Equal status and worth of the sexes
The first of these characteristics of a Qur'anic society which affect women is that both sexes are held to be equal in status and worth. In other words, the Qur'an teaches us that women and men are all creatures of Allah, existing on a level of equal worth and value, although their equal importance does not substantiate a claim for their equivalence or perfect identity. This equality of male and female is documentable in the Qur'an in passages pertaining to at least four aspects of human existence and interaction.
A. Religious Matters
The first of these Qur'anic confirmations of male-female equality are contained in statements pertaining to such religious matters as the origins of humanity, or to religious obligations and rewards.
1. Origins of Humanity. The Qur'an is devoid of the stories found in the Old Testament which denigrate women. There is no hint that the first woman created by God is a creature of lesser worth than the first male, or that she is a kind of appendage formed from one of his ribs. Instead, male and female are created, we read, min nafsin wahidatin ("from a single soul or self") to complement each other (Qur'an 4:1; 7:189). Whereas the Torah or Old Testament treats Eve as the temptress of the Garden of Eden, who aids Satan in enticing Adam to disobey God, the Qur'an deals with the pair with perfect equity. Both are equally guilty of sinning; both are equally punished by God with expulsion from the Garden; and both are equally forgiven when they repent.
2. Religious Obligations and Rewards. The Qur'an is not less clear in commanding equality for men and women in its directives regarding religious obligations and rewards. We read:
Lo! Men who surrender unto Allah, and women who surrender, and men who believe and women who believe, and men who obey and women who obey, and men who speak the truth and women who speak the truth, and men who persevere (in righteousness) and women who persevere and men who are humble and women who are humble, and men who give aims and women who give alms, and men who fast and women who fast, and men who guard their modesty and women who guard (their modesty), and men who remember Allah and women who remember-Allah hath prepared for them forgiveness and a vast reward. (33:35)
B. Ethical Obligations and Rewards
Secondly, the Qur'an reveals to mankind the desired equality of the two sexes by establishing the same ethical obligations and rewards for women and men.
And who so does good works, whether male or female, and he (or she) is a believer, such will enter Paradise and they will not be wronged the dint in a date-stone. (4:124)
Whosoever does right, whether male or female, and is a believer, him verily We shall quicken with good life, and We shall pay them a recompense according to the best of what they do. (16:97)
If Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala had not deemed the two sexes of equal status and value, such explicit statements of their equality in ethical obligations and rewards would not have been made in the Qur'an.
C. Education
Although the more specific commands for the equal rights of women and men to pursue education can be found in the hadith literature, the Qur'an does at least imply the pursuit of knowledge by all Muslims regardless of their sex. For example, it repeatedly commands all readers to read, to recite, to think, to contemplate, as well as to learn from the signs (ayat) of Allah in nature. In fact, the very first revelation to Prophet Muhammad (S) was concerned with knowledge. In a Qur'anic society, there can never be a restriction of this knowledge to one sex. It is the duty of every Muslim and every Muslimah to pursue knowledge throughout life, even if it should lead the seeker to China, we are told. The Prophet (S) even commanded that the slave girls be educated, and he asked Shifa' bint `Abdillah to instruct his wife Hafsah bint `Umar. Lectures of the Prophet (S) were attended by audiences of both men and women; and by the time of the Prophet's death, there were many women scholars.
D. Legal Rights
A fourth evidence in the Qur'an for the equality of men and women is its specification of legal rights which are guaranteed for every individual from cradle to grave. Unlike the situation in the West, where until the last century it was impossible for a married woman to hold property on her own, to contract with other persons, or to dispose of her property without the consent of her husband, the Qur'an proclaims the right of every woman to buy and sell, to contract and to earn, and to hold and manage her own money and property. In addition to these rights, the Qur'an grants woman a share in the inheritance of the family (4:7-11), warns against depriving her of that inheritance (4:19), specifies that the dower (mahr) of her marriage should belong to her alone and never be taken by her husband (2:229; 4:19-21,25) unless offered by the woman as a free gift (4:44).
As with any privilege, these rights of women carry corresponding responsibilities. If she commits a civil offence, the Qur'an tells us, woman's penalty is no less or no more than that of a man in a similar case (5:41; 24:2). If she is wronged or harmed, she is entitled to compensation just like a man.
It is clear that the Qur'an not only recommends, but is even insistent upon, the equality of women and men as an essential characteristic of a Qur'anic society.
The claim of the non-Muslim critics that Islam , women is denied emphatically by the Qur'an. Similarly denied are the arguments of certain Muslims that women are religiously, intellectually and ethically inferior to men, as Jewish and Christian literatures had earlier maintained.
