This article is a full translation of the book Shubuhāt Ḥawl Qaḍāyā al Marʾah al Muslimah wa al Radd ʿAlayhā (Doubts Concerning the Issues of the Muslim Woman and the Response to Them) by ʿAbd al Ḥamīd ʿĪd ʿAwad.
Navigation Menu For The Summary
The Issue of Inheritance
The Issue of Testimony
The Issue of Woman and the Supreme Leadership
The Issue of Hijab
The Issue of Mixing
The Issue of Polygyny
The Issue of Qiwamah
Divorce
Navigation Menu For The Book
The Issue of Inheritance
The Issue of Testimony
The Reply to This Doubt
The Issue of Woman and the Supreme Leadership
The Reply to This Doubt
The Issue of Hijab
The Issue of Mixing
Reply to This Doubt
Moral collapse and family breakdown
The spread of children born outside marriage
The spread of deadly illnesses
The Issue of Polygyny
A historical glance at polygyny
The wisdom behind making polygyny permissible
Social interest
Moral wisdom
Personal interest
Western praise of polygyny
The Issue of Qiwamah
Reply to This Doubt
Considering natural disposition and the abilities granted to each of the man and the woman
Qiwamah
Divorce
Reply to the Claim That Divorce Should Not Exist
Reply to the Claim That the Woman Must Hold Divorce Like the Man
Reply to the Claim That Divorce Must Be Through Court Only
Summary
The Issue of Inheritance
Equality between men and women in inheritance is demanded by orientalists and secularists, with the claim that giving the woman half the share of the man is injustice and proof of lowering her rank.
Gaston Wiet said: “The role of woman in Islamic society is extremely limited… to the point that in the matter of inheritance her share was only half the share of the man.” (See: Muhammad ʿAbd Allah al Samman, The False Claims of UNESCO Against Islam, p. 56.)
Another claim says that honouring women in inheritance was only a temporary step, tied to the era in which women inherited nothing, and that later equality was intended, so modern people should “complete” that by giving women the same as men. (See: ʿAbd al Majid Subh, Woman in Islam, p. 120. Also see: ʿAbd al ʿAziz al Marshidi, The Fall of Secularism, pp. 210 and 213.)
Justice in inheritance rests on the full Islamic system, not on one fraction taken alone. The man is bound to financial duties that the woman is not bound to, beginning with mahr, and continuing with full maintenance for wife and children, and also spending upon parents and relatives when needed. (Surah al Nisa: 4; Surah al Talaq: 6–7.)
With these continuing obligations, the man’s share is open to decrease in reality through required spending, while the woman’s share is protected from obligation and is open to increase through mahr, gifts, and income from property. (See: Muhammad Qutb, Doubts About Islam, p. 120.)
Inheritance shares for women are not always half. Equality occurs in cases such as maternal siblings sharing equally in one sixth, or sharing equally in one third when several. (Surah al Nisa: 12.)
Women also exceed men in some cases, such as a daughter inheriting one half while a husband inherits one quarter, and cases where daughters receive two thirds while a male agnate receives the remainder, which can be less than one daughter’s share. (See: ʿAbd al Majid Subh, Woman in Islam, p. 125. Also see: Mahmud Hamdi Zaqzuq, Islam in the Face of Campaigns of Doubt, pp. 103 to 104.)
Some non Muslims even refer inheritance disputes to the Islamic system for its effect in settling conflict. (See: Mahmud Hamdi Zaqzuq, Islam in the Face of Campaigns of Doubt, pp. 103 to 104.)
The Issue of Testimony
Women’s testimony is attacked with rhetorical mockery, including the claim that a highly educated woman’s testimony becomes “half” the testimony of an uneducated man. (See: ʿAbd al ʿAzim al Mutaʿni, Woman in the Age of the Message Between the Realism of Islam and the Illusions of the Agitators, p. 121.) Demands for absolute equality in testimony were also raised in modern conferences and campaigns. (See: ʿAbd al ʿAziz al Marshidi, The Fall of Secularism, p. 213.)
In debts and contracts, one man and two women are required as a way of stronger confirmation and protection of rights, with the Qur’an stating the reason: “so that if one of the two errs, the other can remind her.” (Surah al Baqarah: 282.)
This ruling is tied to the nature of that subject matter, including experience in contractual details, the possibility of distraction, and the need for precision under legal questioning. (See: Abu al Aʿla al Mawdudi, Hijab, pp. 204 to 209. Also see: Muhammad al Bahi, Islam and the Direction of the Contemporary Muslim Woman, pp. 44 to 45. Also see: Mustafa al Sibaʿi, Woman Between Fiqh and Law, p. 33.)
This is not a measure of honour or human worth. Equality of testimony exists in other matters, including liʿan (legal procedure in Islamic law used between a husband and wife when the husband accuses his wife of adultery but has no witnesses), where each side bears witness four times by Allah, and the woman’s testimony stands equal to the man’s in effect. (Surah al Nur: 6–9)
Women’s testimony alone is accepted in matters to which women have direct access, such as childbirth and women’s hidden physical conditions, because justice follows suitability and access to the facts. (See: ʿAbd al ʿAzim al Mutaʿni, Woman in the Age of the Message, pp. 124 to 125. Also see: Mahmud Shaltut, Islam, Creed and Sharia, pp. 240 to 241.)
The Issue of Woman and the Supreme Leadership
Public responsibility is not forbidden to women by agreement, and examples include guardianship over minors and those of deficient intellect. The dispute concerns the supreme leadership and what resembles it among the greatest posts tied to the safety and stability of the land. (See: ʿAbd al ʿAzim al Mutaʿni, Woman in the Age of the Message, p. 105. Also see: Amir ʿAbd al ʿAziz, False Accusations Against Islam and the Muslims, p. 57.)
The supreme leadership helps carries burdens of the highest seriousness, including leading armies and announcing jihad, and it also collides with binding Sharia limits tied to family care, travel without a mahram, seclusion, and required restraints in mixing. (See: Mustafa al Sibaʿi, Woman Between Fiqh and Law, pp. 157 to 158.)
Evidence is taken from the Qur’an verse on qiwamah in the home, with the reasoning that leadership over the wider public is weightier than leadership within the limited sphere of the household. (Surah al Nisa: 34; See: ʿAbd al ʿAzim al Mutaʿni, Woman in the Age of the Message, p. 110.)
Evidence is also taken from the hadith: “No people will prosper who place a woman in charge of their affairs.” (Bukhari 7099.) Historical practice in the era of the Prophet ﷺ and the Rightly Guided Caliphs also shows major public offices held by men. (See: ʿAbd al ʿAzim al Mutaʿni, Woman in the Age of the Message, p. 109.)
Shajarat al Durr is an individual political event, not a basis for general ruling, with her stepping down after the Abbasid caliph objected and invoked the hadith. (See: ʿUmar Rida Kahhalah, Famous Women in the Worlds of the Arabs and Islam, 2/286 to 290. Also see: Faraj Muhammad al Wasif, Foundations and Characteristics of the Islamic System of Rule, pp. 130 to 131.)
Bilqis is a historical narrative of guidance, not a legal appointment, and rare exceptions do not establish a general rule. (See: ʿAbd al ʿAzim al Mutaʿni, Woman in the Age of the Message, p. 114.)
The Issue of Hijab
Claims that the Sharia contains no Qur’an verse obligating hijab are answered by direct Qur’an verses commanding concealment of adornment, lowering the gaze, and drawing head coverings over chest openings. (Surah al Nur: 31.) (See: al Bahi al Khuli, Islam and the Contemporary Issues of Women, p. 162. Also see: al Sayyid Ahmad Faraj, The Conspiracy Against the Muslim Woman, p. 69.)
The exception “except what normally appears from it” is an area of ijtihad, with two major views: one limiting it to outer clothing, and another, held by many Companions and the majority of jurists, returning it to the face and hands. (See: al Baydawi, Tafsir, 2/121. Also see: al Suyuti, al Durr al Manthur, 6/180. Also see: Ibn Qudamah, al Mughni, 2/184. Also see: ʿAbd al Rahman al Jaziri, al Fiqh ʿala al Madhahib al Arbaʿah, 1/188.)
Support is taken from hadith reports in which a woman was seen and described, and the Prophet ﷺ redirected a man’s gaze, with the inference that her face was not covered at that time. (See: Sunan An Nasai 2641. Also see: Ibn Hajar, Fath al Bari, 11/13. Also see: Muhammad Nasir al Din al Albani, Hijab of the Muslim Woman in the Book and the Sunnah, p. 29.)
Other Qur’an verses are joined to this, including remaining in homes and avoiding display, asking from behind a screen, and drawing outer garments closely when going out for needs. (Surah al Ahzab: 33.) (Surah al Ahzab: 53.) (Surah al Ahzab: 59.) (See: al Qurtubi, Tafsir, 8/5261. Also see: al Shanqiti, Adwa’ al Bayan, pp. 584 to 585. Also see: Ahmad Mustafa al Maraghi, Tafsir al Maraghi, 22/38.)
Face veiling is permissible, and may become recommended or required in cases of fear of fitnah, while uncovering does not mean display or adornment, and lowering the gaze remains obligatory. (See: Yusuf al Qaradawi, Contemporary Fatwas, 2/329 and after it.)
The Issue of Mixing
Mixing between unrelated men and women is a direct cause for making fornication easier, and the call for unrestricted mixing is linked to admiration of Western social norms. (See: ʿAbd al ʿAzim al Mutaʿni, Woman in the Age of the Message, p. 94.) Evidence is taken from the prohibition of seclusion and the prohibition of travel without a mahram. “No man should be alone with a woman, for their third is Shaytan.” (Jami’ At Tirmdihi 2165)
“It is not permissible for a woman who believes in Allah and the Last Day to travel for a day and a night except with a mahram.” (See: Ahmad, 4/251.)
Stricter warning is applied to close relatives such as the husband’s brother: “The husband’s brother is death.” (Bukhari 5232) Separation is also applied even in worship through prayer rows, with the explanation that distance from mixing is the reason. (See: Muslim, 1/326, 440. Also see: al Nawawi’s commentary on Muslim, 4/119.)
Western social outcomes are placed as a warning against copying that model, including family breakdown, high levels of divorce, children born outside marriage, and spread of sexual diseases. (See: Yusuf al Qaradawi, The Status of Women in Islamic Life, pp. 58 to 65. Also see: Muhammad Mahmud al Sawwaf, Colonial Plans to Fight Islam, pp. 227 to 228. Also see: ʿAbd al ʿAziz ibn Baz, The Danger of Women Sharing Men in His Field of Work, pp. 13 to 15.)
The Issue of Polygyny
Polygyny is a known practice before Islam in many nations and religions, including ancient legal systems and the People of the Book, and it was present among the Arabs before Islam without limit. Islam reforms chaos by restriction, not inventing the practice. (See: Al ʿAqqad, The Truths of Islam and the Falsehoods of Its Opponents, p. 131. Also see: Mustafa al Sibaʿi, Woman Between Fiqh and Law, pp. 71 to 72. Also see: al Hakim, 2/192.)
Permissibility is tied to justice and limited number, and servers higher wisdoms and public interests. (Surah al Aʿraf: 157.) (See: Yusuf al Qaradawi, The Status of Women in Islamic Life, pp. 133 to 134.)
Social interest is tied to demographic imbalance, including situations where women exceed men, and situations after wars where men are reduced in number.
Polygyny preserves chastity and protects women from being left without marriage or pushed into prostitution. (See: Mustafa al Sibaʿi, Woman Between Fiqh and Law, p. 81. Also see: Yusuf al Qaradawi, The Status of Women in Islamic Life, pp. 124 to 125. Also see: al Bahi al Khuli, Islam and the Contemporary Issues of Women, pp. 93 to 94. Also see: Muhammad Qutb, Doubts About Islam, p. 135.)
Moral wisdom is tied to public contract, family knowledge, rights, and responsibility, contrasted with hidden relationships in Western life that carry no duty, no protection, and no recognition for children. (See: Mustafa al Sibaʿi, Woman Between Fiqh and Law, pp. 93 to 95. Also see: Muhammad Rashid Rida, Tafsir al Manar, 4/295.)
Personal interest includes infertility, severe illness, strong sexual need, extended travel, and protecting the first wife from divorce while meeting lawful needs through a lawful bond. (See: Hashim ibn Hamid al Rifaʿi, The Merits of Polygyny, p. 30. Also see: ʿAbd Allah Nasih ʿUlwan, Polygyny in Islam, p. 26. Also see: Mustafa al Sibaʿi, Woman Between Fiqh and Law, p. 86.)
Western praise recognises that open lawful polygyny is more restrained and more protective than secret immorality, and that demographic realities can make one wife norms unworkable. (See: al ʿAlam al Islami newspaper, p. 12, issue 3, 3 Shaʿban 1413 AH, 25 January 1993. Also see: Hashim al Rifaʿi, The Merits of Polygyny, p. 69. Also see: ʿAbd Allah Nasih ʿUlwan, Polygyny in Islam, pp. 19 to 20.)
