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| Women in Islam: Revisited Dr. Juman R. Kubba This is not yet another "women in
Islam" type of paper where we criticize the west and conclude that
Islam gave women all the rights in the world. Instead, it is a new look at
this most controversial of all issues which we all have been wrestling
with for many years. This paper attempts to integrate our existing
knowledge on this subject and presents the pressing questions that have
arisen over the past twenty or so years and reconcile the two. We begin by
first looking at the problem of the dogmatic views on women held by the
majority of Muslim scholars, and the challenge they have received from
devout Muslims in their struggle to keep their faith and the practice of
Islam while living in the 20th and 21st centuries. Thus, we will only
examine this intra-Islamic debate. We shall ignore, for the purposes of
this discussion, the classical anti-religious sentiment which dominated
many Muslim societies and which many secular individuals held in the past
and still do today. Second, we shall look at some of the Quranic text and
analyze its view of women and in particular, the "controversial"
reference in the Quran on women. Upon reading this paper, one may say this
sounds good but the fact is women are suffering in the name of religion,
and men abuse religion to justify the mistreatment of women. This is true.
Also, this is not intended to be a male bashing solution to the problem.
It is not the intent of this paper to blame men instead of religion for
the misery of women. In contrast, this is a humble attempt to separate
religion from its male dominance 'dress' or male bias. It is hoped that
those who rejected religion because of anti- women- male- biased-
sentiment will come back to religion to be close to God and to change
their lives. (I) Dogmatic views of the religious
establishment One often wonders why is it seemingly that
all religions of the world treat women secondarily and denies them some
basic rights all humans should have. This phenomenon is present nearly in
all religions, and progressive men and women of all religions try to
explain and defend this unfortunate fact. There are obvious reasons for
this male bias in religion. Men have dominated women in most cultures
of the world most of the time. There are many manifestations of such
dominance in the behaviors of men and women even today in the 21st
century. It is not the domain of this discussion to explain why have men
dominated women and what are the biological and historical causes and the
anthropological evidence for that as this has already been discussed by
investigators in those fields. Rather, we examine the effects of such
dominance on religion, in particular, on Islam. In fact the status of
women cries for help in many places of the world not just in Muslim
countries or Muslim cultures governed by secular regimes but even in the
secular west. Whether a woman is an orthodox practicing Muslim or
Christian is not an indicator of her oppression or lack of rights. Other
factors such as education and socio-economic status are powerful
predictors (among others) of the quality of life for most women. Moreover,
abuse that occurs to women at the hands of men such as rape, incest,
domestic violence, sexual harassment, is not related to any religion and
is prevalent in many societies. The common theme of such abuses is that
men in position of authority and power abuse women. Thus, due to the fact
that human society is patriarchal, the male dominance infiltrated religion
as it did many other aspects of life and there are numerous behaviors that
reflect this phenomenon (outside of religion). Further, in religious
issues, this male dominance is so profound and so ingrained that Muslim
scholars for example, interpret the word of God to disadvantage women even
when the holy book is strikingly clear and presents unequivocal argument
(examples follow) to support women. This is even more prevalent in the Hadith
where statements are referred to the prophet Muhammad (pbuh) even when
they defy logic and good taste and thus make it impossible to conceive
that the prophet of God, a man of utmost integrity and kindness, said such
a thing. This is also prevalent in the Quranic interpretation and the
tradition of the Imams in the Shia school of thought. Male bias is further
evident in bizarre interpretations of the Quranic text and hadith and the
passion shown by scholars to highlight any 'artifact' like hadith just to
bring women status or rights down. We enter this debate with the knowledge
that there is a "shadow" or a "blanket" effect of this
male dominance on all cultures and all religions. The degree of this
dominance and the forms in which it is manifested by vary temporally and
geographically. Religion teaches us that the laws of God
almighty came to humanity via his prophets and messengers. These
