reserving the right of divorce without a court case; in this way, she would have the same right to divorce as the man.
Islam gives certain rights to the Muslim wife that wives in Europe, for example, have not attained. She receives a Mahr (obligatory marriage endowment), whereas, in Europe, she pays a dowry. She has the right to manage her possessions as she pleases, whereas European wives lose that right as soon as they marry, with the husband becoming the guardian over their property.
Beating and deserting the marriage bed are forms of treatment reserved only for the disobedient or rebellious wife. A man is obliged to treat his 'normal' wife with all kindness and love. Those forms of treatment reveal the Quran's fantastic insight into the phenomenon of wife disobedience or rebelliousness (Noshooz). They also accord with the latest findings of modern psychology about the abnormal behavior of women. We know that psychology divides abnormal behavior into two kinds. The first is that form of submissiveness scientifically known as 'masochism' — the abnormal condition in which a woman finds pleasure in being beaten, tormented, and subjugated. The other kind is the domineering behavior or 'sadism,' to put it in psychological jargon. It is that abnormal condition in which a woman derives pleasure from domineering, controlling, subjecting, tyrannizing over, and inflicting harm on others. The only way to deal with such a type is to disarm her and render her weapon of hegemony useless. That weapon is her femininity, and by deserting her bed, she is disarmed. As for the first abnormal type, the woman who finds pleasure only in being beaten and subjected, beating will be the best cure for her.
It is from such analysis that we can grasp the implications of the Quranic verse:
“As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them. Then if they obey you, take no further action against them.” Women, 34
In just a few words- the underlined- we find a miraculously scientific summary of whole volumes containing psychology's studies of female rebelliousness and its treatment.
We turn next to what my friend called the issue of "slave-girls you may own," which brings us to Islam's position on slavery and the Orientalists' accusation that it encouraged that form of injustice. The truth is that Islam never promoted slavery but was the only religion to call for its liquidation. If we read the Bible and St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians, we will find the following in the latter document: "Slaves: obey your masters with such fear and trembling in your heart as you have for God."
The Bible did not forbid liquidating slavery as a social system; the utmost it called for was to command love and humane treatment between the slaves and their masters.
In the Torah that is in our hands today, a treatment even worse than that of slaves was envisaged for freemen. It commanded that if a town surrendered without a fight, its people should be taken as captives and slaves. On the other hand, the city that puts up resistance and then capitulates receives a far more terrible chastisement. Its old men, youths, women, and children will be massacred.
Slavery then was an established practice before the revelation of Islam. Preceding religions recommended the slave's loyalty to the master. The Quran came to be the first heavenly revelation to speak about 'freeing necks' and about their emancipation.
The Quran did not clearly and openly prohibit slavery; neither did it command the dismissal of existing slaves. For a sudden release by a Quranic injunction of what amounted at that time to hundreds of thousands of slaves without giving them jobs or any form of social functions would have meant a natural social catastrophe. It would have created hundreds of thousands of beggars accosting people in the streets asking for sustenance or being forced to resort to theft and prostitution for a living. This is, undoubtedly, a fate worse than slavery.
The Quranic solution for such a dilemma was to stop the taking of slaves and then free the existing numbers. The source of slavery at that time was the enslavement of prisoners of war. Hence, the Quran stipulated that captives be set free or ransomed and not taken in slavery: 'Then grant them freedom or take ransom from them' (Muhammad, 4). This means that a prisoner of war is either to be favored with a release for God's sake or ransomed.
As for the already existing slaves, they — in the Quranic — would be gradually emancipated by making the release or freeing of a 'neck' (a slave) an expiation for a number of transgressions, both great and slight. In this way, slavery was planned to be liquidated in stages.
However, it is reasonable to inquire about the sort of treatment meted by masters to their slave-girls before the envisaged end of slavery is attained. This is the topic that so perplexed my friend. The answer is simple: Islam permitted the master to live with any slave-girl as his wife. There is no doubt that living with the woman slave as a wife was, at that time, a proper and not degrading treatment.
Above all, Islam's attitude to the slave, making him or her a brother or sister in faith and not a mere down-trodden serf, should not be forgotten:
“The believers are a band of brothers.” The Chambers, 10
“It was He who created you from a single soul.” The Heights, 189
“None of us shall set up mortals as gods besides Him.” The Imrans, 64
Muhammad, peace be upon him, gave an example when he adopted a slave, Zeid Ibn Haretha, emancipating him and even marrying him to Zeinab Bent Gahsh, the free woman and descendant of a noble house. All this was designed to deal a blow at arrogance and bigotry and set a precedent in the emancipation of slaves that others could follow. The Prophet wanted to make it clear, indeed an example, that his mission was to free the slaves.
We come, finally, to man's authority over woman. This is a fact of life, whether in Islamic, Christian, or godless countries. In atheist Moscow, the rulers have been men from the days of Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, and Bulganin to our own time. In the USA, France, or any place on earth you care to name it, men govern, legislate, and invent, and the exception was that women become governors as some instances in England and Germany. All prophets and philosophers have been men. Even music composers have been chiefly men, although the composition is an imaginative activity that does not require 'male muscles.' Men have excelled in and then completely dominated such "feminine specialties" as cooking, sewing, and dressmaking.
Islamic Shari'a has not contributed to creating such phenomena like the above, which exist in those parts of the world where no Shari'a or Quran have sway. We are simply dealing with facts: men have authority or transcendence over women by virtue of their natural attributes, fitness, and the controlling personality given to them by the Creator. If here and there, a woman minister, leader, or ruler appears, she is the exception that confirms the rule, and how she is much talked about proves the abnormality of the event.
Islam did no more than recognize this human rule. This explains why the Quran allotted the man double the woman's share in inheritance: it is the man who spends on the family and works to support it. Islam's position on women is justice itself. The Prophet's conduct with his wives was the epitome of love, kindness, and tenderness. Wasn't he quoted as saying: "Of your world women and perfume were made dear to me, and my heart's content is in prayer."
He mentioned women with fragrance, perfume, and prayers which is a very high rank of cherishing indeed. The last thing he said in the last speech before his death was a famous recommendation for the well-being of and respect for women.
If God has elected Woman for home and Man for the street, it is because He assigned to the latter the trust of building and construction in the earth while He entrusted women with a far greater mission which is bringing up of humanity itself. It is far more elevating to Woman's status to be given such trust.
Can it, then, be rightly alleged that Islam has wronged women?