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Q. I attended a debate recently where some people insisted that Islam treats women as inferior to men. They cited Verse 4: 34 of the Qur’an to say that God has allowed men to beat their wives, and cited a Hadith that suggests that women are deficient in both mind and religion. I am a woman who firmly believes in Islam and that God is absolutely just. Yet I cannot believe that women are inferior to men in either intelligence or religion. Please comment.
A. I am a man and I share your view. Women are absolutely equal to men. There is nothing in God’s book or in the Prophet’s Hadith and Sunnah to suggest otherwise. Yet there are some differences in some of the laws when they apply to men and women, but such differences are only necessitated by the different roles of the two sexes in the family life and in society. Moreover, all these differences give advantage to the woman rather than the man.
However, there is a common notion that Islam treats women as inferior. Unfortunately, the behavior and practices in many Muslim communities today tend to support what the media claim on this issue. Yet this is far from the truth. When we look at what Islam requires of men and women, we find that all duties apply to both in the same way, and they are promised the same reward. There is no special prayer women are asked to do in order to match the reward men receive for their prayers. On the contrary, women are exempt from prayer during their period, yet a woman who attends regularly to her prayers receives her reward for prayer complete, as if she has prayed in full on those days. This is not only for obligatory prayers, but also for the voluntary prayers she normally does. There is no special ritual women or men do during the pilgrimage, to the exclusion of the other sex. They all do the same rituals. How can we say there is a difference in status?
The problem is in people’s minds, not in Islamic teachings. Let us look at the Qur’anic verse and the Hadith in question. God says in the Qur’an: “Men shall take full care of women with the bounties with which God has favored some of them more abundantly than others, and with what they may spend of their own wealth. The righteous women are devout, guarding the intimacy, which God has ordained to be guarded. As for those women from whom you have reason to fear rebellion, admonish them (first); then leave them alone in bed; then beat them. Then, if they pay you heed, do not seek any pretext to harm them. God is indeed most high, great.” (4: 34)
In his translation of God’s book, The Message of the Qur’an, Muhammad Asad writes the following comment, with which I entirely agree: “It is evident from many authentic Traditions (i.e. Hadiths) that the Prophet himself intensely detested the idea of beating one’s wife, and said on more than one occasion, ‘Could any of you beat his wife as he would beat a slave, and then lie with her in the evening?’ (Related by Al-Bukhari and Muslim). According to another Tradition, he forbade the beating of any woman with the words, ‘Never beat God’s handmaidens.’ (Related by Abu Dawood, Al-Nassaie, Ibn Majah and Ahmad). When the above Qur’an-verse authorizing the beating of a refractory wife was revealed, the Prophet is reported to have said: ‘I wanted one thing, but God has willed another thing and what God has willed must be best.’ With all this he stipulated in his sermon on the occasion of the Farewell Pilgrimage, shortly before his death, that beating should be resorted to only if the wife ‘has become guilty, in an obvious manner, of immoral conduct’, and that it should be done ‘in such a way as not to cause pain’. Authentic Traditions to this effect are found in Muslim, Al-Tirmidhi, Abu Dawood, Al-Nassaie and Ibn Majah. On the basis of these Tradition, all the authorities stress that this ‘beating’, if resorted to at all, should be more or less symbolic ‘with a toothbrush, or some such thing’, or even ‘with a folded handkerchief’; and some of the greatest Muslim scholars, (e.g. Al-Shafie) are of the opinion that it is just barely permissible, and should preferably be avoided: and they justify this opinion by the Prophet’s personal feelings with regard to this problem.”
This sums up the point about beating. Yet if you look at this Qur’anic verse, you will see how God praises devout women and makes it clear that men must look after their women taking full care of them. The Prophet provides practical guidance in all aspects of life. He treated his wives and daughters in an exemplary way, never using a harsh word to any of them. When a servant did something that upset him, he said to her: “Had it not been for the fact that I fear God, I would have beaten you with this toothbrush”. Now the servant was totally in the wrong, upsetting the Prophet who was rarely angry at any personal behavior. He told her that, were he to punish her, he would have used only a toothbrush to beat her with. Yet, even then he feared that this might make God angry with him.
In view of all this, can any man justify beating his wife for ordinary misbehavior? That would betray total ignorance of the significance of the text. As for the Hadith speaking of women’s deficiency, it is also quoted out of context. The Prophet was speaking to women on the occasion of Eid, just after the prayer. It was a joyous occasion when the Prophet jested with his audience and made them merry. He then admonished them and urged them to give to charity. He then said: “I have never seen people like you who are deficient in mind and religion yet can turn the mind of a wise man.” When they questioned him on this, he explained that the deficiency in religion is that a woman is not required to pray during her period, and the deficiency in mind is the fact that a woman witness should have another woman with her to remind her in case she forgets. This is not allowed to a man who is a witness. Yet people quote only the words, ‘deficient in mind and religion’, taking them out of context. They do not look at the Prophet’s explanation, nor at the relaxed way he said it, nor at the fact that he was jesting with women. They take these words as final and that they define the basis of how to treat women. How ill advised they are.
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