Women In Islam- Exploring New Paradigms

By Moin Qazi

Women in Islam: Exploring new Paradigms is a revolutionary book that explores the vast literature and canonical texts on the rights of Muslim women. The author argues that the revelation of Qur’an marked a watershed in the history of Muslim women. It empowered them in several ways. If women are oppressed today it is on account of factors extrinsic to Islam: had the true intent of the Qur’an been followed, there would have been gender equality, but this true intent was undermined by Arabian patriarchal practices and by imports from surrounding in egalitarian civilizations .He believes that the solution lies not in reforming but in rediscovering Islam. Differences regarding gender status are attributed primarily to the way the Qur’an has been predominantly interpreted, especially in the shari’a (holy law)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Notion Press
• Release date: Jan 21, 2015
• ISBN: 9789384878030

Book preview

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Introduction

O People, it is true that you have certain rights over your women, but they also have rights over you. Remember that you have taken them as your wives only under God’s trust and with His permission. If they abide by your right then to them belongs the right to be fed and clothed in kindness. Treat your women well and be kind to them, for they are your partners and committed helpers.

Prophet’s Farewell Sermon

The best of you are those who are the kindest to their wives.

Al-Tirmidhi

Motherhood is a mercy, being linked

By close affinity to prophethood,

And her compassion is the prophet’s own.

For mothers shape the way that men shall go;

Maturer, by the grace of Motherhood,

The character of nations is, the lines

That score that brow determine our estate.

Muhammad Iqbal -Rumuz-e-Bekhudi (Mysteries of Selflessness)

This woman, who is your beloved, is in fact a ray of His light, She is not a mere creature. She is like a creator.

Jalaluddin Rumi

Contemporary misconceptions

The portrayal of Muslim women that we glimpse in the media is grim and somber. The public perception of them is one of stubborn stereotypes: supposedly powerless and oppressed, behind walls and veils, demure, voiceless and silent figures, discriminated and bereft of even basic rights. This picture keeps reinforcing itself, largely because this is how the Western media caricatures women in Islam. Recurring images beamed into our homes and phones keep strengthening the belief that Muslim women are being denied access to education, social space, privacy and educational and development programmes for their socio-economic uplift. The prejudicial media keeps using selective stories for reinforcing its own notions. On account of these projections, the views of the general public remain skewed. Inequalities exist in many Muslim societies but it is also true that gender inequalities exist in many non-Muslim societies as well. In the Qur’an, men and women enjoy the same rights spiritually, but also socially and politically.

It is true that in societies trapped in poverty, illiteracy and ignorance, women continue to receive abominable and oppressive treatment. But then, this is true of all societies. Muslims cannot be singled out for such a flawed social order. The pictures we get of wife beating and other retrograde practices imposed on Muslim women are clearly aberrations which should not be generalized as the usual Muslim stereotype. The wrong practices rampant in some such societies have much to do with illiteracy, ignorance and sometimes dire poverty. In several cases, the plight of Muslim women is a direct consequence of a repressive and highly discriminatory State. A dispassionate analysis will reveal that vested interests in all societies, particularly those driven by patriarchal values, have resisted the uplift of women and have failed to concede them the legitimate rights they have been guaranteed by their faith, community and State. This distortion however should not deflect our focus from some path breaking and stellar contributions of Muslim women not just to Islamic civilization but to the secular society as well.

Islam was the first religion to formally grant the women a status never known before. The Qur’an, the sacred scripture of Islam, contains hundreds of exordiums and commandments which apply both to men and women alike. The moral, spiritual and economic equality of men and women as propagated by Islam is unquestionable. In Islam, men and women are moral equals in God’s sight and are expected to fulfill the same duties of worship, prayer, faith, alms giving, fasting, and pilgrimage to Mecca. The triumph of Islam in the seventh century basically codified the position of women with its laws of spiritual and civic conduct. It banned female infanticide, limited polygamy to four wives, forbade sexual relations outside marriage and spelled out women’s rights in marriage and inheritance. But part of this codification was to place women, in unequivocal language, below men: Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (in support of women). (Q4: 34). Some modern Islamic writers and thinkers believe that, taking the Qur’an as a whole, women are given an equal-but-different status rather than an inferior one. But most Muslim laymen and scholars, living, it should be remembered, in an already patriarchal civilization, have taken such verses the way many Christians take the story of the Creation and the Fall: literally.

