Women in Islam vs Women in Christianity and Judaism part 1
Women in Islam
versus
Judaeo-Christian Tradition
The Myth & The Reality
Author Sherif Mohammad
Preface
Dr. Sherif Mohammad, an eminent writer-thinker with an academic
background in electrical engineering, is
active in preaching and propagation of Islam and has written extensively
on Islamic issues and contemporary
social and political problems affecting humanity at large. He currently
lives in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
Dr. Sherif says in the Introduction (p.4), " … my concern is, mainly,
the position of women in the three religions as it
appears in their original sources not as practised by their millions of
followers in the world today. Therefore, most of the
evidence cited comes from the Quran, the sayings of Prophet Muhammad,
the Bible, the Talmud, and the sayings of
some of the most influential Church Fathers whose views have contributed
immeasurably to defining and shaping
Christianity. This interest in the sources relates to the fact that
understanding a certain religion from the attitudes and the
behaviour of some of its nominal followers is misleading. Many people
confuse culture with religion, many others do not
know what their religious books are saying, and many others do not even
care."
This booklet addresses a timely issue concerning the status of women as
documented in the three Abrahamic religions.
The status of women in revealed faiths defined by, among other things,
rights, privileges and responsibilities, is perhaps
one of the least understood and most distorted , yet most talked about
issues concerning women - specially the myths
surrounding the status of Muslim women.The booklet is well-documented
with sources of information being drawn and
properly referenced from the holy books of Jews, Christians and Muslims
and other literatures. I am most impressesed
by the logic and eloquence expressed in the writing style of Dr. Sherif
Mohammad.
While Dr. Jamal Badawi’s women articles give an overall understanding of
women’s status in Islam, Sherif’s is a
comparative analysis of the Abrahamic religions’ views on a whole gamut
of issues affecting women. Together, they
anwser the relentless propaganda and onslaught against Islam in this
regard. Specially, Sherif booklet exposes the
hypocrisy and double standard that wrongly scapegoat Islam.
This booklet dispels many misperceptions about women’s status as
evidenced in the Qur’an, distinguishes between real
Islamic belief and varied Muslim practices influenced by culture and
social customs and highlights the heterogeneity of
Muslim women’s status. In view of widespread misperceptions not only
among non-Muslim Westerners but also among
many Muslims in this regard, this booklet should be read by all
conscious people. In dispelling certain myths, the
booklet also holds out the prospect of building up harmonious relations
among Muslims and non-Muslims
This landmark booklet is a must for all who take interest in knowing the
status of women in the three revealed faith and
those who would like to search for the truth themselves.
Reviewed by Nazre Sobhan
Introduction
Five years ago, I read in the Toronto Star issue of July 3, 1990 an
article titled “Islam is not alone in patriarchal
doctrines”, by Gwynne Dyer. The article described the furious reactions
of the participants of a conference on women and
power held in Montreal to the comments of the famous Egyptian feminist
Dr. Nawal Saadawi. Her “politically incorrect”
statements included : “the most restrictive elements towards women can
be found first in Judaism in the Old Testament
then in Christianity and then in the Quran”; “all religions are
patriarchal because they stem from patriarchal societies”;
and “veiling of women is not a specifically Islamic practice but an
ancient cultural heritage with analogies in sister
religions”.
The participants could not bear sitting around while their faiths were
being equated with Islam. Thus, Dr. Saadawi
received a barrage of criticism. “Dr. Saadawi’s comments are
unacceptable. Her answers reveal a lack of understanding
about other people’s faiths,” declared Bernice Dubois of the World
Movement of Mothers. “I must protest” said panelist
Alice Shalvi of Israel women’s network, “there is no conception of the
veil in Judaism.” The article attributed these furious
protests to the strong tendency in the West to scapegoat Islam for
practices that are just as much a part of the West’s
own cultural heritage. “Christian and Jewish feminists were not going to
sit around being discussed in the same
category as those wicked Muslims,” wrote Gwynne Dyer.
I was not surprised that the conference participants had held such a
negative view of Islam, especially when women’s
issues were involved. In the West, Islam is believed to be the symbol of
the subordination of women par
excellence. In order to understand how firm this belief is, it is enough
to mention that the Minister of Education in
France, the land of Voltaire, has recently ordered the expulsion of all
young Muslim women wearing the veil from
French schools [1]! A young Muslim student wearing a headscarf is denied
her right of education in France, while a
Catholic student wearing a cross or a Jewish student wearing a skullcap
is not. The scene of French policemen
preventing young Muslim women wearing headscarves from entering their
high school is unforgettable. It inspires the
memories of another equally disgraceful scene of Governor George Wallace
of Alabama in 1962 standing in front of a
school gate trying to block the entrance of black students in order to
prevent the desegregation of Alabama’s schools.