The Issue of Qiwamah
Qiwamah is attacked as insult and domination, while the scale of honour in Islam is taqwa, not gender. (Surah al Hujurat: 13.) (See: Amir ʿAbd al ʿAziz, False Accusations Against Islam and the Muslims, p. 84.)
Order and leadership are treated as necessary for any society, including the family, and leadership is tied to responsibility and burden, not to privilege. (See: Abu Dawud, 3/36, 2608. Also see: Mahmud Shaltut, Islam, Creed and Sharia, pp. 157 to 158.) Qiwamah is grounded in natural disposition and defined roles, with the woman suited for motherhood and care of the home, and the man responsible for provision and protection, without any injustice from the Lord. (Surah al Kahf: 49.)
The Qur’anic verse establishes qiwāmah upon two foundational principles: created ability and spending. (Surah al Nisa: 34.)
The burden side is reinforced by the warning to Adam عليه السلام with hardship tied to him. (Surah Ta Ha: 117.)
The principle that gain follows burden is used, and modern constitutional maxims are used as analogy: “Whoever pays monitors.” (See: ʿAli ʿAbd al Wahid Wafi, Human Rights in Islam, pp. 103 to 104.)
Qiwamah is a merciful responsibility, not tyranny. Guardianship before marriage is protection and provision, then counsel at marriage without coercion, then husband’s qiwamah after marriage while legal capacity and personal identity remain intact. (See: ʿAli ʿAbd al Wahid Wafi, Human Rights in Islam, pp. 705 to 706. Also see: Muhammad al Ghazali, Women’s Issues Between Stagnant and Imported Traditions, pp. 155 and 166.)
Divorce
Attacks on divorce include calling for abolishing it, equating woman’s power of divorce to man’s, and restricting divorce to courts. (See: ʿAbd al ʿAzim al Mutaʿni, Woman in the Age of the Message, p. 178. Also see: Muhammad Qutb, Doubts About Islam, pp. 132 to 133. Also see: Yusuf al Qaradawi, Features of the Muslim Society We Seek, p. 342.)
Stability of marriage is the central aim, with the bond described as clothing for each spouse. (Surah al Baqarah: 187.)
Divorce is disliked, and believers are warned against Shaytan’s steps and his effort to separate spouses. (Surah al Nur: 21.) (See: Abu Dawud, 2/255. Also see: Ibn Majah, 1/650. Also see: Muslim, 4/2167.)
Dislike of a trait is not a sufficient reason for divorce, with command to live in kindness and hope for good within what is disliked. (Surah al Nisa: 19.) (See: Muslim, 1468b)
Reconciliation is opened through private settlement and family arbitration, and separation comes only when repair fails. (Surah al Nisa: 128.) (Surah al Nisa: 35.) (Surah al Nisa: 130.) (See: Yusuf al Qaradawi, Features of the Muslim Society We Seek, pp. 342 to 343.)
Divorce is regulated through timing and waiting periods, keeping the wife in the marital home during the waiting period to increase the chance of return and to prevent haste. (Surah al Talaq: 1.)
Return remains possible during the waiting period, and the third divorce closes return until a real intervening marriage occurs, making the third divorce heavy and deterrent. (Surah al Baqarah: 229–230.) (See: al Qurtubi’s Tafsir, 10/6633. Also see: Munir al Ghudban, To You, O Muslim Girl, p. 71. Also see: Mustafa al Sibaʿi, Woman Between Fiqh and Law, p. 126.)
Divorce being placed with the husband is tied to his financial burdens, and the woman is not left without exit, because Sharia opens khulʿ and judicial separation for harm. Khulʿ is affirmed by the hadith of Thabit ibn Qays, with compensation returned by the wife. (See: al Bukhari, 9/480. Also see: al Sayyid Sabiq, Fiqh al Sunnah, 2/437 to 438.) Grounds for separation include infertility, sexual incapacity, severe defects, refusal or inability to spend, and imprisonment, with the court removing harm. (See: Zad al Maʿad, 4/43. Also see: Badran Abu al ʿAynayn Badran, Marriage and Divorce in Sharia and Law, p. 336. Also see: al Baqarah: 231.)
Court only divorce brings scandals by exposing marital secrets, and as often becoming a formality in practice, while the Sharia effect of a valid divorce does not depend on court acceptance. Judicial divorce remains safe where the judge separates due to proven harm. (See: Mustafa al Sibaʿi, Woman Between Fiqh and Law, pp. 128 to 129. Also see: Yusuf al Qaradawi, The Status of Women in Islamic Life, p. 112. Also see: ʿAbd al ʿAzim al Mutaʿni, Woman in the Age of the Message, p. 186.)
Full Book Translated
The Issue of Inheritance
The issue of a woman’s inheritance is one of the most important issues relating to women that the haters of Islam among the orientalists and secularists stir up. Their voices are always raised, demanding equality between men and women in inheritance, claiming that Islam lowered the woman’s rank when it gave her half the share of the man in inheritance, and that this points to Islam’s injustice toward women.
The French orientalist Gaston Wiet expressed this in one of the clearest ways when he claimed that it is obvious injustice for a woman to take half the share of a man in inheritance. Wiet said: “The role of woman in Islamic society is extremely limited, and the lowliness of her rank was taken for granted in every area of life, to the point that in the matter of inheritance her share was only half the share of the man.” (See: Muhammad ʿAbd Allah al Samman, The False Claims of UNESCO Against Islam, p. 56, Dar al Iʿtisam, no date.)
It is also falsehood and misguidance that some have claimed, among them Dr Nasr Abu Zayd, that honouring women in general, and in inheritance in particular, was only in comparison to what came before Islam. But if, according to his claim, we compare it to what came after Islam, especially in the modern age, then it becomes unbefitting to a woman’s dignity. He then explained his claim by saying that Islam said:
لِلذَّكَرِ مِثْلُ حَظِّ الْأُنْثَيَيْنِ
“For the male is the share of two females.” (al Nisa: 11)
He claimed that Islam said this because the message of Islam came at a time when women inherited nothing at all, and were themselves inherited. So Islam, according to his claim, wanted to move the position of women forward little by little, and after matters became settled, it then wanted equality between women and men.
Thus, according to him, the role of Islam was only to move the situation forward, and it is upon us to complete the role of Islam by giving the woman the same as the man. This is what the man claimed. (See: ʿAbd al Majid Subh, Woman in Islam, p. 120, al Nur Foundation for Distribution and Translation, no date. Also see: ʿAbd al ʿAziz al Marshidi, The fall of Secularism, p. 210, 1416 AH, 1995.)
In the following lines, we restate what the people of specialism said in replying to this doubt. Before beginning the reply, it should be made clear that the orientalists and those who follow in their path and move in their orbit did not follow the rules of sound academic research in the doubts they raised against Islam, especially in matters connected to women, because they “ignore the element of comparison in the issues they discuss, among them the issue of the Muslim woman, even though comparison is a basic element in serious academic research.
Those who are eager to fabricate lies deliberately ignore comparing the condition of women in the age of ignorance before Islam with their condition after the coming of Islam. Rather, they also ignore comparing their condition under the laws that came before Islam. Under those laws, she was nothing, while under Islam she became a distinct legal person in her own right.” (The False Claims of UNESCO Against Islam, p. 56.)
Before Islam, women were deprived of their right to inheritance, but Islam gave them justice and assigned for them a fixed right in it. In most cases, Islam made the male’s share twice that of the female, as is stated in the Noble Qur’an. (Among the Romans, the wife inherited nothing at all from her husband, even if he had no heir, and they also excluded ascendants, including the mother, when descendants were present. Among the Jews, the firstborn male alone inherited the whole estate, and none of the females inherited anything, neither the mother, nor the daughter, nor the wife.
If the deceased left only daughters, the one leaving the estate could bequeath all his wealth to whomever he wished and deprive them all. The Gospels in the hands of the Christians contained no inheritance legislation, and Christians continued to inherit according to what was in the Torah in the hands of the Jews until a recent time, when their churches laid down a system for them.
The people of the age of ignorance before Islam would only let the males who were able to fight and raid inherit, so neither females nor young boys inherited. See: ʿAbd al Majid Subh, Woman in Islam, pp. 120–121.)
يُوصِيكُمُ اللَّهُ فِي أَوْلَادِكُمْ لِلذَّكَرِ مِثْلُ حَظِّ الْأُنْثَيَيْنِ
“Allah instructs you concerning your children: for the male is the share of two females.” (al Nisa: 11)
At first glance, it may appear that Islam wronged the woman when it gave her half the share of the man in inheritance. But this is a mistaken understanding, and with a little reflection and knowledge of the Islamic system, and of the financial burdens and duties Islam placed upon the man, it becomes clear that Islam did not wrong the woman and did not favour the man over her.
In Islam, the man is the one required to give the dowry to the woman.
وَآتُوا النِّسَاءَ صَدُقَاتِهِنَّ نِحْلَةً
“Give the women their dowries graciously.” (al Nisa: 4)
He is also required to provide full maintenance, food, clothing, housing, dress, and treatment, for the woman and the children.
أَسْكِنُوهُنَّ مِنْ حَيْثُ سَكَنتُم مِّن وُجْدِكُمْ لِيُنفِقْ ذُو سَعَةٍ مِّن سَعَتِهِ وَمَن قُدِرَ عَلَيْهِ رِزْقُهُ فَلْيُنفِقْ مِمَّا آتَاهُ اللَّهُ
“Lodge them where you dwell, according to your means.” (al Talaq: 6)
لِيُنفِقْ ذُو سَعَةٍ مِّن سَعَتِهِ ۖ وَمَن قُدِرَ عَلَيْهِ رِزْقُهُ فَلْيُنفِقْ مِمَّا آتَاهُ اللَّهُ ۚ لَا يُكَلِّفُ اللَّهُ نَفْسًا إِلَّا مَا آتَاهَا ۚ سَيَجْعَلُ اللَّهُ بَعْدَ عُسْرٍ يُسْرًا
“Let the man of wealth spend according to his wealth, and the one whose provision has been restricted, let him spend from what Allah has given him.” (al Talaq: 7)
The man is also required to spend upon his parents and relatives if they are in need of such maintenance. Then, if a woman is divorced, Islam made obligatory for her the maintenance of the waiting period and the maintenance of consolation, preserving her standing and dignity.
All of these are financial burdens placed upon the man, while the woman is exempted from them. So with all these burdens and responsibilities that the man has been charged with, can it be said that Islam has wronged the woman?
This issue is “an issue of calculation, not emotion. The woman takes one third of the inherited wealth to spend on herself, while the man takes two thirds of the inherited wealth, first to spend on his wife, and second on his family and children.
So which of the two truly receives more by the logic of calculation and numbers? The man spends as an obligation, not as a voluntary act, no matter how much wealth the woman herself may have. He has no right to take anything from her wealth at all except with her full consent. He must spend on her as if she owns nothing. And she may complain against him if he refuses to spend, or is stingy in spending according to what he owns, and the judge will rule for her maintenance or separation.” (Muhammad Qutb, Doubts About Islam, p. 120.)
So the man’s share, on this basis, is open to decrease because of the continuing and renewed obligations Islam has placed upon him, while the woman’s share is open to increase through what she receives as dowry and gifts, and through whatever income her property brings in, while she is exempt from any financial obligation in Sharia toward her husband, her house, and her children. So was it justice that Islam should make them equal in inheritance, then place upon the son these heavy and continuing burdens, while exempting her from everything? (See: if a man died leaving two daughters and one son, and left wealth amounting to 60,000 pounds, then the son would take 30,000, and each daughter would take 15,000.
If the son then marries, he is required to pay the dowry, prepare the marital home, then spend on himself, his wife, his sons and daughters, and on his mother and father if they have no income, and on his sisters if they have no one to support them. As for the daughter, when she marries, her inheritance remains stored for her.
She is not required to spend any of it, little or much. She may grow her wealth through trade or craft, and no one has the right to prevent her from disposing of her wealth without her consent.
From here it becomes clear that justice required that her share in inheritance be less than the man’s. See: Mahmud Hamdi Zaqzuq, Islam in the Face of Campaigns of Doubt, p. 102, Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, no. 45, 1419 AH, 1999.)
This difference only applies in inherited wealth that is received without effort. As for wealth that is earned, there is no difference in it between man and woman, neither in wages for work, nor in profit from trade, nor in the yield of land, and the like, because that follows another measure, namely equality between effort and reward.
So there is no injustice here, and no doubt proving that the value of the woman is half the value of the man, as some common Muslims may think, and as the enemies of Islam claim. (Muhammad Qutb, Doubts About Islam, p. 120.)
Rather, not making men and women equal in inheritance, as I see it, may perhaps be a sign guiding her to preserve her human worth and her qualities of femininity, motherhood, and being a wife, meaning her qualities as a woman who does not turn into a man or become like him.
