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Woman's Cause
Shaykh Saud Ash Shuraim [(Rabee'uth Thaanee 22, 1425 (June 11, 2004)]
All praise is due to Allaah, Lord of all
the worlds. Peace and blessings be upon the Messenger, his household and
companions.
Fellow Muslims! Allaah has made man and woman the foundation of mankind. No one
can live without the other. If not, there would not have been procreation. That
is why Allaah reminds us of this blessings when He says,
“It is He Who has created you from a single person
(Adam), and (then) He has created from him his wife (Hawwâ' (Eve)) in order that
he might enjoy the pleasure of living with her.”
(Al-A‘raaf 7:189)
Woman is undoubtedly, the source of stability for man and the family, not to
talk of her being the half of the society. It is she that also gives birth to
the other half. It is as if she is the entire society.
Dear brethren! The cause of woman is an all-important topic that is inevitable
for the contemporary Muslim society. It is at the same time, a very delicate
topic that is prone to errors, desires, strong environmental impacts and
objective differences.
It is actually unfair to discuss woman and all matters relating to her in this
short khutbah. But it is better than not saying anything at all about her.
We are saying this at a time that the woman issue has become the sole
preoccupation of many especially in this time that the Ummah is facing kinds of
injustices, oppression, poverty, ideological perversion and suppression from the
enemies. Yet no tangible solution to this myriad of problems is seen in sight.
We are hereby calling on all those who are talking about woman’s cause to take
the following
factors into consideration in order to avoid going astray and innovating what
Allaah has not permitted and what none of our righteous successors had not done.
One: It should be firmly borne in mind that the only source of determining the
identity of both and female and deciding things they share in common and things
in which they differ and the responsibilities of each of them is the Book of
Allaah and the Sunnah of His Messenger, and not men’s opinions and their
desires. It should also be remembered that contradicting anything from the
Qur’aan and the Sunnah is tantamount to challenging the One Who revealed Islaam.
Allaah says,
“Do they then seek the judgement of (the Days of)
Ignorance? And who is better in judgement than Allaah for a people who have firm
Faith.”
(Al-Maaidah 5:50)
Therefore, there should be no way for a vicious twisting of Islaamic criteria
and giving them other names, like calling woman’s modesty, bashfulness and
covering an obsolete and unjustifiable tradition by which woman is repressed.
Two: All sincere and true followers of the religion of Islaam should stop those
writers whose only intention is to attack the values of this Ummah or turn them
into an object of derision at the hand of lust worshippers or those who hate
what Allaah revealed. Those who use their pens and tongues to drown the ship of
this Ummah and deceive the Muslims into believing that the only way to
scientific, industrial and cultural progress lies in adopting Western experiment
on women. The fact of the matter is that the no-Muslim countries who clamour for
the so-called liberation of Muslim women and those who mimic them among other
nations have, in reality, very little to show for what they clamour for.
Realities in their own countries are a stark contradiction of the huge noise
they make about the Muslim world. The highest achievement they achieved in their
own countries regarding women liberation did not exceed electing few women into
parliaments or appointing one or two as ministers, while deceiving the
simple-minded people into a belief that the woman has achieved a lot in their
own societies.
More surprising is the fact that, in the constitutions of some of these
so-called developed countries, woman is forbidden from being head of state. What
moral right do these countries then have to call for women liberation?
This should not however be surprising, for it seems that these infidel countries
understood the following Prophetic statement more than the so-called Muslim
advocates of women liberation. The Prophet said, “Any nation that appoints a
woman as its leader will not succeed.” (Al-Bukhaaree)
In a version reported by Ahmad, the Messenger of Allaah said, “The men are
ruined whenever they follow the women.”
Dear brethren! What the reality shows is that the greatest achievement of those
countries in which women have been ‘liberated’ is that she has been turned into
a humiliated commodity in brothels or images in musical clips or mere bodies
displayed to advertise goods.
Three: Using the word ‘freedom’ or ‘liberation’ in every issue relating to women
have become an instrument in the hands of ignorant, deluded and evil-intentioned
people who seek to disintegrate the Muslims’ social cohesion. It has actually
becomes a door through which the enemy throws his time bomb, because to the term
‘freedom’ has a magical way of deluding the masses especially the teenagers. The
strangest thing is the three phases that the advocates of so-called women
liberation want to use to liberate the woman from her self-enslavement through
adherence to the teachings of Islaam.