The difference between the two scenes is that the black students had the
sympathy of so many people in the U.S. and in
the whole world. President Kennedy sent the U.S. National Guard to force
the entry of the black students. The Muslim
girls, on the other hand, received no help from any one. Their cause
seems to have very little sympathy either inside or
outside France. The reason is the widespread misunderstanding and fear
of anything Islamic in the world today.
What intrigued me the most about the Montreal conference was one
question : Were the statements made by Saadawi,
or any of her critics, factual ? In other words, do Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam have the same conception of women?
Are they different in their conceptions ? Do Judaism and Christianity ,
truly, offer women a better treatment than Islam
does? What is the Truth?
It is not easy to search for and find answers to these difficult
questions. The first difficulty is that one has to be fair and
objective or, at least, do one’s utmost to be so. This is what Islam
teaches. The Quran has instructed Muslims to say the
truth even if those who are very close to them do not like it:
“Whenever you speak, speak justly, even if a near relative is concerned”
(6:152) “O you who believe stand out
firmly for justice, as witnesses to Allah, even as against yourselves,
or your parents or your kin, and whether it be
(against) rich or poor” (4:135).
The other great difficulty is the overwhelming breadth of the subject.
Therefore, during the last few years, I hathe last
many hours reading the Bible, The Encyclopedia of Religion, and the
Encyclopedia Judaica searching for
answers. I have also read several books discussing the position of women
in different religions written by scholars,
apologists, and critics. The material presented in the following
chapters represents the important findings of this humble
research. I don’t claim to be absolutely objective. This is beyond my
limited capacity. All I can say is that I have been
trying, throughout this research, to approach the Quranic ideal of
“speaking justly”.
I would like to emphasize in this introduction that my purpose for this
study is not to denigrate Judaism or Christianity.
As Muslims, we believe in the divine origins of both. No one can be a
Muslim without believing in Moses and Jesus as
great prophets of God. My goal is only to vindicate Islam and pay a
tribute, long overdue in the West, to the final truthful
Message from God to the human race.
I would also like to emphasize that I concerned myself only with
Doctrine. That is, my concern is, mainly, the position
of women in the three religions as it appears in their original sources
not as practised by their millions of followers
in the world today. Therefore, most of the evidence cited comes from the
Quran, the sayings of Prophet Muhammad, the
Bible, the Talmud, and the sayings of some of the most influential
Church Fathers whose views have contributed
immeasurably to defining and shaping Christianity. This interest in the
sources relates to the fact that understanding a
certain religion from the attitudes and the behaviour of some of its
nominal followers is misleading. Many people confuse
culture with religion, many others do not know what their religious
books are saying, and many others do not even care.
- Eve’s Fault ?
The three religions agree on one basic fact: Both women and men are
created by God, The Creator of the whole universe.
However, disagreement starts soon after the creation of the first man,
Adam, and the first woman, Eve. The
Judaeo-Christian conception of the creation of Adam and Eve is narrated
in detail in Genesis 2:4-3:24. God prohibited
both of them from eating the fruits of the forbidden tree. The serpent
seduced Eve to eat from it and Eve, in turn, seduced
Adam to eat with her. When God rebuked Adam for what he did, he put all
the blame on Eve, “The woman you put here
with me --she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it.”
Consequently, God said to Eve:
“I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will
give birth to children. Your desire will be for
your husband and he will rule over you.”
To Adam He said:
“Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree … Cursed is
the ground because of you; through painful
toil you will eat of it all the days of your life…”
The Islamic conception of the first creation is found in several places
in the Quran, for example:
"O Adam dwell with your wife in the Garden and enjoy as you wish but
approach not this tree or you run into harm
and transgression. Then Satan whispered to them in order to reveal to
them their shame that was hidden from
them and he said: ‘Your Lord only forbade you this tree lest you become
angels or such beings as live forever.’
And he swore to them both that he was their sincere adviser. So by
deceit he brought them to their fall: when they
tasted the tree their shame became manifest to them and they began to
sew together the leaves of the Garden
over their bodies. And their Lord called unto them: ‘Did I not forbid
you that tree and tell you that Satan was your
avowed enemy?’ They said: ‘Our Lord we have wronged our own souls and if
You forgive us not and bestow not
upon us Your Mercy, we shall certainly be lost’ " (7:19:23).
