An Essay on Women In Islam

This will be the last of these long, link-filled essays that I post. I've written many more, but I don't think I'm going to share them all with you.

In any case, here's one about Islamic mistreatment of women. There are loads of links in this one. Enjoy:

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WOMEN IN ISLAM

It is common today to hear Muslim spokesmen and apologists claim that while women are far more oppressed in Islamic countries than in the West, this oppression has little to nothing to do with Islam or the example of the Prophet Muhammad. The oppression, they claim, is cultural, not religious. Others even go as far as to claim that Muhammad was a historical pioneer in women's rights. This is based on a handful of passages from the Qur'an which seem to suggest that Allah treats men and women equally (e.g. 4:1; 3:195; 16:97, etc).

However, the overall Islamic attitude towards women is one of seventh-century misogyny that remains forever a part of the fixed word of God. Here are some examples of sexism in the Qur'an and hadith:

- Women are a field - “tilth” - that a man can use however he wants: “Your women are a tilth for you to cultivate so go to your tilth as ye will.” (2:223)
- A woman's testimony is worth half that of a man: “And call to witness, from among your men, two witnesses. And if two men be not (at hand) then a man and two women, of such as ye approve as witnesses, so that if the one erreth (through forgetfulness) the other will remember.” (2:282)
- A son's inheritance is twice the size of a daughter's: “Allah thus directs you as regards your children's inheritance: to the male, a portion equal to that of two females.” (4:11)
- “The Prophet said: 'I was shown the Hell-fire and that the majority of its dwellers were women who were ungrateful'” to their husbands. (Sahih Bukhari v.1, b.2, no.28)
- Muhammad's favourite wife Aisha said: “I have not seen any woman suffering as much as the believing women”. (Bukhari, v.7, b.72, no. 715) She doesn't seem to have had the impression that Muhammad treated women better than did other societies.

The rest of this essay will cover other important oppressions of women and the denial of their basic human rights in Islam.

Polygamy

The Qur'an is very clear in giving Muslim men the right to marry up to four women at one time, and also to have sex with slave girls: “Marry women of your choice, Two or three or four; but if ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly (with them), then only one, or (a captive) that your right hands possess, that will be more suitable, to prevent you from doing injustice.” (4:3) The Muslim historian and Qur'anic exegete Tabari (d.923) explained this verse thusly: “Do not marry off but from one to four, and add no more. If you are afraid you will not deal fairly, if you marry more than one, then marry one only or those your hand controls so that you will not act unjustly.”

Meanwhile, if a man is unsatisfied with his wife or wives, Islamic law says that he can divorce them simply by saying “I divorce you”. Yet sometimes a man may divorce from his wife in a fit of rage and then want to take her back. This is permissible, but only a maximum of three times. Once the heartbroken woman has been divorced three times, the man cannot take her back a fourth time until she has married and slept at least once with another man. This has led to the phenomenon of “temporary husbands”, where some randy Muslim male will “marry” the woman for the night so she can go back to her old husband.

All this is not some ancient custom or confined only to the Middle East. Muslim immigrants are bringing these practices to the West with them today. It has been estimated that there are as many as four thousand polygamous families in Britain. In 2007 it was revealed that Muslim immigrants who engaged in polygamy in Britain would be allowed to claim extra benefits – even though polygamy is illegal in this country.

Polygamy and instantaneous divorces reduce women to little more than commodities, and reinforce the idea that men and women are not equal partners, but rather women are something a man may accumulate as he wishes.

Child marriage

The Qur'an takes child marriage for granted as part of seventh-century Arabian culture. Take, for example, this passage, which explains the waiting period required to determine if a woman is pregnant before divorcing her: “Such of your women as have passed the age of monthly courses, for them the prescribed period, if ye have any doubts, is three months, and for those who have no courses (it is the same)” (65:4, emphasis added). Note that last part: here Allah is taking for granted a situation whereby a prepubescent girl is not only married, but is being divorced by her husband.