The meaning of this, according to the source, is that Islam, by fixing her share in inheritance, directs her to the fact that her good as a woman requires that she not be made equal to the man economically, and that she not be made economically independent in confrontation with him, since a woman’s economic independence exposes her to several psychological crises, among them the crisis of weakened feeling of femininity and motherhood, the crisis of doubt or slackness in the marital bond if she is married, and then the crisis of isolation as she grows older if she is not blessed with a husband or a child to share life with her. (Muhammad al Bahi, Islam and the Direction of the Contemporary Muslim Woman, p. 31, Maktabat Wahbah, first edition, 1399 AH, 1979.)
The woman in Islamic inheritance is not always half the man’s share. In the science of inheritance there are cases in which the woman’s share is equal to the man’s. That is when a man or woman dies without a father or child, male or female, but has a brother or sister from the mother’s side. In this case, the brother and the sister are equal in inheritance. (See: al Sayyid Sabiq, Fiqh al Sunnah, 3/506.)
وَإِن كَانَ رَجُلٌ يُورَثُ كَلَالَةً أَوِ امْرَأَةٌ وَلَهُ أَخٌ أَوْ أُخْتٌ فَلِكُلِّ وَاحِدٍ مِّنْهُمَا السُّدُسُ فَإِن كَانُوا أَكْثَرَ مِن ذَٰلِكَ فَهُمْ شُرَكَاءُ فِي الثُّلُثِ مِن بَعْدِ وَصِيَّةٍ يُوصَىٰ بِهَا أَوْ دَيْنٍ غَيْرَ مُضَارٍّ وَصِيَّةً مِّنَ اللَّهِ وَاللَّهُ عَلِيمٌ حَلِيمٌ
“If a man or a woman leaves neither parent nor child, but has a brother or a sister, then each one of the two gets one sixth. But if they are more than that, then they are partners in one third, after any bequest made or debt, without causing harm. This is an instruction from Allah, and Allah is All Knowing, Forbearing.” (al Nisa: 12)
This noble verse states that the children of the mother, meaning the deceased’s brothers and sisters from the mother’s side, are equal in inheritance, whether male or female. One sixth belongs to the maternal sibling if only one is present, and one third belongs to them equally if they are several.
Likewise, the father and mother, when the deceased leaves male and female children, are equal in inheritance, and each of them receives one sixth, as Allah said:
وَلِأَبَوَيْهِ لِكُلِّ وَاحِدٍ مِّنْهُمَا السُّدُسُ مِمَّا تَرَكَ إِن كَانَ لَهُ وَلَدٌ
“For his parents, each one of them receives one sixth of what he left, if he had a child.” (al Nisa: 11)
There are also cases in which the woman’s share is greater than the man’s share. For example, if a woman dies and leaves a husband and a daughter, whether that daughter is from him or from someone else, then the daughter inherits twice the share of the husband, because the daughter receives one half while the husband receives one quarter. (See: ʿAbd al Majid Subh, Woman in Islam, p. 125.)
If the deceased leaves two daughters, a wife, and a brother, then the wife’s share is one eighth, which may be taken as 3 out of 24. The share of the two daughters is two thirds, which is 16 out of 24, so each daughter takes 8. The remainder goes to the brother, which is 5 out of 24, meaning roughly half the share of one daughter. (See: Mahmud Hamdi Zaqzuq, Islam in the Face of Campaigns of Doubt, pp. 103–104.)
So it is no surprise, after all this, to learn that the Egyptian Dar al Ifta testifies that many Copts in Egypt refer their disputes to the Islamic inheritance system, even though as non Muslims they had room to choose what the Egyptian or Western church established, because the Islamic system has a great effect in settling disputes and removing the causes of disagreement among those entitled to inherit. (Mahmud Hamdi Zaqzuq, Islam in the Face of Campaigns of Doubt, pp. 103–104.)
By this, it becomes possible to reply to every false accusation directed against Islam, claiming that it deprived the woman of her right in inheritance by giving her half the share of the man, when it has been shown that she may inherit the same as him, may inherit less than him, and may even inherit more than him, all of that according to a just, divine rule.
The Issue of Testimony
The issue of a woman’s testimony is among the matters about which orientalists and those who followed them from the secularists and half educated callers to women’s liberation raise doubts, claiming that it is one of the proofs of injustice toward women and of inequality between them and men.
A well known journalist and head of the journalists’ union in Egypt published in “Rose al Yusuf”, one of the magazines issued in Egypt and used by those in charge of it as a means of distorting facts and confusing people in many cases, words that lowered the rank of Islamic legislation in this field. After mentioning a female university professor, he asked: “Is the testimony of Professor Doctor So and So half the testimony of the porter of her apartment building?”
This is a cunning way, as can be seen, which influences the common people and those who have no insight into matters of fiqh and the wisdom of legislation.
This is exactly what the Marxist comrades to whom the writer belongs desire, even after the fall of the communist system in its own home. Had these people truly been seekers of truth and not mere agitators, they would have reached the truth by the shortest path. (ʿAbd al ʿAzim al Mutaʿni, Woman in the Age of the Message Between the Realism of Islam and the Illusions of the Agitators, p. 121, Dar al Fath al Iʿlami, no date.)
Whoever follows the issues discussed in the International Conference on Population held in Cairo in September 1994 will notice that it focused on this point, as some civil organisations demanded rejection of the Islamic view regarding the testimony of women and demanded equality between women and men in this field. (See: ʿAbd al ʿAzīz al Marshidī, The Fall of Secularism, p. 213.)
The Reply to This Doubt
When Islam made the testimony of one man equal to the testimony of two women, this was in consideration of circumstance and as guidance to the path of greater certainty, so that people could feel secure regarding their rights.
Allah made the wisdom behind this clear when He said:
وَاسْتَشْهِدُوا شَهِيدَيْنِ مِن رِّجَالِكُمْ فَإِن لَّمْ يَكُونَا رَجُلَيْنِ فَرَجُلٌ وَامْرَأَتَانِ مِمَّن تَرْضَوْنَ مِنَ الشُّهَدَاءِ أَن تَضِلَّ إِحْدَاهُمَا فَتُذَكِّرَ إِحْدَاهُمَا الْأُخْرَىٰ
“And bring to witness two witnesses from among your men. But if there are not two men, then one man and two women from those you approve as witnesses, so that if one of the two errs, the other can remind her.” (al Baqarah: 282)
The text does not leave us to guess, for in legislation every text must be clear, specific, and reasoned. ‘So that if one of them errs, the other can remind her.’
The erring here may arise from many causes. It may arise from a woman’s lesser experience in matters of contract, which may make her not take in all its fine details and surrounding circumstances, and so it may not remain in her mind with the clarity needed to give precise testimony when required.
Then the other reminds her, and together they recall the circumstances of the matter as a whole. It may also arise from the emotional nature of the woman.
The bodily and biological function of motherhood necessarily requires a corresponding psychological quality in the woman, namely that she respond quickly and strongly to the needs of her child without returning to slow reflection. This is from Allah’s favour upon the woman and upon childhood. And this nature does not divide.
The woman is a single whole person, this is her nature when she is a sound woman. But testimony regarding contracts in such dealings requires great detachment from emotion and firm standing upon the facts without influence or suggestion. So the presence of two women gives a guarantee that one may remind the other if she departs under the pull of any emotion, so that she remembers and returns to the bare facts.”
A woman’s forgetfulness may also result, according to the source, from natural states that affect her temperament and disturb her balance, such as menstruation, pregnancy, and breastfeeding.
The text claims that modern science has established that during menstruation a woman’s body weakens in retaining heat, her temperature drops, breathing weakens, the organs of speech are affected by special changes, sensation becomes dull, the limbs become sluggish, and sharpness, intelligence, and concentration become weaker.
It also claims that during pregnancy the powers of feeling, thinking, reflection, understanding, and reasoning become weaker, and that in the final month of pregnancy many specialists hold that a woman should not be burdened with either bodily or mental effort.
After childbirth, according to the source, she becomes exposed to several ailments, so that she is almost like an ill person for a full year from the beginning of pregnancy. Then, after that, she is no longer free for herself or empty of duties, but is occupied with raising the child and caring for it. (See: Abu al Aʿla al Mawdudi, Hijab, pp. 204–209, abridged, Dar al ʿAdalah, Cairo, no date. Also see: Muhammad al Bahi, Islam and the Direction of the Contemporary Muslim Woman, pp. 44–45.)
Thus, according to this line of argument, because of the monthly cycle, pregnancy, and breastfeeding, a woman may at times be like one who is unwell, which may affect concentration and lead to forgetfulness of the matter witnessed.
Added to this is that, although Islam permits financial dealings for the woman, it sees her social mission as being devoted to the affairs of the household. This generally requires her to remain in the home most of the time, especially during times of buying and selling.
Once this is considered, it becomes clear that a woman’s witnessing of financial dealings between people is relatively rare. Whatever is rare is not usually something a person is keen to preserve in memory at the moment of seeing it. Rather, it passes by without much thought. So when she later comes to testify before the judge, the possibility of forgetfulness, mistake, or misunderstanding is present. But if another woman testifies to the same thing, the possibility of forgetfulness and mistake falls away. (Mustafa al Sibaʿi, Woman Between Fiqh and Law, p. 33.)
So the matter is not a matter of honour and humiliation, or of full capacity and lack of capacity. Rather, it is a matter of greater confirmation in judgments and greater caution in ruling by them, and this is what every just legislation seeks.
That the woman’s testimony being half that of the man in this context is only for the purpose of carrying out testimony correctly and delivering rights to their people, and has nothing to do with any deficiency in the woman’s humanity or any lowering of her rank, is also shown by the fact that Islam made the testimony of the woman equal to the testimony of the man in other disputes, not related to debts, such as the testimonies in liʿan, when a husband accuses his wife of adultery and has no witnesses except himself.
In that case, he bears witness four times by Allah that he is truthful in his claim, then she bears witness four times by Allah that she did not commit adultery. If the husband refuses to swear by Allah, the crime is not established. If she refuses to answer his oath, the legal punishment is carried out upon her. (See: al Sayyid Sabiq, Fiqh al Sunnah, 2/459 and after it.)
وَالَّذِينَ يَرْمُونَ أَزْوَاجَهُمْ وَلَمْ يَكُن لَّهُمْ شُهَدَاءُ إِلَّا أَنفُسُهُمْ فَشَهَادَةُ أَحَدِهِمْ أَرْبَعُ شَهَادَاتٍ بِاللَّهِ إِنَّهُ لَمِنَ الصَّادِقِينَ وَالْخَامِسَةُ أَنَّ لَعْنَتَ اللَّهِ عَلَيْهِ إِن كَانَ مِنَ الْكَاذِبِينَ وَيَدْرَؤُا عَنْهَا الْعَذَابَ أَن تَشْهَدَ أَرْبَعَ شَهَادَاتٍ بِاللَّهِ إِنَّهُ لَمِنَ الْكَاذِبِينَ وَالْخَامِسَةَ أَنَّ غَضَبَ اللَّهِ عَلَيْهَا إِن كَانَ مِنَ الصَّادِقِينَ
“And those who accuse their wives and have no witnesses except themselves, then the testimony of one of them is four testimonies by Allah that he is indeed among the truthful. And the fifth is that the curse of Allah be upon him if he is among the liars. And it will avert the punishment from her if she testifies four times by Allah that he is indeed among the liars. And the fifth is that the wrath of Allah be upon her if he is among the truthful.” (al Nur: 6–9)
There are also places where Islam accepts the testimony of women alone, without men, in matters to which only women usually have access, such as virginity, childbirth, and women’s hidden physical conditions that men do not see.
So if a dispute arises over whether a girl is a virgin or not, trustworthy women are appointed to discover the truth. If a husband claims that his wife has a defect in the parts of the body that must be concealed, then the statement and testimony for affirming or denying that belongs to women, not to men.
Thus, the rulings of the wise Sharia seek justice through every fitting way in settling disputes. So the matter is not one of maleness and femaleness, as the agitators imagine. Rather, it is a matter of freedom from distortion and careful precision, producing reassurance in the judge’s heart, even when certainty has not been fully reached, so that he gives judgment in the dispute presented to him on the basis of the just information gathered before him. (See: ʿAbd al ʿAzim al Mutaʿni, Woman in the Age of the Message, pp. 124–125. Also see: Mahmud Shaltut, Islam, Creed and Sharia, pp. 240–241.)
Thus it becomes clear that femininity has no relation to diminishing the value of testimony. Rather, the ruling revolves around the strength or weakness of the relation between the witness and the subject over which the dispute arises. So considering the testimony of two women equal to the testimony of one man is not proof of injustice toward women or a reduction of their right in testimony. It is only a procedure meant to ensure the fullest guarantees in testimony, whether the testimony is for the accused or against him.