The specific verses of the Qur’an, which address themselves to men or women, deal with either their physical differences or the role they each have to play in safeguarding the moral fibre of the society that Islam envisages. The Qur’an affirms that men and women are created from one soul to be partners to each other, that males and females have the same religious responsibilities, and that both genders will receive like rewards on the Day of Judgment. In only a few instances are circumstances for men and women notably different in the Qur’an. Passages that seem to affirm male authority over women are based on the Islamic understanding that men are responsible for the financial support of women.

The Qur’an says ‘Allah created you from a single soul, and from the same soul created his mate’ (.Q4; 1) It also says ‘O mankind, we created you all from a male and female, and made you into races and tribes, that you may know one another. Surely the noblest among you in the sight of God is the most God fearing of you’ (Q49:13). In relation to the absolute, woman is equal to man in all essential rights and duties; God makes no distinction between man and woman. They are to be equally rewarded or punished for their deeds. The Qur’an says: ‘Their Lord answers them, saying: I will deny no man or woman among you the reward of their labours. You are the offspring of one another’ (Q3: 194). ‘Man’ is not made in the image of God. Neither is a flawed female helpmate extracted from him as an afterthought or utility. Dualism is the primordial design for all creation: ‘From all (created) things are pairs’ (Q 51:49).The Qur’an further says: ‘Another of his signs is that he created spouses from among yourselves for you to live with in tranquility: He ordained love and kindness between you. There truly are signs in this for those who reflect ‘(Q30:21) It further affirms, ‘… for women are rights over men similar to those of men over women.’(Q2:226) We must appreciate the spirit in which the Qur’an considers the congenital differences between the two genders resulting from their creation, and espouses a relationship based on equal justice between men and women.

Welter of ignorance and prejudice

Islam promotes and teaches humans to practice balance in all aspects of life with moderation. As humans we are influenced by our culture and traditions; political, economic and psychological experiences not only shape our attitudes and behaviors but separate and divide us. Consequently our world views and religious views differ from place to place, era to era and across cultures thereby continuing to irresponsibly link religion, in this case Islam, to the oppression of women. The alleged retrograde practices of the community takes the world’s focus away from understanding the overwhelming problems of the Muslim world and the cause of its troubles. Not to mention, it provides an easy scapegoat for those looking to legitimize their illegitimate actions which are detrimental to humanity.

There is a legitimate disconnect between the application of Islamist tenets and the context of societies in which they have not been properly disseminated or understood. If we had to define Islamist, it would literally be: one who is motivated to pursue the Qur’ānic view of humanity in all aspects of life. One who serves humanity first, prevents harm and protects society. For at its very core, Islam prescribes the principles of justice and equity for peace and human development and compassion for all of mankind. Not to mention that the very root word of Islam itself is derived from the word salaam (peace). Islam is a universal religion speaking to humanity. The Prophet in his last great address at Arafat summed up his philosophy by decrying barriers between people. Islam, for him, transcended divisions of caste, colour and race. All mankind is from Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over a black nor a black has any superiority over white except by piety and good action.

It has however to be conceded that the role of women in Muslim society has changed significantly in the centuries since Islam began in Arabia in the early 600s. Their position has varied with shifting social, economic, and political circumstances. Although Islam regards men and women as moral equals in the sight of God, women have not had equal access to many areas of Islamic life.

Muslim scholars insist that nothing in Islam is incompatible with technological advance or industrial development. In the days of the caliphs, Islam led the world in scientific and intellectual discoveries. What Muslims object to are the evils associated with modernization: the breakdown of the family structure, the lowering of moral standards, the appeal of easygoing secular lifestyles. At the same time, Muslims are demanding the positive best of the West: schools, hospitals, income avenues and technology. In fact several scholars and organizations are trying to articulate proper responses to enable Muslim women to adapt to alien situations without being submerged in the currents of the new civilization.