The first phase is exemplified by their assertion that they are responsible for
treating the problems that occur among the Muslims, and that no view would be
accepted if it contradicts their own way of reasoning. Their proof for this is
the wide intellectual and cultural difference that is between them and ordinary
citizens.
In the second phase, they claim that their write-ups and essays indicate their
sincerity to and sense of compassion for the Ummah, in that they are calling for
truth and knowledge. They assert that knowledge is a product of freedom and that
if there is no freedom from previous ideologies, the desired goal cannot be
achieved.
In the third phase, these self-styled intellectuals establish that that
everything should be subjected to free scientific research; and their word
‘everything’ exclude nothing, even our belief, teachings and our virtuous
heritage.
These phases undoubtedly seem attractive to simple-minded individuals. But the
sooner they know that they are like smoke released by the enemy to disguise
their invasion the better.
Four: There is no society that toyed with the issue of woman and her values and
cast doubt on the Islaamic regulations laid down for her protection and sought
to undermine those qualities with which she is distinguished from and qualities
with which man is distinguished from her except that the society incurred on
itself evils and woes and Allaah afflicted it with what it is trying to escape
from. The Messenger of Allaah was right when he said, “I have not left a fitnah
for the men of my Ummah greater than women.” (Al-Bukhaaree and Muslim)
He also said, “Beware of this worldly life and beware of women, for the first
fitnah faced by the children of Israel was in women.” (Muslim)
Brethren in faith! Let us recall the incidence of the famous Dhee Qaar Battle,
which is one of the fiercest battles of pre-Islamic period. This battle was
initiated because of a woman whom Chosroe wanted to marry and Nu‘maan refused to
let him marry her. Another example was the Jewish conspiracy to remove hijaab
from the head of a Muslim woman in the market of Banoo Qaynuqaa during the time
of Allaah’s Messenger.
Five: The Islaamic religion will never accept extremism in matters relating to
woman. Never will Islaam condone the woman being humiliated or relegated to the
margins of life. Neither will it accept her being led to moral degeneration.
Both paths are extreme. The Ummah should not tolerate the pessimistic bigots nor
should it give a chance to those who toy with religious values.
The Muslim Ummah is not a nation that suppresses woman and deny her her rights,
though some bigots may support their negative attitude to women with spurious
hadeeths like, “Obeying a woman brings about a regret.” On the other hand, it
should not allow those who seek to lure woman out of her nature through deceit
and lies. These elements also support their deviated ideology with fake
narrations like, “Take your religion from this humayraa [meaning: ‘Aaishah].”
The proper thing is to maintain a moderate stand, which is just and fair.
Whatever has a proof from the Qur’aan and the Sunnah is the truth even if it
followed by a single person, and whatever contradicts them is falsehood even if
it followed by the vast majority.
It is also a big error to claim that conciliation could made between those who
call woman to observe the proper Islaamic covering and those who call her to
abandon the hijaab, to shamelessly expose herself and to do away with modesty.
Allaah says about those who try to reconcile between these two groups,
“(They are) swaying between this and that, belonging
neither to these nor to those; and he whom Allaah sends astray, you will not
find for him a way (to the truth - Islaam).”
(An-Nisaa 4:143)
Fellow Muslims! Fear Allaah and beware of innovations for every innovation is
heresy and every heresy is misguidance. Allaah says,
“O you who believe! Ward off from yourselves and your
families a Fire (Hell) whose fuel is men and stones, over which are (appointed)
angels stern (and) severe, who disobey not, (from executing) the Commands they
receive from Allaah, but do that which they are commanded.”
(At-Tahreem 66:6)
Brethren in Islaam! The sixth factor is specially related to woman. Her job in
this life and in the society is not based on enslaving her or exploiting her
body. The woman rather has rights in the society and family. She has right to
attend mosques, she has right to eliminate illiteracy, she has right to give and
receive admonition and in receiving and imparting knowledge and education. She
has right to enjoin virtues and forbid vices. She has right to improve herself
whenever she has a job that is suitable for her naturally and religiously like
in the fields of useful knowledge and righteous deeds. For the Ummah is in dire
need of female Muslim teachers, Muslim female nurses and doctors and Muslim
female writers. The woman herself needs to fill her head with knowledge and
righteous sciences and not to strip her head and her body naked and to regard
her religion with displeasure.
