On Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Sexism.
Part 3/?
Islam, On Sexism, Hatred of the Female, Rape, and The complete subjugation of women in Arab society.
Table of Contents:
-Women and Islam Intro
- Adam and Eve
- An Inferior Being
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - -
Segment from the book "Why I am not a Muslim", by Ibn Warraq pg. 290-294.
Women and Islam Introduction
Richard Burton 567 in his "Terminal Essay" defending Islam against Western criticism argued that "the legal status of womankind in al-Islam is exceptionally high" and that the "Moslem wife has greatly the advantage over her christian sisterhood." He also goes on to claim that Islam is sex-positive: "Moslems study the art and mystery of satisfying the physical woman." His evidence for the claim was the abundance of pornographic literature with titles like the Book of Carnal Copulation and the Initiation into the Modes of Coition and Its Instrumentation. Burton must have been aware that these works were written by men for men, though the significance of this fact seems to escape him. One of the books cited by Burton¡ª The Book of Exposition in the Art of Coition¡ªbegins "Alhamdolilillah Laud to the lord who adorned the virginal bosom with breasts and who made the thighs of women anvils for the spear handles of men." In other words women were created by God for man's pleasure¡ªas his sex object, in modem parlance.
In fact, a much more famous work, Shaykh Nefzawi's The Perfumed Garden,568 a sixteenth-century treatise that Burton himself was to translate from the French, is very revealing of Islamic attitudes toward women and their sexuality. Women's sexuality is never denied but seen as a source of danger: Do you know that women's religion is in their vaginas? asks the Shaykh. They are insatiable as far as their vulvas are concerned, and so long as their lust is satisfied they do not care whether it be a buffoon, a negro, a valet, or even a despised man. It is Satan who makes the juices flow from their vaginas. The Shaykh quotes Abu Nuwas with approval:
Women are demons and were bom as such
No one can trust them as is known to all
If they love a man it is only out of caprice
And he to whom they are most cruel loves them most
Beings full of treachery and trickery, I aver
That man that loves you truly is a lost man
He who believes me not can prove my word
By letting woman's love get hold of him for years
If in your own generous mood you have given them
Your all and everything for years and years,
They will say afterwards, "I swear by God! my eyes
Have never seen a thing he gave me!"
After you have impoverished yourself for their sake
Their cry from day to day will be for ever "Give":
"Give man, get up and buy and borrow"
If they cannot profit by you they'll turn against you
They will tell lies about you and calumniate you
They do not recoil to use a slave in the master's absence
If once their passions are aroused and they play tricks
Assuredly if once their vulva is in rut
They only think of getting in some member in erection
Preserve us, God! from women's trickery
And of old women in particular. So be it.
Here we have a complete inventory of a woman's faults as seen by Muslim men¡ª deceit, guile, ingratitude, greed, insatiable lust, in short, a gateway to hell. In contrast to his dithyramb on the position of women in Islam in the "Terminal Essay," in his Introduction to his translation of the Perfumed Garden a year later, Burton finally concedes "the contempt which the Mussulman in reality feels for woman."
Bullough, Bousquet, and Bouhdiba also regard Islam as a sex-positive religion in contrast to Christianity, which "made something unclean out of sexuality," to use Nietzsche's phrase. But in the last page and a half of his survey Bullough suddenly feels obliged to qualify his remarks by admitting that Islam "at the same time relegated women to the status of inferior beings." Though he still thinks Lane-Poole's judgment, that "the fatal blot in Islam is the degradation of women," is "exaggerated."
Similarly, Bousquet compares Islam to Christianity: "Islam is clearly and openly favorable to the pleasures of the flesh as such, without any secondary consideration. Christianity is clearly hostile to them." But he also has to admit, "the greatly inferior position imposed on the woman by Islamic law, in particular from the sexual point of view."5 6 9
Only Bouhdiba, while rejoicing in Islam's superiority on matters sexual, seems unable to find any evidence, at least in the Koran, of any misogyny and glides blithely on with his sexual, Islamic fantasies of the "infinite orgasm" and "the perpetual erection."
To see Islam as sex-positive is to insult all Muslim women, for sex is seen entirely from the male point of view; a woman's sexuality, as we shall see, is either denied or, as in The Perfumed Garden, seen as something unholy, something to be feared, repressed, a work of the devil. But still as Slimane Zeghidour put it, sexuality occupies as fundamental a place in Islamic doctrine as it does in psychoanalytical theory. I hope to show that in its obsession with cleanliness, Islam reveals a disgust with the sexual act and the sexual parts that is pathological and always the same contempt for women.
According to the Dictionary of Islam,570 "although the condition of women under Muslim law is most unsatisfactory, it must be admitted that Muhammad effected a vast and marked improvement in the condition of the female population of Arabia." Bousquet concurs; the reforms effected in favor of women make Muhammad seem "a champion of feminism" in that particular historical context. Two reforms often quoted are the prohibition against burying female children alive and the establishment of rights of inheritance of women ("whereas," adds Burton, "in England a 'Married Woman's Property Act' was completed only in 1882 after many centuries of the grossest abuse").
But as Ahmed al-Ali shows in Organisations Sociales chez les Bedouins, the practice of burying unwanted female children probably had a religious origin and was extremely rare. Muslim writers have simply exaggerated its frequency to highlight the supposed superiority of Islam. As far as inheritance is concerned, a woman has half the share of a man and as we shall see later, she by no means, pace Burton, has complete power over the disposal of her own property. Muhammad, in this as in so many other matters, simply did not go far enough; Muhammad's ideas of women were like those of his contemporaries¡ªwomen were charming, capricious playthings, liable to lead one astray.
According to the scholar Schacht, women under Islam were in many ways worse off: "The Quran in a particular situation had encouraged polygamy and this from being an exception, now became one of the essential features of the Islamic law of marriage. It led to a definite deterioration in the position of married women in society, compared with that which they had enjoyed in Pre-Islamic Arabia and this was only emphasized by the fact that many perfectly respectable sexual relationships of Pre-Islamic Arabia had been outlawed by Islam."571 Bedouin women working alongside their husbands enjoyed considerable personal freedom and independence. Leading a nonsedentary life, tending cattle, she was neither cloistered nor veiled, but active; her contributions to the community much appreciated and respected. Segregation was totally impractical. If ill-treated by their husbands many simply ran away to a neighboring tribe. Despite Islam¡ª rather than thanks to Islam even in the nineteenth century, "Amongst the Bedouins their armies are led by a maiden of good family, who, mounted amid the fore ranks on a camel shames the timid and excites the brave by satirical or encomiastic recitations."572
The tenth-century Arab Historian, al-Tabari's account of Hind bint Otba, the wife of Abu Sufyan, the head of one of the aristocratic families of Mecca, gives a vivid picture of the independence of aristocratic women before Islam. Women swore allegiance as much as men, took part in negotiations with the new military chief of the city¡ªthat is, Muhammad himself¡ªand were often frankly hostile to the new religion. When Muhammad arrived at Mecca in A.D. 630 with 10,000 men, a rather overawed Abu Sufyan finally led out a deputation to make a formal submission and swear allegiance. The women led by Hind gave theirs only very reluctantly. Hind reproached Muhammad for having imposed obligations on women that he had not imposed on men. When the Prophet enjoined them never to kill their children, Hind retorted that this was rather fine coming from a military leader who had spilled so much blood at the battle of Badr when seventy men had been killed and many prisoners later executed on Muhammad's own orders.
