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| Authority and the Abuse of
Power in Muslim Marriages Shaykh Seraj Hendricks "And among His signs is that He
created for you mates from among your yourselves so that you may dwell in
peace and tranquility with them. And He has ordained between you love and
mercy. Indeed in that are signs for those who reflect." (Q. 30 : 21). "None honours women except he who is
honourable, and none despises them except he who is despicable."
(Hadith). The above verse and prophetic saying –
and many others in addition to these - form an almost natural part of our
repertoire of Islamic knowledge. Why and how did these sublime and divine
imperatives become buried in contemporary Muslim society? This
paper will attempt to explore the more fundamental causes that underlie
the appalling status of women in our society. I will also in the process
attempt to show that it is almost impossible to de-link what occurs in a
society at large from the specifics of particular areas of interest. The
macro, in other words, is intrinsically linked to the micro. Symptomatic
treatments are no longer good enough. Another primary objective would be
to examine, from a Muslim’s perspective, the present state of the house
of Islam itself – rather than non-Muslim and orientalist perceptions and
prejudices of Islam, which are for the most part legend. We shall look at
the manner in which they have constructed that house and the way in which
they perceive themselves within the broader parameters of that terrain. In many ways marriage, as an institution,
represents a microcosm of what is in fact happening in the broader (or
macro) social and cultural lives of Muslim society. 20th century Islam has
been a chequered one – one which has not only known its isolated moments
of glory but also moments of extreme tension and animosity, and, at times,
even perversity. The challenges, demands, and tasks of the contemporary
world that confront us are immense and varied. Our responses to all of
this, while not exactly being immense, have indeed been equally varied.
However, the factors, which precipitated these challenges, need to be
looked at. In the opinion of scholars as diverse in their approaches as
Seyyed Hossein Nasr (1993 : 118) and Akbar S. Ahmad (1988 : 185) the
impact of colonialism, stemming from the days of the renaissance, cannot
be ignored or even underestimated. Nasr locates the awakening of Muslims
to the realities of European power and domination to Napolean
Bonaparte’s capture of Egypt in 1798 (1993 : 118). This awakening was a
rude and confused one. Instead of it being accompanied by a sober and
critical consciousness of those factors (such as complacency and political
corruption, for example), which led to our decay or decline, it spawned in
its wake a spirit of internecine conflict rarely known at that scale in
the history of Islam. Besides, while conflict within the Muslim world did
occur before, they nevertheless occurred within a context where Muslims
enjoyed – as world leaders – the necessary confidence to absorb the
potentially disruptive influences inherent in any conflict. With the
emergent new colonial order, however, and their confidence in tatters
after being deemed unfit to participate in that order even within the
perimeters of their own habitations, the prognosis seemed bad. By the turn
of the 20th century three broad – and mutually hostile – streams of
Islam had emerged. There was the neo-Kharijite movement of takfir in the
garb of Wahhabism and its antagonistic bedfellow the rigorist Tabligh
movement. There was also the millenialist movement with Mahdis’ promises
of liberation and salvation to the Ummah. Finally there was the modernist
apologetic movement that viewed the shifting of technology and all other
trappings of the modern era to the West as a sign of God’s
dissatisfaction with the Muslims. By returning to the Quran and Sunnah (on
their terms) it was supposed, we could once again repossess our lost
camel. Beneath all this chaos, however, Traditional Islam sauntered on –
albeit with uncertainty and trepidation – in the khanaqahs, ribats, and
zawiyas of the vast silent majority. The most disturbing feature of all of
this was the fact that by now all the elements for a community infected
with a high potential for internal structural violence were in place. With
dispossession come poverty, a high degree of insecurity, a demeaned
self-image, and other forms of crippling inferiority. What is the significance of all of this
in relation to the idea of "myths and realities of marriage in
Islam"? It is almost a sociological axiom that
within dispossessed, impoverished, and disadvantaged communities the
incidence of violence and dominance of the perceived weaker
"other" are far greater than in more advantaged and economically
secure communities. From beneath the debris of shattered identities, myths
(in the popularly understood meaning of the term) have a far greater
chance of emerging and being accepted as realities. This response can
occur whether the dominant or oppressor group is an imagined or real
entity. In the former group we could place the David Koresh’s of our
time and in the latter the bygone Mahdis of Islam. What concerns us here,
however, is the extension of this myth-making as a product of social
circumstances into the family unit of Islam and particularly with regard
