Underlining womanhood in Islam: The myth created by men
“I saw a woman hanging from her hair [and] her brain was boiling because she had not covered her hair. I saw a woman who had been hanged from her tongue and hell’s water was being poured into her throat because she had annoyed her husband. I saw a woman in a furnace of fire, hanging from her feet because she had left home without her husband’s permission” (Attributed to the Prophet, pbuh, Bihar al-Anwar, volume 100, p245)
Women have become the central most important point of discussion by men and the most precious point of attack on Islam by non-Muslims. To me, it is not surprising at all. Personally, I blame some men who had selfish motives to bring Islam to this position where even terrorism is linked to lust. So, how did this all begin; this obsession with women? I can only presume.
No religion before Islam tried to address the issues of women from all social strata. “Under Islam, it was the moral and religious principles, not tribal affiliations, that defined women’s rights. Islam acknowledged women as free human beings with full rights of their own. With freedom must come responsibilities and obligations. This has led some to argue that women were more restricted after Islam vis-a-vis Jahiliyya, which may in fact be true in a few tribes that were not as oppressive to women as others. However, Islam improved the conditions of all women, regardless of which tribe they belonged to. It restored women’s dignity and elevated their status, on the whole, to be equal to that of men.” (More on it in Status of women in Islam).
Many people will tell you this; what Islam has done for women. Very few will go on to tell how men manipulated religious edicts to fulfill their selfish goals. The result is that Islam and Muhammed (pbuh) are constantly attacked for supposedly spreading misogyny.
Muhammed (pbuh) had several wives. According to most reliable sources, he married eleven times and had two slave women. Some scholars believe that he was married to his slave women; others think he never married them. Out of all the wives he had, only Aisha was a virgin. People forget to mention this when they attack him. They also forget to mention that most of his wives were over forty years old when he married them.
There are innumerable written sources that claim that after Safiyya bint Huyayy’s (ra) father was killed in the battle of Khybar, the Prophet (pbuh) captured her and asked her if she would like to marry him. Consequently, she was freed and married to the Prophet. In such a case, Safiyya bint Huyayy’s (ra) consent was subject to the dire consequences that awaited her in case she rejected. The Prophet’s other wives forever taunted her for being the “daughter of a Jew” and doubted her intentions and conversion to Islam. What we forget to mention is that even then she always remained a Muslim and was a faithful wife. What we also forget to note is that since Safiyya bint Huyayy’s father, the chief of the Jewish tribe Banu Nadir, was killed in the battle of Khybar, if the Prophet had not married her she would have become a mere slave woman. She was the daughter of a chief and later became the wife of another chief. I wonder if those who attack Muhammed (pbuh) for wanting to marry the beautiful Safiyya realise how humiliating it would be for the daughter of a tribe’s chief to do the dirty laundry as a slave woman.
Several scholars believe that Maria al-Qibtiyya (ra) was a Coptic Christian slave who assumed the title “Mother of the believers” when she gave birth to Ibrahim, the son of Muhammad (pbuh) but she remained a slave. Those who ridicule the Prophet (pbuh) for keeping concubines forget that only a wife of the Prophet could assume the title “Mother of the believers” and that Maria al-Qibtiyya (ra) is buried in Janat al Baqi.
Those who attack Muhammed (pbuh) for marrying Aisha, a child, never mention that Muhammed’s traditions were not recorded till 200 years after his death. History was undocumented before that and Aisha could have been any age between 9 and 23 years old at the time of her marriage. Was she really a six year old bride? We will never know and there is no proof to assume that she was a small child. Conviction and certainty is far removed from the 7th Century Arabia which thrived on oral (and therefore less concrete) traditions until the 9th Century when history began to be written down. Christian scholars estimate that Mary was about 12 years old when she gave birth to Jesus but her age is never a huge issue. Ibrahim (a Prophet of the Jews, Christians, and Muslims) had a concubine – Hajar, who was the mother of his son Ismail. She was not his wife. She may have been only a child when she gave birth to Ismail, but we never talk about her age. Child marriages were the norm. Child marriages to grown men was the norm. Today it is call pedophilia and I have absolutely nothing against contemporary laws and policies. I would never marry my nine year old child to a grown man. But I’m not sure if I would have had the same ideologies 1400 years ago if I lived then in a small Arabian desert and was myself married off at 10.
