Feminism is an issue of equality based on gender, gender identity and expression. Feminist movements campaigned for women rights, including right to vote, right to hold public office, right to own property, right to receive education and right to equal rights in marriage. Feminists have also worked to protect women from rape, domestic violence and sexual harassment.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica says that in Athens, the status of women was not more than that of slaves. There was no education for them and they were not allowed to go out of homes. They were treated as a commodity. In Romans, a woman was first the property of father or brother and later of the husband when got married.
The belief in Christianity was that it was because of Eve due to whom Adam was asked to leave the Garden of Eden. Women were considered second class human beings. For centuries, women had to suffer this degradation. Among many other rights, she had no right in family property. It was in the Islamic period wherein women were granted equal status and equal rights in all family and social matters. They had legal rights in property. Early Muslim women were involved in every aspect of life. They were business women, poets, jurists, religious leaders and warriors.
On the other hand, western feminism prefers disintegration of home and family bonds. It refuses to admit that there is any biological distinction between man and woman. Feminists demand abolition of the institution of marriage and acceptance of complete, unbridled female sexual freedom. In their scheme of things, the upbringing of children is the responsibility of public. They want all schools to be co-educated and free mixing of men and women. Media should portray men and women as equals in all fields of work and production.
As the west would have it, throughout the Muslim world, the feminist sentiment is growing. The Feminists wish to reclaim Islam and the Quran for themselves. The question arose to choose between their Muslim identity and belief in gender equality. They have to either betray their faith or ignore feminist principles. Muslim feminists say that there is a need to give strength to women to shape the interpretation, norms and laws that affect their lives so much so that later they become legal reformers in their respective countries.
Yusuf Qaradawi says that women cannot be left maltreated or neglected. Their rights should not be dissolved. The educators, thinkers, leaders and reformers have shown interest in the case of women. They have demanded justice and abolition of ways of oppression towards women.
Islam has given women several rights over fourteen centuries ago when other civilizations were considering women not even humans. The rights Islam has given to women are sufficient and relevant even today. The Quran (2:228) says that ‘Man and Woman have equal rights against each other’. The same verse adds that ‘men have a degree of advantage over women’. To fully appreciate this verse, we will have to refer to 4:34 where Allah says that ‘men are the protectors and maintainers of women’. We must admit that women are weaker, therefore, need protection on some issues. Moreover, it is a biological truth.
Nature has given benefit to men, and it is neither credit to men nor discredit to women. So there is nothing to do with rights. In fact, man is made responsible for discharging his duties effectively. Now the central question comes whether men are doing their duty properly. When men got reluctant to do their duty, it exposed women to crimes and oppression and that led to diminishing of their honour and and dignity.
Overall Fatawas given were according to the conditions of that time. The laws regarding education and family depended on medieval Islamic jurisprudence. According to scholars, this jurisprudence was based on two issues: Religious and Cultural. The cultural part gave rise to certain fundamental social and political suppositions. Moreover, these suppositions are so firmly established that many Muslims are unaware of their non-religious base. So these gave rise to authoritarian or patriarchal society in family relationship and state as a whole.
In the Muslim world, patriarchy arose not only because of their assumptions but also because they took great influence from the neighbouring Byzantine and Persian Empires. The whole world was in the firm grip of patriarchy. The patriarchal forces considered Muslim women immature and dependent beings.
In the beginning of the Islamic Period, Muslim women’s involvement and contribution is found in Islamic jurisprudence but later patriarchy reduced it drastically. Usul al-Fiqh is the Islamic jurisprudence and its underlying principle of reasoning. Muslim women should study it.
The Muslim feminist Irshad Manji believes that we must rely on Islamic tradition of Ijtehad instead of depending on the west. One must have independent reasoning and completely rethink about the attitudes of the scholars who are impressed by the west. She says that the Quran is the source of reformation of our heart, our spirit and our being. The Quran states that ‘believers conduct yourself with justice and bear witness before God even if it be against yourself, your parents or your relatives’. This is the moral support given by Allah to stand up when others ask you to sit down. Moreover, this makes Islam revolutionary, not only in the 7th century but also in the 21st century.