to the condition of women as wives in the marital situation. "What factor, what catastrophe, took
place to alter the status of women so dramatically?" Akbar S. Ahmad
asks (1988 : 185).He asks this question particularly in the light of the
fact that the social condition of women were much more favourable during
the earlier years of Islam. The answer he proffers, and mentioned
previously, lies in colonialism. While this might not be true if meant in
an exclusive sense – and I will discuss this later again - there is
nevertheless a great deal of truth behind the assertion if colonialism is
intended as a major accomplice in the process. As a Muslim with a South
African experience of a demonic apartheid system, I therefore tend to
agree to a large extent. My agreement is based on the view that in almost
all oppressed and disadvantaged societies two important but mutually
interconnected questions emerge, namely, the questions of power and
authority. While we are aware that that these elements are open to abuse
in any society they are nevertheless more so in vulnerable conditions of
social and economic deprivation. Men, in their state of withdrawal and
retreat tend not only to seek out the security of the domestic environment
but also an authority and a power through which to redeem their shattered
self-esteem. The authority that is imagined and constructed under these
conditions is one accompanied by a sense of privilege. The burden of
having to bear authority with a sense of duty and responsibility is far
too great for a fragile and insecure ego. And where the notion of
privilege dominates there is a far greater potential for the abuse of
power. In this respect South Africa and the brutality spawned by apartheid
is a classic case in point. Black women in South Africa were the worst
victims of the structural violence engendered by apartheid and the
impoverished, sub-economic conditions they had to contend with. Up till
today South Africa has one of the highest incidences of rape in the world
(Agenda no.36, 1997 : 3). The index of wife abuse in these communities is
hardly any better. During the most brutal years of colonialism the global
conditions of Muslims were not much different to the victims of apartheid.
It was apartheid on a grander scale. While rape might not have been much of an
issue in the Islamic world, the factors nevertheless, which led to the
abuse of power at the domestic level were precisely those factors which
led to abuse in the homes of the oppressed masses in South Africa. With
the Muslims stripped of their world leadership and dominance new avenues
of leadership and dominance were sought out. The family, as we mentioned
earlier, was the unfortunate victim. But in pursuit of fairness to all, the
reduction in the honoured status given to women by Islam had already
started well before colonialism. During the latter days of a weakening
Abbasid Dynasty the growing despotism, hedonism, materialism, and rigid
formalism of Islamic Law had already started having an impact on the
widening disparities between men and women of those societies.
Colonialism, however provided the space for the final crystallization of
these differences. When the full impact of this crystallization made its mark, men suffered no conscience in parading themselves as inherently, or even divinely, superior. Gender based notions of superordination and subordination became entrenched as values and norms of Muslim society. The result of all of these is the shocking state of Muslim women in many Muslim societies today. They are abused, physically and emotionally, in the name of a supposedly divine conception of privileged authority. And none suffers more than the wives at the hands of despotic husbands. It is this condition which has led a prominent Human Rights author to observe that "In many many Islamic states, paternalism remains strong and causes cultural resistance to economic and social rights which aim at ensuring equality between men and women including equal access to education, equal pay for equal work, and above all equality in inheritance laws which severely affect the right to property. The maintenance of Shariah law, in conflict with international human rights law, constitutes one of the major systemic challenges to universal human rights in our time" (Asbjorn Eide 1995 : 21). While Eide (like many secular intellectuals) may be excused for their ignorance of Shariah law vis-à-vis women, their observations about Muslim women in contemporary Muslim society is fairly accurate. It remains however – and despite the observations and criticisms of others – the sacred duty of Muslims themselves to re-excavate and unveil the truth about the actual status of women in Islam. But let us return to the theme of
privileged authority and abuse in the marital situation. In the light of
the fact that Islam had asserted the equality of all human beings at the
most essential levels namely, the spiritual and intellectual, other
notions therefore had to be constructed to sustain this myth of inherent
superiority and privileged authority. Two notions based on my personal
experience and extensive discussions with equally concerned people emerged
in service of this misconception. They are, I might add, frighteningly
rife in South African Muslim society. They are the notions of Qada and
Qadr (determinism and predestination), and Sabr (patience, fortitude, and