Modern reformist Muslim intellectuals¡ªmale or female¡ªwhen confronted by the apparent backwardness of the position of women (a situation which has remained stagnant for centuries), have tended to invent a mythological golden age at the dawn of Islam when women putatively enjoyed equal rights. For example, even Nawal el Saadawi,5 7 3 the Egyptian feminist who has done more than anyone else to speak positively of Muslim women's right to express their sexuality, writes of "the regression of the Arab woman in Islamic philosophy and culture in contrast to her situation at the time of Muhammad or in the Spirit (or essence) of Islam." Similarly the Algerian Rachid Mimouni5 7 4 says, "It is clear that it is not the religion of Allah (which is at fault) but its interpretation. . . . Fundamentalism is an imposture. It discredits the message of Mohammad." The thought is that it is not Islam that is to blame for the degrading of women. Of course to talk of "the essence of Islam" is simply to perpetuate the malignant influence of religious authority and to perpetuate a myth. These same Muslim thinkers, when faced by the textual evidence of the inherent misogyny of Islam, are confused and anguished. Refusing to look reality in the face, they feel obliged to interpret these sacred texts, to apologize, to minimize their manifest hostility to women¡ªin short, to exonerate Islam. Others try to argue that these traditions were perpetuated by dubious Muslims whose motives were suspect.
Yet to do battle with the orthodox, the fanatics, and the mullas in the interpretation of these texts is to do battle on their (the fanatics') terms, on their ground. Every text that you produce they will adduce a dozen others contradicting yours. The reformists cannot win on these terms¡ªwhatever mental gymnastics the reformists perform, they cannot escape the fact that Islam is deeply antifeminist.
Islam is the fundamental cause of the repression of Muslim women and remains the major obstacle to the evolution of their position.515 Islam has always considered women as creatures inferior in every way: physically, intellectually, and morally. This negative vision is divinely sanctioned in the Koran, corroborated by the hadiths and perpetuated by the commentaries of the theologians, the custodians of Muslim dogma and ignorance.
Far better for these intellectuals to abandon the religious argument, to reject these sacred texts, and have recourse to reason alone. They should turn instead to human rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted on December 10, 1948, by the General Assembly of the United Nations in Paris and ratified by most Muslim countries) at no point has recourse to a religious argument. These rights are based on natural rights, which any adult human being capable of choice has. They are rights that human beings have simply because they are human beings. Human reason or rationality is the ultimate arbiter of rights¡ªhuman rights, the rights of women.
Unfortunately, in practice, in Muslim countries one cannot simply leave the theologians with their narrow, bigoted world view to themselves. One cannot ignore the ulama, those learned doctors of Muslim law who by their fatwas or decisions in questions touching private or public matters of importance regulate the life of the Muslim community. They still exercise considerable powers of approving or forbidding certain actions. Why the continuing influence of the mullas?
The Koran remains for all Muslims, not just "fundamentalists," the uncreated word of God Himself. It is valid for all times and places; its ideas are absolutely true and beyond all criticism. To question it is to question the very word of God, and hence blasphemous. A Muslim's duty is to believe it and obey its divine commands.
Several other factors contribute to the continuing influence of the ulama. Any religion that requires total obedience without thought is not likely to produce people capable of critical thought, people capable of free and independent thought. Such a situation is favorable to the development of a powerful "clergy" and is clearly responsible for the intellectual, cultural, and economic stagnation of several centuries. Illiteracy remains high in Muslim countries. Historically, as there never was any separation of state and religion, any criticism of one was seen as a criticism of the other. Inevitably, when many Muslim countries won independence after the Second World War, Islam was unfortunately linked with nationalism, which meant that any criticism of Islam was seen as a betrayal of the newly independent country¡ªan unpatriotic act, an encouragement to colonialism and imperialism.
No Muslim country has developed a stable democracy; Muslims are being subjected to every kind of repression possible. Under these conditions healthy criticism of society is not possible, because critical thought and liberty go together.
The above factors explain why Islam in general and the position of women in particular are never criticized, discussed, or subjected to deep scientific or skeptical analysis. All innovations are discouraged in Islam¡ªevery problem is seen as a religious problem rather than a social or economic one.
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Segment from the book "Why I am not a Muslim", by Ibn Warraq pg. 294-301.
Adam and Eve,
¡¡
Islam took the legend of Adam and Eve from the Old Testament and adapted it in its own fashion. The creation of mankind from one person is mentioned in the following suras:
-4.1. O Mankind! Be careful of your duty to your Lord who created you from a single soul and from it created its mate and from them twain hath spread abroad a multiple of men and women
-39.6. He created you from one being, then from that (being) He made its mate.
-7.189. He it is who did create you from a single soul and therefrom did make his mate that he might take rest in her.
From these slender sources Muslim theologians have concluded that man was the original creation¡ªwomankind was created secondarily for the pleasure and repose of man. The legend was further developed to reinforce the supposed inferiority of women. Finally, the legend was given a sacred character so that to criticize it was to criticize the very words of God, which were immutable and absolute. Here is how Muhammad describes women in general: "Be friendly to women for womankind was created from a rib, but the bent part of the rib, high up, if you try to straighten it you will break it; if you do nothing, she will continue to be bent."
The story of Adam and Eve is further elaborated in:
-2.35-36. And We said: O Adam! Dwell thou and thy wife in the Garden, and eat ye freely (of the fruits) thereof where ye will; but come not nigh this tree lest ye become wrongdoers.
But Satan caused them to deflect therefrom and expelled them from the (happy) state in which they were; and We said: Fall down, one of you a foe unto the other! There shall be for you on earth a habitation and provision for a time.
-7.19-20. And (unto man): O Adam! Dwell thou and thy wife in the Garden and eat from whence ye will, but come not nigh this tree test ye become wrongdoers. Then Satan whispered to them that he might manifest unto them that which was hidden from of their shame and he said: Your Lord forbade you from this tree only lest ye should become angels or become of the immortals.
-20.120-121, But the Devil whispered to him saying: O Adam! Shall I show thee the tree of immortality and power that wasteth not away?
Then they twain ate thereof, so that their shame became apparent unto them, and they began to hide by heaping on themselves some of the leaves of the Garden. And Adam disobeyed his Lord, so went astray.
God punishes Adam and Eve for disobeying his orders. But there is nothing in these verses to show that it was Eve (as in the Old Testament) who led Adam astray. And yet Muslim exegetists and jurists have created the myth of Eve the temptress that has since become an integral part of Muslim tradition. Muhammad himself is reputed to have said: "If it had not been for Eve, no woman would have been unfaithful to her husband."
The Islamic tradition also attributes guile and deceit to women and draws its support from the following text in the Koran:
-12.22-34. [Joseph has been installed in the house of the man who bought him.] Now the woman in whose house he was solicited him, and closed the doors on them. "Come," she said, "take me!" "God be my refuge," he said. "Surely my lord has given me a goodly lodging. Surely the evildoers do not prosper." For she desired him; and he would have taken her but that he saw the proof of his Lord. So was it, that We might turn away from him evil and abomination; he was one of Our devoted servants. They raced to the door; and she tore his shirt from behind. They encountered her master by the door. She said, "What is the recompense of him who purposes evil against thy folk, but that he should be imprisoned or a painful chastisement?" Said he, "It was she that solicited me"; and a witness of her folk bore witness, "If his shirt has been torn from before then she has spoken truly, and he is one of the liars; but if his shirt has been torn from behind, then she has lied, and he is one of the truthful."
