WOMAN
Written by: Mahdi Mahrizi
Translated by: Hasan M. Najafi
IN THE NAME OF ALLAH,
MOST GRACIOUS, MOST MERCIFUL,
Preamble
The new jaahiliyyah, with the pretext of the social activity of the woman and defending her rights, calls the woman toward unknown labyrinth. And the other ignorance, under the guise of chastity and purity, keeps the woman far from so many human perfections and virtues.
Many are of the opinion that the Muslim woman has only two alternatives before her, and she has no choice but to select one of them: either to surrender to the western debauchery or to stay secluded in her house deprived of all human perfections and sublimities.
Perusing attentively the main sources of religion "the Quran and Prophetic Sunnah" will lay before us an intermediate way, neither that seduction nor this petrifaction "tahajjur", neither that libertinism nor this seclusion.
Islam, according to genuine texts, presents a portrayal of the woman, proving her to be a human being, but not a man, as the man being also a human being but not a woman. It also divides arenas of life into two parts: human and genus. The human arena makes no difference between the woman and man, as it never recognises genus or sex, giving no consideration to femininity or masculineness, as both - male and female - are actively endeavouring in search for perfection.
But in the field of sexuality in life, the woman should be a woman, doing only womanly acts and abiding by her special necessaries and vestiges, whereas the man has to behave in this arena like a man, practising only manly acts. Identifying and
discerning these two arenas, and deducing rules and laws controlling every behaviour, being in fact not an easy job, but so complicated, squandering or excessive.
One this basis, there are some who imagine the humane arena as if representing all life arenas of the man and woman, denying presence of any diversity, considering the quantitative equality to be governing all domains of life. And if it be in their hands they would even desire to dispute the nature so as to eradicate whatever indicating a bit divergence. The fancy they hold in mind may even include distributing fosterage and pregnancy "between man and woman"!
Another group considers sexuality field to be all domains of human life, though denying this in terms of words. Hence, they give limits to the sphere of perfections, in a way that the two sexes would be affected and affect each other so passively, to the extent that one glance and one word produced by each sex would cause decline and decay of the other. The manifestation of these two interpretations can be clearly found in so many cultures, laws and norms.
No one can deny the necessity of diligent endeavour, far from time fusses, for recognising these two God's creatures "man and woman", so as to be able to criticise these cultures, rules, etiquette, formalities and views. In this course, the confirmed and mutawaatir religious texts, i.e. the Quran and Prophetic Sunnah, with intuitive inferences and experiments and man's thinking should be duly exploited and fully used.
In other words: giving heed to experienced researches and recognised indisputable knowledge deductions, verily plays a good role in better apprehending the religious texts. Further, I should refer to some principles that constitute a criterion and foundation for religious studies on women, with using the scientific achievements in this regard, in the following way:
1. When making religious studies, the pivotal role of the Quran should never be neglected, as it being the first and original
source for recognising the religion, with hadeeth and narration being studied and examined with its reflection. Also, all Quranic stories, verses on rulings "ahkaam", knowledge branches and preaching sermons and others should be taken into consideration and included in these studies.
2. For making religious studies, the sermons, sayings and practical sirah "conduct" of the Messenger of Allah "may God's peace and benediction be upon him and his Progeny" and Infallible Imams should be collected and compiled, so as to infer and deduce rules and verdicts from them. This while analysing the falsified narrations and verses and disregarding the practical Sunnah of the Prophet"S" and Imams"A" being a big blunder, and we should never neglect this principle when doing any investigations about woman in general.
3. The fabrication and tahreef "alteration, perversion" of traditions, with the influence of irreligious cultures should never be neglected, and must be considered attentively. As through investigations and scrutiny, it can be recognised that some beliefs are there which we consider to be of the religion but they be not in truth, and they have, throughout centuries, been foisted and leaked into our religion from other alien cultures and traditions.
4. As regards making use of the accomplishments of human thoughts and experimental sciences, their intuition and definite existence should be realised. As there are so many viewpoints and theories, especially in the field of anthropology, which have no scientific foundation or background at all, so they can never be relied upon by investigators and researchers.
5. In studying affairs and issues of women we should concentrate particularly on external realisms, and past biographies of various nations and peoples.
In this research, I will endeavour to commit myself sincerely to taking these principles as a basis for analysing and studying the subjects set for speculation. The themes of this book have been
divided into six sections, the first of which, that is the most essential one and as is explicitly realised from its outward seeming, is dedicated for manifesting the character of the woman. In my conception, the root of so many of the wrong judgements lies in the unrealistic view held in regard of the woman, so the fountainhead should be purified. On this basis, this chapter has a leading role in relation to other chapters.