endurance). A number of Muslim leaders, religious counselors, and even
parents in South Africa – and I believe elsewhere in the Muslim world
too – counsel abused women with these two notions. Their suffering at
the hands of tyrannical husbands is a result of the decrees of Allah and
therefore have to be born with the patience expected of pious and obedient
women. To add insult to injury they are often told that their decreed
misfortune is a result of their laxity in executing the tenets of the
Shariah. The question I have to ask is simple : How much more perversion
are we as the ummah of Allah and His Prophet Muhammad (SAW) expected to
tolerate? We might as well expect the Bosnians, Palestinians, Chechnyans
and others amongst the oppressed sectors of the Muslim world to accept
their conditions with equally fatalistic notions of Sabr. It is not only
women’s rights that suffer under this rubble of contradictions but also
other basic tenets of Islam. Are we expected to forget the Prophetic
directive that "he who sees an abomination must change it with his
hands, and if he cannot then he has to oppose it with his tongue, and if
he cannot do even that then he has to reject it in his heart". The
Qada and Qadr of Allah and Sabr have now become the handmaidens of those
who wish to perpetuate instruments of oppression that can eminently be
changed by our "hands" and "tongues". But then Allahu
Ta’ala will not change the condition of a people until they change
themselves. And it behoves us not to forget that Allah does not lie. If it is averred at this stage that Muslim
male attitudes are the products of blighting social circumstances and are
therefore not to be held responsible for their condition then my response
is simple. Unlike other man-made systems, we possess the immutable example
of our holy Prophet to which we can perennially turn in our moments of
need. There can be no excuse for bad behaviour in Islam unless we choose
to turn our backs on the Prophet. Ignorance, however, is sometimes
forgivable. More specifically, could a religion that
asserts "Women are garments for men in as much as men are garments
for women" (Q. 2:187) deem women to be the agents of Shaytaan? Could
a religion that asserts that men and women are born of the same substance
(Q. 4:1), schizophrenically deem women to be intrinsically inferior? Could
a religion that asserts that no man honours women except he who is in
himself honourable, and that conversely, no man despises women except he
who is in himself despicable, be a model for chauvinism and misogynism?
More pertinently, could the ultimate source of such a religion be one that
is contemptuous of women? Islam afforded women unprecedented rights
– unprecedented even up to and including a large part of 20th century
Western and other secular societies. Western women according to Pickthall
"had to agitate…for simple legal rights, such as that of married
women to own property… [and]…to obtain recognition of their legal and
civil existence, which was always recognised in Islam" (1979 : 166).
She has the right the right to property, exclusive rights to her wealth,
the right to equal pay for equal work, the right to the mut’a (or
compensation) in divorce, the right to social equality and educational
opportunities, the right to military service, the right to resist a forced
marriage, the right to terminate a marriage of an abusive husband etc. And
all these rights emanate from the example set by our Prophet Muhammad
(SAW) whose nature and character according to Sayyidatuna ‘Aysha was
indeed the Quran (kana khuluquhu al-Quran). It was in the light of these God-given rights that Imam al-Ghazali, for example, asserted the right of a woman to unconditionally separate from an abusive husband – whether the abuse is physical or psychological (and note how rarely we "moderns" mention psychological abuse). In this case the services of a third party – a "thiqa" or trustworthy person as Ghazali calls him or her – may be enlisted to monitor the behaviour of the husband. The final decision with regard to reconciliation however remains with the wife (Shirbini Vol 3 : 260). Nevertheless, before we wax to idealistic about the past we have to remind ourselves that there are many moments in our history which evidence the fact that women, and women as wives in particular, were not always perceived through the same enlightened and liberating Prophetic vision of Muhammad (SAW). However the role of men as husbands were
seen, ironically, with far greater clarity then than now. Their roles as
leaders of the family were seen in the light of an agent holding an
"office". The role of the agent would be deemed incommensurate
with the demands of the "office" if he failed to fulfill its
duties, responsibilities, and conditions. A classic example of discipline
with regard to offences against the "office" is provided by the
decision of Syedna ‘Umar (RA) to allow the utterance of three tallaaqs
in a single articulation to actually fall as three tallaaqs. This was
contrary to its consideration as one tallaq during the time of the Prophet
(SAW) and the rule of Syedna Abu Bakr (RA). His reasoning behind that was
clear. Men had started to abuse matters such as manner of instituting
divorces – issues which others before them had regarded with the
necessary consideration due to all matters of seriousness and importance.