When he saw his shirt was torn from behind he said, "This is of your women's guile; surely your guile is great. Joseph, turn away from this and thou woman, ask forgiveness of thy crime; surely thou art one of the sinners." Certain women that were in the city said, "The Governor's wife has been soliciting her page; he smote her heart with love; we see her in manifest error." When she heard their sly whispers, she sent to them, and made ready for them a repast, then she gave to each one of them a knife. "Come forth, attend to them," she said. And when they saw him, they so admired him that they cut their hands, saying, "God save us! This is no mortal; he is no other but a noble angel." "So now you see," she said. "This is he you blamed me for. Yes, I solicited him, but he abstained. Yet if he will not do what I command him, he shall be imprisoned, and be one of the humbled." He said, "My Lord, prison is dearer to me than that they call me to; yet if Thou turnest not from me their guile, then I shall yearn toward them, and so become one of the ignorant." So his Lord answered him, and He turned away from him their guile; surely He is the All-hearing, and the All-knowing.
Modern Muslim commentators interpret these verses to show that guile, deceit, and treachery are intrinsic to a woman's nature. Not only is she unwilling to change, she is by nature incapable of changing¡ªshe has no choice.577 In attacking the female deities of the polytheists, the Koran takes the opportunity to malign the female sex further.
4.117. They invoke in His stead only females; they pray to none else than Satan, a rebel.
43.15-19. And they allot to Him a portion of his bondmen! Lo! man is verily a mere ingrate.
Or chooseth He daughters of all that He hath created, and honoureth He you with sons?
And if one of them hath tidings of that which he likeneth to the Beneficent One (i.e., tidings of the birth of a girl-child), his countenance becometh black and he is full of inward rage.
(Liken they then to Allah) that which is bred up in outward show, and in dispute cannot make itself plain?
And they make the angels, who are the slaves of the Beneficent, females. Did they witness their creation? Their testimony will be recorded and they will be questioned.
52.39. Or hath He daughters whereas ye have sons?
37.149-50. Now ask them (O Muhammad): Hath thy Lord daughters whereas they have sons?
Or created We the angels females while they were present?
53.21-22. Are yours the males and His the females That indeed were an unfair division!
53.27. Lo! it is those who disbelieve in the Hereafter who name the angels with the names of females.
If Mr. Bouhdiba is not convinced by these, here are some more verses from the Koran that seem to us of a misogynist tendency:
-2.178 O ye who believe! Retaliation is prescribed for you in the matter of the murdered; the freeman for the freeman, and the slave for the slave, and the female for the female.
-2.228. Women who are divorced shall wait, keeping themselves apart, three (monthly) courses. And it is not lawful for them that they should conceal that which Allah hath created in their wombs if they are believers in Allah and the Last Day. And their husbands would do better to take them back in that case if they desire a reconciliation. And they (women) have rights similar to those (of men) over them in kindness, and men are a degree above them. Allah is Mighty, Wise.
-2.282 But if he who oweth the debt is of low understanding, or weak or unable himself to dictate, then let the guardian of his interests dictate in (terms of) equity. And call to witness, from among your men, two witnesses. And if two men be not (at hand) then a man and two women, of such as ye approve as witnesses, so that if the one erreth (through forgetfulness) the other will remember.
-4.3. And if ye fear that ye will not deal fairly by the orphans, marry of the women, who seem good to you, two or three or four; and if ye fear that ye cannot do justice (to so many) then one (only) or the (captives) that your right hand possesses. Thus it is more likely that ye will not do injustice.
- 4.11. Allah chargeth you concerning (the provision for) your children: to the male the equivalent of the portion of two females.
- 4.34. Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart; and scourge (beat) them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them Lo! Allah is ever High Exalted, Great.
- 4.43. O ye who believe! Draw not near unto prayer when ye are drunken, till ye know that which ye utter, nor when ye are polluted, save when journeying on the road, till ye have bathed. And if ye be ill, or on a journey, or one of you cometh from the closet, or ye have touched women, and ye find not water, then go to high clean soil and rub your faces and your hands. Lo! Allah is Benign, Forgiving.
- 5.6. And if ye are sick on a journey, or one of you cometh from the closet, or ye have contact with women and ye find not water, then go to clean high ground and rub your faces and your hands with some of it.
- 33.32 33. O ye wives of the Prophet! Ye are not like any other women. If ye keep your duty (to Allah), then be not soft of speech lest he in whose heart is a disease aspire to you, but utter customary speech.
And stay in your houses. Bedizen not yourselves with the bedizenment of the time of ignorance. Be regular in prayer, and pay the poor due, and obey Allah and His Messenger.
33.53. And when ye ask of them (the wives of the Prophet) anything ask it of them from behind a curtain. That is purer for your hearts and for their hearts.
33.59. O Prophet! Tell thy wives and thy daughters and the women of the believers to draw their cloaks close round when they go abroad. That will be better, that so they may be recognized and not annoyed.
Equally, in numerous hadiths on which are based the Islamic laws we learn of the woman's role¡ªto stay at home, to be at the beck and call of man, to obey him (which is a religious duty), and to assure man a tranquil existence. Here are some examples of these traditions:
¡ªIf it had been given me to order someone to prostrate themselves in front of someone other than God, I would surely have ordered women to prostrate themselves in front of their husbands. . . . A woman cannot fulfill her duties toward God without first having accomplished those that she owes her husband.
¡ªThe woman who dies and with whom the husband is satisfied will go to paradise.
¡ªA wife should never refuse herself to her husband even if it is on the saddle of a camel.
¡ªHellfire appeared to me in a dream and I noticed that it was above all peopled with women who had been ungrateful. "Was it toward God that Women and Islam 299
they were ungrateful?" They had not shown any gratitude toward their husbands for all they had received from them. Even when all your life you have showered a woman with your largesse she will still find something petty to reproach you with one day, saying, "You have never done anything for me."
¡ªIf anything presages a bad omen it is: a house, a woman, a horse.
¡ªNever will a people know success if they confide their affairs to a woman. Islamic culture and civilization is profoundly antifeminist, as the following sayings from various caliphs, ministers, philosophers, and theologians through the ages reveal:
Omar the second caliph (581-644) said: "Prevent the women from learning to write! say no to their capricious ways."
On another occasion he said, "Adopt positions opposite those of women. There is great merit in such opposition." And again, "Impose nudity on women because clothes are one reason for leaving the house, to attend marriages and to appear in public for ceremonies and parties. When a woman goes out frequently she risks meeting another man and finding him attractive even if he is less attractive than her husband; for she is attracted and distracted by anything she does not possess".
The antifeminist sayings of A l i (600-661), the Prophet's cousin and the fourth caliph, are famous:578
"The entire woman is an evil and what is worse is that it is a necessary evil!"
"You should never ask a woman her advice because her advice is worthless. Hide them so that they cannot see other men! . . . Do not spend too much time in their company for they will lead you to your downfall!"
"Men, never ever obey your women. Never let them advise you on any matter concerning your daily life. If you let them advise you they will squander all your possessions and disobey all your orders and desires. When alone they forget religion and think only of themselves; and as soon as it concerns their carnal desires they are without pity or virtue. It is easy to get pleasure from them but they give you big headaches too. Even the most virtuous among them is of easy virtue. And the most corrupt are whores! Old age does not spare them of their vices. They have three qualities worthy of an unbeliever: they complain of being oppressed when in fact it is they who oppress; they take solemn oaths and at the same time lie; they make a show of refusing the advances of men when in fact they long for them ardently. Let us implore God's help to escape their sorcery."
And finally to a man teaching a woman to write: "Do not add evil to unhappiness."
