An analysis of two different points of view
In their works titled “Women in the Muslim Unconscious” and “Quran and the Woman” Fatna Sabbah and Amina Wadud respectively present contrasting opinions on the roles and depiction of women in Islam. They use the key source of information, the Quran, to validate their arguments. Sabbah suggests that women become ‘objects of religious discourse’ as the bulk of Quranic scripture is addressed to men, forming a power structure in which men regulate and enforce divine law over women. This results from an essential discrepancy between the sacred and the biological analysis of events, and as each occurrence is predetermined by God, women’s natural capacity to give birth and thus be responsible for the expansion of the human race, is undermined. Wadud conversely proposes that the Quran, except on a few occasions, addresses both men and women. According to her, the traditional interpretations of the Quran are shaped by the social/cultural notions of gender, which are separate from the actual content of the religious text. Moreover, the Quran is meant for all mankind and has a “natural adaptive nature of interpretation” meaning that no single explanation is ‘definitive’.
Sabbah suggests that Islam is based on a hierarchal structure of relationships where God has exclusive control over mankind and the male being takes precedence over the female being. Her principal argument relies on the fact that the scripture portrays women to be objects of gratification for men. ‘The existence of God is rooted in the very existence of man’ – the sacred discourse implies that God is omnipotent, attributing the creation of man solely to God’s will and therefore eradicating the woman’s importance in the process of procreation. In fact, Sabbah notes that as per the Islamic rendition of the Adam and Eve story, woman was ‘created from’ man, reinforcing her position as the ‘other’ in Islamic society.
The concept of ‘sacred space’ stretches beyond the Earth and attaining Paradise is made out to be a believer’s ultimate goal. However, in the quest for Paradise, the element of gender inequality arises as many verses pertaining to Paradise appeal to the desires of men. The importance of the earthly woman is reduced and almost obliterated in Paradise by the introduction of the ‘houri’ or the paradisal woman solely created for the pleasure of “those of the right hand”. Sabbah points out that “nowhere in Paradise are the needs of this earthly woman taken into consideration” hence reducing the woman’s significance in the sexual discourse. “The houri is defined in physical terms” and “is created to be a sexual partner for the male believer,” reducing women in general to anatomical objects. The Quranic verses are isolated and read literally by Sabbah as she uses the verse “Enter the Garden, ye and your wives, to be made glad” to suggest that women’s fate is dependant on their husband’s virtues. However, there is a contradiction in this statement as another verse of the Quran reads “and whoso doeth good works, whether male or female, and he (or she) is a believer, such will enter paradise” stressing on the accountability of men and women as individuals.
According to Sabbah, the superiority of men is established in Islam as they are defined as the caretakers of women. Islam, by allowing polygamy or multiple marriages, “encourages the husband to make little emotional investment” and reiterates the woman’s role as a pleasure tool designed to gratify the sexual desires of male. “Mastering the woman means mastering desire” and the woman’s sexual needs are given almost no importance due to their lack of mention in the Quran.
Wadud diverges from Sabbah as she takes similar verses from the Quran and dissects their language in terms of grammar and content to show that divine law is equally applicable to both men and women. Instead of concentrating on the immediate intricacies of the text she presents the idea that “allegorical verses cannot be empirically determined” and draws attention to God’s larger scheme. Her major argument rests on the fact that the verses of the Quran, whether grammatically masculine or feminine refer to both. “Grammatically the ‘nafs’ (self) is feminine… Conceptually, ‘nafs’ is neither masculine nor feminine”. However, her case for gender neutrality in Islamic learning is laid out by comparing it to other religions such as Christianity which states that Eve was created from Adam’s rib. As the Quran excludes any verse specifically stating the aforementioned, Wadud suggests that the important factor is the creation of humanity, not a particular gender.
The crux of Wadud’s argument lies in her assertion that the Quran does not “support a specific and stereotyped role for its characters”. Hence the relations to specific women must be placed in the particular “social, cultural, and historical context” in which they are related. Wadud points out that the Prophet was situated in Arab society, hence in order for the people of the time to comprehend the message, God had to speak in a cultural context they could relate to. Hence, “the references to female characters in the Qur’an use an important cultural idiosyncrasy which demonstrates respect for women.” Women, like men are used to depict models of believers/behavior in Islam.
The relationship between God and the individual is not based on gender as there is no difference in the spiritual capacity of men and women laid out in the Quran. Instead, the distinction between believers is made on the basis of faith as the verse “Whoever does good, from male or female and is a believer, all such will enter Paradise (4:124)” clearly suggests.
Examples of believing women are given, and Wadud suggests that the derived lesson ‘transcends their femaleness’. Unlike, Sabbah’s assertion that Islam removes the significance of women from the process of procreation, Wadud uses Mary’s example in the Quran to assert the opposite. The Quran refers to Mary as ‘one of the qanitin’ (believers-masculine form) instead of the feminine plural, a fact which Wadud uses to reiterate that the teachings from the narratives in the Quran are meant for all humanity.
The discussion of Paradise is also brought up by Wadud who approaches the verses/message of the Quran in an untraditional manner. Her explanation for the verses geared towards sexual gratification of men and the existence of the ‘Hur-ul-Ayn’ (the paradisal woman) is that the Quran at the time of its revelation spoke primarily to ‘prominent patriarchs in a patriarchal society’. The later verses (revealed in the Madinan period) hardly contain any mention of such women and instead lay emphasis on ‘harmony’. However, an essential contradiction arises in Wadud’s argument as she suggests that Quran is an eternal message from God that transcends time, space, gender and social norms yet her argument asks one to contextualize the Quran. This sense of confusion arises because there is no clear indication as to when the Quran can and can not be taken out of a specific context and speak to the entire mankind instead of people in a certain historical time frame or locality.
Unlike Sabbah, Wadud views the Quran as an inclusive text that “adapts to the concept of the modern woman” and instead of giving importance to literal intricacies the “goal has been to emulate certain key principles of human development: justice, equity, harmony”. The traditional patriarchal interpretation of the Quran that suggests “a woman’s subservience to a man” has been made by readers who are situated in social systems that promote these ideals and hence they take advantage of the open-endedness of they Quran by enforcing their own value system in their explanation of it. Wadud further reads the Quran as an accommodative text that does not generalize and “negative terms” “are neither directly nor exclusively associated with women”, encouraging the reader to look at them through a multidimensional lens.
The writer is a staff member of Pakistan Today and holds a degree from Mount Holyoke College.