Thereafter, presence and activity of the woman in three main arenas of life: individual, family and society, will be discussed and elaborated in the next chapters - two up to four - under the titles: "The Human Perfections," "Woman and Family," and "Woman's Participation in Social Life."
The subject of "Veil and Chastity" constitutes the fifth chapter of this book. The fact that led me to broaching this topic being that it is viewed by some people to be incongruous with the social presence of the woman, while some others consider it as a sign of individual perfection for the woman and consolidation of the family system. Analysing the dimensions of veil "hijaab" and chastity and their effect on the life of women, as well as giving replies to some questions would be the objective of the discussion in this chapter.
The last chapter of this book will contain selection of Descriptive Book Identification of Collections, in which general identification of a number of collections and compilations is recorded. All my hope is that this work can give, though so briefly, a manifest Idaho of the Islamic perspective of the woman.
Mahdi Mahrizi
Character of Woman
Chapter 1
The issue of the woman's character has a leading role in recognising the woman in every creed and religion, and every thought course can, through the portrait it displays for the woman's character, give its opinion and lay bare its stance in respect of other affairs of the woman. In other words, all other subjects like: woman's rights, her social participation, moral perfections and veil and adornment are relevant and correlated to the theme of the woman's character.
So studying and investigating the woman's affairs in perspective of Islam, should also be conducted from this point. Further, it is explicit that indicating the Islam's view toward the woman should be, on the one hand, compatible to the incontrovertible religious sources, and on the other, it should be compliant and corresponding to the conclusions, necessaries and effects of this theory. Otherwise, this issue would be incompetent to be a source of dependence and basis of inference.
Our view is that from an Islamic perspective, the woman is a human being, having all development talents, with being devoid of any defect or fault in the essence of her entity. And despite her owning all factors of perfection and development, like men, but she has an independent character and never be parasite on others. Because Allah has created man and divided the human being into two classes: man and woman, for the sake of his/her eternity. And classifying the creatures into male and female is in fact a general rule, in this material world.
Allah has sworn by this reality in His Holy Book: "And Him Who
hath created male and female." "3:3"
Hence, malehood and femininity are verily not characteristics peculiar to human beings, but rather they be a means of existence of all beings. And as they can never be considered as a defect or evil on the part of all things, the same is true too in regard of human genera. This religious inference can be applied in the case of women in many aspects and respects.
The Holy Quran
The Quran is verily the most important source for recognition of religion, as it being an intact and uncorrupted book, to which other books and sources should be measured and judged, and accepted only when proved to be compatible and incongruous to it. For getting acquainted with the Quranic view in respect of the character of the woman, I shall put forth six questions the answers of which given in this Divine Book would portray the real personality of the woman, as follows:Creation of Man & Woman
· Creation of the first man and woman has been described, in a storylike form, in many verses in the Quran. First Allah has apprised the angels that he was intending to place a viceroy and deputy in the earth: "And when thy Lord said unto the angles: Lo! I am about to place a viceroy in the earth..." "1:30"· In other verses in surat alhijr, He said to the angels: "And remember when thy lord said unto the angels: Verily I create man of the essence of black mud fashioned into shape. So when I complete him and breathe into him My spirit, fall ye down unto him prostrating "in obeisance"." "16:28, 29"
· Then He taught Adam all the names concluding a covenant with him: "And He taught Adam the Names, all of them..." "1:30"
· "And indeed had we covenanted unto Adam before, but
he forgot; but we did not find in him any intention "to disobey us"." "20:115"
· In another place, He said: "Enjoined I not on you O children of Adam! that ye should worship not Satan?" "36:60"
· After that Adam and his wife dwell in the heaven: "And said we "O Adam! dwell thou and thy mate in the Garden..." "1:34"
Then begins the temptation of the Satan when tempting Adam and his wife Eve, or falsely swearing seducing them both to perpetrate that sin through trickery, cheating them to eat from the forbidden tree, causing them to deflect from the heavens.
