For they are created from a bent rib

Society Religion & Philosophy
1

I absolutely love the following ahadith. It clearly teaches men to be gentle and tolerant towards their wives. :slight_smile:

Volume 4, Book 55, Number 548:

   Narrated Abu Huraira:

Allah 's Apostle said, “Treat women nicely, for a women is created from a rib, and the most curved portion of the rib is its upper portion, so, if you should try to straighten it, it will break, but if you leave it as it is, it will remain crooked. So treat women nicely.”

Volume 7, Book 62, Number 114:

   Narrated Abu Huraira:

The Prophet said, “Whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day should not hurt (trouble) his neighbor. And I advise you to take care of the women, for they are created from a rib and the most crooked portion of the rib is its upper part; if you try to straighten it, it will break, and if you leave it, it will remain crooked, so I urge you to take care of the women.”

(Sahih Bukhari)

2

Re: For they are created from a bent rib

what does it mean - woman is made out of a curved rib? and how is a rib’s most curved portion its upper part? :confused:

3

Re: For they are created from a bent rib

:-|

I thought this was a Christian belief which muslims don't share...

4

Re: For they are created from a bent rib

[quote]
Allah 's Apostle said, "Treat women nicely, for a women is created from a rib, and the most curved portion of the rib is its upper portion, so, if you should try to straighten it, it will break, but if you leave it as it is, it will remain crooked. So treat women nicely."
[/quote]

100% right. Well said and thanks for sharing.

introduce your friends
introduce your friends
introduce your friends
5

Re: For they are created from a bent rib

PCG, you have much to learn.

6

Re: For they are created from a bent rib

No, I was right - there is no mention of this story in the Quran. It comes from 2 hadith - which are categorized as saheeh I believe (please correct me if I'm wrong). However, some of the arguments are ... How would the Prophet know information about how man-woman were created when its not in the Quran?

And also, there are misconceptions about the hadith because the "crooked" part is taken to mean by many scholars and maulvis as that women are naturally evil or less than a man...when rather it really means that you just need to take extra care when interacting with them because that's the gentlemanly thing to do.

7

Re: For they are created from a bent rib

Maniac - I wouldn't be so egoistic about your own knowledge. That's not the sign of a good learned muslim, you know.

8

Re: For they are created from a bent rib

Because Not all the revelations were part of Quran and it was told to Muhammad:saw: what needs to go in the Book and what is to be delivered aside the book. There are ahaadeeth-e-Qudsi for that matter as well…

Prophet:saw: was shown things in the dream as well.

9

Re: For they are created from a bent rib

As Maniac earlier said, you still have much to learn.

Prophethood is composed of 46 parts. 46 different channels through which the Prophets would communicate with Allah. The Vehi which would bring the Ayaat of the Quran…was just one of the 46 parts. All the information that the prophet related through his ahadeeth, was also relayed to him by Allah.

10

Re: For they are created from a bent rib

You mean the extra-Quranic revelations? The ones that the PRophet never asked anyone to write down?

In fact, wasn't there someone here long ago who once mentioned how the Prophet used to actually ask people not to write down what he said aside from what was supposed to be part of the Quran? Um, also the reason why Ali (R)'s version of the Quran had to be destroyed because he had his notes of things that he'd heard the Prophet say on the margins?

Hadith have so screwed up our religion.

I don't find it funny or amusing that the Quran is very careful in talking about women - it doesn't even say that Eve was created AFTER Adam, because Allah really made it clear in the Quran and allowed no loophole to make people assert that women are less than men. And here we have this hadith that somehow got into the literature. Its too similar to what the Bible says...so somehow the Bible managed to mention this tidbit, but the Quran forgot?

I'm sorry, but Daal mein kuch kaala hai.

11

Re: For they are created from a bent rib

Also the Quran is very clear about what Adam was made from - and that Hawa was made from the same substance.

So she could not have been made from human bone when Adam was made from mitti (sand).

:rolleyes: But somehow these misogynist hadith’s survive, even though they do contradict the Quran.

12

Re: For they are created from a bent rib

**
Which Ayah talks about that?

and Adam:as:'s rib was not made from sand but his entire body was made from sand?

