By Ali Mohammed Al-Shorafa Al-Hammadi
“And one of His (Allah) signs is that He created for you Spouses from among yourselves so that you may find comfort in them, and He has placed between you compassion and mercy. Surely, in this are signs for people who reflect”
(Ar-Rum Verse #21)
This Noble verse of the Quran has brought to mankind’s attention the eternal fact and reality that Allah has created equally male and female in an honorable manner. Then, Allah has allocated certain rights and responsibilities to each of them in their lifetime. Allah appointed the male as a steward to the female. Thus, man is being entrusted with bearing the family’s responsibilities by providing them regular care and protection. He should habitually engage in securing the standard requirements and needs of his wife as well as those of her children who were created from his body.
On the other hand, the female bears domestic responsibilities which are not less than those of the male. These responsibilities include, but are not limited to, conceiving babies, weaning, breastfeeding, nourishing, nurturing, and childcare in general. She also goes under numerous other hardships such as staying awakened overnights for the sake of her babies’ wellbeing. Moreover, she tolerates all those difficulties by considering them as being part of her essential responsibilities. Furthermore, as a female, she engages in numerous other responsibilities based on her womanhood such as being the maker of abode of peace, which becomes the enjoyment and an area of tranquility, for her husband. She might also be awake throughout nights for nursing her husband in case he is unwell.
If one compares the levels of responsibilities; of the two parties, it is not shocking to realize that the wife’s responsibilities are more than double to those designated to the husband. The two genders’ responsibilities are based on securing the family’s livelihoods: household expenditures, services, and maintenances. Even though the job description that illuminates between female and male’s responsibilities is clear, we find that men deprived women of their rights in their duties.
This frequently happens, due to following certain fabricated customary laws and other manmade jurisprudential rules. These unjust rules create absolute oppression against women. Men who possess this mindset could be feeling that women were created as an object for man’s enjoyment, by being his servant, homemaker, and babysitter. Worse, yet her husband feels that he has the right to kick her out of their matrimonial home whenever he wishes by using the word “you are divorced” without offering any right or merit to her.
If we deliberately look at the Qur’an, we will find that there are numerous verses in the Qur’an addressing women’s rights. These verses are over seventy in number, each of which teaches us certain legislations, rules, regulations, principles, and admonitions regarding the protection of women’s due rights and respects. Most of these verses order men to avoid depriving any of the women’s rights in marital status. Man must consider the difficulties which his wife goes through when she is fulfilling her responsibilities towards her children starting from conceiving, delivering, nursing, nurturing, training, and staying awake for nights to provide a safe and loving environment for her babies. On top of that, the wife engages in her responsibilities towards her home and her husband. This makes woman’s responsibilities more than double, if not treble, to that of the man.
Those men who rely on books of jurisprudence and rules based on Personal Status Law, in Arabian societies, monopolized the household authority and preserved special rights. This manmade legislation violates the Divine legislation, and as a result, violates women’s rights. Women’s rights were replaced with abuse, domestication, and a dictatorship ruling system. The aim is to tame them as a professional child-bearer, deliverer/emancipator, trainer, servant, and housekeeper.
On the other hand, the Divine Legislation is fair and just to the woman and, further, encompasses rules and regulations protecting her rights, but the Jurists have crossed its red lines – Allah’s borders. The beginning of the oppression and subjugation of women was when the Qur’an with its Divine legislation was neglected, underrated and disserted. In the Divine Legislation, Allah has clarified the rights and responsibilities of male, female and married couples in a manner of equity and equality. Qur’an displays rights in more than one chapter as explained in the chapters of: “The Women” and chapter “ The Divorce” as well as many verses in the chapters of “The Cow”, “The Table Spread”, “The Light”, “The Pleading Woman”, “The Test of Faith”, “The Prohibition, and more.
Comparing between male and female, by finding out the position of female and how their rights are protected, let us have a look at the mention of the terms; woman/female versus man/male in the Qur’an. Anyone who explores the subject can find out that the mention of the latter is very much less than that of the former. One of the reasons is that Allah knows that a man could abuse his physical strengthens against a woman. He might do so, out of arrogance and being proud of his manhood over the woman by taking sovereignty over her. Furthermore, he might do so, while bypassing all the articles in the Divine Legislation in order to satisfy himself and achieve his selfish desires. Throughout the ages, the jurisprudence of Personal Status remained reserved for men.
Worse, none of these male jurists attempted to stand for the cause of the women’s rights by following the Divine Legislation and its legal provisions, which declare the preservation of women’s rights. Indeed, this is a violation of both the Divine Legislation and our universal human rights. These violations take place where women have no role to play in making legislations and extracting rulings from the Noble verses of the Qur’an to include the Personal Status Law. The women’s input, which is in line with the rules and formula of the Divine Legislation as a part of the Personal Status would have
created changes in the features of Muslim societies and the Arab world. It would have created a safe-haven environment for the families to launch a safe and stable atmosphere in which children can be raised and cared for in a manner that is enriched with proper education and ethics.
The application of a Divine Legislation in which women played their role in Arab and Islamic societies, would have created generations equipped with the right education, creativity and positive contribution to the progress of mankind in all fields. Unfortunately, the provisions of jurisprudence which are contrary to Allah’s law cause the displacement and the loss of families leading to family break up and dispersal of the children. These neglected children may get lost by consuming various types of illegal drugs and engaging in begging and robberies in order to be able to buy food. Among them are those who have been exploited by terrorist groups who altered them as monsters, killers and inhumane beings. Societies lost tens of thousands of young people who could have been an asset to their privileged circumstances by being the drivers of progress and development. Allah says:
“O, humanity! Be mindful of your Lord who created you from a single soul, and from it He created its mate, and through both He spread countless men and women, and be mindful of the Allah in whose name you appeal to one another, and honor family ties, surely, Allah is ever watchful over you”
(An-nisa Verse#1)
In the Muslim world, the current male’s treatment towards female explicitly threatens the security of societies. Therefore, there is an urgent need of returning to the Book of Allah, which orders justice and fairness while prohibiting aggression and oppression in all its moral and material forms. No doubt, there is no salvation for the Arab and Islamic society unless they return to the Book of Allah. It brings us out of darkness to light through the protection of basic human rights by promoting justice while defeating falsehoods. In conclusion, Allah has, in fact, honored and credited women and mothers in His statement when He says: “We have commanded people to honor their parents. Their mothers bore them in hardship and delivered them in hardship. Their period of bearing and weaning is thirty months ”
(Ahqaf Verse #15)
This verse describes the suffering of the mother in the stages of conceiving, pregnancy, delivery, breastfeeding, and nurturing children. Therefore, Allah Has commanded people to give and maintain charity, respect, mercy, and care to their mothers, due to the bitter pain they have incurred and sustained. To safeguard societies, Allah Has commanded every individual to give special respect, tendency, love, care, help, and nursing to their mother, and avoid causing any harm to her under any circumstance. The mother and father form the basis of the family and the family form the basis of society, and Allah Has ordained man to be responsible for the maintenance of his family.
