Muslim Woman

The inferiority complex from which woman suffers has its roots in the remote past. The social framework which has remained basically unchanged assigned to her a status much lower than that of man. Man regarded her occasionally as a goddess, usually as a slave, but rarely as a comrade. In this man-made society, the dice were heavily loaded against her. The powerful forces of custom, law and religion were ranged against her. She could not own property in her own right. She could not choose her own mate. The father could give her in marriage to any one he liked. If the husband died even when she was still young, she was not permitted to remarry. Widowhood was her lot for the rest of her life. Sometimes she was even expected to die with her husband. The barbarous custom of Sati required her to sit on the funeral pyre of her dead husband and be burnt alive. Religion too was not kind to her. The Biblical story of Adam and Eve is hardly fair to her. It is said that God first created Adam, and then, out of his rib, He created Eve. The rib is crooked and so devout men were quite prepared to admit the same crookedness in the nature of woman. The sequel of the story shows that woman is not only crooked but also weak. She quickly succumbed to the seductions of Satan and tempted Adam into sin. The story of Adam and Eve, in which Eve plays the role of a temptress, is widely believed in throughout the Christian world. The attitude of the Christians towards women is, therefore, tinged with fear and hostility. To preserve their purity, devout men thought it necessary to avoid all contact with women. Marriage was looked upon as a necessary evil. Celibacy came to be regarded as a virtue. Woman was a hindrance to spiritual progress so, at least the priest, whose sole concern was the soul, had to remain unmarried.

Such ideas have been in vogue for centuries and, until recently, were to be found in all parts of the world. The Quran completely changed man's attitude towards woman. It placed the relation between man and woman on a basis of equality, exalting neither over the other.

The Quran does not say that man was created first and so has precedence over woman. It tells us that for every one, life originated from a mono-cell. The distinction between male and female came at a later stage, and when it appeared, both of them were very much there :

God created you from a single life-cell and from it created its mate (for man a woman and for woman a man) and from them twain, has spread abroad a multitude of men and women (4:1)

Thus, in the matter of creation, neither had any preferential treatment; nor was woman responsible for man’s first act of disobedience and his consequent expulsion from paradise. Both are said to have been led astray by Satan (2 : 36). According to the Quranic view, man and woman are equally capable of following the right path and equally liable to fall into destructive ways. Of course, they are not absolutely the same: in some things men are superior while in others women surpass them. It is a necessary consequence of the fact that their roles in life are complementary to each other. They are equal in worth, although different in particular qualities?

By - Religion Islam