Am i annoying...
13

Re: For they are created from a bent rib

Did you just seriously use the phrase "them"...how much more egoistic can you really be that you are so closed to any sort of questioning?

You do realize that hadith were gathered by Men, not sent from God? The hadith collectors themselves challenged each other and the ones they collected the hadith's from...so who are you to block off the spirit of debate?

Some people are so bloody insecure.

14

Re: For they are created from a bent rib

AQ - sand and bone are not the same substance at all. They are two different things. Aap ne duniya ki taleem kabhi li hai? I suggest you read into science a bit - it might open your mind and make your feelings for your deen stronger.

15

Re: For they are created from a bent rib

so which material is bone made from?

Was science (duniyaa kee taaleem) ever able to produce bone from any material?

Bones and Flesh of Adam were made from sand. Allah:swt: says that in Quran

and please, answer my first question.

Am i annoying...
16

Re: For they are created from a bent rib

If Eve was made from Bone, then first off - the human bodies of men and women would be different in texture and substance. And its not. We have the same organs, save from the reproductive organs.

Jinns are made from fire.
Humans are made from clay.

You can go on further and argue that its all atoms and energy anyway. Fire and clay that is. You have oxygen being consumed which produces fire which is nothing more than heat. You can say that the same is with atoms because their vibration is basically little particles of energy. Same thing with light, which is what angels are made from - again you have energy and matter combined.

But they’re still different substances - light, fire, clay.

Bone is likewise a different substance.

Everything in the end is matter and energy combined in the right way - you will see this if you read superstrings theory which is the latest stuff that is making headway in physical research.

Here is the ayah from the Quran:

“O mankind! reverence your Guardian-Lord, who created you from a single person, created, of like nature, His mate, and from them twain scattered (like seeds) countless men and women…” - Surah 4 Verse 1

And since no one is going to listen to me, because everyone here thinks they’re smarter than everyone else here, I’ll go ahead and pull a Sadiyah. Here is the response to a question posed on the internet. Now, :nono: , don’t go saying that its invalid because it was pulled from the internet…because people that would defend your position on other issues do the same all the time.

http://www.islamonline.net/askaboutislam/display.asp?hquestionID=3410

Here is the commentary from this website regardint the hadith’s you guys put up - I think with hadith’s like the Quran, there is an issue of translation - from translating from Arabic into other langauges - you can easily distort meaning that way you know. And no one would know any better to contest it.

**Some scholars perceived the Hadiths in their literal meaning and accepted the idea that Eve was created from Adam’s rib. Yet many scholars, on the other hand, totally rejected this interpretation. They based their argument on the fact that in Arabic, the words “created from” do not necessarily refer to the substance of creation; they can also refer to the nature of something. These scholars sustain their argument with an example from the Qur’an in which Allah says “That man has been created from hastiness”. Of course, this does not mean that man’s substance is hastiness; it only refers to man’s nature and behavior.

The Hadith then means that if a man wants to be happy with his wife he should not attempt to re-shape her character, but accepts her the way she is and try to be happy by understanding her habits and her personality. It can be taken as a very soft and kind Hadith recommending tenderness and implying how a wife and husband should compliment each other. Sadly it was interpreted according to the cultural traditions and bias against women in some tribal societies and that such misinterpretation gained wide circulation to foster the unislamic ideas of womens’ inferiority.

This also affected the way women were perceived in the society; as their image was directly linked to the shape and “crookedness” of the rib!!

There are numerous verses that state the equality of women in the public space, and the life of the prophet teaches us about the relation between a man and a woman in the private sphere. Any text should be put within the context of the paradigm and understood accordingly.

We might for example, note that the poetic symbolism of ribs being the nearest bone to the heart and that the ribs of the chest protect the organs of the chest. It is a matter of how we read the text and contextualize it and search the merciful meanings in revelation, not grab the text to use it for our own purposes.**

17

Re: For they are created from a bent rib

As for that ayah I posted, there is another translation that uses the phrase "like substance" - and that's the translation I have. I posted the one that uses "like nature" because its the one this website reply uses.