The job of the woman in the society shall remain critical and delicate, and no
negligence or bitter experiment shall be tolerated on her. The entire society is
also required to maintain honours and not to toy with them. The successful
nation is the one capable of striking a balance between these noble goals for
woman and the society’s needs. It does not put in a guilty cage nor does it
leave her free to become prey to sins and immoralities.
The final factor, dear brethren, is that, it has to be made clear that a call
for equality between male and female in all aspects of life is like a call for
impossibility. The true Muslim believes that Allaah created both man and woman
and created for each, peculiar qualities. He only made man excelled over woman
with a degree. He says,
“And they (women) have rights (over their husbands as
regards living expenses) similar (to those of their husbands) over them (as
regards obedience and respect) to what is reasonable, but men have a degree (of
responsibility) over them. And Allaah is All-Mighty, All-Wise.”
(Al-Baqarah 2:228)
Allaah distinguished man with prophethood, political leadership, administration
of the law, leadership in prayer, fighting in the way of Allaah, marrying
without a guardian, power of divorce, having double of what woman has in some
cases of inheritance, the fact that the child carries man’s name, permission to
marry up to four wives and the fact that his testimony equals that of two women.
Imaam Ahmad reported that Umm Salamah asked the Messenger of Allaah, “O Allaah’s
Messenger, why do men engage in jihad and we [women] do not? Why are we
apportioned the half of [of a male’s share] in inheritance?” Thereupon, Allaah
revealed the verse:
“And wish not for the things in which Allaah has made
some of you to excel others. For men there is reward for what they have earned,
(and likewise) for women there is reward for what they have earned, and ask
Allaah of His Bounty. Surely, Allaah is Ever All-Knower of everything.”
(An-Nisaa 4:32)
Al-Qurtubee said, “Man’s virtue over woman is clear for every wise person. Had
there been no evidence for this besides a fact that she is created from man and
that he is her origin and she is prevented from undertaking anything without his
permission that would have been enough.”
Dear brethren! The excellence of man does not, however, mean looking down upon
woman and discriminating against her. Nor does this mean that every man is
better every woman. It is an established principle that declaring a thing as
better than another does not mean degrading the latter. The Qur’aan is entirely
the word of Allaah, yet the Messenger of Allaah said that ‘Aayah al-Kursiyy’ is
the best verse in the Qur’aan, as reported by Muslim.
Also the Messengers and Prophets also excelled one another. Allaah says,
“We have preferred some of the Prophets above others.”
(Al-Israa 17:55)
This verse does not however mean that the status of the Messengers and the
Prophets above whom others are preferred.
Fellow Muslims! Having mentioned evidences on men’s excellences over women, we
are also asserting, in the light of the evidences of the Qur’aan and the Sunnah,
that women are halves of men. They are equal to men in matters of belief and
morals. They are equal to them in their entitlement to reward and punishment.
We are also asserting the falsehood and injustice of a statement being a male
augments one’s scale of good deeds and that being a female decreases one’s scale
of good deeds. This statement vividly contradicts the saying of Allaah,
“Verily, the most honourable of you with Allaah is most
pious. Verily, Allaah is All-Knowing, All-Aware.”
(Al-Hujuraat 49:13)
Real life experiences have shown that woman can be better than many men as in
the case of the mothers of the faithful and those who were after them. Being a
male or female is not a criterion for weighing deeds on the Day of Resurrection.
As femininity is not an imperfection for the sun so does masculinity is not a
source of pride for the moon. And as the saying goes, a lioness in her jungle is
better and stronger than a cock among the fowl.
Therefore, the fundamental rule in this matter lies in Allaah’s word that goes
says,
“Men are the protectors and maintainers of women,
because Allaah has made one of them to excel the other, and because they spend
(to support them) from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly
obedient (to Allaah and to their husbands), and guard in the husband's absence
what Allaah orders them to guard (e.g. their chastity, their husband's
property).”
(An-Nisaa 4:34)
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