*Exerpt from “Half in Islam Whole in Jesus – A Woman’s Worth” Chapter 3 Cultural Traditions – published January 2020 by Mona Sabah.
In 2001, TIME magazine published an article that stated: “For his day, the Prophet Muhammad was a feminist. The doctrine he laid out as the revealed word of God considerably improved the status of women in 7th century Arabia. In local pagan society, it was the custom to bury alive unwanted female newborns; Islam prohibited the practice. Women had been treated as possessions of their husbands; Islamic law made the education of girls a sacred duty and gave women the right to own and inherit property. Muhammad even decreed that sexual satisfaction was a woman’s entitlement.”
The factual truth is that Muhammad helped the status of women during the pagan times and his belief in following one God was a direct departure from what the society dictated. Pagans in Arabia included those practices listed in the article as a form of idol worship, mixed with a desire to have sons to increase their family’s wealth and power. However, much of Islam’s policies on women began and ended in the 7th century. The Arab culture today firmly clings to the ancient tribal structure along with recognition of the father of the family as the patriarch and authoritarian. The women in a traditional Arab and Muslim family are subject to all the patriarch’s actions and to restrictions, including education, finances, marriage, along with any contact with outsiders. The result is controlled isolation. The author of the TIME article redeemed herself a few paragraphs later by stating that fourteen centuries later, there hasn’t been much improvement, in fact “under Islam today, it is clear that the religion has been used in most Muslim countries not to liberate but to entrench inequality.”[1]
When I was a Muslim, I was invariably asked by American women about the status of women in Islam. I would always give a similar robotic response as the author above. I would tell people that Muhammad was ahead of his time. He prohibited female infanticide which was a pagan custom (where instead of aborting a child in the womb, women would give birth and then bury the living unwanted child in the desert sand while their tribe moved to a different location). There are Bedouin stories about how the cries of buried infants used to haunt the mothers who practiced this tradition. Muhammad banned this practice and said that children were a blessing from Allah – even female children. Surah an Nahl (The Bees in Arabic) addressed this pagan custom:
“And when the news of [the birth of] a female [child] is brought to any of them, his face becomes dark, and he is filled with inward grief! He hides himself from the people because of the evil of that whereof he has been informed. Shall he keep her with dishonor or bury her in the earth? Certainly, evil is their decision” (Quran 16:58 & 59).
This tradition was played out in my life when my aunt came crying out of the delivery room with news that my mother had given birth to a third daughter. She was visibly upset and thought that my father (who has no sons) would have been terribly upset. My father simply told her in front of me that it was Allah’s will and that all children (girls or boys) were a blessing from heaven. Still today, Muslims believe that the Quran is unclear on its stance for abortion. There is debate today that affects modern Muslim women who wish to abort their children and are unclear on rulings from the Quran due to confusing language. An article from the Muslim Institute titled “The future of abortion rights in Islam”[2] shares the frustration of what is a proper ruling on the matter. However, the Muslim Brotherhood published a statement[3] to clarify Islamic ruling by stating:
“A closer look at these articles reveals what decadence awaits our world, if we sign this document:
1. Granting girls full sexual freedom, as well as the freedom to decide their own gender and the gender of their partners (ie, choose to have normal or homo- sexual relationships), while raising the age of marriage.
2. Providing contraceptives for adolescent girls and training them to use those, while legalizing abortion to get rid of unwanted pregnancies, in the name of sexual and reproductive rights.
3. Granting equal rights to adulterous wives and illegitimate sons resulting from adulterous relationships.
4. Granting equal rights to homosexuals and providing protection and respect for prostitutes.
5. Giving wives full rights to file legal complaints against husbands accusing them of rape or sexual harassment, obliging competent authorities to deal husbands punishments similar to those prescribed for raping or sexually harassing a stranger.
6. Equal inheritance (between men and women).
7. Replacing guardianship with partnership, and full sharing of roles within the family between men and women such as: spending, child care and home chores.
8. Full equality in marriage legislation such as: allowing Muslim women to marry non-Muslim men, and abolition of polygamy, dowry, men taking charge of family spending, etc.
9. Removing the authority of divorce from husbands and placing it in the hands of judges and sharing all property after divorce.
10. Cancelling the need for a husband’s consent in matters like: travel, work, or use of contraception.
These are destructive tools meant to undermine the family as an important institution; they would subvert the entire society and drag it to pre-Islamic ignorance.”
The Muslim Brotherhood further encouraged all women’s organizations, the leaders of Muslim countries and their United Nations representatives to reject and condemn these types of actions and to repent of this as an act against the standards of Islam. So, it seems that while one side is trying to cater to modern issues and women’s rights, the other (and perhaps more forceful) side is saying the opposite to the Muslim world. There exists a great dichotomy that causes confusion.
[1] Beyer, L. (2001). “The Women in Islam.” TIME Magazine. http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,185647,00.html
[2] Shameen, N. (2013). “The future of abortion rights in Islam” https://musliminstitute.org/freethinking/islam/future-abortion-rights-islam
[3] March 14, 2013. Muslim Brotherhood Official Statement. http://ikhwanweb.com/muslim-brotherhood-statement-denouncing-un-women-declaration-for-violating-sharia-principles/