In the holy Quran, it is said:
· "And said We "O Adam! dwell thou and thy mate in the Garden and eat ye two therefrom freely as ye two wish but approach not ye two this tree lest ye two will be of the transgressors! But Satan made them slip and drove them out of what they were in; and "whereupon" said We: "Get ye down! the one of you as an enemy unto the other..." "1:35, 36"
· Thereat rebellion and disobedience could only be produced on the part of Adam: "And Adam acted not "to the advises of" his Lord "deceived by Satan" and got astray." "20:121"
· In this stage, Adam and his wife started to apologise to the Almighty Allah for their fault, confessing their wrongdoing, seeking God's forgiveness and mercy: Said they "O Our Lord! unjust have we been unto ourselves, and if Thou forgive us not and deal "not" with mercy unto us "then", We will certainly be of the losers." "7:23"
· Then Adam receives certain words and Allah relents toward him: "And received Adam from his Lord "certain" words "of prayer" and God turned unto him "mercifully",
for verily He is the Oftturning "unto mercy", the Most Merciful." "1:37"
Pondering and making a meditating pause on this story, the verses of which have already been quoted, we will be led to the fact that no difference or distinction is stated in the Quran in creation of the woman and man. Thus it is incorrect to attribute all characteristics of strength to the man and those of weakness and deficiency to the woman, since it is either talking about the human being and man or son of Adam as a symbol and specimen and representative of humankind.
Hence, in respect of vicegerency and succession, breathing of "God's" soul, prostration "in obeisance" of angels, teaching the names, evil whispering of Satan, rebellion and disobedience, covenant and contract, selection and choosing, receiving of words, and relentness and material of creation, they are both equal.
For completing discussion of this issue, two other subjects to which the verses on creation of man referred, should be studied and perused attentively.
Creation of Woman Out of the Man
These verses are the following:
· "O mankind! Be careful of your duty to your Lord Who created you from a single self and created from it, its mate, and from them twain hath spread abroad a multitude of men and women." "4:1"
· "He it is Who did create you from a single soul, and therefrom did make his mate..." "7:189"
· "He created you from one being, then from that "being" He made its mate..." "39:6"
· "And of His signs is that He created for you from yourselves, mates..." "30:21"
· "And God hath given you wives of your own selves, and hath given you from your wives sons and grandchildren..." "16:72"
· "He made for you from among your "own" selves pairs..." "42:11"
In the first three verses, it is stated that men have been created from one self, and from that self their mates were created. In the next three verses this subject was made in the plural form and addressing all men that your wives were created from your own selves. Pondering over and meditating in all the verses as a whole, will verily indicate that what God intends to say is that the spouse of man being his mate and counterpart and from his self, neither being alien to him, nor a part of him or created from him "his body". Since if this be true, it should be said that every wife was created from her own husband, hence the last three verses should be taken as evidences and proofs for manifesting and elucidating the meaning of the first verses.
In interpreting these verses, Al-'Allamah AtTabataba'i says:
The apparent meaning of the verse: "and from it, He created its mate" being that God has created a spouse of the same species of the man, and all the human beings belong to two equal and alike individuals.
The word "Min" "from" in the verse is a genetic preposition "i.e. it shows the origin of something". This verse, like other verses, discusses the issue of creation of the woman and man, like the verses: "And of His signs is that He created for you from yourselves, mates... ." and the verse: "And God hath given you wives of your own selves..." and others.
On this basis, whatever is stated in regard of these
interpretations like that the denotation of this verse is to indicate the fact that the woman is derived from Adam and a part of him, according to some narrations "one of which claiming that God has created the wife of Adam from his rib", being all baseless claims for which no evidence is ever established. 1 This statement was held by Wahbah Zuhayli, a sunni exegete, who quoted it from Al-Fakhr Ar-Razi. 2
What can be concluded from all this discussion is the fact that the Quran, when making simile between the woman and man, it concentrates on the origin and root, and oneness of species of the two. Any claim other than this topic should be neglected. Besides, some traditions are there in support of this conclusion, to which we can refer here:
Al-Imaam As-Sadiq was questioned once: Some people claim that Eve is created from Adam's rib "what do you say"? He"A" replied: "Verily God is absolutely pure and free from this." Is God unable to create a spouse for Adam, from other than his rib? So that to close the door leaving no room or excuse to be exploited by some evilminded to raise any doubt, to say that Adam has got married to himself?! May God judge between us and such people. 3
In another Hadeeth it is said:
God has created Eve from the surplus of the clay of Adam, and similar to him. 4
____________
1. Al-Mizaan Fi Tafseer Al-Quran, vol. IV, p. 136
2. At-Tafseer Al-Muneer, vol. 1, pp.139-140
3. Wasa'il Ash-Shi'ah, vol. XX, p. 352, Baab 28, vol. IV, p. 258.
4. Bihaar Al-Anwaar, vol. XI, p. 115; vol. 42 .