messengers did a great mission of introducing and implementing these laws
and thus elevated humanity from the state of nature that preceded those
teachings. For example, cannibalism and incest were present in human
societies and it is through religion that humans learned that these
practices are wrong and so on. However, religious law did not cover all
human issues all the time and did not successfully alleviate all of the
ills of human behavior. Social issues addressed by a particular religion
reflect the needs of that society, and the pressing issues facing that
society. Many of the religious laws that we have in our hands as Muslims
came to remedy an already existing social problem rather than an absolute
law that introduced a new practice alien to that society. A powerful
example of this is polygamy. Everyone says that Islam allowed men to marry
up to four women. In fact this statement is strikingly misleading. Islam
came into the world when the practice of polygamy was common and with no
regulations. Islam introduced restrictions and rules and
"polished" the practice and made it more fair to women and in
fact equated its legitimacy with the status of the women involved in the
marriage. Thus, the more appropriate question to ask
is why Islam did not ban polygamy? And why it only chose to limit it and
reform it? And there is an answer to that, as we shall see when we discuss
it below. This example is brought here just to illustrate that the laws of
God did not come in a vacuum. They came into various societies (all the
societies that received prophets and messengers) and those societies had
their own customs and traditions. So in many cases, we see modifications
being introduced into society to make the conduct of its members in
accordance with the laws of God. Moreover, we as Muslims must learn to
concede that some of our Islamic teachings are not necessarily liked by
all and that God Almighty gave us the free will to choose whether to
follow these laws. In some cases the laws of man may be more convenient to
us. (II) A survey of the Quranic view on
women There are numerous verses in the Holy book
that refer to women and females. The overwhelming majority of these deal
with the hereafter, and the creation and the obedience to God. In all such
verses men and women are referenced and reminded to obey God and follow
his commands. There are other verses which describe the characters of the
'believers' such as being honest, being kind, being helpful, etc and their
religious duties such as fasting etc. and in such verses women and men are
described equally and the gist of such verses is to teach people that
their deeds and their conduct is what matters. Here again men and women
are in the same boat. Moreover, there are numerous references to brilliant
special women such as Mary (pbuh) and her mother, and their beautiful
'dialogue' with God; the queen of Sheba and her magnificent role in her
kingdom and her submission to the prophet of God in addition to other
stories and beautiful references about the special status of mothers. With all these unequivocally positive and
elevating references to women (or to be humble male equating), why then do
we see all eyes focused on three of four verses in the Quran that carry
controversy and that are always (in my experience) explained out of
context. In fact such verses are sometimes taken literally and others
figuratively but always to disadvantage women. The explanations offered by scholars suffer
from the lack of methodology. They are incongruent with the over all
message of the Quran, they are incongruent with some obvious linguistic
rules. Often, such explanations defy logic and insult the intelligence of
the reader: as if the rest of the Holy book is not important and as if no
intelligent man or woman will ever ask how can the Holy Book 'contradict'
itself? And how is it that God Almighty 'allows' his male human creatures
abuse his female creatures? And if females are so 'inferior and
incompetent' then why does the Almighty who is Just and Merciful give them
the same religious and social obligations as he dose to his more
'superior' males? Indeed here, we refer to the few verses
which deal with the specifics of female and male personal issues and
issues pertaining to marriage, divorce and other issues where there is
indeed variations between the rights of men and women. In fact these are
the most famous verses of the Holy Book and nearly everyone knows them
even non-Muslims and non-practicing Muslims. In particular, these are
verses that deal with polygamy, the inheritance, divorce, modesty, and
various marriage related issues. The common complaint of nearly everyone
about Islam and its 'oppression' of women are those verses mentioned
above. A survey of numerous (but not all) books
and publications regarding women in both Sunni and Shia literature gives a
negative inferior view on women. Muslim scholars and writers have done a
disservice to Islam when it comes to the issue of women. Their lack of