This may be because, infamously, Muhammad himself was no stranger to child marriage; he married Aisha before she hit puberty: “[The Prophet] married 'Aisha when she was a girl of six years of age, and he consummated that marriage when she was nine years old.” (Bukhari v.5, b.58, no. 234, and others). Although embarrassed Muslims today try to deny that Aisha was nine when Muhammad had sex with her, there is overwhelming evidence in the hadith and other Islamic literature that this is exactly what happened.

Because Muhammad is seen in Islam as the ultimate model of human behaviour (Qur'an 33:21), his example on this matter is still imitated by Muslims today. Iranian law allows girls to be married at the age of nine. The Ayatollah Khomeini married a girl of ten when he was twenty-eight. UNICEF reports that more than half the girls in Afghanistan and Bangladesh are married before they reach the age of eighteen. Researchers in refugee camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan, as well other countries, have found over half the girls married by age thirteen. Even in Britain, imams have been caught praising the virtues of imitating the Prophet in this matter, as shown in a recent Dispatches documentary broadcast on Channel 4. Dr. Bilal Phillips, the imam of a Birmingham mosque, was recorded saying: “The Prophet Muhammad practically outlined the rules regarding marriage prior to puberty. With his practice, he clarified what is permissible, and that is why we shouldn't have any issues about an older man marrying a younger woman.”

Wife-beating

The Qur'an explicitly sanctions the beating of one's wife if she is disobedient, after first warning her and then sending her to a separate bed: “Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them. Lo! Allah is ever High, Exalted, Great.” (Qur'an 4:34) Note also at the beginning of the passage the suggestion that women are inferior to men and must be ruled by them.

As with so many things, this is not solely an extremist view. In 1984 Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who is highly respected and influential in the Muslim world, used this verse to justify wife-beating, saying that “It is permissible for [the husband] to beat her lightly with his hands, avoiding her face and other sensitive parts.” In Pakistan, over 90% of women have been beaten or otherwise physically abused by their husbands – often for offenses on the order of cooking an unsatisfactory meal or giving birth to a female child. While domestic abuse occurs in all countries and cultures, the levels are alarmingly high and more likely to occur in Islamic countries.

The veil

For some reason, many people in the West seem to have assumed that the burqa was invented by the Taliban or some other such radical Muslim group. But in fact, it was also mandated by Muhammad: “Asma, daughter of Abu Bakr, entered upon the Apostle of Allah (peace be upon him) wearing thin clothes. The Apostle of Allah (peace be upon him) turned his attention from her. He said: 'O Asma, when a woman reaches the age of menstruation, it does not suit her that she displays her parts of body except this and this,' and he pointed to her face and hands.” (Sunan Abu Dawud b.32, no.4092)

Many Muslim scholars also claim that the veil is mandated in the Qur'an: “And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what (must ordinarily) appear thereof; that they should draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty” (24:31). The Tafsir al-Jalalayn says that this verse means women in public should “cover up their heads, necks and chests with veils, and not reveal their hidden adornment, namely, all that is other than the face and the hands”.

While this symbol of Islamic oppression is not strictly followed in all parts of the world, in some areas women have been brutalised and even killed for not adhering to it. One infamous example took place in Mecca in 2002. Fifteen girls died in a fire at their school when the Saudi religious police refused to let them out of the building, because in the female-only environment of the school they had shed their concealing outer garments. The muttawa preferred that the girls die rather than show themselves to men in public, and even battled with emergency services who were trying to open the doors.

Rape laws

One of the most appalling Islamic abuses of women concerns rape, and is a direct result of Muhammad's own behaviour.