The Issue of Woman and the Supreme Leadership
Among the doubts raised long ago by the callers to women’s liberation is the issue of the supreme leadership, which in modern language means the presidency of the state. They claimed that Islam reduced the woman’s right in this, because Islam permitted men to take the highest public office, namely the presidency of the state, while forbidding women from taking it. (See: ʿAbd al ʿAzim al Mutaʿni, Woman in the Age of the Message, p. 105. Also see: Amir ʿAbd al ʿAziz, False Accusations Against Islam and the Muslims, p. 57, Dar al Salam, first edition, 1422 AH, 2002.)
The Reply to This Doubt
Authority in itself is not forbidden to the woman by consensus. The jurists agreed, for example, that it is permissible for a woman to be appointed as guardian over minors and those of deficient intellect whose affairs she manages.
As for the supreme leadership, namely the presidency of the state, and whatever carries a similar meaning among major offices connected to the safety and stability of the land, then according to the source the woman in the Sharia of Islam is not to take charge of the affairs of the Muslims, whether in the highest office or in what is below it among the greatest posts, such as ministries and military leadership.
The text insists that Islam does not discriminate between people on account of worldly considerations, whether male or female or anything else. If Islam did not permit the woman to take the leadership of the Muslims or command over them, this does not mean in any way that she is beneath the man in honour and dignity.
Rather, according to this argument, this came in keeping with the nature of femininity upon which the woman was created, so that she is more marked by softness, gentleness, tenderness, and warmth of emotion than men.
Such qualities, according to the source, make her less suited for holding firm when great crises and crushing events descend, such as violent upheavals in the land, raging wars, and severe economic and social trials. So, according to this line of thought, it is not fitting for her to take such weighty positions, while the man is seen as stronger in resolve and greater in endurance before hardship. (Amir ʿAbd al ʿAziz, False Accusations Against Islam and the Muslims, pp. 57–58.)
The head of state in the Islamic order is not merely a symbolic figure placed there only to sign decisions and receive delegations and heads of state. Rather, he is charged with matters of the highest seriousness. He is the one who announces jihad and leads the armies in facing the enemies.
If the head of state were a woman, then jihad in the first place is not obligatory upon her at all, except in the case that enemies enter the land, in which case everyone must defend the homeland.
So how is she to lead a matter with which she was not originally charged? The woman mentioned in the Qur’an, according to the text, also did not take an aggressive path leading to war between her and the Prophet of Allah Sulayman and Dawud. (See: Journal of the Faculty of Usul al Din, issue 8, 1423 AH, 2002, from an article by ʿUmar ʿAbd al Munʿim al Farmawi, p. 400. Also see: Muhammad Diya al Din al Rays, Islamic Political Theories, p. 295, Dar al Turath, 1979.)
Here the personality of the woman appears from behind the personality of the queen, a woman who hates wars and destruction, and who first unsheathes the weapon of tact and gentleness before unsheathing the weapon of force and harshness.”
The one who looks at the texts of Islamic Sharia finds that they stand between the woman and her taking this office. This is because matters here are tied to public welfare. Care of the family requires the woman to be devoted to it and not occupied away from it. Mixing with unrelated men is forbidden in Islam, especially private seclusion with an unrelated man.
Uncovering what Allah did not permit to be uncovered is forbidden in Islam. A woman travelling alone outside her town without a mahram from among her relatives is also not permitted in Islam. These four matters, according to the source, all make it difficult, if not impossible, for a woman to exercise such authority while they remain in force. (Mustafa al Sibaʿi, Woman Between Fiqh and Law, p. 157.)
From another side, Islam gives first consideration in its legislation to the public interest. Whatever public interest requires, it permits, and whatever public interest does not require, it forbids or warns against. If the question of female rule is discussed from the side of the public interest, then according to the source its harms outweigh its benefits.
Among its harms are neglect of the home, neglect of the family, and neglect of the children. What then is to be done with motherhood? Is the woman who takes the presidency of the state to be deprived of being a mother? That would be injustice to her natural disposition, and injustice to society itself.
Or is she to be allowed that, while then interrupting her presidential work for three months, just as women teachers and employees do? And is she to be allowed to stop during the days of craving and nausea, which may last two months or more? The source argues that the nature of the woman in those days is not calm and not settled, but rather nervous and disturbed. If that is the case, then what remains for her of full working days? (Mustafa al Sibaʿi, Woman Between Fiqh and Law, p. 158.)
The text then asks what actual benefit the nation gains from appointing women to the office of supreme authority and what resembles it. Do they do what men cannot do? Do they solve problems men fail to solve?
Some say the benefit is to establish the woman’s dignity and her sense of her humanity. The reply given is this: if women are prevented from it, does that mean they have no dignity and no humanity? Are there not citizens whom the law bars from political activity, such as members of the armed forces?
Does preventing them from political activity mean they are beneath other citizens in dignity and humanity? The public interest may require assigning certain groups to work that they do and nothing else, and this does not diminish their dignity or take away their rights.
So why should not allowing the woman to take the presidency of the state be one of those matters required by the happiness of the nation, just as the soldier must devote himself to guarding the homeland rather than occupying himself with politics?
And is a mother’s devotion to motherhood less serious for society than a soldier’s devotion to guarding the land? (Mustafa al Sibaʿi, Woman Between Fiqh and Law, pp. 159–160.)
From here, the source concludes that Islam stands toward appointing a woman to the office of the supreme imamate and similar positions with disapproval, if not outright prohibition, due to the social harms that arise from it, due to what it considers a clear violation of the manners and morals of Islam, and due to the significant harm it claims this causes to the stability and cohesion of the family.
Among the things presented as support for this are the following.
Allah said:
الرِّجَالُ قَوَّامُونَ عَلَى النِّسَاءِ بِمَا فَضَّلَ اللَّهُ بَعْضَهُمْ عَلَىٰ بَعْضٍ وَبِمَا أَنفَقُوا مِنْ أَمْوَالِهِمْ
“Men are caretakers over women because Allah has given some of them advantage over others, and because they spend from their wealth.” (al Nisa: 34)
The way this is used as evidence is that Allah made the position of qiwamah for men over women in the affairs of their homes, and the affairs of the home are limited, so how can she be given leadership over others, men and women, over all the homes of the Islamic state? (ʿAbd al ʿAzim al Mutaʿni, Woman in the Age of the Message, p. 110.)
The apparent meaning of this noble hadith, according to the source, shows that it is not permissible for a woman to hold public authority, including the presidency, the caliphate, ministries, embassies, the judiciary, military command, and other positions of authority that require her to mix with men, appear before them, and meet with them.
It further claims that every nation which opposes this and entrusts a woman with one of its public affairs will never truly prosper, and that its end will be collapse and ruin, whether sooner or later. (See: al Mawardi, al Ahkam al Sultaniyyah, p. 65. Also see: ʿAbd al Karim Zaydan, The Detailed Work on the Rulings of Women, 4/310–311, Mu’assasat al Risalah, tenth edition, 1403 AH, 1983. Also see: ʿAbd Allah al Talidi, The Unveiled Woman and Her Evil Effect Upon the Ummah, pp. 140–141, Dar Ibn Hazm, second edition, 1411 AH, 1990.)
The Prophet ﷺ also said: “When your rulers are the worst among you, your rich are your misers, and your affairs are in the hands of your women, then the inside of the earth is better for you than its surface.” (Reported by al Tirmidhi, 4/529, no. 2266. He said: this is a strange hadith.)
The historical reality of the Muslims from the age of the Message and the age of the Rightly Guided Caliphs, which are the ages the Messenger of Allah ﷺ commanded us to follow, is also presented as support.
The historical reality in those ages does not show a woman taking public authority from the authorities of the state. The judges of the Prophet ﷺ, his governors, the commanders of his armies, and his deputies over Madinah during his absence were men. The judges of the caliphs, their governors over the regions, those who collected land tax, and the commanders of their armies were all men. (ʿAbd al ʿAzim al Mutaʿni, Woman in the Age of the Message, p. 109.)
If some people then try to argue with the case of one of the women who held kingship and rule, as happened with Shajarat al Durr, this is answered by saying that it was only an individual event and cannot be used for analogy, and that her appointment is no proof against the Muslims.
Shajarat al Durr was one of the famous queens in Islam, known for management, firmness, intelligence, cleverness, charity, and beneficence. Al Malik al Salih married her in the days of his father, and she bore him his son Khalil. She travelled with him to the eastern lands, then to the bridge of al Karak, and then came with him to Egypt.
Her standing in the Salihi state became great, and much of the administration returned to her during the days of her husband.
Al Malik al Salih loved her deeply and relied upon her in his affairs. She was of great beauty, strong judgment, management, cleverness, and intelligence, and reached a level of fortune not attained by anyone in her time. When her husband died, she concealed his death, gathered the emirs and the people of power, and said that the Sultan ordered them to swear allegiance that rule after him should go to his son al Malik al Muʿazzam Turan Shah.
They responded and swore oaths to carry that out. She then took charge of rule and began issuing royal decrees until Turan Shah reached al Mansurah. He then sent threats to her and demanded wealth from her, so she moved against him and had him killed.
This was when she sent some of the Bahri Mamluks on 7 Muharram 648 AH, and they killed him. After his death, agreement was reached on appointing Shajarat al Durr to the sultanate, and she took it up. The emirs kissed the ground for her from behind the curtain. She thus became the ninth of the Banu Ayyub rulers over Egypt.
They appointed ʿIzz al Din Aybak al Salihi al Turkmani, the commander of her army, as manager of the kingdom, and he would not decide any matter without consulting her. Once her authority was established, she distributed high offices among the emirs, handed major iqtaʿ grants to the Bahri Mamluks, gave them wealth and horses, and pleased them with whatever pleased them.
She governed the subjects with excellent policy, so the people were satisfied with her rule. She was among the people of charity and beneficence. Such was her authority that she released King Louis of the Franks after much correspondence, on the condition that he surrender Damietta to the Muslims.
The Franks surrendered it after it had remained in their hands for 11 months and 9 days, and on the condition that they carry a fixed amount of wealth. He then returned to his land after ordering the Franks in Damietta to hand it over to the Muslims.
She remained in rule for three months, except for a few days, after which she stepped down from kingship when the Abbasid caliph al Mustansir Billah Abu Jaʿfar sent an objection to her rule. In her place, Sultan ʿIzz al Din Aybak took over, with the indication of the judges and governors, after marrying her, and he was the first of the Turkish rulers. Later, when Aybak intended to marry the daughter of Badr al Din Lu’lu’, ruler of Mosul, she thought he intended to push her away or even kill her because she had controlled him and been dominant over him.
So she moved before him, intending to kill him and appoint someone else in rule. Sanjar al Jawhari and a group of servants killed him in the bath where he was washing. After him, his son al Malik al Mansur ʿAli ibn ʿIzz al Din took over. As for her, she was imprisoned in the Red Tower in the Citadel of the Mountain, and remained there until she was found killed on Saturday, 11 Rabiʿ al Akhir 655 AH.
She was taken and buried in the tomb she had built for herself near the shrine of al Sayyidah Nafisah. Shajarat al Durr also left known endowments and charitable works. (See: ʿUmar Rida Kahhalah, Famous Women in the Worlds of the Arabs and Islam, 2/286–290, Mu’assasat al Risalah, fourth edition, 1402 AH, 1982.)
Yet, it is then said that no proof can be taken from her case regardless of how strong her personality was, and in any case her rule did not last long, as she left it after three months by her own agreement.
When the Abbasid caliph al Mustansir Billah Abu Jaʿfar in Baghdad heard that the people of Egypt had appointed a woman over them, he sent a message saying to the emirs of Egypt: inform us if there is no man left in Egypt fit for authority, so that we may send you one fit for it. Have you not heard the hadith of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ: “No people will prosper who place a woman in charge of their affairs”?
He strongly denounced them, threatened them, and urged them to withdraw from appointing her over Egypt. When this reached Shajarat al Durr, she stepped down from authority willingly, without coercion, in respect for the hadith of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ that had been mentioned to her. (See: ʿUmar Rida Kahhalah, Famous Women in the Worlds of the Arabs and Islam, 2/288. Also see: Faraj Muhammad al Wasif, Foundations and Characteristics of the Islamic System of Rule, pp. 130–131.)
Nor can proof be taken from the policy of Bilqis, whose story the Qur’an tells in Surah al Naml, because the prosperity of Bilqis in guiding her people to Islam is likened in the source to something exceedingly rare in the history of women who led their peoples, and the rare exception does not establish a rule.
It is further argued that when the Qur’an told her story, it was narrating an event that happened, not laying down a ruling of permissibility or prohibition. So there is no contradiction at all between the hadith in its general wording and meaning and the realities of revelation. Nor did any revelation appoint Bilqis as queen over the people of Saba so that the hadith would contradict revelation. Rather, it is simply a truthful telling of a past situation. (ʿAbd al ʿAzim al Mutaʿni, Woman in the Age of the Message, p. 114.)
Thus, according to the source, restricting public offices in Islam to men is the best position and the stronger view, not because it lowers the woman’s humanity and dignity or puts her beneath the man in rank, but because of what it sees as the many harms that come from appointing her to such offices, above all the destruction of her sacred mission of managing the home and providing society with upright generations to lead life, and because of what it sees as mixing with unrelated men and travelling outside her land without a mahram.