18

Re: For they are created from a bent rib

Maulana Sadiq provides the following critique, based upon an analysis of Abu Huraira:

**Sadiq is particularly critical of certain grossly misogynist so-called ahadith that are found in the Sahih of al-Bukhari, which many Sunnis consider to be the most reliable and authentic collection of Hadith. While questioning these so-called ahadith he is careful not to appear to hurt Sunni sentiments, adding that although the narrators of these traditions, like other companions of the Prophet, were not infallible, they ought to be respected. Sadiq critically interrogates some so-called hadith narrated by Abu Hurairah, and contained in al-Bukhari’s Sahih, to illustrate his argument that many false stories have been wrongly attributed to the Prophet in order to bolster patriarchy and subordinate women. Sadiq’s critique of Abu Huraira rests on the argument that although Abu Huraira had spent relatively very little time with the Prophet he later narrated an enormous number of traditions that he attributed to the Prophet. Many of these so-called ahadith were definitely fabricated. These include certain plainly misogynist traditions, which Sadiq explains as a result of Abu Huraira’s alleged ‘psychological allergy’ to women. Thus, Sadiq cites a story narrated by Abu Huraira claiming that the Prophet once said that if a dog, a donkey or a woman crosses in front of a man while he is praying, his prayer gets nullified. This was taken to suggest that a woman’s worth was the same as a donkey’s or a dog’s. Sadiq counters Abu Huraira’s story by arguing that when some Muslims complained to Ayesha, wife of the Prophet, about Abu Huraira’s statement, she said that the Prophet could never have uttered these words since she herself would often be lying down in front of the Prophet while he prayed and she would not move from that position for fear of disturbing him. Sadiq critiques another so-called hadith narrated by Abu Huraira, according to which the Prophet told his followers that three things were bad omens: a house, a horse and women. When Ayesha heard that Abu Huraira had circulated this story she remarked that he was not a good listener. She said that she was present when the Prophet was giving the discourse where he mentioned this, but added that the Prophet had actually said that some Jews, who think that the home, the horse and women are accursed, are wrong. However, she said, Abu Huraira entered the room when the Prophet was midway in this sentence, and so misunderstood what he had meant.

Another so-called hadith found in Bukhari’s collection which Sadiq critically interrogates and then dismisses as false relates to the story of the creation of Adam and Eve. According to this story, God created Adam from mud, and then fashioned Eve from out of Adam’s rib. This is why, this so-called hadith claims the Prophet said, women will always remain ‘bent’. Hence, it is claimed, the Prophet declared that one should never try to ‘straighten’ a woman, for, being like a bent rib, she would inevitably ‘break’. This so-called ahadith is widely used to justify the argument that women are derived from, and hence biologically inferior to, men, and that they are also inherently ‘crooked’. Sadiq dismisses this story as a pure fabrication, asking how, if women are the ‘moulds’ (sancha) of their children, and if they are congenitally ‘bent’ or ‘crooked’, they can produce ‘proper’ male offspring. That this story has no Qur’anic sanction, Sadiq argues, is clearly evident from the fact that the word ‘rib’ is not used even once in the Qur’an. In this regard Sadiq refers to another popular story, according to which God first created Adam, and when Adam felt lonely He created Eve to keep him company. Sadiq says that this, story, too, completely contradicts the Qur’anic account of creation, where Adam and Eve are described as being produced simultaneously, and that too from the same substance and hence sharing the same essence. Similarly, Sadiq dismisses the theory, held by many Muslims, that Eve succumbed to Satan’s temptation and so was the cause of Adam’s expulsion from heaven. He says that this story is not found in the Qur’an, and is probably the result of a later influence of Christians with whom Muslims came into contact as Islam spread outside the Arabian peninsula following the death of the Prophet.**

19

Re: For they are created from a bent rib

I totally believe that women are made from Rib and one should not try to straighten her. There is a live proof right in this thread.

20

Re: For they are created from a bent rib

I believe in the Quran, AQ, as I try my best to be a good muslim by educating myself on what the Quran says and what it means, and doing my own side research to figure out where certain ideas come from in our society.

I don't know yet whether these hadith are correct or not, since I'm looking at secondary and tertiary research, and I myself don't know Arabic. But nontheless, I'd like for people to know the other side of the commentary as well.

I don't want people thinking this is not a debateable topic, that's all.