A careful look into the two accounts of the story of the Creation
reveals some essential differences. The Quran,
contrary to the Bible, places equal blame on both Adam and Eve for their
mistake. Nowhere in the Quran can
one find even the slightest hint that Eve tempted Adam to eat from the
tree or even that she had eaten before him. Eve
in the Quran is no temptress, no seducer, and no deceiver. Moreover, Eve
is not to be blamed for the pains of
childbearing. God, according to the Quran, punishes no one for another’s
faults. Both Adam and Eve committed a
sin and then asked God for forgiveness and He forgave them both.
- Eve’s Legacy
the Old Testament and look at excerpts from what is
called the Wisdom Literature in which we find:
“I find more bitter than death the woman who is a snare, whose heart is
a trap and whose hands are chains. The
man who pleases God will escape her, but the sinner she will
ensnare…while I was still searching but not finding,
I found one upright man among a thousand but not one upright woman among
them all” (Ecclesiastes 7:26-28).
In another part of the Hebrew literature which is found in the Catholic
Bible we read:
“No wickedness comes anywhere near the wickedness of a woman…Sin
began with a woman and thanks to her
we all must die” (Ecclesiasticus 25:19,24).
Jewish Rabbis listed nine curses inflicted on women as a result of the
Fall:
“To the woman He gave nine curses and death: the burden of the blood of
menstruation and
one in mourning; she pierces her ear like a permanent slave or slave
girl who serves her master; she is not to be
believed as a witness; and after everything–death.”[2]
To the present day, orthodox Jewish men in their daily morning prayer
recite “Blessed be God King of the universe
that Thou has not made me a woman.” The women, on the other hand, thank
God every morning for “making me
according to Thy will.” [3] Another prayer found in many Jewish prayer
books: “Praised be God that he has not created
me a gentile. Praised be God that he has not created me a woman. Praised
be God that he has not created me an
ignoramus.” [4]
The Biblical Eve has played a far bigger role in Christianity than in
Judaism. Her sin has been pivotal to the whole
Christian faith because the Christian conception of the reason for the
mission of Jesus Christ on Earth stems from Eve’s
disobedience to God. She had sinned and then seduced Adam to follow her
suit. Consequently, God expelled both of
them from Heaven to Earth, which had been cursed because of them. They
bequeathed their sin, which had not been
forgiven by God, to all their descendants and, thus, all humans are born
in sin. In order to purify human beings from their
‘original sin’, God had to sacrifice Jesus, who is considered to be the
Son of God, on the cross. Therefore, Eve is
responsible for her own mistake, her husband’s sin, the original sin of
all humanity, and the death of the Son of God. In
other words, one woman acting on her own caused the fall of humanity
[5]. What about her daughters? They are sinners
like her and have to be treated as such. Listen to the severe tone of
St. Paul in the New Testament:
“A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I don’t permit a
woman to teach or to have authority over
a man; she must be silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam
was not the one deceived; it was the
woman who was deceived and became a sinner” (I Timothy 2:11-14).
St. Tertullian was even more blunt than St. Paul, while he was talking
to his ‘best beloved sisters’ in the faith, he said [6]:
“Do you not know that you are each an Eve? The sentence of God on this
sex of yours lives in this age: the guilt
must of necessity live too. You are the Devil’s gateway: You are the
unsealer of the forbidden tree: You are the
first deserter of the divine law: You are she who persuaded him whom the
devil was not valiant enough to attack.
You destroyed so easily God’s image, man. On account of your desert even
the Son of God had to die.”
St. Augustine was faithful to the legacy of his predecessors, he wrote
to a friend:
“What is the difference whether it is in a wife or a mother, it is still
Eve the temptress that we must beware of in
any woman…I fail to see what use woman can be to man, if one
excludes the function of bearing children.”
Centuries later, St. Thomas Aquinas still considered women as defective:
“As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten,
for the active force in the male seed tends
to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the
production of woman comes from a defect
in the active force or from some material indisposition, or even from
some external influence.”
Finally, the renowned reformer Martin Luther could not see any benefit
from a woman but bringing into the world as many
children as possible regardless of any side effects:
“If they become tired or even die, that does not matter. Let them die in
childbirth, that’s why they are there”
Again and again all women are denigrated because of the image of Eve the
temptress, thanks to the Genesis account.
To sum up, the Judaeo-Christian conception of women has been poisoned by
the belief in the sinful nature of Eve and her
female offspring.
