WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT AND ISLAM - 5

[Introduction]    [Our Contemporary World ]   [The Problem ]    [Is empowerment the Solution ]   [What has Islam to offer ]   [Islam's own empowerment ]   [Clarification of certain issues ]   [Would Muslims allow.... ]  What has Islam to offer? It must first be appreciated that Islam is a religion of balance; balance between the mundane and the spiritual; balance between work and worship; balance between self-preservation and selflessness. This balance or ‘ADL, as the Qur’an calls it, is the very essence of the human creation, in which the body and spirit are united and balanced and on whose shoulders consequently lies the responsibility of the maintenance of the balance in nature, both societal balance as well as the eco-system. Islam as a religion seeks first to maintain that balance in man and then guides man to maintain that balance in society and the eco-system which plays host to the human society. The disruption of this balance is what Islam calls injustice, DHULM. A man who violates the balance between his spirit and his body is called unjust in the Qur’an. Similarly the violation of the balance in human society or the eco-system is seen as injustice. This explains the Qur’an’s choice of ‘ADL to describe that balance for ‘ADL also means justice, harmony and complementarity. Similarly, in the relations between the two opposite sexes, Islam seeks to ensure ‘ADL, balance, justice, harmony and above all love and mercy. How exactly did Islam go about ensuring this? 1. At the time of Islam’s intervention in the seventh century, the human society then (as indeed today) was replete with a variety of societal injustices, claims of superiority of one group over the other and discriminations on the basis of sex, lineage, tribe, race, etc. One of the first things Islam did was to demolish all these artificial barriers in the famous verse: "O Mankind we created you from a single (pair) of a male and female, and made you in to nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise each other). Verily the most honoured of you in the sight of God is (he who is) the most righteous of you. And God has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things)." It is significant that the verse started with gender discrimination. The message is unmistakably clear that men and women are in the sight of their creator equal, the only way one can be better than the other is by being more righteous. But even here, none can flaunt about his iman and brag, because luckily only God Himself knows who really is more righteous. As if to pre-empt men’s intransigence, Allah continued to reinforce this position in several verses of the Qur’an stressing this equality and balance. 2. Another intervention which was as quick as it was sharp was in the arrival of the female child. The female sex in the seventh century Arabia was a sort of abomination, the mere announcement that a wife had begotten a female child used to evoke anger and disappointment in the husband and the female child may end up, as many did, being buried alive in the Arabian sand without as much as a remorse in a society that has completely lost its balance and sense of justice. The Qur’an strongly warned not only those doing these killings but even those who express anger at the arrival of the female child, describing graphically the attitude, it says, "When the news is brought to one of them, of (the birth of) a female (child), his face darkens, and he is filled with inward grief!" (Q. 16:58) The Qur’an unequivocally abolished the practice not only by promising a severe penalty in the day of judgement but by instituting the ‘life for life’ injunction in the Sharia. The prophet of Islam followed these sticks, as it were, with a big carrot when he announced to his companions that anybody who has been blessed with two female children and he brought them up very well, with love and kindness, Allah will on that account grant him paradise. Of the people listening some had only one female child and they kept asking the Prophet: what about one? The Prophet, in his characteristic condescension, granted that even one would do. In another hadith, the Prophet said, "Whoever has a female child and does not bury her alive, nor holds her in contempt, nor prefers his male child above her, God will make him enter into paradise." (Abu Dawud) 3. The Prophet of Islam not only said that the search for knowledge was compulsory on every Muslim male and female, but he also said who ever educates a male educates an individual and who ever educates a female educates a nation. Here not only does the Prophet give priority to the education of the female but also by likening the female with the nation he conferred a special position and by virtue of that position a special role for the female. That an individual female is nation is a concept that requires a whole book to expound, but for our immediate purpose here it will suffice to point to the fact that the female which alone harbours the womb and carries the heaviest responsibility in child bearing also represent the pedestal on which the future of mankind as a whole revolves. The female to this extent symbolises the human races and the custodian of human values and the conscience of society. If she is left ignorant and backward, so will the nation and if she is educated and advanced, so will the nation. This point has been amply demonstrated by the jihad of Usman Dan Fodio and is today being re-enacted in the Republic of the Sudan which saw tremendous transformation only after educating and incorporating its women in its struggle for a just society. 4. We may wish to recall the eagerness with which the companions of the Prophet tried to excel each other in the doing of good and were always asking the Prophet how they could increase their good and become better. In one of these inquiries, the Prophet, as if to summarise the situation, informed them that the best among them is actually the one who is best to his wife (family). This is a very profound position not only in the seventh century Arabia where wives were no more than chattels but even today when they appear to be the least of the worries of men. By making the state of wives the very measure of the quality of men, Islam, more than any other religion or ideology, has placed women in a pedestal which guarantees their happiness and welfare. If wives of Muslim men are not the happiest of wives, it is not because of Islam, it is in spite of it. 5. We are all too aware of the companion who came to the Prophet telling him that he was rich and in a position to help and be kind to people and he wanted the Prophet to tell him, of the people on earth, who deserves his benevolence most. The Prophet in this well known Hadith replied the man: "Your mother", the man asked, "then who?", the Prophet repeated: "Your mother", he continued to ask, "then who?", the Prophet repeated for the third time: "Your mother", before saying "your father", in the fourth instance. This special position of the mother had been preceded by verses of the Qur’an and supplemented by other statements of the Prophet. In the words of the Qur’an, "And we have enjoined on man (to be good) to his parents: in travail upon travail did his mother bear him, in years twain was his weaning: (hear the command), ‘Show gratitude to Me and thy parents: to Me is thy final Goal." (Q.31:14) It is not difficult, therefore to understand why the prophet said that, "Paradise lies at the feet of mothers." (Muslim) So, as a child, as a wife and as a mother, Islam has given a woman such special and distinguished position that nor other culture or civilisation has given her and that ought to be the envy of men. But let us still go a little further and see in what other ways has Islam empowered women, so that we can be intelligible to our contemporaries who live in this age of empowerment.