systematic analysis and interpretation of the text which is further
complicated by the presence of inaccurate ahādīth in hadith books
contributed to a picture of Muslim women that is so appalling that even
Muslims shy away from it. Add to that the personal opinions and taste of
many individual scholars and their respective cultures and traditions. We
end up with some bizarre and appalling ideas and opinions about women for
which there is no foundation in the Quran or the hadith. This led to many
Muslims abandoning 'this religions which abuses women' and further led to
laying the grounds for the western media to play its 'Muslim women have no
rights lines' and providing them with all the necessary evidence. In fact
the situation is so appalling that we may need to burn all the existing
books on women and start over. Indeed, this may be necessary as there are
books out there in the name of Islam from both Shia and Sunni writers
which claim such as books describing the appropriate education of a girl
to be confined to cooking and home management because a to be woman has no
use for other education as she would be married and running the affairs of
a household. Such mediocre view forgets to take into account that first,
not all women will have the chance of getting married and not all women
will have children so what are the unmarried and the non-mothers supposed
to do with their lives? And second this view incorrectly assumes
that no married woman will ever be a widow and may have to support herself
and her children, or even may be in a situation that she needs to work to
support the family where the husband is incapacitated or incapable of
doing so. And what about raising children? Does that need education or we
simply need to feed and dress our children? And last but not least what
about a woman's talents whether they are in science or the arts or home
management. And worse is that such narrow skewed interpretations are
referenced to God Almighty. It is views like those from our respected
scholars that have wrecked havoc on people's faith. Because of the
severity and the complexity of this problem, one is compelled to go back
many steps and start over and examine the Holy Book by itself first
without any hadith to build a foundation upon which other sources such as
the hadith can be put and further be able to filter through the many books
and publications at hand. Can we really understand these controversial
issues about women that are in the Quran? (We shall disregard the hadith
at the moment). The common stereotypes of the west about Muslim women and
the dangerous misconceptions in the Muslim world by Muslims about the role
of women have been with us for centuries and have led many people away
from religion. It is time to set the record straight and to discover for
the first time what Islam really taught without the bias of male dominance
and without the bias of one particular culture and with an objective
comprehensive look at all the Quranic text which refers to women not just
a few verses here and there. It is unequivocally clear in the Quran that
all the messages of God are intended for all humanity not just one
particular culture. Therefore, it is incumbent on Muslim scholars to
present Islamic concepts and teachings without the influence of their
culture or personal taste. This is an urgent need. The answer to the question presented above
regarding the controversial Quranic references to women is yes for the
most part. The teachings or regulations that are based on the 'hot' verses
mentioned above could indeed be understood for time they were introduced
in. They may not be useful to society all the time because certain
behaviors and problems are now obsolete. And there may indeed be a better
solution in civil laws of various nations. But let's take brief looks at
each of these controversies and find refuge in the Holy Book itself. In
the next few paragraphs, we show that in all the controversial issues
regarding women in Islam there is a common theme of religious scholars
jumping at conclusion that do not support women. We examine this pattern
in the issues of polygamy and marital relations. These examples are only
used here to illustrate the point that there is a lack of methodology and
an incomplete examination of the text and the evidence supporting it. It
is not the intent of the next section to go over each of these issues in a
comprehensive way in order to understand them. For example, as mentioned earlier in this
paper the prevalent notion that Islam allows a man to have four wives is
misleading as follows: Islam did not introduce polygamy. Polygamy was
practiced before Islam. Islam corrected the practice and modified it to
make it less harmful to society while maintaining some of its benefits. In
fact Islam required the well being of the women involved as a condition
for the legitimacy of such multiple marriage as is mentioned in the Quran.