Islamic tradition tells how Aisha was once accused of adultery. Muhammad was outraged by the accusations and refused to believe that they could be true (which they probably weren't, in any case). Eventually he received a new (and rather convenient) revelation from Allah which absolved Aisha of all guilt and scolded the accusers for failing to bring forward four witnesses to testify to the crime: “Why did they not produce four witnesses? Since they produce not witnesses, they verily are liars in the sight of Allah.” (24:13)

Indeed, we have already seen that Islam discriminates against women by decreeing that their testimony is worth half that of a man's. Muhammad explained that this is because of “the deficiency of a woman's mind.” (Bukhari v.3, b.48, no. 826) The jurist Ibn Taymiyya (d.1328) confirms that “The Prophet... made it clear that dividing their testimony after such a manner is due to the deficiency of their intelligence, not of their religion.”

The consequence of this is that it is virtually impossible to prove rape in Islamic countries, where, following Muhammad's example, four male witnesses are required for a woman's case to even be heard. Even worse, if a woman makes an accusation of rape but cannot prove it with appropriate testimony, she may be incriminated on charges of adultery. This accounts for the fact that up to 75% of women in jail in Pakistan are there because they were the victims of rape. In Nigeria women have also been sentenced to death for being raped.

Genital mutilation

Female genital mutilation, or circumcision, is designed to reduce a woman's sexual drive so that she will be less likely to commit adultery. It is often carried out with scissors and no anesthetic. There is little to nothing in Islamic tradition to justify this horrific and painful act, and it is also practised outside of Islam: it is common among non-Muslims in Africa and South Asia. But in any case it is still disturbingly common in an Islamic context, and is supported by some Islamic authorities. Umdat al-Salik says that circumcision is required “for both men and women”. Ahmad ibn Hanbal (founder of the Hanbali school of jurisprudence; d.855) quotes a saying of Muhammad to justify circumcision: “Circumcision is a law for men and a preservation of honour for women.” Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar University, says that female circumcision is “a laudable practice that [does] honour to women”. As the closest Muslim equivalent to the pope, Tantawi is the most respected cleric for at least a billion Muslims around the world.

Honour killing

Honour killings are extremely common in the Islamic world. Women are killed by their own families for being raped or for being seen in public with a man who was not related to them, because they are viewed as having brought shame to the family or having compromised its honour. Justification for this in Islamic texts is scant, and once again it is not solely an Islamic custom; yet it could be said that these actions are influenced by a culture that concentrates far more on shame and honour than on individual responsibility – and Islam has in many ways fostered this culture in many of its followers.

In 2003 the Jordanian Parliament voted down, on Islamic grounds, a provision designed to stiffen penalties for honour killings, claiming that the laws “violated religious traditions and would destroy families and values”. In a sad but inevitable consequence of this, a man who in 2007 murdered his sister because he thought she had a lover was given only three months in jail, which was suspended for time served, allowing him to walk free.

Conclusion

The Sufi mystic Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (d.1111), a highly revered figure among Muslims today, had very little positive to say about women. Here is an excerpt from one of his works, where he outlines a woman's role:

“She should stay at home and get on with her spinning, she should not go out often, she must not be well-informed...she must not leave her house without his [her husband's] permission and if given his permission she must leave surreptitiously...She should be clean and ready to satisfy her husband's sexual needs at any moment.”

Al-Ghazali also warns men that the guile of women “is immense and their mischief is noxious; they are immoral and mean-spirited.”

These attitudes are hardly uncommon in the Islamic world today. The simple fact is that they are borne out of Qur'anic literalism. Adhering strictly to the dictates of the Qur'an – in line with traditional Islamic teaching – will inevitably result in more and more women suffering. Whether it be by physical abuses or the heartbreak of multiple instantaneous divorces, they will suffer. As long as Muslim men continue to read the Qur'an and do what it says, women will be at risk. And given that many Muslims today do indeed take the Qur'an very seriously, we should all be forthright in our resistance to the jihadist mission to impose this system on us. In the mean time, we should give sober consideration to the suffering women are already going through in lands where such laws and behaviour hold sway.