What has happened through the centuries is men realised very early on that Islam was harnessing their carnal feelings and pleasures. Whereas they could pretty much get married any number of times, and buy and sell slave women without strict legal policies, Islam (while not stopping it completely) reduced their limitless power over women. No religion before Islam placed clear cut rules on marriage and sexual relations. Today Islam is attacked for doing just that. In the absence of guidelines, a religion is seen as “holy” while rules and guidelines have reduced Islam to be called “an unholy cult.”
Compounded with the inner hatred that many have for the New Religion, it is also Muslim men who must be blamed for sexualizing religion. I can turn blue in the face explaining that Islam does not promote suicide bombing to secure 72 houris; that there will be no 72 houris; that killing an innocent soul equals killing all of humanity under Islam, but those who have lost dear ones when some lunatic Muslim blew himself will not believe me. They will not listen to me if I tell them to blame that one Muslim man and leave Islam alone. Likewise, there are some ‘scholars’ who ensure that Islam is attacked continuously. They will call women without hijab “uncovered meat” and will argue that “Islam allows a man to have intercourse with his slave woman, whether he has a wife or wives or he is not married… The scholars are unanimously agreed on that and it is not permissible for anyone to regard it as haraam or to forbid it. Whoever regards that as haraam is a sinner who is going against the consensus of the scholars.” The pompous, authoritative and over-confident tone of the ‘scholar’ will not be noticed. His own selfish motives will not be regarded as important. Anyone reading this will assume that Islam propagates misogyny and that the Quran and Prophet (pbuh) promoted sexual promiscuity.
Blame should lie with scholars who announce that “wife-beating is associated with the cultural status of women” and therefore an Egyptian wife can be beaten because she sees it as an “expression of masculinity” and desires it so, but we must “follow reason” and not beat a Canadian wife because she sees it as “aggression and barbarism” and Islam does not allow us to be aggressive towards women! Or this one who equates women with “purchasing an electrical appliance or a car” with which “you get a manual – a catalogue, explaining how to use it”! Quran is supposedly the manual to use women according to this “scholar”.
There are several ahadith that have made their way into reliable compilations but which seem totally against the nature of the Prophet (pbuh). I have quoted one such alleged hadith in the beginning of this post. There are many others which you can find sprinkled on several discussion forums. There are ample ahaadith which are attributed to the Prophet and which tell you that women will be in majority in Hell and will be hanged from their breasts; and that wives should be so obedient and submissive that they should suck the pus oozing out of their husbands’ noses. We can know about the Prophet’s traditions solely from the ahadith and some how such ahadith do not fit the profile of the man who only smiled when his wives fought with him; the man who thought that Heaven lies under the feet of a mother; the man who was raised in the absence of parents amongst women; the man who had all daughters; the aging man who stood for several hours balancing on either foot so his young wife could watch a show of jugglers.
Nothing can quench the thirst of hatred and those who truly hate a religion and its followers will never be satisfied. I am writing for people who say that Muslims avoid talking about their Prophet and never protest when he is accused of “pedophilia pretty much 24/7.” My Prophet does not need my defense and yet I feel there should be people who recognise where the blame must be placed. Blame the Muslims who blow themselves so they can chew sweet grapes in the laps of 72 alabaster-coated women; I blame them too, but don’t think my Prophet told them to disseminate their body parts upon the sound of “Allah Akbar”! Blame the Muslim man who slaps his Egyptian wife and sleeps with the Canadian wife that same evening, but remember that the Prophet never established such practices. The blame lies with some Muslim men –men who are selfish and twist religion to suit their needs; Muslim men who are misogynists; Muslim men who are sadists and chauvinists; and Muslim men who are horny “pretty much 24/7.”
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Underlining womanhood in Islam: The myth created by men
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