It will be appropriate to end this introduction with two quotes from the famous and much revered philosopher al-Ghazali (1058-1111), whom Professor Montgomery Watt describes as the greatest Muslim after Muhammad. In his "The Revival Of The Religious Sciences," Ghazali defines the woman's role:5 7 9
She should stay at home and get on with her spinning, she should not go out often, she must not be well-informed, nor must she be communicative with her neighbours and only visit them when absolutely necessary; she should take care of her husband and respect him in his presence and his absence and seek to satisfy him in everything; she must not cheat on him nor extort money from him; she must not leave her house without his permission and if given his permission she must leave surreptitiously. She should put on old clothes and take deserted streets and alleys, avoid markets, and make sure that a stranger does not hear her voice or recognize her; she must not speak to a friend of her husband even in need. . . . Her sole worry should be her virtue, her home as well as her prayers and her fast. If a friend of her husband calls when the latter is absent she must not open the door nor reply to him in order to safeguard her and her husband's honour. She should accept what her husband gives her as sufficient sexual needs at any moment. . . . She should be clean and ready to satisfy her husband's sexual needs at any moment.
The great theologian then warns all men to be careful of women for their "guile is immense and their mischief is noxious; they are immoral and mean spirited." "It is a fact that all the trials, misfortunes and woes which befall men come from women," moaned al-Ghazali.
In his Book of Counsel for Kings, al-Ghazali sums up all that a woman has to suffer and endure because of Eve's misbehavior in the Garden of Eden: As for the distinctive characteristics with which God on high has punished women, (the matter is as follows): "When Eve ate fruit which He had forbidden to her from the tree in Paradise, the Lord, be He praised, punished women with eighteen things: (1) menstruation; (2) childbirth; (3) separation from mother and father and marriage to a stranger; (4) pregnancy; (5) not having control over her own person; (6) a lesser share in inheritance; (7) her liability to be divorced and inability to divorce; (8) its being lawful for men to have four wives, but for a woman to have only one husband; (9) the fact that she must stay secluded in the house; (10) the fact that she must keep her head covered inside the house; (11) the fact that two women's testimony has to be set against the testimony of one man; (12) the fact that she must not go out of the house unless accompanied by a near relative; (13) the fact that men take part in Friday and feast day prayers and funerals while women do not; (14) disqualification for rulership and judgeship; (15) the fact that merit has one thousand components, only one of which is attributable to women, while 999 are attributable to men; (16) the fact that if women are profligate they will be given [only] half as much tornment as the rest of the community at the Resurrection Day;
[This does not seem like a punishment! An error of translation?] (17) the fact that if their husbands die they must observe a waiting period of four months and ten days before remarrying; 18) the fact that if their husbands divorce them they must observe a waiting period of three months or three menstrual periods before remarrying.580
Such are some of the sayings from the putative golden age of Islamic feminism. It was claimed that it was the abandonment of the original teachings of Islam that had led to the present decadence and backwardness of Muslim societies. But there never was an Islamic Utopia. To talk of a golden age is only to confirm and perpetuate the influence of the clergy, the mullas, and their hateful creed that denies humanity to half the inhabitants of this globe, and further retards all serious attempts to liberate Muslim women, I shall now examine in detail all the different ways Islam has devised to subjugate all Muslim women.
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Segment from the book. "Why I am not a Muslim", by Ibn Warraq. pg. 301- 302.
An Inferior Being
Muhammad is reported to have told his men to treat kindly those two weaklings "women and slaves." In general Islam treats women as intellectually, morally, and physically inferior. First comes man, then comes the hermaphrodite (who in Islam has a distinct legal status), and last the woman. Conservative Muslim thinkers have even revived discredited anthropological theories purporting to show that the cranial capacity of women is far smaller than that of a man. "Women have less reason and faith" goes one famous hadith. A woman is seen as being in a state of impurity during her menstruation, but this impurity is not limited to her period of menstruation. It is reported that Muhammad had never touched a woman who did not belong to him. When the women who gave him their allegiance asked to shake him by the hand, he replied, "I never touch the hand of women." Further hadiths on this subject:581
¡ªBetter for a man to be splashed by a pig than for him to brush against the elbow of a woman not permitted him.
¡ªBetter to bury an iron needle in the head of one of you than to touch a woman not permitted him.
¡ªHe who touches the palm of a woman not legally his will have red-hot embers put in the palm of his hand on Judgment Day.
¡ªThree things can interrupt prayers if they pass in front of someone praying: a black dog, a woman, and an ass.
Liberal Muslims may wish to dismiss these hadiths as inauthentic but what will they say to the Koran which also says: "Draw not near unto prayer when ye are drunken, till ye know that which ye utter, nor when ye are polluted, save when journeying on the road, till ye have bathed. And if ye be ill, or on a journey, or one of you cometh from the closet, or ye have touched a woman, and ye find not water, then go to high clean soil and rub your faces and your hands" (sura 4.43; see also sura 5,6).
The theologians ultimately lean on the Koran to prove their point that women are inferior to men and in doing so, of course cut short any argument, for no one argues against the word of God. Thus they find divine sanction for their absurd pseudoscientific views. Here are the relevant verses:
3.36. And when she had given birth to it, she said, "O my Lord! Verily I have brought forth a female,"¡ªGod knew what she had brought forth; a male is not as a female¡ªand I have named her Mary, and I take refuge with thee for her and for her offspring, from Satan the stoned."
43.18. What! make they a being (i.e., a woman) to be the offspring of God who is brought up among trinkets, and is ever contentious without reason.
4.122. And whose word is more sure than God*s? Women are by nature inferior and can be compared to a bottle whose crack is irreparable. Muhammad used to say: "Handle the bottles (women) with care."
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Bibliography:
566. The influence of Ascha should be apparent on every single page of this chapter, even though I rarely quote him directly.
567. Burton, Richard. The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night. 17 vols. London, n.d.
Carlyle, T, Sartor Resartus: On Heroes and Hero Worship. London, 1973. vol x, p. 195.
568. Nefiawi, Shaykh. [1] The Glory of the Perfumed Garden. London, 1978.
. [2] The Perfumed Garden. London, 1963. (1), pp. 203-204.
569. Bousquet, G. H. [1] L'Ethique sexuelle de l'lslam. Paris, 1966. (1), p. 49.
570. Art. "Women," in DOI.
571. Schacht, Joseph The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence. Oxford, 1950. (4) in CHI, p. 545.
572. Art. Women in DOI.
573. Quoted in Ascha, Ghassan. Du Status inf¨¦rieur de la femme en Islam. Paris, 1989., p. 13.
574. Mimouni, Rachid. De la barbarie en g¨¦n¨¦ral et de I'int¨¦grisme en particulier. Paris,
1992., p. 156.
575. Ascha, Ghassan. Du Status inf¨¦rieur de la femme en Islam. Paris, 1989., , p. 11.
576. Ibid, pp. 23f.
577. Ibid, pp.29f.
578. Ibid, pp. 38f.
579. Ibid, p. 41.
580. Quoted in Tannahill, pp. 233-34.
581. Ascha, Ghassan. Du Status inf¨¦rieur de la femme en Islam. Paris, 1989, pp. 49f.
582. Bousquet, G. H. [1] L'Ethique sexuelle de l'lslam. Paris, 1966 (1), p. 118.
583. Ibid, p. 156.
584. Ascha, Ghassan. Du Status inf¨¦rieur de la femme en Islam. Paris, 1989, , p. 58.
585. Bouhdiba, Abdelwahab. La Sexualit¨¦ en Islam. Paris, 1975., pp. 217-18.
586. Burton, Richard. The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night. 17 vols. London, n.d., p. 279, vol v.
587. Quoted in Bouhdiba, Abdelwahab. La Sexualit¨¦ en Islam. Paris, 1975, pp. 95-96.
588. Bouhdiba, Abdelwahab. La Sexualit¨¦ en Islam. Paris, 1975, pp. 59-74.
589. Ascha, Ghassan. Du Status inf¨¦rieur de la femme en Islam. Paris, 1989, , pp. 63f.
.
Part 3/?