From here the source says that Islam would truly have wronged the woman if it had bound her to the burdens of public authority.
The Issue of Hijab
The hijab of the Muslim woman was the first visible matter to which the callers to women’s liberation gave their attention and toward which they directed their gaze, in order to spread looseness and moral decay in Muslim societies by imitating Western societies that made display and exposure their religion and their way.
Qasim Amin (d. 1326 AH), the one who raised the banner of the claimed “liberation of women” in the modern age, said: “There is no text in the Sharia making hijab obligatory. It is only a custom we took from some nations.”
The reality of hijab is that it is a set of manners legislated by Islam to abolish the display, provocation, and shameful looseness that existed in the age of ignorance in the relation between men and women, and to set the limits that define the relation of each sex to the other. (See: al Bahi al Khuli, Islam and the Contemporary Issues of Women, p. 162.) As for what Qasim Amin meant by hijab here, it was likely the head covering, not the face covering, because he was among those who followed the West in raising women and being lax regarding their mixing.
He said, showing admiration for Western civilisation: “The Europeans reached a great rank in scientific discoveries through steam and electricity, and they permitted women to uncover, and they know that this is the best way for her life.”
He then addressed the Muslims, saying: “Do they think those minds and souls whose آثار we admire could be unaware of the means of protecting women and preserving their chastity? Do they think those people would abandon hijab after it had become established among them if they saw any good in it?
So why do we not ask those in authority in every home to prepare the girls from their youth for this change, namely leaving hijab, and to plant in them the belief that chastity is a quality in the soul, not a garment behind which the body hides?” (See: Qasim Amin, Tahrir al Mar’ah, pp. 96–99, quoted in al Sayyid Ahmad Faraj, The Conspiracy Against the Muslim Woman, p. 69.)
If Qasim Amin is passed over, then an even harsher example is found. The newspaper “Rose al Yusuf” published words by Husayn Ahmad Amin, son of Ahmad Amin, author of Fajr al Islam, in which he claimed that the Qur’an does not contain a single verse obligating hijab upon women, and he expressed regret over Egyptian women returning to hijab, considering that return a backward step. (See: al Sayyid Ahmad Faraj, The Conspiracy Against the Muslim Woman, p. 133. Also see: Muhammad Qutb, The Issue of Woman, pp. 17 and 21, Maktabat al Sunnah, Cairo, first edition, 1411 AH, 1991.)
This doubt is answered by what follows.
Allah said:
وَقُل لِّلْمُؤْمِنَاتِ يَغْضُضْنَ مِنْ أَبْصَارِهِنَّ وَيَحْفَظْنَ فُرُوجَهُنَّ وَلَا يُبْدِينَ زِينَتَهُنَّ إِلَّا مَا ظَهَرَ مِنْهَا وَلْيَضْرِبْنَ بِخُمُرِهِنَّ عَلَىٰ جُيُوبِهِنَّ
“And tell the believing women to lower their gaze, guard their private parts, not display their adornment except what normally appears from it, and let them draw their head coverings over their chest openings.” (al Nur: 31)
This verse points to that in two ways. The first is His saying: “And let them not display their adornment.” The woman is being commanded in this verse to conceal her adornment from unrelated men. The prohibition of displaying adornment was repeated twice, and this is a decisive text in its transmission and indication for obligating hijab upon the Muslim woman once she reaches womanhood.
Yet, the first prohibition was joined with an exception: “except what normally appears from it.” In this part of the verse there are two points.
The first is decisive and undisputed, namely the concealment of adornment except from the husband and the mahrams. The second is open to interpretation, namely “except what normally appears from it.” The exception clearly shows that some adornment may be shown. (ʿAbd al ʿAzim al Mutaʿni, The Muslim Woman in the Age of the Message, p. 24.)
The ulama differed regarding the amount of adornment that may be shown according to this noble verse. The first group held that the adornment permitted to be shown is the clothing the woman wears, and this is the view of ʿAbd Allah ibn Masʿud and those who agreed with him. (See: al Baydawi, Tafsir, 2/121, Dar al Kutub al ʿIlmiyyah, first edition, 1420 AH, 1999. Also see: al Suyuti, al Durr al Manthur, 6/180, Dar al Fikr, first edition, 1403 AH, 1983.)
The second group held that the exception in His saying “except what normally appears from it” returns to the face and the hands, and this is the view of the majority of the ulama among the Companions and those after them. (The majority of the jurists, Malik, Ahmad, al Shafiʿi, and Abu Hanifah, held that the whole woman is ʿawrah except her face and her hands. See: Ibn Qudamah, al Mughni, 2/184. Also see: Muhammad Bakr Ismaʿil, al Fiqh al Wadih, 1/173, Dar al Manar, 1410 AH, 1990. Also see: ʿAbd al Rahman al Jaziri, al Fiqh ʿala al Madhahib al Arbaʿah, 1/188, Maktabat al Iman, first edition, 1419 AH, 1999.)
Al Suyuti gathered a number of narrations from the Companions and the Followers that support this. Ibn ʿAbbas said regarding His saying “except what normally appears from it”: “her face, her hands, and the ring.” Anas ibn Malik said regarding the verse: “the kohl and the ring.” Saʿid ibn Jubayr said: “the face and the hands.” (al Suyuti, al Durr al Manthur, 6/180.)
The view of the majority, according to the source, is the stronger one, because the face and hands are what ordinarily appears, and the woman may find hardship in continually covering them. They are also what she uncovers in prayer, Hajj, testimony, and marriage.
Al Qurtubi (d. 671 AH) said: “Since what generally appears of the face and hands is their showing, whether by custom or by worship, as in prayer and Hajj, it is suitable that the exception return to them.” (al Qurtubi, Tafsir, 7/4621.)
Abu Hayyan al Andalusi (d. 745 AH) said: “Visible adornment was excused because concealing it brings hardship, for the woman cannot avoid handling things with her hands, nor avoid the need to uncover her face, especially in testimony, legal proceedings, and marriage.” (Abu Hayyan, al Bahr al Muhit, 6/447, Dar al Fikr, second edition, 1398 AH, 1978.)
Support for this is also taken from the following hadiths.
He said: “Yes.” (Sunan An Nasai 2641)
Ibn Hajar (d. 852 AH) said: “In this hadith is proof that covering the woman’s face is not obligatory, because they agreed that the woman may show her face in prayer even if unrelated men see her.” (Ibn Hajar, Fath al Bari, 11/13.)
As for the claim of some that the hadith does not state clearly that she had her face uncovered, the source rejects this strongly and says that if that were not the case, then how could the narrator know that she was a beautiful woman, and what was al Fadl looking at again and again? It therefore argues that this hadith is among the clearest and strongest proofs that the woman’s face is not ʿawrah, because the incident occurred near the end of the Prophet’s life ﷺ and in his presence, which makes the ruling firm. (Muhammad Nasir al Din al Albani, Hijab of the Muslim Woman in the Book and the Sunnah, p. 29, al Maktab al Islami, Beirut, eighth edition, 1407 AH, 1987.)
Another hadith is what al Bukhari narrated from Sahl ibn Saʿd, that a woman came to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and said: “O Messenger of Allah, I have come to offer myself to you.”
He said: “Do you have anything?” He said: “No, by Allah, O Messenger of Allah.”
He said: “Go to your family and see whether you find anything.”
He went and returned, saying: “No, by Allah, O Messenger of Allah, I found nothing.”
He said: “Look, even if it is only an iron ring.” (Reported by al Bukhari, 5087)
If this woman had not had her face uncovered, the source argues, the Prophet ﷺ would not have been able to look at her and keep looking at her in this manner. Nor is it reported that she did that only for the sake of marriage and then covered her face afterward. Rather, it is reported that she sat as she came, and some of the Companions saw her, so one of them then asked the Prophet ﷺ to marry her to him. (Yusuf al Qaradawi, Contemporary Fatwas, 2/321.)
Another hadith with relevance here is what came from Jabir ibn ʿAbd Allah. He said: “I attended the Eid with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. He began with the prayer before the khutbah, with no adhan and no iqamah. Then he stood leaning on Bilal and commanded the fear of Allah, urged obedience to Him, admonished the people, and reminded them.
He said: ‘Because you complain a great deal and are ungrateful to husbands.’
The source then asks: how did Jabir know that she had dark red cheeks if her face had been covered by a face veil? (Yusuf al Qaradawi, Contemporary Fatwas, 2/323.)
His saying later in the verse, “and let them draw their head coverings over their chest openings”, also points, according to the source, to what those hadiths indicated, namely that it is not obligatory for a woman to cover her face, because khumur is the plural of khimar, which is what the head is covered with, and juyub is the plural of jayb, meaning the opening cut into the shirt or garment.
So Allah commanded the khimar to be drawn over the neck and chest, showing the obligation of covering them, and He did not command it to be worn over the face, which indicates, according to this argument, that the face is not ʿawrah.
Ibn Hazm (d. 456 AH) said: “Allah commanded them to draw the khimar over the openings of the garment, and this is a text on covering the neck and chest, and in it is also a text on the permissibility of uncovering the face, for no other meaning can be taken from it.” (Muhammad Nasir al Din al Albani, Hijab of the Muslim Woman, pp. 33–34.)
At the same time, several matters should be kept in mind. Uncovering the face does not mean filling it with paints and cosmetics. Uncovering the hands does not mean growing the nails and colouring them with what is called manicure. Rather, she goes out modestly and without display. Likewise, saying that the face veil is not obligatory does not mean that it is not permissible.
Whoever wishes to wear it, there is no blame upon her, and it may even be recommended for her if she is beautiful and fears temptation. Many ulama even held that it becomes obligatory for such a woman. It should also be remembered that uncovering the face does not mean the permissibility of looking at it, because lowering the gaze is obligatory in Islam. (Yusuf al Qaradawi, Contemporary Fatwas, 2/329 and after it. For more on the issue of hijab, see: Ibn Taymiyyah, Hijab of Woman and Her Dress in Prayer, p. 21 and after it, no publication details given.)
The second way in which the verse indicates this is His saying:
وَلْيَضْرِبْنَ بِخُمُرِهِنَّ عَلَىٰ جُيُوبِهِنَّ
“And let them draw their head coverings over their chest openings.” (al Nur: 31)
Al Qurtubi mentioned regarding the reason for the revelation of this verse that women at that time used, when they covered their heads with head coverings, to let them fall behind their backs, so the upper chest, neck, and ears remained uncovered. So Allah commanded them to draw the khimar over the chest openings. Its manner is that the woman draws the khimar over her opening so as to cover her chest. (al Qurtubi, Tafsir, 7/4622.)
Ibn Kathir (d. 774 AH) said regarding His saying “and let them draw their head coverings over their chest openings”: this means the head coverings should be struck over their chests so as to conceal what lies beneath of the chest and upper breast area, in order to differ from the way of the women of the age of ignorance, for they did not do that.
Rather, a woman among them would walk among men with her chest uncovered, with nothing hiding it, and she might also expose her neck, the locks of her hair, and the earrings of her ears. So Allah commanded the believing women to cover themselves in their appearance and conditions. (Ibn Kathir, Tafsir, 3/292.)
After this, the source asks: can it still be said that the Qur’an contains no verse commanding hijab? Is this not a verse from the Noble Qur’an?
Allah also said:
وَقَرْنَ فِي بُيُوتِكُنَّ وَلَا تَبَرَّجْنَ تَبَرُّجَ الْجَاهِلِيَّةِ الْأُولَىٰ
“And remain in your houses, and do not display yourselves as the display of the former age of ignorance.” (al Ahzab: 33)
Though this verse is specifically addressed to the wives of the Prophet ﷺ, the source says that by the generality of its wording it includes the believing women, because what matters is the generality of the wording, not the specificity of the cause.
Al Qurtubi said regarding this verse: “Though the address is to the wives of the Prophet ﷺ, others enter under this meaning, and no proof came to single them out from all women. Rather, Islamic Sharia overflows with the obligation of women staying in their homes and refraining from going out except for necessity.” (al Qurtubi, Tafsir, 8/5261.)
So, according to this reading, the address in this verse is specifically to the wives of the Prophet ﷺ and generally to the Muslim women, and they were specifically mentioned because they are the model and example in that.
Allah also said:
وَإِذَا سَأَلْتُمُوهُنَّ مَتَاعًا فَاسْأَلُوهُنَّ مِن وَرَاءِ حِجَابٍ ذَٰلِكُمْ أَطْهَرُ لِقُلُوبِكُمْ وَقُلُوبِهِنَّ
“And when you ask them for something, ask them from behind a screen. That is purer for your hearts and their hearts.” (al Ahzab: 53)
Al Shanqiti (d. 1393 AH) said in his comment on this verse: “In this noble verse is the clear proof that the obligation of hijab is a general ruling for all women, not one restricted to the wives of the Prophet ﷺ, even if the original wording is specific to them, because the generality of its reason proves the generality of its ruling.