Ijtehad was also unwittingly affected by patriarchal values. Moreover, later Muslim communities (unlike Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah be to him) did not authorise women for participation in public life and doing Ijtehad. It became the domain of males only. In these conditions, women’s voice was left just as a whisper. On the other hand, authoritarian and political authorities were not satisfied with the freedom given to scholars for Ijtehad though it was confined to males only. As a result
Mujtahid suffered misbehaviour at the hands of political authorities.
In these circumstances, women were in no position to fight for their rights. “Women are deficient in intellect.” These words from a famous hadith, have been used by many Muslim men to degrade women, thereby showing them inferior. The writer Azeez Ahmed Muhammad Abu Khaleef says that the concept of naqis al-aql is taken out of context and infused with the implications that have no evidence in the Quran or hadith that women are inferior to men.
Allah has given intellectual power for Ijtehad. The interpretations are to be done keeping in view the conditions of the prevailing time. In earlier times, the whole world civilization was not ready to give rights to women, but now it is different.
Professor Amina Wadud says that the realisation of Quranic message of equality and justice is ignored due to the influence of patriarchy on the interpretation of the Quran and the practice of Muslims. The traditional Ulema demand that women must be forced to remain at home so as to protect society from immorality and not to play social roles outside home. And if they allow women to do so, there would be social breakdown and a complete disaster. On the other hand, Muslim intellectuals wish to extend women role to the extent that they are against Hijab and modest dress and characterise it as a symbol of oppression.
In the west, though women made several contributions, we cannot deny that women were turned into commodities and sexual beings. This led Ulema to confine them to homes in order to save them from social ills, found in the west. But this did not help much. It is conceded that woman issues are influenced more by other elements than by Islam and Shari’ah norms. The talents, skills and capacities of Muslim women are curbed. Modern Islamist scholars like Maulana Abul A’la Maudoodi are in opposition to unveiling of a woman’s face. While almost all Sunni and Shia schools of jurisprudence allow women to keep their face unveiled. Deoband scholar of the 20th century Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi insists that a woman’s name should not appear in a newspaper. According to him, an ideal woman is that even her neighbour does not know of her existence and, according to him, girls should be allowed only to take basic education. Ahmed Raza Khan, the prominent figure of Barelvi sect, thinks that women are unworthy of consideration. Some Ulema say that voices of Muslim women should also be veiled. Such approaches by Ulema towards women contradict with that of early Ulema who accepted women’s roles in society.
The origin of this misogynistic extreme defensiveness lies far back in history. In the medieval period, to be exact in 1258 C.E, Tatar invaded Muslim lands and ruined them. To consolidate the Muslim society, many Muslim scholars issued Fatwa that it is impermissible for women to read and write. This is despite the fact that there had been distinguished literate women in the early Islamic period. This remained an issue for six hundred years and it was in the 19th century that Maulana Abdul Haye of Firangi Mahal gave a Fatwa that women have right to read and write; this was against the previous view.
If we look at the issue in the light of the Quran and Hadith Islam does not restrict physical movement of women. At the social level, Islam wants women to follow certain limits in certain conditions. Women’s social roles in early Islamic times have been acknowledged. They were not confined to the four walls of houses. The second Caliph Umar appointed Shifa bint Abdullah al-Adwiya superintendent of the Market of Medina (Capital of the Islamic Caliphate). During the Prophet’s time, women were allowed to pray in mosques and helped the fighters in battlefields. Men and women both attended sermons of the Prophet and asked questions. Caliph Umar was corrected by women while he was delivering a sermon and he accepted his mistake. These instances show that women’s minds and voices were not veiled. Many a Hadith shows that man and woman showed their faces to each other. The Mothers of Believers were asked to observe Purdah but male members and companions of the Prophet were allowed to receive education from them. Ayesha, the youngest of Prophet’s wives, had many male students and there are numerous hadith narrated by her.
The Quran (9:71) states that ‘the believers, men and women, are protectors of one of another, they enjoin what is just, and forbid what is evil’. This means both work together with mutual assistance and both of them perform various social roles. The Prophet and his companions tried their best to uproot bias against women.
Muslim women should read the Quran and Hadith themselves and get themselves aware of their rights and lead their lives accordingly.
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