While there is a storm of a debate raging around Syedna Umar’s decision
I tend to agree with Sana’ani that his decision was a product of his
ijtihad, or creative exercise of the intellect, in order to discipline an
uncalled for degree of male frivolity (Sana’ani 1998, vol.3, pp.
328-331). Unfortunately today, both the roles of men and women are
tragically misunderstood. Even more tragic is the fact that they are
misunderstood in obscene favour of the men. The illegitimate consequences
of this misunderstanding are many : Women are now expected to unconditionally
obey their husbands. For each of these and other expressions of
chauvinistic madness a host of Quranic verses and Prophetic sayings are
produced – in the spirit of masculine literalism – to do service in
support of these views. Paradoxically, in most cases the texts they adduce
are themselves in need of further interpretation and clarification. The
most problematic Quranic text for many women is the following where Allah
states : "As for those women on whose part you fear disloyalty and
ill-conduct admonish them first, then refuse to share their beds, and then
(as a final measure) beat them lightly. But if they heed your call then do
not treat them unjustly" (Q. 4 : 34). At the outset it would do us
well to remind ourselves that the Quran is the last document in which we
can expect to stumble across apologetics of any kind. In its diversity of
expression it represents the very spirit of Divine freedom. It is in this
spirit that the Quran addresses in the most pragmatic of ways the
physical, spiritual, intellectual, emotional, psychological, and even
biological natures of humankind. The verse however cannot be used to
support narrow chauvinistic designs or to underpin notions of privileged
masculine authority. This is so for a number of reasons. Firstly, the
verse assumes, simultaneously, complete disloyalty and disgraceful conduct
on the part of the woman and total innocence on the part of the man. After
all a man can also be "Nashiz" (Q. 4 ; 128). For this reason the
first step is to admonish her so that he could, through this step,
determine whether there is a sound reason for her behaviour or whether she
is prepared to reform herself. It becomes him in both cases to withdraw
his admonition and act with respect towards her (Husni 1347AH : vol2,
p.42). Secondly, the symbolic "beating" is not allowed to result
in injury to the person in any way. According to Ibn Abbas (RA) the
beating is not permitted with anything greater than a toothbrush. If the
beating does result in injury to her person then she would have the right
to sue him in a court of law despite the fact that she might have
initially behaved like a scoundrel. He, in this case, would obviously be
considered the bigger scoundrel. Thirdly, according to Abu Zahrah, there
is a school of thought which holds that in the case of a Nashiz husband
the lady would be entitled to take him to court and get the court to mete
out exactly the same punishment against him according to the steps
depicted in the above verse (‘Abd al’Ati 1977 : 159). Fourthly, The
preferred position, despite the Quranic verse, is not to beat even though
the "beating" amounts to little more than a symbolic measure. It
is narrated that "Ata ibn Abi Rabah said " A husband should not
beat his wife even after he has commanded or prohibited her from doing
something and she refuses to heed him. Let him rather express his anger at
her refusal for the Prophet (SAW) said ‘The best of you are those who do
not resort to beating’ (Bayhaqi)" (Sabuni 1990 : Vol.1, 447).