The reasoning that shows that His saying ‘That is purer for your hearts and their hearts’ is the reason for His saying ‘ask them from behind a screen’ is the method known in usul as the method of indication and alerting. Its rule is that a description is joined to a legal ruling in such a way that, if that description were not the reason for that ruling, the speech would be defective to those of understanding.
So if His saying ‘That is purer for your hearts and their hearts’ were not the reason for His saying ‘ask them from behind a screen’, the speech would be defective and out of order to the intelligent and discerning. Thus hijab is obligatory, by the indication of the Qur’an, for all women.” (al Shanqiti, Adwa’ al Bayan, pp. 584–585, Maktabat Ibn Taymiyyah, Cairo, 1408 AH, 1988. Also see: al Qurtubi, Tafsir, 8/5309. Also see: Abu ʿAbd Allah Mustafa al ʿAdawi, Tafsir Surah al Nur, pp. 190–191, Maktabat al Iman, first edition, 1419 AH, 1999.)
What further supports including the believing women together with the wives of the Prophet ﷺ in such rulings is His saying:
يَا أَيُّهَا النَّبِيُّ قُل لِّأَزْوَاجِكَ وَبَنَاتِكَ وَنِسَاءِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ يُدْنِينَ عَلَيْهِنَّ مِن جَلَابِيبِهِنَّ ذَٰلِكَ أَدْنَىٰ أَن يُعْرَفْنَ فَلَا يُؤْذَيْنَ وَكَانَ اللَّهُ غَفُورًا رَّحِيمًا
“O Prophet, tell your wives, your daughters, and the women of the believers to draw their outer garments closely over themselves. That is more likely that they will be recognised and not harmed. And Allah is Ever Forgiving, Most Merciful.” (al Ahzab: 59)
Allah commanded His Prophet ﷺ to order his wives, his daughters, and the believing women generally, when they went out for their needs, to cover their bodies, heads, and chest openings with a full outer garment, so that this dress would distinguish them and place them in safety from the abuse of the immoral, for their being known and their dignity together cast shame and restraint into the souls of those who used to follow women in order to harass them.”
Al Maraghi (d. 1371 AH) said regarding His saying “That is more likely that they will be recognised and not harmed”: “Meaning, that covering is nearer to their being known as chaste women, so they are not exposed to, and do not receive, harm from the people of suspicion, out of respect for them from such people.
As for the displaying woman, she is desired and looked at with a look of mockery and scorn, as is seen in every age and land, especially in this age in which shamelessness has spread and immorality has become widespread.” (Ahmad Mustafa al Maraghi, Tafsir al Maraghi, 22/38, al Halabi, Egypt, fifth edition, 1394 AH, 1974.)
So, according to the source, there is no difficulty at all in including the believing women with the wives of the Prophet ﷺ in the rulings already mentioned.
These blessed texts from the Qur’an and the hadiths of the Prophet ﷺ indicate the obligation of hijab upon the Muslim woman. So how can it be said that the Islamic Sharia contains no text obligating hijab upon women? The source says this is not speech by which the Face of Allah is sought.
Rather, falsehood is sought through it, in order to spread corruption and deviation in Muslim societies in the same way in which disbelieving societies live. Allah only legislated hijab in order to protect the woman from humiliation and to make her known so that she may not be harmed.
Had hijab not been obligatory, as Qasim Amin and those who follow him claimed, then Islam, according to the source, would have been stripped of a necessary garment, namely virtue. What is seen today of chaos in women’s dress is described in the source as a social corruption that must be repelled, because hijab is treated as one of the foundations of social legislation.
Otherwise, how can a nation accept for itself to live without moral conduct, rushing behind foreign principles it never knew in its own history and which its religion never commanded? The source then says: they have spoken much about this main foundation of social morals, and when they wanted to destroy it, what did they then do?
They took away the woman’s modesty, which is the wall protecting her chastity and the sign of her honour. (Mahmud al Jawhari, The Muslim Sister as the Foundation of the Virtuous Society, pp. 39–40.)
Thus, the command of hijab is presented as something from Allah’s command for protecting honour, for the man and the woman alike, indeed for the whole society.
The Issue of Mixing
Among the most dangerous matters against which Allah warned the Muslims is the mixing of the two sexes, male and female, because it is one of the greatest causes that make fornication easy.
But it appears that the intellectual invasion has produced among us people who stop their ears from the ruling of Allah and His Messenger, and who call us to let the woman loose without restraint so that she may prove her existence, display her personality, and enjoy her life and her femininity.
They claim that mixing between the two sexes will soften the voice of desire, quiet its flame, and weaken its sharpness, and that both male and female will find their pleasure merely in meeting, looking, and speaking. If something beyond that occurs, then dancing is described as nothing more than a refined artistic expression, while bodily pleasure will no longer have any place.
They call this the clean discharge of energy, and they say that this is what the advanced Westerners do after they untied the knot of repression and deprivation.
This is what the callers to women’s liberation claim, and likewise the supporters of نقل Western civilisation into Muslim societies with all that civilisation contains of good and evil, sweetness and bitterness, what is praised and what is blamed, meaning an absolute acceptance without any restriction or condition. At the head of these, according to the source, was Taha Husayn (d. 1393 AH), who carried the greatest share of introducing mixing in Egypt.
When he gained a degree of authority and became a man of influence, he hastened to apply his doctrine in everything his hand could reach, among that the mixing of males and females, without caring for the anger and condemnation such a measure stirred at that time. (ʿAbd al ʿAzim al Mutaʿni, Woman in the Age of the Message, p. 94.)
A Christian writer who used to be called Ibrahim al Masri, after describing the uncovering and display of women in the street and in public places, launched a fierce campaign against Islam not permitting the woman to mix, and presented his thoughts in coarse and fallen language.
In the course of his article he mocked a noble hadith, while deliberately ignoring that it is a hadith. His call was not restricted to mere mixing. Rather, he called for allowing a man to be alone with his friend’s wife, to enjoy sitting with her and listening to her speech “far away, alone, just the two of them, as though Umm Kulthum were singing.”
Among what he said was this:
“We have still not taken the decisive step toward applying the spirit of modern civilisation, meaning Western civilisation, to our customs, morals, and ways of life. Our modern educated women, who look at newspapers, read stories, and go to the theatre and cinema, are still prevented from appearing in society before a strange man.
The result of this is that one now sees the unveiled wife of one’s friend in the street, in the shop, in the theatre, and in the cinema. One sees her in public life and admires her. But when one wants to refine one’s feelings and polish one’s emotions and sentiments by sitting with her and speaking with her, he is prevented from doing so, and is accused of having corrupt intentions and evil motives…
He then ends by mocking a noble hadith, which is the saying of the Prophet ﷺ: “No man should be alone with a woman, for their third is Shaytan.” (Jami’ At Tirmdihi 2165)
He then accuses the earliest Islamic era of ignorance, and calls the Egyptians to abandon what he described as a mistaken belief among them, the common Eastern belief that whenever a man and a woman meet alone, Shaytan must rise between them and breathe into their souls the poisons of vice and evil. He claimed that this is the secret behind “our” delay, and that it is a remainder of eras of ignorance, backwardness, and darkness. This is what the Christian writer said. (See: Yusuf al Qaradawi, Features of the Islamic Society We Seek, p. 376. Also see: ʿAbd al ʿAzim al Mutaʿni, Woman in the Age of the Message, pp. 49-51.)
If this writer is left aside, and what Qasim Amin (d. 1326 AH) said on mixing is examined, he is found praising Western civilisation, and among the reasons for his admiration is the intense mixing between men and women.
He said: “Experience shows that letting women be free brings them closer to chastity than hijab. It is a clear and undisputed observation that the women of America, who are the women of the earth most enjoying freedom, are also the most mixing, to the point that girls in their youth learn with boys in one school, so the girl sits beside the boy to receive knowledge.
Yet those who know America’s conditions say that its women protect honour more, and have stronger morals than others, and they link their uprightness to the intense mixing between the two types, men and women, in all stages of life.” (Quoted from: Muhammad al Sayyid Muhammad al Zaʿblawi, Motherhood, p. 90, Mu’assasat al Risalah, second edition, 1406 AH, 1985.)
He also said elsewhere: “The woman who mixes with men is further from bad thoughts than the woman who is kept away.” (Muhammad ʿImarah, Qasim Amin and the Liberation of Women, p. 53.)
Reply to This Doubt
Mixing between the two sexes, male and female, is among the most dangerous matters that Allah warned the Muslims against, because it is among the greatest causes that make fornication easier, and that call to immoral conduct and deviation.
For this reason, Islam forbade everything that leads to open mixing, and among that is that Islam forbade a woman from travelling, of any kind, unless a close male relative who she may never marry travels with her, such as a son, a husband, an uncle, and others among her close relatives.
Abu Hurayrah reported that the Prophet ﷺ said: “It is not permissible for a woman who believes in Allah and the Last Day to travel for a day and a night except with a close male relative who she may never marry.” (Reported by Ahmad, 4/251.)
The Prophet ﷺ was so firm on this that he prevented a man from going out for jihad after the man’s wife had set out for Hajj without such a close male relative.
ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAbbas reported that the Prophet ﷺ said: “No man should be alone with a woman except when a close male relative who she may never marry is with them, and she must not travel except with a close male relative who she may never marry.” A man stood and said: “O Messenger of Allah, my wife has gone out for Hajj, and I have been written down for such and such campaign.” He said: “Go and perform Hajj with your wife.” (Reported by Muslim, 2/978, no. 1341.)
This firmness from the Prophet ﷺ in forbidding a woman to travel alone, without such a close male relative, was because, as the source claims, she is a private trust that is not for anyone to approach except those close relatives Allah listed in His Book.
Travel conditions, hardship, long distance, and the type of transport may expose her to many emergencies, such as accidents and illness, and the like. Then someone may show kindness to her and cover what becomes exposed of her body, or she may be forced to speak to him about what troubles her, matters she would normally conceal from strangers. (Muhammad ibn Saʿd al Shuwayʿir, Islam’s Protection of Women, p. 52.)
Islam was also especially firm in stopping relatives who are not close male relatives from mixing with a woman who is not lawful for them, because the nature of relatives and their relation requires frequent contact and frequent meeting.
If male relatives mix with female relatives and use kinship as a means for frequent entry, then repeated contact, by day or by night, for a need or without a need, may strip away modesty, then lead to consequences that are not praiseworthy, such as cutting family ties, divorce, or bad suspicion.
For this reason, when the Prophet ﷺ was asked about the entry of the husband’s brother and similar relatives, he said: “The husband’s brother is death.” (Reported by Muslim, 4/1711, no. 2172.) If the husband’s brother and those like him were treated this way, then forbidding mixing with unrelated men is even more confirmed and more binding. (Muhammad ibn Saʿd al Shuwayʿir, Islam’s Protection of Women, p. 55. Also see: Yusuf al Qaradawi, Contemporary Fatwas, 2/286, Dar al Wafa’, third edition, 1415 AH, 1994.)
Even in acts of worship, where hearts are attached to their Lord, Islam forbade mixing between men and women. It placed the rows of women behind the rows of men when they attend prayer. The Prophet ﷺ said: “The best rows of men are the first, and the worst are the last. The best rows of women are the last, and the worst are the first.” (Reported by Muslim, 1/326, no. 440.)
Al Nawawi (d. 676 AH) said: “The last rows of women who are present with men were preferred because they are furthest from mixing with men, from seeing them, and from the heart becoming attached to them through seeing their movements, hearing their speech, and the like. The first rows were criticised for the opposite reason.” (Al Nawawi’s commentary on Muslim, 4/119.)
If Islam forbade mixing in worship, where souls are attached to Allah, then it is more fitting that Islam does not permit mixing in clubs, schools, institutes, colleges, and the like, where souls may be prepared for sin and deviation.
This is the ruling of Islam, that a woman does not mix in the society of unrelated men. By this ruling, Islam protects the woman and preserves her modesty and chastity by distancing her from the causes of deviation, and also safeguards her honour from the tongues of slanderers and agitators.
Yet intellectual invasion has produced in our lands people who benefit from the words of Western men more than they benefit from the words of Allah and the words of His Messenger ﷺ, so they began calling for mixing in the manner of Western civilisation.
But what is the position of Western civilisation itself, which made mixing a visible feature of its societies, and which the callers to women’s liberation in Muslim lands take as their model?
The West they follow complains today about the effects of mixing, which corrupted its daughters and sons alike, and became a threat that, as the source claims, may ruin and collapse its civilisation. It says: “In America and Sweden and others among the lands of sexual freedom, statistics proved that lustful frenzy did not die out through freedom of meeting and conversation, nor through what comes after meeting and conversation. Rather, the more people take from it, the more thirsty they become.” (Yusuf al Qaradawi, The Status of Women in Islamic Life, pp. 58-59.)
The effect of mixing, which removed barriers between male and female, appeared in those societies in what follows.