At first the Muslim response to Western civilization was one of admiration and emulation—an immense respect for the achievements of the West, and a desire to imitate and adopt them. This desire arose from a keen and growing awareness of the weakness, poverty, and backwardness of the Islamic world as compared with the advancing West. Muslim writers observed and described the wealth and power of the West, its science and technology and its forms of government. For a time the secret of Western success was seen to lie in two achievements: economic advancement and especially industry; political institutions and especially freedom. Several generations of reformers and modernizers tried to adapt these and introduce them to their own countries, in the hope that they would thereby be able to achieve equality with the West and perhaps restore their lost superiority.

In our own time this mood of admiration and emulation has, among many Muslims, given way to one of hostility and rejection. In part this mood is surely due to a feeling of humiliation—a growing awareness, among the heirs of an old, proud, and long dominant civilization, of having been overtaken, overborne, and overwhelmed by those whom they regarded as their inferiors.

The introduction of Western commercial, financial, and industrial methods did indeed bring great wealth, but it accrued to transplanted Westerners and members of Westernized minorities, and to only a few among the mainstream Muslim population. In time these few became more numerous, but they remained isolated from the masses, differing from them even in their dress and style of life. Inevitably they were seen as agents of and collaborators with what was once again regarded as a hostile world. For vast numbers of Middle Easterners, Western-style economic methods brought poverty, Western-style political institutions brought tyranny, even Western-style warfare brought defeat. It is hardly surprising that so many were willing to listen to voices telling them that the old Islamic ways were best and that their only salvation was to throw aside the pagan innovations of the reformers and return to the true path that God had prescribed for his people. These Islamists see western practices and views regarding women as part of a Western cultural offensive, which accompanies political and economic offensives. For many believers, western gender practices are seen more as aggression than as liberation, and Islamist women can find some genuine advantages for themselves in their new interpretations of Islam.

The constant pressures from within to renew, change and reform, across the Muslim world are neither modern nor new; they represent the quest for the ideal in an imperfect world. Islam was always reviving after declining; always being re-discovered after being neglected, this revivalism or resurgence is not a twentieth century phenomenon. The sense of déjà-vu which permeates Muslim society is not so much a reliving as the recreating of the past. The more the times change, the more certain features in the society remain the same.

It would not be out of place to remember that great intellectual, Martin Lings He feels that we have heard many times the words "development’’. (tatawwur) and progress (taqaddum) and renewal (tajdîd) and renaissance (nahdah), and perhaps it will not be a waste of time to pause and consider what they mean. Development means moving away from the principles; and although it is necessary to move a certain distance from the principles in order to make applications of them, it is of vital importance to remain near enough for contact with them to be fully effective. Development must therefore, never go beyond a certain point. Our ancestors were acutely conscious that this danger point had been reached in Islam hundreds of years ago; and for us, who are so much further removed in time than they were from the ideal community of the Prophet and his companions, the danger is all the greater. How then shall we presume not to be on our guard? How shall we presume not to live in fear of increasing our distance from the principles to the point where development becomes degeneration? And indeed it may well be asked as regards most of what is proudly spoken of today as development: is it not in fact degeneration? As for progress, every individual should hope to progress, and that is the meaning of our prayer: Guide us upon the way of transcendence. The word development could also be used of individuals in the same positive sense. But communities do not progress; if they did, what community was better qualified to progress than the first Islamic community in all the impetus of its youth? Yet the Prophet said, The best of my people are my generation, then they that come after them, then they that come after those. And we must conclude from the Qur’an that with the passage of the centuries a general hardening of hearts is inevitable, for it says of one community, a long length of time passed over them so that their hearts were hardened (Q57: 16); and this same truth is to be understood also from what the Qur’an says of the elect, that they are many in the earlier generations and few in the later generations (Q56: 13-4). The hope of communities must lie, not in progress or development, but in renewal, that is, restoration. In its traditional, apostolic sense, renewal is the opposite of development, for it means a restoration of something of the primordial vigour of Islam. Renewal is thus, for Muslims, a movement of return, that is, a movement in a backward rather than a forward