This is by no means a defense to men who abuse this practice for the most
part nor is it an encouragement of this practice as in this day and age it
seems rather awkward and nearly impossible to do due the complexity and
high cost of modern life. Polygamy was not considered awkward thousands of
years ago but for us in today's world it is unacceptable by most Muslim
women and it is outlawed in many parts of the world. Moreover, some Muslim countries as well as
individual scholars have introduced measures that a woman can protect
herself from polygamy at the time the marriage contract is performed even
in the Muslim countries where it is legal. Thus, the ill effects of this
practice are acknowledged even by Muslims. Nevertheless, there are few but
important benefits to the practice in certain conditions such are
supporting (emotionally and financially) families without a husband or
father, and alleviating the distress associated with having an
incapacitated wife (terminal illness for example) thus allowing the man to
maintain some normalcy in his life without dumping his first wife who is
ill for example. Therefore, theoretically there may be some
useful results to some individuals from this practice. It does not,
however, mean that this is a right practice for everyone. Thus, it is more
accurate to say that Islam allowed four wives under certain conditions and
to resolve some social problems and with severe restrictions on the man's
conduct and with severe requirements of him both financial, physical and
emotional that are nearly impossible to achieve by mere mortals. Is it not
ironic then that all these restrictions and requirement are undermined by
the religious literature even though they are unequivocally stated in the
Quran? We move on to look at marriage. We all have
heard slogans about arranged marriages in Islam and that there are no
rights for women in this 'horrible' institution. And again one must indeed
acknowledge that there are Muslim (and non-Muslim) married women who are
not happy and who are in inadequate relationships and who are in a
marriage against their will for various reasons. But is this really
because of religion? Or is it because of his or her own family style,
customs and/or socio-economic status, or even their own failure in a
particular relationship. We see bizarre generalizations such as
Muslim women are forced into marriage (I have not met any woman who fits
in that category yet). Such generalizations neglect the fact that 'Muslim
women' is a heterogeneous group of people with various levels of education
and economical abilities and come from vastly varying cultures and some of
whom live in modern cities and others live in rural areas. In fact within
one country marriage selection is affected by all these parameters. In
order to understand the effect of religion on marriage or divorce, one
must systematically study couples of the same education and socio-economic
level living in cities or rural areas of similar setting and use religion
as a variable. Instead, we see comparisons between women who live in a
western capital with Muslim women who live in a remote rural area and
conclude that religion is a factor of backward lifestyle. Such conclusions are inaccurate. In fact
based on observing and talking to many couples, one can conclude that if a
marriage is based on sound grounds religion can enhance the marriage. In
contrast, in a marriage is poorly structured to begin with, religion can
augment or worsen the poor conditions because religion would be used by
one spouse to hurt the other spouse. This is because when people mis-communicate
and do not have common grounds such as in any dysfunctional marriage, the
individuals will use any means to get what they want and religion is a
convenient tool for many. Looking at particular issues in Islam, many but
not all rights were given to women. There are many examples we can look at
that Islam clearly introduced. First, a woman must agree to the marriage,
a marriage is not valid if the woman does not concede to it. This is an
important advancement to women because it discouraged forcing women to
marry men whom they did not want and gave women a means to reject the
choice that they do not like. One may quickly jump and say that many
Muslim women are in forced marriages. This is indeed true but again has to
do with men dominating their daughters and forcing them into a marriage to
reach economic or social goals for the father. This is bad and it is
against the teachings of Islam but some men do that anyway. This
patriarchal phenomenon is detrimental to women and existed before Islam
and still exists today. Another myth that is circulated often is
the dowry. People think Islam invented this dowry as a price for women.
This could not be further from the truth. Dowries existed in many
societies and they still exist today. The dowry in the Quran is
unequivocally referred to as and given a new name and meaning: it is a
gift. And it should be given willingly without hatred and gripes. In other
words, here again Islam reformed or modified an existing human practice
but did not eliminate it. Further, a married woman is allowed to keep
her work and her income and is not required to contribute financially to
the household. Financial responsibility of the household is purely the
husband's duty. This law is good for women, as they do not have to bring
an income to the household. This requirement is especially useful to the
family as a whole and to women when they have children. A woman can
concentrate on her life as a mother without being required to bring an
income. Many Muslim women, however, are more capable financially than
their husbands and wish to contribute their money to the household. Thus,
these few examples illustrate that there are many advantageous laws to
women that Islam introduced and the degree of the benefit acquired by such
laws is variable and is affected by other factors. There are more such examples of Islam's
contributions to advance women's rights but we shall leave them for now
and turn into one seemingly controversial reference in the Quran in verse
4:34. This verse has been a slogan for those who wish to abuse women and
justify it. It has also been a slogan for those who wish to insult Islam
and extend the idea of women not having rights in Islam. Regrettably, no serious efforts were made
by Muslim scholars to investigate the various meanings of the words in
this verse. The text has been even misinterpreted again to the advantage
of men. This issue of 4:34 has been elegantly addressed by M. Shahroor. He
concludes that capability and not gender is what determines who is in
charge of the household affairs. Physically, men are more able than women
(on average). Also, Traditionally and historically men owned resources and
gave them to women or looked after women. Also, during childbirth and
childrearing, it is women who suffer economically because they become less
capable of attending to their work while looking after a child. These
facts created a general phenomenon in many societies that men are more
capable physically and economically. There are many exceptions to that,
but in general it is true. The verse illustrates, according to Shahroor,
that capability is variable among people and some men or women are more
capable than others. Thus managing the household affairs is function of
capability not gender. This is a sharp turn from all the other literature
concerning this matter. We are faced with situations where a woman is
indeed the manager of the house hold affairs, such a woman whose husband
is incapacitated due to illness or a terminal condition or lack of income. Here the wife is in charge of the family
affairs either on temporary basis or permanently. Moreover, the rest of
this highly controversial verse in the Quran is also explained along those
lines. That a woman who is in charge of her family's affairs (who has the
ability vs. her husband) must still respect the husband's dignity and the
sanctity of her marriage and should not abuse her position of authority
and if she does then she should be ultimately sacked form this position.