Moral collapse and family breakdown
The loss of morals and the dominance of lustful frenzy are a natural result of losing modesty and chastity, produced by open, unlawful mixing between women and men.
It is the right of the man, just as it is the right of the woman, that each feels secure with the other, and that neither is exposed to temptation that may push feelings away from the spouse, and may even lead to slipping and sin, which threatens that sacred bond and removes full trust and reassurance.
This deviation of feelings, and slipping into what is further, happens every day and every moment in the societies where mixing is let loose, and where women go out adorned and displaying, and the devils of temptation and enticement go out with them.
What the repeating tongues say here and there, that mixing refines feelings, and releases buried energy cleanly, and teaches manners of conversation and social relations, and that full testing even including the element of sin is enough to bind the two spouses together because each chose the other with satisfaction after experience, all of that is demolished by reality, the reality of continual deviations, continual shifts in feelings, the destruction of homes through divorce and other than divorce, and the spread of mutual marital betrayal in those societies.
As for the claim of refinement and clean release through meeting and conversation, let them ask about the percentage of pregnant girls among American high school students, which reached 48 percent in one school.
As for happy homes after the marriage of absolute mixing and full testing, let them ask about the percentage of homes destroyed by divorce in America, which rises again and again whenever mixing increases and whenever testing increases.
While some among us call for open mixing between unrelated men and women, many Western writers call for stopping mixing between the two sexes.
Dr “Idalin” said: “Experiments have proven that returning the woman to the home is the only path to save the new generation from the decline it is moving in.” (Quoted from: ʿAbd al ʿAziz ibn Baz, The Danger of Women Sharing Men in His Field of Work, p. 15, Markaz Fajr, first edition, 1422 AH, 2001.)
In 1382 AH, al Jumhuriyyah newspaper published an article by an American woman writer who specialised in the affairs of youth under 20.
She visited Cairo in that year and disliked what she saw of mixing in an Islamic society, so she wrote: “Stop mixing before the age of 20. We have suffered greatly from it in America. Our society became complex and boring, filled with every form of permissiveness and shamelessness. The victims of mixing and freedom before the age of 20 fill the prisons, pavements, bars, and secret houses.
The freedom we gave our girls and boys made them gangs of youth, gangs for drugs, and gangs for slavery. Mixing, permissiveness, and freedom in European and American society threatened families and shook values and morals.
The young girl under 20 in modern society mixes with young men in the name of civilisation, freedom, and permissiveness.
The strange thing in Europe and America is that the young girl under 20 plays and has relations with whomever she wants under her family’s hearing and sight. She even challenges her father, trainers, and supervisors in the name of freedom and mixing.” (Quoted from: Muhammad Mahmud al Sawwaf, Colonial Plans to Fight Islam, pp. 227-228, Dar al Iʿtisam, third edition, 1979. Also see: ʿAbd al Baqi Ramdun, The Danger of Display and Mixing, p. 140, Mu’assasat al Risalah, Beirut, 1402 AH, 1980.)
Do the callers to mixing want Muslim youth to become soft youth whose only concern is satisfying desire, so they achieve no purpose and reach no aim, or do they want Muslim families to break down, so the family becomes a tool of destruction in society instead of being a tool of building?
The spread of children born outside marriage
The spread of children born outside marriage in society is a phenomenon that accompanies the melting of Sharia barriers between men and women.
The English writer Lady Cook, and the testimony of an opponent carries weight, condemned the phenomenon of mixing in her society and what it produced of many children of fornication and their spread in society. She said: “Men become accustomed to mixing, and so women desire what goes against their natural disposition. The more mixing increases, the more children of fornication increase, and here lies the great calamity for women.” She then said: “Teach them to stay away from men. Tell them the outcome of the hidden plot lying in wait for them.” (Quoted from: ʿAbd al ʿAziz ibn Baz, The Danger of Women Sharing Men in His Field of Work, p. 13.)
Some institutions in America carried out an assessment of pregnant girls in high schools, and the percentage was extremely frightening.
The source then quoted what it described as the latest statistics in this regard: “More than one third of the births of 1983 in New York were children born outside marriage, meaning they were born outside the scope of marriage. Most of them were born to girls aged 19 and below. Their number was 112,353 children, meaning 37 percent of all births in New York.” (Quoted from: al Sharq al Awsat newspaper, year 7, issue 2086, Tuesday 17 Dhu al Qiʿdah 1404 AH, 14 August 1984, quoted from: Yusuf al Qaradawi, The Status of Women in Islamic Life, p. 61.)
Do the callers to mixing want girls in Muslim societies to become factories producing children born outside marriage?
The spread of deadly illnesses
Open mixing between the two sexes in Western societies led to the spread of sexual diseases, nervous diseases, and mental illnesses which destroy hundreds of thousands of victims. Among the most dangerous illnesses is what was recently discovered and became known as “AIDS”, which removes immunity from the body and exposes it to destruction.
It became, as the source claims, a threat to millions in Europe and America with severe consequences, as medical reports and official statistics published by magazines and newspapers around the universe show. It then used as support the warning of the Prophet ﷺ when he said: “Immorality does not appear among a people, openly, except that plague and pains spread among them, which never existed among their earlier predecessors.” (Reported by Ibn Majah, 2/1333.)
This is besides nervous and psychological illnesses which, as the source claims, spread like fire in dry grass, filling hospitals and clinics. (Yusuf al Qaradawi, The Status of Women in Islamic Life, pp. 64-65.)
Do the callers to mixing want to bring these harms and these diseases into our societies, when Allah has protected us from them and saved us from them?
The Issue of Polygyny
Many biased Westerners among the enemies of Islam launch a harsh campaign against the system of polygyny in Islam.
Those who move in their orbit among the secularists claim that Islam is the only religion that made polygyny permissible, that it is a primitive system that reduces the standing of women in favour of men, that it is like shackles and chains that prevent her movement, reduce her rights, and waste her humanity, and that freeing her from it is a step in her progress. In their view it does not match the development of society, and women must be made equal to men, while polygyny does not produce that equality.
This is the orientalist view of polygyny. If the writings of some authors who were captivated by the Western method are followed, they are found condemning polygyny and treating it as one of the faults blamed upon Islam. They even claim it is among the causes of moral corruption among women.
Qasim Amin (d. 1326 AH) said: “I do not see polygyny except as a Sharia trick to satisfy an animal desire. It is a sign proving the corruption of morals, the weakness of senses, and greed in seeking pleasures.” (Qasim Amin, Tahrir al Mar’ah, 2/92, edited by Muhammad ʿImarah, al Mu’assasah al ʿArabiyyah li al Dirasat wa al Nashr, first edition, 1976.)
If Qasim Amin is passed over, another example is found, more severe, when ʿAdil Ahmad Sarkis claimed that polygyny is among the causes of moral corruption and marital betrayal. He said: “The system of polygyny is among the causes of moral corruption among women, because the man’s connection to more than one wife pushes each wife toward betrayal, because the woman views her husband’s connection to another woman as betrayal against her.
Even if society approves this betrayal and gives it a Sharia appearance, she will find justification to betray him in revenge.” (ʿAdil Ahmad Sarkis, Marriage and the Development of Society, p. 204, Dar al Kitab al ʿArabi, no date.)
These are examples of what the orientalists and their followers wrote on this subject.
The reply to this doubt will be given through the following points.
A historical glance at polygyny
Islam did not bring a new invention when it made polygyny permissible for a man, because this was known before in earlier religions.
Al ʿAqqad (d. 1384 AH) said: “We should point out a common mistake among the ignorant and the hasty, among those who claim culture, regarding the ways of religions on polygyny before Islam. Their assumption is often that Islam is the only religion that made polygyny permissible, or that it was the first religion to do so after Judaism and Christianity. This is not correct, as becomes clear through a simple look at marriage rulings in ancient laws and in the laws of the People of the Book.” (Al ʿAqqad, The Truths of Islam and the Falsehoods of Its Opponents, p. 131.)
In Japan, a man used to marry one lawful wife, but he also had the right to have relations with many women in another home, apart from the home in which his wife lived. His children born outside marriage were treated like his children in marriage.
In the law of Hammurabi, written on an ancient stone in the city of Tyre, a law permitting polygyny is mentioned, as part of his laws regulating family life. (See: Hashim ibn Hamid al Rifaʿi, The Merits of Polygyny, pp. 13-14.)
Polygyny was also known among the Greeks. King Priam used to gather more than one wife. Herodotus mentioned how kings gathered wives, among them Philip of Macedon, who gathered 9 wives.
Polygyny was also known among the Romans. Their emperor Sulla gathered 5 women, and Caesar gathered 4.
The Chinese law of “Liki” permitted polygyny up to 130 women. One of the emperors of China had about 30,000 women. (Mustafa al Sibaʿi, Woman Between Fiqh and Law, p. 71. Also see: Kawthar Kamil ʿAli, The System of Polygyny in Islam, p. 14.)
As for the ancient Egyptians, polygyny was permissible among them. A group of wealthy pharaohs and many ordinary people practised it. The houses of the rich were filled with concubines and secondary wives.
They claimed their gods marry and have children and practice polygyny, so they treated that as the highest example to follow. Polygyny had no set limit among them, neither among ordinary people nor among kings. Among those pharaohs who practised it were Amenhotep 2 and 3, Thutmose 2 and 3, and Ramses 2. (ʿAli Mansur, Religion and Personal Status Laws, p. 28, quoted in: Kawthar Kamil ʿAli, The System of Polygyny in Islam, p. 14.)
Polygyny was also known among Brahman Hindus, Zoroastrian Iranians, Slavic peoples, and some Germanic Saxon peoples. (ʿAli ʿAbd al Wahid Wafi, Human Rights in Islam, p. 180.)
In Judaism, polygyny was made permissible without limit. Whoever looks at the Old Testament sees that it was made permissible among them. Sulayman عليه السلام married many wives, indeed more than 100 wives, as their texts claim.
It says in the Book of Kings: “King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with Pharaoh’s daughter, Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites, from the nations about which the Lord said to the Children of Israel: ‘Do not enter among them and they do not enter among you, for they will incline your hearts after their gods.’ Solomon clung to these in love. He had 700 wives, princesses, and 300 concubines, and his wives inclined his heart.” (1 Kings 11: 3-8, according to the source’s reference.)
Thus, the Torah states polygyny and its permissibility, and claims it was practised by prophets themselves. Newfeld, the author of Marriage Among the Ancient Hebrews, said: “The Talmud and the Torah both made polygyny permissible, and the laws of the Babylonians and their neighbouring nations, whom the Children of Israel mixed with, were all upon the same law regarding wives and female slaves.” (ʿAli ʿAbd al Halim Mahmud, The Muslim Woman and the Fiqh of Daʿwah, p. 393.)
In Christianity, no clear text came that forbids polygyny. Rather, what is found in the Gospels, according to the source, indicates permissibility in all cases except one case, the case of a bishop who cannot remain celibate, so he contents himself with one wife as the least of two evils.
It says in the Gospel: “A shepherd must be without blame, the husband of one wife.” (The Bible, the first letter of Paul to Timothy, p. 312, fifth edition, 1994, as referenced by the source.)
The source argues that making this binding on the bishop alone shows that it is permissible for others. It also claims that early Christians did not understand their religion to forbid polygyny, so polygyny increased among them, and that Augustine said it is lawful. The source further claims that polygyny remained with church recognition until the seventeenth century. (Al ʿAqqad, The Truths of Islam and the Falsehoods of Its Opponents, p. 131. Also: Mustafa al Sibaʿi, Woman Between Fiqh and Law, p. 72.)
Some Christian groups even went as far as treating polygyny as obligatory. In 1931, Baptists in Munster declared openly that the true Christian is the one who has several wives. The Mormons, as is known, treat polygyny as a sacred system. (Al ʿAqqad, Woman in the Qur’an, p. 806.)
As for the Arabs in the age of ignorance, polygyny was known and common among them, with no clear rules and no recognised limit. This is shown by what is reported, that Ghaylan ibn Salamah al Thaqafi accepted Islam while he had 10 wives in the age of ignorance, and they accepted Islam with him, so the Prophet ﷺ said to him: “Choose 4 of them.” (Reported by al Hakim, 2/192.)
Polygyny remains widespread today among several non Muslim peoples in Africa, India, China, Japan, and in Siam, Thailand, where it is practised without limits.
The source also claimed that missionaries in Indonesia attempt to change family law to permit polygyny with no limit, to use it in spreading their thought, and that Christians in Africa use polygyny as a means to spread missionary work. (Al Sayyid Nurjiyah, Islam and Christianity in Central Africa, p. 892, quoted in: Kawthar Kamil ʿAli, The System of Polygyny in Islam, p. 24.)
Thus, Islam did not bring a new invention in making polygyny permissible. What is new is that it reformed the chaos produced by unrestricted permissibility without any restriction.