Islam, On Sexism, Hatred of the Female, Rape, and The complete subjugation of women in Arab society.
Table of Contents:
-Women and Islam Intro
- Adam and Eve
- An Inferior Being
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - -
Segment from the book "Why I am not a Muslim", by Ibn Warraq pg. 290-294.
Women and Islam Introduction
Richard Burton 567 in his "Terminal Essay" defending Islam against Western criticism argued that "the legal status of womankind in al-Islam is exceptionally high" and that the "Moslem wife has greatly the advantage over her christian sisterhood." He also goes on to claim that Islam is sex-positive: "Moslems study the art and mystery of satisfying the physical woman." His evidence for the claim was the abundance of pornographic literature with titles like the Book of Carnal Copulation and the Initiation into the Modes of Coition and Its Instrumentation. Burton must have been aware that these works were written by men for men, though the significance of this fact seems to escape him. One of the books cited by Burton¡ª The Book of Exposition in the Art of Coition¡ªbegins "Alhamdolilillah Laud to the lord who adorned the virginal bosom with breasts and who made the thighs of women anvils for the spear handles of men." In other words women were created by God for man's pleasure¡ªas his sex object, in modem parlance.
In fact, a much more famous work, Shaykh Nefzawi's The Perfumed Garden,568 a sixteenth-century treatise that Burton himself was to translate from the French, is very revealing of Islamic attitudes toward women and their sexuality. Women's sexuality is never denied but seen as a source of danger: Do you know that women's religion is in their vaginas? asks the Shaykh. They are insatiable as far as their vulvas are concerned, and so long as their lust is satisfied they do not care whether it be a buffoon, a negro, a valet, or even a despised man. It is Satan who makes the juices flow from their vaginas. The Shaykh quotes Abu Nuwas with approval:
Women are demons and were bom as such
No one can trust them as is known to all
If they love a man it is only out of caprice
And he to whom they are most cruel loves them most
Beings full of treachery and trickery, I aver
That man that loves you truly is a lost man
He who believes me not can prove my word
By letting woman's love get hold of him for years
If in your own generous mood you have given them
Your all and everything for years and years,
They will say afterwards, "I swear by God! my eyes
Have never seen a thing he gave me!"
After you have impoverished yourself for their sake
Their cry from day to day will be for ever "Give":
"Give man, get up and buy and borrow"
If they cannot profit by you they'll turn against you
They will tell lies about you and calumniate you
They do not recoil to use a slave in the master's absence
If once their passions are aroused and they play tricks
Assuredly if once their vulva is in rut
They only think of getting in some member in erection
Preserve us, God! from women's trickery
And of old women in particular. So be it.
Here we have a complete inventory of a woman's faults as seen by Muslim men¡ª deceit, guile, ingratitude, greed, insatiable lust, in short, a gateway to hell. In contrast to his dithyramb on the position of women in Islam in the "Terminal Essay," in his Introduction to his translation of the Perfumed Garden a year later, Burton finally concedes "the contempt which the Mussulman in reality feels for woman."
Bullough, Bousquet, and Bouhdiba also regard Islam as a sex-positive religion in contrast to Christianity, which "made something unclean out of sexuality," to use Nietzsche's phrase. But in the last page and a half of his survey Bullough suddenly feels obliged to qualify his remarks by admitting that Islam "at the same time relegated women to the status of inferior beings." Though he still thinks Lane-Poole's judgment, that "the fatal blot in Islam is the degradation of women," is "exaggerated."
Similarly, Bousquet compares Islam to Christianity: "Islam is clearly and openly favorable to the pleasures of the flesh as such, without any secondary consideration. Christianity is clearly hostile to them." But he also has to admit, "the greatly inferior position imposed on the woman by Islamic law, in particular from the sexual point of view."5 6 9
Only Bouhdiba, while rejoicing in Islam's superiority on matters sexual, seems unable to find any evidence, at least in the Koran, of any misogyny and glides blithely on with his sexual, Islamic fantasies of the "infinite orgasm" and "the perpetual erection."
To see Islam as sex-positive is to insult all Muslim women, for sex is seen entirely from the male point of view; a woman's sexuality, as we shall see, is either denied or, as in The Perfumed Garden, seen as something unholy, something to be feared, repressed, a work of the devil. But still as Slimane Zeghidour put it, sexuality occupies as fundamental a place in Islamic doctrine as it does in psychoanalytical theory. I hope to show that in its obsession with cleanliness, Islam reveals a disgust with the sexual act and the sexual parts that is pathological and always the same contempt for women.
According to the Dictionary of Islam,570 "although the condition of women under Muslim law is most unsatisfactory, it must be admitted that Muhammad effected a vast and marked improvement in the condition of the female population of Arabia." Bousquet concurs; the reforms effected in favor of women make Muhammad seem "a champion of feminism" in that particular historical context. Two reforms often quoted are the prohibition against burying female children alive and the establishment of rights of inheritance of women ("whereas," adds Burton, "in England a 'Married Woman's Property Act' was completed only in 1882 after many centuries of the grossest abuse").
But as Ahmed al-Ali shows in Organisations Sociales chez les Bedouins, the practice of burying unwanted female children probably had a religious origin and was extremely rare. Muslim writers have simply exaggerated its frequency to highlight the supposed superiority of Islam. As far as inheritance is concerned, a woman has half the share of a man and as we shall see later, she by no means, pace Burton, has complete power over the disposal of her own property. Muhammad, in this as in so many other matters, simply did not go far enough; Muhammad's ideas of women were like those of his contemporaries¡ªwomen were charming, capricious playthings, liable to lead one astray.
According to the scholar Schacht, women under Islam were in many ways worse off: "The Quran in a particular situation had encouraged polygamy and this from being an exception, now became one of the essential features of the Islamic law of marriage. It led to a definite deterioration in the position of married women in society, compared with that which they had enjoyed in Pre-Islamic Arabia and this was only emphasized by the fact that many perfectly respectable sexual relationships of Pre-Islamic Arabia had been outlawed by Islam."571 Bedouin women working alongside their husbands enjoyed considerable personal freedom and independence. Leading a nonsedentary life, tending cattle, she was neither cloistered nor veiled, but active; her contributions to the community much appreciated and respected. Segregation was totally impractical. If ill-treated by their husbands many simply ran away to a neighboring tribe. Despite Islam¡ª rather than thanks to Islam even in the nineteenth century, "Amongst the Bedouins their armies are led by a maiden of good family, who, mounted amid the fore ranks on a camel shames the timid and excites the brave by satirical or encomiastic recitations."572
The tenth-century Arab Historian, al-Tabari's account of Hind bint Otba, the wife of Abu Sufyan, the head of one of the aristocratic families of Mecca, gives a vivid picture of the independence of aristocratic women before Islam. Women swore allegiance as much as men, took part in negotiations with the new military chief of the city¡ªthat is, Muhammad himself¡ªand were often frankly hostile to the new religion. When Muhammad arrived at Mecca in A.D. 630 with 10,000 men, a rather overawed Abu Sufyan finally led out a deputation to make a formal submission and swear allegiance. The women led by Hind gave theirs only very reluctantly. Hind reproached Muhammad for having imposed obligations on women that he had not imposed on men. When the Prophet enjoined them never to kill their children, Hind retorted that this was rather fine coming from a military leader who had spilled so much blood at the battle of Badr when seventy men had been killed and many prisoners later executed on Muhammad's own orders.