However, this dramatic interpretation is unique to this author (Shahroor)
and is strikingly different from the conventional interpretation of this
verse which has been with us for hundreds of years and on which ironically
Shia and Sunni scholars agree. The gist of the latter view is that indeed
men are more capable by design and thus they will always have the ability
to manage the household affairs. The remaining part of the verse deals,
according to such view, with an entirely different matter which is the
consent to have sex with the husband all the time and the means to
'enforce' (for lack of a better word) that. It is fair to say that the
issues raised by this verse should be investigated further. However, one
is extremely tempted to support the former view because it is elegantly in
line with the teachings of God about marriage and the references to love
and mercy and happiness associated with marriage. The evidence presented
by the view of Shahroor is solely linguistic and are not yet been
supported by historical events. However, here again is another example of
scholars failing to fully investigate the meaning of this verse and to
interpret this verse to disadvantage women. Moreover, this also
illustrates the lack of systematic analysis of the language and context of
this text and the striking lack of reconciling its unequivocal rebuttal by
the rest of the Holy Book and the numerous favorable references to women.
At the conclusion of this brief discussion on marriage, let's look briefly
at divorce. It may be fair to say that women have rights in Islam to
obtain divorce, but such rights are hard to achieve. Although the Holy
Book unequivocally and strikingly tells men to let women go when the
marriage fails and not to hold them in a bondage where they are 'married'
but not really living in a normal marriage, divorce in the end is in the
man's hand in most cases. While a woman can request a divorce directly
from the husband or via a religious court or juror, the husband still must
concede to the will of the juror and sometimes he does not so it is much
harder for a woman to get the divorce that a man. Still, a court or a
juror can enforce a divorce on a man if the woman can show that she has
valid grievance. In general, however, it is harder for a woman to obtain a
divorce. This may stem from the fact that divorce in general is
discouraged for men and women and only sought as a last resort to solve
the problem as there are some reference in the Quran that tell men and
women to try to resolve their marital disputes before seeking divorce.