Fifthly – and in keeping with our obligations to perpetually having to
strive towards realizing the spirit of M’aruf (goodness) and Ihsaan
(excellence) in our lives – it would do us well to remember Syeditina
‘Aisha’s statement that the Prophet "never lifted his hand to
anything or anyone except when he fought in the way of Allah". However, despite our pain and even our
horror at the condition of some of our Muslim women, we need not follow
the route of the Saadawis of today. Maimuna Quddus in her review of Dr.
Saadawi’s book Two Women in One observes "Anyone who has read the
journals of the so-called women’s liberation movement in England, for
which Dr Saadawi often writes, will be taken aback by the descriptions of
matters once considered sacred, in a style more appropriate to graffiti on
a lavatory wall…(these feminists)… wish to destroy the family,
religion and society with their calls for free sex, lesbianism, Marxism
and whichever other fashionable lunacies they fancy" (Ahmad 1988 :
194). We as Muslims have Islam on our sides. And that Islam requires adab
and respect in whatever we do. While there are areas of weakness in our
ummah which demand a degree of firmness in approach, we also have to
remember that our convictions must be accompanied by dignity. In conclusion I wish to state that while we have a legacy of jurisprudence of which we can be proud - I am a proud Shafi’ for example – it nevertheless still behoves us to bring the same dynamic energy to the interpretation and application of Fiqh in contemporary times which we are still privileged to witness in our past greats such as Imam Abu Hanifa, Imam Malik, Imam Shafi’, Imam Ghazali and others. Moreover, it is unlikely - had the spirit of Tabdi’ and takfir dominated the ethos of mainstream Islam - that Islamic sciences such as ‘Ulum al-Quran, Mustalah al-Hadith, Qawa’id Fiqhiyyah, Usul al-Fiqh and many others, would have emerged in the way they did. In fact Islam itself might have suffered the same fate of many of those extinct, extremist groupings that spoke in the name of Islam. But mainstream Islam was always there. Even during its darkest moments when new and maverick movements dominated the stage at the turn of the 20th century, mainstream Islam stood firm as the repositories of the true spirit of Islam. Today on the brink of the 21st century this spirit is reasserting itself with confidence and with force. The challenges, however, which face scholars of mainstream Islam is to present Islam in a manner which can satisfy the needs of the contemporary mind. We have to look at new paradigms, approaches, and methodologies. Admittedly, enormous work in this direction is being done by some of our contemporary scholars. But we need to, in the spirit of this conference, unify our efforts that much more. We are in need, in other words, of a greater synergy. Above all, we are in need of what I might call "a new iconoclasm". Rather than ranting about the permissibility of pictures and the painting of them, we need to destroy those false social, spiritual, intellectual and ideological "images" of our Din which have alienated so many of our Muslims from the liberating ethos of Islam. One of those false "images" - or myths if we wish – is the notion of power and authority in marriages in Islam. What better place than to start with the family. SOURCES ‘Abd al ‘Ati, Hammudah (1977) The Family Structure in Islam. Indiana : American Trust Publications. Agenda (1997) Empowering women for gender equity Vol 36 Durban, South Africa. Eide A., Krause C., Rosas A., (1995) Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Netherlands : Martinus Nijhoff Publications. Al-Husni, Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad (1347AH) Kifaayat al-Akhyaar Egypt : Idaarat al-Tiba’at al-Muniriyyah. Nasr, Seyyed Hossein (1993) A Young Muslim’s Guide To The Modern World. Cambridge : Islamic Texts Society. Al-Sabuni, Muhammad (1990) Rawa’i al-Bayaan (2 Vols). Damascus : Dar al-Qalam. Al-Sana’ani, Muhammad ibn Ismail (1988) Subul al-Salaam (4 Vols). Beirut : Dar al-Fikr. Al-Shirbini, Muhammad al-Khatib (ND) Mughni al-Muhtaaj (4Vols). Beirut : Dar al-Fikr
Presented at the Women’s Conference of
the 2nd International Islamic Unity Conference in Washington DC 8 August
1998, Omni Shoreham Hotel, Blue Room |