Modern reformist Muslim intellectuals¡ªmale or female¡ªwhen confronted by the apparent backwardness of the position of women (a situation which has remained stagnant for centuries), have tended to invent a mythological golden age at the dawn of Islam when women putatively enjoyed equal rights. For example, even Nawal el Saadawi,5 7 3 the Egyptian feminist who has done more than anyone else to speak positively of Muslim women's right to express their sexuality, writes of "the regression of the Arab woman in Islamic philosophy and culture in contrast to her situation at the time of Muhammad or in the Spirit (or essence) of Islam." Similarly the Algerian Rachid Mimouni5 7 4 says, "It is clear that it is not the religion of Allah (which is at fault) but its interpretation. . . . Fundamentalism is an imposture. It discredits the message of Mohammad." The thought is that it is not Islam that is to blame for the degrading of women. Of course to talk of "the essence of Islam" is simply to perpetuate the malignant influence of religious authority and to perpetuate a myth. These same Muslim thinkers, when faced by the textual evidence of the inherent misogyny of Islam, are confused and anguished. Refusing to look reality in the face, they feel obliged to interpret these sacred texts, to apologize, to minimize their manifest hostility to women¡ªin short, to exonerate Islam. Others try to argue that these traditions were perpetuated by dubious Muslims whose motives were suspect.
Yet to do battle with the orthodox, the fanatics, and the mullas in the interpretation of these texts is to do battle on their (the fanatics') terms, on their ground. Every text that you produce they will adduce a dozen others contradicting yours. The reformists cannot win on these terms¡ªwhatever mental gymnastics the reformists perform, they cannot escape the fact that Islam is deeply antifeminist.
Islam is the fundamental cause of the repression of Muslim women and remains the major obstacle to the evolution of their position.515 Islam has always considered women as creatures inferior in every way: physically, intellectually, and morally. This negative vision is divinely sanctioned in the Koran, corroborated by the hadiths and perpetuated by the commentaries of the theologians, the custodians of Muslim dogma and ignorance.
Far better for these intellectuals to abandon the religious argument, to reject these sacred texts, and have recourse to reason alone. They should turn instead to human rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted on December 10, 1948, by the General Assembly of the United Nations in Paris and ratified by most Muslim countries) at no point has recourse to a religious argument. These rights are based on natural rights, which any adult human being capable of choice has. They are rights that human beings have simply because they are human beings. Human reason or rationality is the ultimate arbiter of rights¡ªhuman rights, the rights of women.
Unfortunately, in practice, in Muslim countries one cannot simply leave the theologians with their narrow, bigoted world view to themselves. One cannot ignore the ulama, those learned doctors of Muslim law who by their fatwas or decisions in questions touching private or public matters of importance regulate the life of the Muslim community. They still exercise considerable powers of approving or forbidding certain actions. Why the continuing influence of the mullas?
The Koran remains for all Muslims, not just "fundamentalists," the uncreated word of God Himself. It is valid for all times and places; its ideas are absolutely true and beyond all criticism. To question it is to question the very word of God, and hence blasphemous. A Muslim's duty is to believe it and obey its divine commands.
Several other factors contribute to the continuing influence of the ulama. Any religion that requires total obedience without thought is not likely to produce people capable of critical thought, people capable of free and independent thought. Such a situation is favorable to the development of a powerful "clergy" and is clearly responsible for the intellectual, cultural, and economic stagnation of several centuries. Illiteracy remains high in Muslim countries. Historically, as there never was any separation of state and religion, any criticism of one was seen as a criticism of the other. Inevitably, when many Muslim countries won independence after the Second World War, Islam was unfortunately linked with nationalism, which meant that any criticism of Islam was seen as a betrayal of the newly independent country¡ªan unpatriotic act, an encouragement to colonialism and imperialism.
No Muslim country has developed a stable democracy; Muslims are being subjected to every kind of repression possible. Under these conditions healthy criticism of society is not possible, because critical thought and liberty go together.
The above factors explain why Islam in general and the position of women in particular are never criticized, discussed, or subjected to deep scientific or skeptical analysis. All innovations are discouraged in Islam¡ªevery problem is seen as a religious problem rather than a social or economic one.
_______________________________________________________________________
Segment from the book "Why I am not a Muslim", by Ibn Warraq pg. 294-301.
Adam and Eve,
¡¡
Islam took the legend of Adam and Eve from the Old Testament and adapted it in its own fashion. The creation of mankind from one person is mentioned in the following suras:
-4.1. O Mankind! Be careful of your duty to your Lord who created you from a single soul and from it created its mate and from them twain hath spread abroad a multiple of men and women
-39.6. He created you from one being, then from that (being) He made its mate.
-7.189. He it is who did create you from a single soul and therefrom did make his mate that he might take rest in her.
From these slender sources Muslim theologians have concluded that man was the original creation¡ªwomankind was created secondarily for the pleasure and repose of man. The legend was further developed to reinforce the supposed inferiority of women. Finally, the legend was given a sacred character so that to criticize it was to criticize the very words of God, which were immutable and absolute. Here is how Muhammad describes women in general: "Be friendly to women for womankind was created from a rib, but the bent part of the rib, high up, if you try to straighten it you will break it; if you do nothing, she will continue to be bent."
The story of Adam and Eve is further elaborated in:
-2.35-36. And We said: O Adam! Dwell thou and thy wife in the Garden, and eat ye freely (of the fruits) thereof where ye will; but come not nigh this tree lest ye become wrongdoers.
But Satan caused them to deflect therefrom and expelled them from the (happy) state in which they were; and We said: Fall down, one of you a foe unto the other! There shall be for you on earth a habitation and provision for a time.
-7.19-20. And (unto man): O Adam! Dwell thou and thy wife in the Garden and eat from whence ye will, but come not nigh this tree test ye become wrongdoers. Then Satan whispered to them that he might manifest unto them that which was hidden from of their shame and he said: Your Lord forbade you from this tree only lest ye should become angels or become of the immortals.
-20.120-121, But the Devil whispered to him saying: O Adam! Shall I show thee the tree of immortality and power that wasteth not away?
Then they twain ate thereof, so that their shame became apparent unto them, and they began to hide by heaping on themselves some of the leaves of the Garden. And Adam disobeyed his Lord, so went astray.
God punishes Adam and Eve for disobeying his orders. But there is nothing in these verses to show that it was Eve (as in the Old Testament) who led Adam astray. And yet Muslim exegetists and jurists have created the myth of Eve the temptress that has since become an integral part of Muslim tradition. Muhammad himself is reputed to have said: "If it had not been for Eve, no woman would have been unfaithful to her husband."
The Islamic tradition also attributes guile and deceit to women and draws its support from the following text in the Koran:
-12.22-34. [Joseph has been installed in the house of the man who bought him.] Now the woman in whose house he was solicited him, and closed the doors on them. "Come," she said, "take me!" "God be my refuge," he said. "Surely my lord has given me a goodly lodging. Surely the evildoers do not prosper." For she desired him; and he would have taken her but that he saw the proof of his Lord. So was it, that We might turn away from him evil and abomination; he was one of Our devoted servants. They raced to the door; and she tore his shirt from behind. They encountered her master by the door. She said, "What is the recompense of him who purposes evil against thy folk, but that he should be imprisoned or a painful chastisement?" Said he, "It was she that solicited me"; and a witness of her folk bore witness, "If his shirt has been torn from before then she has spoken truly, and he is one of the liars; but if his shirt has been torn from behind, then she has lied, and he is one of the truthful."