Thus here is an example where the law is hard to begin with, but the
effect is again augmented by the behavior of men and the lack of abiding
with God's laws in good faith. In recent years, it has become common that
women attach 'conditions' to their marriage contract which allows then to
initiate and seek divorce when needed. This practice has eased the
conditions for women and many women are able to get a divorce nowadays. An issue related to divorce is custody of
minor children. The common cry of many people against Islamic law is that
it gives custody to the father and denies the mother her children. We all
have seen and heard horror stories like these. There is absolutely no such
law in Islam that denies the woman from being with her children. It is the
practice of men that brings such cruel conditions to women. Islamic law
requires that the father supports the children after a divorce and that he
is responsible for sustaining the children. That the father is responsible for looking
after the child somehow began to mean that the mother would never see her
children and would be tormented all her life by this tragedy. There are
many stories from real life in this category. In fact the intent of the
law is actually to the advantage of women. One must recall the culture of
divorce at the time these laws came. Women got divorce much easier then
than now. And typically people did not relocate much further; perhaps they
were living across the street from each other. In such cases it is
implicit that the woman has access to be with her children while she is
not required to care for them. In fact we all can relate to single mothers
and fathers whom we know today. It is not an easy task for anyone to a
single parent but by far the effect on women is more severe. A woman's
chance of re-marriage is reduced in the presence of children from a prior
marriage. This ironically is again related to the
patriarchal nature of human populations, as most but not all men would
rather raise their own children and not the children of another man. Most
but not all women would be compassionate to children even when they are
not theirs. So that a father must sustain and look after his children is a
good thing for women, it does not by any means allow the man to abuse this
duty and deny the woman being with her children. This is not condoned by
religion but it is a behavior that is common and in most cases is
motivated by hatred and revenge for the ex-wife. In fact such behavior
exists even in non-Muslim societies including the secular west. Conclusions The above two discussions on polygamy and
marriage illustrate unequivocally that although the Quranic text brings
laws and practices that are advantageous or sometimes neutral to women,
these laws and teachings have been twisted around or not explored
thoughtfully and have been mis-implemented to disadvantage women. Finally,
we look briefly at the modest dress to address a different effect. The
concept of modesty though beautiful and brings many benefits to society
has not been explained well by Muslim scholars and thus many Muslims and
non-Muslims do not understand it even today. Most books and sources tell women that they
should be covered without exploring the grand idea of modesty and decency
in a systematic way. Thus, here is an example not of misunderstanding a
law but of not studying it and not presenting it fully and
comprehensively. This is not as severe of a problem as with the previous
issues raised in this paper. Notwithstanding, it is rather pleasing to see
that many Muslim women understand these modesty laws and have done a great
job illustrating them to fellow Muslims as well as non-Muslims. The rest
of this paper is simply to fill this gap and present the concept of
modesty in a brief abstract way. First we wish to lay to rest the
classical mediocre notion that 'Islam oppresses women because it does not
require men to cover while requires women to do so.' Again, modesty requirements on women were
not invented by Islam but were present in some form in all the
monotheistic Abrahamic cultures. In fact modest dress is still practiced
by Orthodox Jews and Catholic nuns. The Islamic requirement on men and
women to be decent and respectable while in a public place or in the
company of non-family adults is so simple to follow and presents no
obstacle whatsoever to many men and women who practice it. This is manifested by the overwhelming
'going back' to modest dress all over the Muslim world and the growing
number of immigrant Muslims in the west who observe the modest dress. Even
though the modest dress is perceived as oppressive to women and is
presented as such by the western media and by secular Muslims, there is no
evidence whatsoever that this is the case. The abuse that Muslim women
(who are covered) receive is again a component of the male dominance in
most human societies and is aggravated by lack of basic human rights in
many Muslim countries due to the nature of the political regimes there and
further affected by the woman's socio-economic level. That modesty is required from men and women
in both its behavioral and dress components is clearly evident in the
Quran. It is mediocre, however, to carry the banner that women are
oppressed because they have to observe more modesty than men. Women have
an additional modesty component than men first due to biological
differences in sexual behavior in men and women -being intensely more
visual based in men- and second due to the fact that historically (and
even today in the 21st century) it is women who are displayed and paraded
to show their beauty and it is women who get rated on their aesthetics. There are social and personal benefits from
the practice of modesty. Modesty protects women from abuse of being
displayed and paraded rated like objects. Also, it brings women in society
and in public roles as human beings not as females yet also lets them
enjoy their sexuality and beauty in their private lives. Moreover, modesty
brings respect to women as women of all ages and all levels of beauty will
be treated by their colleagues and coworkers and friends as individuals
not as beauty objects. The form of the modest dress is not specified
anywhere in the Quran but it is alluded to. Very few citations in the literature even attempt to explain this beautiful elevating concept with the depth and elegance that are needed to illustrate the benefits of this practice to society and to the individuals themselves. In conclusion, we have a long way to go and a duty to uncover these beautiful concepts and correct misinterpretations of decades and centuries. /END/ Source: Islam21 |