"Blessed be God King of the Universe that Thou has not made me a woman." [Jewish Man's Prayer]
"What is the difference whether it is in a wife or mother, it is still Eve the temptress that we must be aware of in any woman." [St. Augustine]
Not too long ago, the media spotlight was on the "plight" of women in Saudi Arabia. Here was yet another glaring example of suppression of women's rights in Islam: women are not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia. Embarrassed, Muslims rushed to point out the fact that in the rest of the Muslim world women can indeed drive.
Everyone missed the central issue. Is driving a right or a privilege? Rights are inalienable. They can be demanded. Not privileges. Now one does not need to search beyond his driving license to realize that throughout the world driving is considered a privilege, to be granted or revoked by a state agency at its discretion. In the U.S., for example, one's driving license can be revoked, for no fault of his own, if someone else hits him and he did not carry insurance when hit. The rule cannot be challenged because driving is not a right. Case dismissed.
The incident highlighted the difficulty of objectively discussing the issue of status of women in today's highly charged atmosphere. On probably no other issue is the evangelism of Western civilization more self-assured. The gold standard for women's status in the society has been developed by the West. And everyone must now comply. The history of women's struggle and eventual victory in the West has to be the guiding light for the entire humanity.
It is true that there has been a lot in the history of the West for the women to revolt against. In the 1860s, a married Englishwoman did not exist as a legal person. Upon marriage she entered a condition called "converture", effectively making her a possession of her husband. Her name was changed to indicate the new ownership, a practice that continues to date. She could not own property, make a contract or will, or get custody rights for her own children. The 1632 English law declared: "That which the husband hath is his own. That which the wife hath is the husband's." Worse, she had no rights to get out of a miserable marriage. Until 1857, divorce was obtainable through the passage of an Act of Parliament.
Her second-class status was widely believed. :"[man] is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man" [I Cor. 11:7]. So we see no respectable leader in the West in the 15th through the 18th centuries challenging these ideas. Here, for example, is the great reformer Martin Luther: "If they become tired or even die, that does not matter. Let them die in childbirth, that's why they are there."
The works of Mary Wollstonecroft (1792) and John Staurt Mill (1869) are presented as the first voices of revolt. But these were controversial people who were rejected and ignored by their contemporaries. Both would be re-discovered in the second half of the 20th century because they provided a justification for the later developments.
The scene begins to change in the 19th century, not under the force of any moral argument, but because of pressures generated by the industrial revolution. The juggernaut of industrial revolution destroyed the old handicraft based economy and forced the workers to move to the sweat shops in big cities. They demanded, in vain, "family wages" so a man could support his family on his income. The capitalists would rather have the family also come to his service if it wanted to eat. There was no option but to send the women (and children) to the factory to make ends meet.
Later, the opening of clerical jobs needed millions of other women to come out of their homes and become sales girls, typists, secretaries, waitresses. Cheap labor. The process was given a moral purpose by the language of the feminist movement. It measured their "progress" by how many had been driven out of their homes. It labeled the social upheavals caused by the industrial revolution as women's emancipation. According to its convoluted logic if a woman serves food to her husband and children, it is slavery. If she provides the same service to total strangers in a hotel or aircraft, risking their never ending advances, that is emancipation!
The ancient Greek philosophers argued whether or not woman had a soul. But the civilized West has settled the question once for all. The woman is nothing but body. That is why we see her semi-clad and nude pictures on every square inch at a time when the West is busy congratulating itself for the remarkable progress of its women.
A recent L.A. Times report on pornography on the internet highlights the moral abyss this value system creates. The nudity may be degrading, it says, but the positive side is that "the Web has allowed some of these women to become entrepreneurs by marketing their own physical assets." Is it any wonder that despite the fact that he had been accused and generally believed to have performed indecent acts against women, the President of the U.S. received more votes from the women? Probably nobody cares as sexual harassment in all segments of society has become everyday news.
The destruction of the home is a direct result of this progress. In 1994, 1.2 million divorces took place in the U.S. And experts predicted that half of all new marriages would end in divorce.
An unjust system has only changed the forms of exploitation. They could not improve things at home. So they "freed" the woman from it.
Islam, on the other hand, gives her her God-given rights without forcing her out of the home. She has rights of property ownership, and inheritance, She has rights in her marriage similar to the rights of the husband. Far from the non-adult she is depicted to be, she is responsible for effective management of the home and the upbringing of the children, a most challenging job.
The paradise of her children lies at her feet; the righteousness of her husband is to be judged by his kind treatment to her; to bring her up in a loving caring manner, assures her father protection from hell fire. While the feminist model depends on friction, here the relationship is one of love and respect, leading to peace and harmony.
This is real gold. Why should any body trade it for glitter?