When he saw his shirt was torn from behind he said, "This is of your women's guile; surely your guile is great. Joseph, turn away from this and thou woman, ask forgiveness of thy crime; surely thou art one of the sinners." Certain women that were in the city said, "The Governor's wife has been soliciting her page; he smote her heart with love; we see her in manifest error." When she heard their sly whispers, she sent to them, and made ready for them a repast, then she gave to each one of them a knife. "Come forth, attend to them," she said. And when they saw him, they so admired him that they cut their hands, saying, "God save us! This is no mortal; he is no other but a noble angel." "So now you see," she said. "This is he you blamed me for. Yes, I solicited him, but he abstained. Yet if he will not do what I command him, he shall be imprisoned, and be one of the humbled." He said, "My Lord, prison is dearer to me than that they call me to; yet if Thou turnest not from me their guile, then I shall yearn toward them, and so become one of the ignorant." So his Lord answered him, and He turned away from him their guile; surely He is the All-hearing, and the All-knowing.
Modern Muslim commentators interpret these verses to show that guile, deceit, and treachery are intrinsic to a woman's nature. Not only is she unwilling to change, she is by nature incapable of changing¡ªshe has no choice.577 In attacking the female deities of the polytheists, the Koran takes the opportunity to malign the female sex further.
4.117. They invoke in His stead only females; they pray to none else than Satan, a rebel.
43.15-19. And they allot to Him a portion of his bondmen! Lo! man is verily a mere ingrate.
Or chooseth He daughters of all that He hath created, and honoureth He you with sons?
And if one of them hath tidings of that which he likeneth to the Beneficent One (i.e., tidings of the birth of a girl-child), his countenance becometh black and he is full of inward rage.
(Liken they then to Allah) that which is bred up in outward show, and in dispute cannot make itself plain?
And they make the angels, who are the slaves of the Beneficent, females. Did they witness their creation? Their testimony will be recorded and they will be questioned.
52.39. Or hath He daughters whereas ye have sons?
37.149-50. Now ask them (O Muhammad): Hath thy Lord daughters whereas they have sons?
Or created We the angels females while they were present?
53.21-22. Are yours the males and His the females That indeed were an unfair division!
53.27. Lo! it is those who disbelieve in the Hereafter who name the angels with the names of females.
If Mr. Bouhdiba is not convinced by these, here are some more verses from the Koran that seem to us of a misogynist tendency:
-2.178 O ye who believe! Retaliation is prescribed for you in the matter of the murdered; the freeman for the freeman, and the slave for the slave, and the female for the female.
-2.228. Women who are divorced shall wait, keeping themselves apart, three (monthly) courses. And it is not lawful for them that they should conceal that which Allah hath created in their wombs if they are believers in Allah and the Last Day. And their husbands would do better to take them back in that case if they desire a reconciliation. And they (women) have rights similar to those (of men) over them in kindness, and men are a degree above them. Allah is Mighty, Wise.
-2.282 But if he who oweth the debt is of low understanding, or weak or unable himself to dictate, then let the guardian of his interests dictate in (terms of) equity. And call to witness, from among your men, two witnesses. And if two men be not (at hand) then a man and two women, of such as ye approve as witnesses, so that if the one erreth (through forgetfulness) the other will remember.
-4.3. And if ye fear that ye will not deal fairly by the orphans, marry of the women, who seem good to you, two or three or four; and if ye fear that ye cannot do justice (to so many) then one (only) or the (captives) that your right hand possesses. Thus it is more likely that ye will not do injustice.
- 4.11. Allah chargeth you concerning (the provision for) your children: to the male the equivalent of the portion of two females.
- 4.34. Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart; and scourge (beat) them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them Lo! Allah is ever High Exalted, Great.
- 4.43. O ye who believe! Draw not near unto prayer when ye are drunken, till ye know that which ye utter, nor when ye are polluted, save when journeying on the road, till ye have bathed. And if ye be ill, or on a journey, or one of you cometh from the closet, or ye have touched women, and ye find not water, then go to high clean soil and rub your faces and your hands. Lo! Allah is Benign, Forgiving.
- 5.6. And if ye are sick on a journey, or one of you cometh from the closet, or ye have contact with women and ye find not water, then go to clean high ground and rub your faces and your hands with some of it.
- 33.32 33. O ye wives of the Prophet! Ye are not like any other women. If ye keep your duty (to Allah), then be not soft of speech lest he in whose heart is a disease aspire to you, but utter customary speech.
And stay in your houses. Bedizen not yourselves with the bedizenment of the time of ignorance. Be regular in prayer, and pay the poor due, and obey Allah and His Messenger.
33.53. And when ye ask of them (the wives of the Prophet) anything ask it of them from behind a curtain. That is purer for your hearts and for their hearts.
33.59. O Prophet! Tell thy wives and thy daughters and the women of the believers to draw their cloaks close round when they go abroad. That will be better, that so they may be recognized and not annoyed.
Equally, in numerous hadiths on which are based the Islamic laws we learn of the woman's role¡ªto stay at home, to be at the beck and call of man, to obey him (which is a religious duty), and to assure man a tranquil existence. Here are some examples of these traditions:
¡ªIf it had been given me to order someone to prostrate themselves in front of someone other than God, I would surely have ordered women to prostrate themselves in front of their husbands. . . . A woman cannot fulfill her duties toward God without first having accomplished those that she owes her husband.
¡ªThe woman who dies and with whom the husband is satisfied will go to paradise.
¡ªA wife should never refuse herself to her husband even if it is on the saddle of a camel.
¡ªHellfire appeared to me in a dream and I noticed that it was above all peopled with women who had been ungrateful. "Was it toward God that Women and Islam 299
they were ungrateful?" They had not shown any gratitude toward their husbands for all they had received from them. Even when all your life you have showered a woman with your largesse she will still find something petty to reproach you with one day, saying, "You have never done anything for me."
¡ªIf anything presages a bad omen it is: a house, a woman, a horse.
¡ªNever will a people know success if they confide their affairs to a woman. Islamic culture and civilization is profoundly antifeminist, as the following sayings from various caliphs, ministers, philosophers, and theologians through the ages reveal:
Omar the second caliph (581-644) said: "Prevent the women from learning to write! say no to their capricious ways."
On another occasion he said, "Adopt positions opposite those of women. There is great merit in such opposition." And again, "Impose nudity on women because clothes are one reason for leaving the house, to attend marriages and to appear in public for ceremonies and parties. When a woman goes out frequently she risks meeting another man and finding him attractive even if he is less attractive than her husband; for she is attracted and distracted by anything she does not possess".
The antifeminist sayings of A l i (600-661), the Prophet's cousin and the fourth caliph, are famous:578
"The entire woman is an evil and what is worse is that it is a necessary evil!"
"You should never ask a woman her advice because her advice is worthless. Hide them so that they cannot see other men! . . . Do not spend too much time in their company for they will lead you to your downfall!"
"Men, never ever obey your women. Never let them advise you on any matter concerning your daily life. If you let them advise you they will squander all your possessions and disobey all your orders and desires. When alone they forget religion and think only of themselves; and as soon as it concerns their carnal desires they are without pity or virtue. It is easy to get pleasure from them but they give you big headaches too. Even the most virtuous among them is of easy virtue. And the most corrupt are whores! Old age does not spare them of their vices. They have three qualities worthy of an unbeliever: they complain of being oppressed when in fact it is they who oppress; they take solemn oaths and at the same time lie; they make a show of refusing the advances of men when in fact they long for them ardently. Let us implore God's help to escape their sorcery."
And finally to a man teaching a woman to write: "Do not add evil to unhappiness."