If we now turn our attention to what the Quran has to say about women,
we will soon realize that the Islamic conception
of women is radically different from the Judaeo-Christian one. Let the
Quran speak for itself:
“For Muslim men and women, for believing men and women, for devout men
and women, for true men and women,
for men and women who are patient, for men and women who humble
themselves, for men and women who give in
charity, for men and women who fast, for men and women who guard their
chastity, and for men and women who
engage much in Allah’s praise-- For them all has Allah prepared
forgiveness and great reward” (33:35). “The
believers, men and women, are protectors, one of another: they enjoin
what is just, and forbid what is evil, they
observe regular prayers, practise regular charity, and obey Allah and
His Messenger. On them will Allah pour His
Mercy: for Allah is Exalted in power, Wise” (9:71). “And their Lord
answered them: Truly I will never cause to be
lost the work of any of you, Be you a male or female, you are members
one of another” (3:195). “Whoever works
evil will not be requited but by the like thereof, and whoever works a
righteous deed -whether man or woman- and
is a believer- such will enter the Garden of bliss” (40:40). “Whoever
works righteousness, man or woman, and has
faith, verily to him/her we will give a new life that is good and pure,
and we will bestow on such their reward
according to the best of their actions” (16:97).
It is clear that the Quranic view of women is no different than that of
men. They, both, are God’s creatures
whose sublime goal on earth is to worship their Lord, do righteous
deeds, and avoid evil and they, both, will
be assessed accordingly. The Quran never mentions that the woman is the
devil’s gateway or that she is a deceiver by
nature. The Quran, also, never mentions that man is God’s image; all men
and all women are his creatures, that is all.
According to the Quran, a woman’s role on earth is not limited only to
childbirth. She is required to do as many good
deeds as any other man is required to do. The Quran never says that no
upright women have ever existed. To the
contrary, the Quran has instructed all the believers, women as well as
men, to follow the example of those ideal women
such as the Virgin Mary and the Pharoah’s wife:
“And Allah sets forth, As an example to those who believe, the wife of
Pharaoh: Behold she said: ‘O my lord build
for me, in nearness to you, a mansion in the Garden, and save me from
Pharaoh and his doings and save me from
those who do wrong.’ And Mary the daughter of Imran who guarded her
chastity and We breathed into her body of
Our spirit; and she testified to the truth of the words of her Lord and
of His revelations and was one of the devout”
(66:11-13).
- Shameful Daughters ?
In fact, the difference between the Biblical and the Quranic attitude
towards the female sex starts as soon as a female is
born. For example, the Bible states that the period of the mother’s
ritual impurity is twice as long if a girl is born
than if a boy is (Lev. 12:2-5). The Catholic Bible states explicitly
that:
“The birth of a daughter is a loss” (Ecclesiasticus 22:3).
In contrast to this shocking statement, boys receive special praise:
“A man who educates his son will be the envy of his enemy.”
(Ecclesiasticus 30:3)
Jewish Rabbis made it an obligation on Jewish men to produce offspring
in order to propagate the race. At the same
time, they did not hide their clear preference for male children : “It
is well for those whose children are male but ill for
those whose are female”, “At the birth of a boy, all are joyful…at the
birth of a girl all are sorrowful”, and “When a boy
comes into the world, peace comes into the world… When a girl comes,
nothing comes.” [7]
A daughter is considered a painful burden, a potential source of shame
to her father:
“Your daughter is headstrong? Keep a sharp look-out that she does not
make you the laughing stock of your
enemies, the talk of the town, the object of common gossip, and put you
to public shame” (Ecclesiasticus 42:11).
“Keep a headstrong daughter under firm control, or she will abuse any
indulgence she receives. Keep a strict
watch on her shameless eye, do not be surprised if she disgraces you”
(Ecclesiasticus 26:10-11).
It was this very same idea of treating daughters as sources of shame
that led the pagan Arabs, before the advent of
Islam, to practice female infanticide. The Quran severely condemned this
heinous practice:
“When news is brought to one of them of the birth of a female child, his
face darkens and he is filled with inward
grief. With shame does he hide himself from his people because of the
bad news he has had! Shall he retain her
on contempt or bury her in the dust? Ah! what an evil they decide on?”
(16:59).
It has to be mentioned that this sinister crime would have never stopped
in Arabia were it not for the power of the
scathing terms the Quran used to condemn this practice (16:59, 43:17,
81:8-9). The Quran, moreover, makes no
distinction between boys and girls. In contrast to the Bible, the Quran
considers the birth of a female as a gift and
a blessing from God, the same as the birth of a male. The Quran even
mentions the gift of the female birth first:
" To Allah belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth. He creates
what He wills. He bestows female
children to whomever He wills and bestows male children to whomever He
wills" (42:49). In order to wipe out all
the traces of female infanticide in the nascent Muslim society, Prophet
Muhammad promised those who were
blessed with daughters of a great reward if they would bring them up
kindly: “He who is involved in bringing up
daughters, and accords benevolent treatment towards them, they will be
protection for him against Hell-Fire”
(Bukhari and Muslim). “Whoever maintains two girls till they attain
maturity, he and I will come on the
Resurrection Day like this; and he joined his fingers” (Muslim).