It will be appropriate to end this introduction with two quotes from the famous and much revered philosopher al-Ghazali (1058-1111), whom Professor Montgomery Watt describes as the greatest Muslim after Muhammad. In his "The Revival Of The Religious Sciences," Ghazali defines the woman's role:5 7 9
She should stay at home and get on with her spinning, she should not go out often, she must not be well-informed, nor must she be communicative with her neighbours and only visit them when absolutely necessary; she should take care of her husband and respect him in his presence and his absence and seek to satisfy him in everything; she must not cheat on him nor extort money from him; she must not leave her house without his permission and if given his permission she must leave surreptitiously. She should put on old clothes and take deserted streets and alleys, avoid markets, and make sure that a stranger does not hear her voice or recognize her; she must not speak to a friend of her husband even in need. . . . Her sole worry should be her virtue, her home as well as her prayers and her fast. If a friend of her husband calls when the latter is absent she must not open the door nor reply to him in order to safeguard her and her husband's honour. She should accept what her husband gives her as sufficient sexual needs at any moment. . . . She should be clean and ready to satisfy her husband's sexual needs at any moment.
The great theologian then warns all men to be careful of women for their "guile is immense and their mischief is noxious; they are immoral and mean spirited." "It is a fact that all the trials, misfortunes and woes which befall men come from women," moaned al-Ghazali.
In his Book of Counsel for Kings, al-Ghazali sums up all that a woman has to suffer and endure because of Eve's misbehavior in the Garden of Eden: As for the distinctive characteristics with which God on high has punished women, (the matter is as follows): "When Eve ate fruit which He had forbidden to her from the tree in Paradise, the Lord, be He praised, punished women with eighteen things: (1) menstruation; (2) childbirth; (3) separation from mother and father and marriage to a stranger; (4) pregnancy; (5) not having control over her own person; (6) a lesser share in inheritance; (7) her liability to be divorced and inability to divorce; (8) its being lawful for men to have four wives, but for a woman to have only one husband; (9) the fact that she must stay secluded in the house; (10) the fact that she must keep her head covered inside the house; (11) the fact that two women's testimony has to be set against the testimony of one man; (12) the fact that she must not go out of the house unless accompanied by a near relative; (13) the fact that men take part in Friday and feast day prayers and funerals while women do not; (14) disqualification for rulership and judgeship; (15) the fact that merit has one thousand components, only one of which is attributable to women, while 999 are attributable to men; (16) the fact that if women are profligate they will be given [only] half as much tornment as the rest of the community at the Resurrection Day;
[This does not seem like a punishment! An error of translation?] (17) the fact that if their husbands die they must observe a waiting period of four months and ten days before remarrying; 18) the fact that if their husbands divorce them they must observe a waiting period of three months or three menstrual periods before remarrying.580
Such are some of the sayings from the putative golden age of Islamic feminism. It was claimed that it was the abandonment of the original teachings of Islam that had led to the present decadence and backwardness of Muslim societies. But there never was an Islamic Utopia. To talk of a golden age is only to confirm and perpetuate the influence of the clergy, the mullas, and their hateful creed that denies humanity to half the inhabitants of this globe, and further retards all serious attempts to liberate Muslim women, I shall now examine in detail all the different ways Islam has devised to subjugate all Muslim women.
________________________________________________________________________
Segment from the book. "Why I am not a Muslim", by Ibn Warraq. pg. 301- 302.
An Inferior Being
Muhammad is reported to have told his men to treat kindly those two weaklings "women and slaves." In general Islam treats women as intellectually, morally, and physically inferior. First comes man, then comes the hermaphrodite (who in Islam has a distinct legal status), and last the woman. Conservative Muslim thinkers have even revived discredited anthropological theories purporting to show that the cranial capacity of women is far smaller than that of a man. "Women have less reason and faith" goes one famous hadith. A woman is seen as being in a state of impurity during her menstruation, but this impurity is not limited to her period of menstruation. It is reported that Muhammad had never touched a woman who did not belong to him. When the women who gave him their allegiance asked to shake him by the hand, he replied, "I never touch the hand of women." Further hadiths on this subject:581
¡ªBetter for a man to be splashed by a pig than for him to brush against the elbow of a woman not permitted him.
¡ªBetter to bury an iron needle in the head of one of you than to touch a woman not permitted him.
¡ªHe who touches the palm of a woman not legally his will have red-hot embers put in the palm of his hand on Judgment Day.
¡ªThree things can interrupt prayers if they pass in front of someone praying: a black dog, a woman, and an ass.
Liberal Muslims may wish to dismiss these hadiths as inauthentic but what will they say to the Koran which also says: "Draw not near unto prayer when ye are drunken, till ye know that which ye utter, nor when ye are polluted, save when journeying on the road, till ye have bathed. And if ye be ill, or on a journey, or one of you cometh from the closet, or ye have touched a woman, and ye find not water, then go to high clean soil and rub your faces and your hands" (sura 4.43; see also sura 5,6).
The theologians ultimately lean on the Koran to prove their point that women are inferior to men and in doing so, of course cut short any argument, for no one argues against the word of God. Thus they find divine sanction for their absurd pseudoscientific views. Here are the relevant verses:
3.36. And when she had given birth to it, she said, "O my Lord! Verily I have brought forth a female,"¡ªGod knew what she had brought forth; a male is not as a female¡ªand I have named her Mary, and I take refuge with thee for her and for her offspring, from Satan the stoned."
43.18. What! make they a being (i.e., a woman) to be the offspring of God who is brought up among trinkets, and is ever contentious without reason.
4.122. And whose word is more sure than God*s? Women are by nature inferior and can be compared to a bottle whose crack is irreparable. Muhammad used to say: "Handle the bottles (women) with care."
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Bibliography:
566. The influence of Ascha should be apparent on every single page of this chapter, even though I rarely quote him directly.
567. Burton, Richard. The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night. 17 vols. London, n.d.
Carlyle, T, Sartor Resartus: On Heroes and Hero Worship. London, 1973. vol x, p. 195.
568. Nefiawi, Shaykh. [1] The Glory of the Perfumed Garden. London, 1978.
. [2] The Perfumed Garden. London, 1963. (1), pp. 203-204.
569. Bousquet, G. H. [1] L'Ethique sexuelle de l'lslam. Paris, 1966. (1), p. 49.
570. Art. "Women," in DOI.
571. Schacht, Joseph The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence. Oxford, 1950. (4) in CHI, p. 545.
572. Art. Women in DOI.
573. Quoted in Ascha, Ghassan. Du Status inf¨¦rieur de la femme en Islam. Paris, 1989., p. 13.
574. Mimouni, Rachid. De la barbarie en g¨¦n¨¦ral et de I'int¨¦grisme en particulier. Paris,
1992., p. 156.
575. Ascha, Ghassan. Du Status inf¨¦rieur de la femme en Islam. Paris, 1989., , p. 11.
576. Ibid, pp. 23f.
577. Ibid, pp.29f.
578. Ibid, pp. 38f.
579. Ibid, p. 41.
580. Quoted in Tannahill, pp. 233-34.
581. Ascha, Ghassan. Du Status inf¨¦rieur de la femme en Islam. Paris, 1989, pp. 49f.
582. Bousquet, G. H. [1] L'Ethique sexuelle de l'lslam. Paris, 1966 (1), p. 118.
583. Ibid, p. 156.
584. Ascha, Ghassan. Du Status inf¨¦rieur de la femme en Islam. Paris, 1989, , p. 58.
585. Bouhdiba, Abdelwahab. La Sexualit¨¦ en Islam. Paris, 1975., pp. 217-18.
586. Burton, Richard. The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night. 17 vols. London, n.d., p. 279, vol v.
587. Quoted in Bouhdiba, Abdelwahab. La Sexualit¨¦ en Islam. Paris, 1975, pp. 95-96.
588. Bouhdiba, Abdelwahab. La Sexualit¨¦ en Islam. Paris, 1975, pp. 59-74.
589. Ascha, Ghassan. Du Status inf¨¦rieur de la femme en Islam. Paris, 1989, , pp. 63f.
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