- Female Education ?
The difference between the Biblical and the Quranic conceptions of women
is not limited to the newly born female, it
extends far beyond that. Let us compare their attitudes towards a female
trying to learn her religion. The heart of Judaism
is the Torah, the law. However, according to the Talmud, “women are
exempt from the study of the Torah.” Some
Jewish Rabbis firmly declared “Let the words of Torah rather be
destroyed by fire than imparted to women”, and
“Whoever teaches his daughter Torah is as though he taught her
obscenity” [8]
The attitude of St. Paul in the New Testament is not brighter:
“As in all the congregations of the saints, women should remain silent
in the churches. They are not
allowed to speak, but must be in submission as the law says. If they
want to inquire about something,
they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a
woman to speak in the church.” (I
Corinthians 14:34-35)
How can a woman learn if she is not allowed to speak? How can a woman
grow intellectually if she is obliged to be in a
state of full submission? How can she broaden her horizons if her one
and only source of information is her husband at
home?
Now, to be fair, we should ask: is the Quranic position any different?
One short story narrated in the Quran sums its
position up concisely. Khawlah was a Muslim woman whose husband Aws
pronounced this statement at a moment of
anger: “You are to me as the back of my mother.” This was held by pagan
Arabs to be a statement of divorce which
freed the husband from any conjugal responsibility but did not leave the
wife free to leave the husband’s home or to marry
another man. Having heard these words from her husband, Khawlah was in a
miserable situation. She went straight to
the Prophet of Islam to plead her case. The Prophet was of the opinion
that she should be patient since there seemed to
be no way out. Khawla kept arguing with the Prophet in an attempt to
save her suspended marriage. Shortly, the Quran
intervened; Khawla’s plea was accepted. The divine verdict abolished
this iniquitous custom. One full chapter (Chapter
58) of the Quran whose title is “Almujadilah” or “The woman who is
arguing” was named after this incident:
“Allah has heard and accepted the statement of the woman who pleads with
you (the Prophet) concerning her
husband and carries her complaint to Allah, and Allah hears the
arguments between both of you for Allah hears
and sees all things…” (58:1).
A woman in the Quranic conception has the right to argue even with the
Prophet of Islam himself. No one has the right to
instruct her to be silent. She is under no obligation to consider her
husband the one and only reference in matters of law
and religion.
- Unclean Impure Woman ?
Jewish laws and regulations concerning menstruating women are extremely
restrictive. The Old Testament considers any
menstruating woman as unclean and impure. Moreover, her impurity
“infects” others as well. Anyone or anything she
touches becomes unclean for a day:
“When a woman has her regular flow of blood, the impurity of her monthly
period will last seven days, and anyone
who touches her will be unclean till evening. Anything she lies on
during her period will be unclean, and anything
she sits on will be unclean. Whoever touches her bed must wash his
clothes and bathe with water, and he will be
unclean till evening. Whoever touches anything she sits on must wash his
clothes and bathe with water, and he
will be unclean till evening. Whether it is the bed or anything she was
sitting on, when anyone touches it, he will
be unclean till evening” (Lev. 15:19-23).
Due to her “contaminating” nature, a menstruating woman was sometimes
“banished” in order to avoid any possibility of
any contact with her. She was sent to a special house called “the house
of uncleanness” for the whole period of her
impurity [9]. The Talmud considers a menstruating woman “fatal” even
without any physical contact:
“Our Rabbis taught:…if a menstruant woman passes between two (men),
if it is at the beginning of her menses
she will slay one of them, and if it is at the end of her menses she
will cause strife between them” (bPes. 111a.)
Furthermore, the husband of a menstruous woman was forbidden to enter
the synagogue if he had been made unclean
by her even by the dust under her feet. A priest whose wife, daughter,
or mother was menstruating could not recite
priestly blessing in the synagogue [10]. No wonder many Jewish women
still refer to menstruation as “the curse.” [11]
Islam does not consider a menstruating woman to possess any kind of
“contagious uncleanness”. She is neither
“untouchable” nor “cursed.” She practises her normal life with only one
restriction: A married couple are not allowed to
have sexual intercourse during the period of menstruation. Any other
physical contact between them is permissible. A
menstruating woman is exempted from some rituals such as daily prayers
and fasting during her period.
http://www.unn.ac.uk/societies/islamic/women/judochri.htm