The wisdom behind making polygyny permissible
By examining the aims of Sharia, it becomes clear that Islam does not make permissible for its followers anything that harms them, and does not forbid anything that benefits them. It only makes permissible what is good and beneficial, and only forbids what is harmful and filthy. This is what the Qur’an expressed in describing the Prophet ﷺ:
يَأْمُرُهُم بِالْمَعْرُوفِ وَيَنْهَاهُمْ عَنِ الْمُنكَرِ وَيُحِلُّ لَهُمُ الطَّيِّبَاتِ وَيُحَرِّمُ عَلَيْهِمُ الْخَبَائِثَ
“He commands them with what is right, forbids them from what is wrong, makes permissible for them what is good, and forbids them what is harmful.” (al Aʿraf: 157)
Everything Sharia makes permissible must have a benefit that is pure or stronger, and everything Sharia forbids must have a harm that is pure or stronger. This is what Sharia considered regarding polygyny. It weighed interests and harms, benefits and losses, then permitted it for whoever needs it, on condition that he is confident in being fair, without fearing injustice and unfairness. (Yusuf al Qaradawi, The Status of Women in Islamic Life, pp. 133-134.)
Thus, when Islam legislated polygyny, it did so for high wisdoms, public interests, and social and personal needs.
The source summarised the wisdom in polygyny in the following matters.
Social interest
This interest appears in two situations, which no one denies happen.
First, when the number of women exceeds the number of men in ordinary conditions. There are real situations in many societies where the number of women fit for marriage exceeds the number of men fit for marriage.
The source gave the example of Northern Europe, where women exceed men even in times other than war and what follows war. It also claimed that statistics in Finland showed that among 4 or 3 children born, one is male and the rest female.
In this case, polygyny is described as a moral and social treatment, better than women walking the streets without support and without a home. No person who respects social stability prefers prostitution over polygyny, except one following desire, a selfish man who wants to satisfy desire without carrying any moral or financial responsibility toward those he connects with. Such people, the source claims, destroy society and are enemies to women themselves. (Mustafa al Sibaʿi, Woman Between Fiqh and Law, p. 81.)
Yusuf al Qaradawi said: “The number of women fit for marriage may be more than the number of men able to marry. Here, the interest of society, and the interest of women themselves, is that they become co wives rather than live their entire lives unmarried, deprived of married life and motherhood. It is one of three ways, with no fourth, for those women who exceed the number of men able to marry.
Either they live their whole lives with the bitterness of deprivation from married life and motherhood, a harsh punishment for them without any crime, or they are left free to run after desire and accept being tools for the amusement of corrupt men who consume them, then throw them away after their youth and freshness, or they are permitted to marry a married man who can spend and protect chastity, confident in being fair as Allah commanded.
There is no doubt that this last way is the most just and best solution, and the healing balm. This is what Islam ruled.” He then quoted the Qur’an:
وَمَنْ أَحْسَنُ مِنَ اللَّهِ حُكْمًا لِّقَوْمٍ يُوقِنُونَ
“And who is better than Allah in judgment for a people who have certainty.” (al Ma’idah: 50)
(Yusuf al Qaradawi, The Status of Women in Islamic Life, pp. 124-125.)
Second, when men become far fewer than women because of crushing wars. The source added that men face far more danger and death because they carry war burdens and the burdens of earning. It claimed that those realities show males are more exposed to reduction than females. It also claimed that the number of young men killed in the Second World War reached about 20,000,000.
It then claimed that polygyny was the means by which compensation occurred in the early Muslim era after continuous wars in the land and outside it, and that without polygyny they would have been consumed by war.
In the modern age, when war crushed the youth of Hitler’s Germany, the source claimed Hitler thought under pressure of need about permitting a German man to marry 2 wives by law, to secure the future strength of the German people. It also claimed al Ahram newspaper on 13 December 1960 discovered a document written by Martin Bormann in 1944 stating that Hitler was seriously thinking about that. (Al Bahi al Khuli, Islam and the Contemporary Issues of Women, pp. 93-94. Also: Muhammad Qutb, Doubts About Islam, p. 135.)
Thus, polygyny is presented as a just solution and a healing balm for the heavy increase of females and the small number of males produced by war.
Moral wisdom
Islam is a realistic religion that matches human nature. It is a realistic system that lifts the human being from his reality to a higher path without denying his nature. It is not an empty display of cleverness, nor empty idealism, nor dreamy wishes that clash with human nature and reality.
Rather, it is a system that cares for human morals and the cleanliness of society. It does not permit establishing a filthy reality that produces moral collapse and pollutes society under the hammer of necessity. Rather, it seeks to establish a reality that helps preserve morals and the cleanliness of society with the least burden upon the individual and society. (Sayyid Qutb, In the Shade of the Qur’an, 1/579.)
From here, polygyny, as Islam legislated it, is described as a moral system because it does not permit a man to connect to any woman he wants, at any time he wants. It does not permit him more than 3 wives in addition to the first.
It does not permit secret relationships. A contract must be done and made known, even if before a limited number. The woman’s family must know and accept, or object. It must be registered in court, and it is recommended that a feast be held and people invited in joy and honour. (Mustafa al Sibaʿi, Woman Between Fiqh and Law, p. 93.)
The source then compared this with the actual polygyny found in Western life. It claimed it occurs with no Sharia and no law, under names like girlfriends and lovers, with no limit in number, secretly, not openly. The man is not bound to any financial responsibility toward those women, and he may disgrace them then leave them to shame, poverty, and humiliation.
He is also not bound to recognise children produced by those relations, and they are treated as children born outside marriage and carry stigma for life. The source claimed it is polygyny without moral restraint, without human feeling, and driven by desire and selfishness while escaping responsibility. (Mustafa al Sibaʿi, Woman Between Fiqh and Law, pp. 94-95.)
The source then claimed that some fair Westerners in the early twentieth century said that stopping lawful polygyny leads to women becoming lost, to immoral conduct spreading, and to many children born outside marriage.
It quoted from a newspaper report that claimed an English woman wrote: “Our girls became many, and calamity spread, and few searched for its causes. The scholar Thomas saw the illness and described the cure, which is permitting the man to marry more than one woman.
Through that, calamity will disappear and our girls will become housewives. The calamity is in forcing the European man to be satisfied with 1 wife. This restriction is what made our girls lost and pushed them into seeking the work of men.
Evil will only increase if polygyny is not made permissible. How many married men have children born outside marriage who became a burden, shame, and liability upon society.
If polygyny were permissible, those children and their mothers would not suffer humiliation, and their honour and the honour of their children would be safe. Making polygyny permissible makes every woman a housewife and a mother of lawful children.” (Muhammad Rashid Rida, Tafsir al Manar, 4/295.)
So the source expressed surprise at Western uproar against Islam’s system of polygyny, which it described as more strongly tied to morals, more restraining for desire, and more honouring for women.
Personal interest
Personal interest returns to the individual himself, and it is many. Among them are the following.
If the wife is infertile, and the man wants children, then divorcing her, if the reason becomes known, may leave her without marriage for the rest of her life, because men do not want a divorced woman who cannot have children. Is it not better that her husband marries a second wife for children, while the first remains honoured with her full marital rights. (Hashim ibn Hamid al Rifaʿi, The Merits of Polygyny, p. 30.)
The wife may be struck by a severe illness which stops her from marital duties and removes the function of motherhood. If polygyny is forbidden in every case, then the husband whose wife became infertile and unable to manage the home will either divorce her, or remain in a marriage that lost its meaning and lost its main aim for family and society, leaving only hardship and service without children and without comfort. Permitting polygyny in such a case is described as a solution that is acceptable and more honouring than casting away the ill woman, and more honouring than forcing the man into infertility and hardship.
A man may have strong sexual ability and not be satisfied with one wife, either because of her older age, weakness, or the many times she is not fit for intercourse, such as menstruation, pregnancy, post birth bleeding, illness, and the like, while both spouses want to keep the marriage and dislike separation.
The source then presented 3 possibilities: suppress the man by force of law against his nature, or let him commit unlawful relations, or permit polygyny according to necessity while protecting the first wife from divorce. The source said the first is against nature and beyond ability, and produces hatred of marriage.
The second is against Islam’s moral aim. The third matches necessity and preserves the first wife and preserves family stability. (See: ʿAbd Allah Nasih ʿUlwan, Polygyny in Islam, p. 26. Also see: Al ʿAqqad, Woman in the Qur’an, p. 81.)
A man may incline toward another woman and find no way to stop that inclination except marriage. Divorcing the first wife may harm him or her greatly after shared interests became intertwined. The first wife may also prefer shared marriage over total deprivation.
A man may travel frequently for work and remain outside his home city for months, unable to take his wife and children with him each time, and unable to live alone in long travel.
Here he may either seek unlawful companionship without rights for the woman and without lawful rights for any children, or marry another in a lawful way, with lawful children recognised by society. The source said sound reason and fair thinking prefers polygyny over the first path. (Mustafa al Sibaʿi, Woman Between Fiqh and Law, p. 86. Also see: Tawfiq al ʿAttar, Polygyny from Religious, Social, and Legal Ways, pp. 24-28. Also see: Muhammad al Bahi, Islam and the Contemporary Woman, pp. 90-91.)
Thus, Islam’s permissibility of polygyny is presented as a response to real life and real needs, and as a treatment that does not forbid what necessity may call for.
Western praise of polygyny
The source claimed that among what Islam may take pride in is that human laws and other systems, even if refined, still align with Islamic legislation after many revisions based on experience and need, if that legislation is sound. Among those is polygyny, which some Western thinkers and philosophers praised.
The source quoted, among that, Dr Graham saying: Islam is a noble religion that permits a Muslim to marry a second wife openly while forbidding him from taking a lover secretly, and that this preserves moral purity in society.
It quoted Wells saying that the system of polygyny protected Islamic lands from women cast away by society, wandering in the streets of Paris and London, and that polygyny is far better than a woman being connected to many men, and that there is a vast difference between a husband and a lover.
It also quoted Bernard Shaw saying that if Europe adopted Islam’s system of polygyny, it would have saved its peoples from many causes of moral collapse, moral decline, and family breakdown. (Quoted from: al ʿAlam al Islami newspaper, p. 12, issue 3, 3 Shaʿban 1413 AH, 25 January 1993, quoted from: Mushrah ʿAli Ahmad ʿAli, Missionary and Orientalist Plans to Fight Islam, p. 355, 1416 AH, 1995.)
It quoted Annie Besant saying that if matters are weighed with just balance, then polygyny in Islam, which protects, preserves, feeds, and clothes women, is far weightier than Western prostitution, which permits a man to take a woman only to satisfy desire, then throw her into the street when he finishes. (Muhammad Zinu, Islamic Guidance, pp. 15-16, quoted in: Hashim al Rifaʿi, The Merits of Polygyny, p. 69. Also: Abu al Hasan ʿAli al Nadwi, Islam’s Effect and Its Merit Upon Humanity, p. 66, Dar al Manarah, first edition, 1407 AH, 1987.)
It also quoted Majallat al Fath in Cairo, quoting Daily Mail in England, which published an article defending polygyny because England faced an increase of women beyond men by 2,000,000.
It claimed that making polygyny permissible is the only effective solution, and that the one wife system is only a matter of belief and agreement, while the matter in reality is numerical ratio. It claimed that the one woman for one man theory is more fitting when the numbers are equal, but when women exceed men, and no treatment is taken, then a severe conflict between the two sexes is unavoidable. (Quoted from: ʿAbd Allah Nasih ʿUlwan, Polygyny in Islam, pp. 19-20.)
The source concluded by asking whether some “cultured” Muslims who chase Western civilisation will learn that Islamic systems and rulings are a source of pride for them until Allah inherits the earth and all upon it.
The Issue of Qiwamah
This is another doubt raised by those who claim civilisation and imagined equality, and by those who follow them from those who claim to support women and to liberate them, and who hate what Allah revealed regarding Islamic rulings in family matters.
They claimed that this principle, the principle of qiwamah, is an insult to women and a praise of men over them, so that the man becomes dominant in every small and big matter, while she has no strength before his will and his harshness. They claim this is not equality in any way.
They raise this doubt everywhere. The source claims colonialism increased it and spread it, and even began it, then prepared agents who raise it from inside, men and women who sold their minds and inner selves to the party of Shaytan.
The source then claimed that if this were in the hands of such agitators, they would have altered the Qur’an and changed it to make their absolute equality a reality. (See: ʿAbd al ʿAzim al Mutaʿni, Woman in the Age of the Message Between the Realism of Islam and the Illusions of the Agitators, p. 163. Also: Amir ʿAbd al ʿAziz, False Accusations Against Islam and the Muslims, p. 47. Also: ʿAbd al Rahman Hasan Habanka al Maydani, The 3 Wings of Deception and Their Hidden Feathers, p. 597, Dar al Qalam, Damascus, seventh edition, 1414 AH, 1994.)
Reply to This Doubt
To reply, several matters must be kept in mind, among the most important are what follows.
First, Islam’s scale in how people are considered, and in their honour and favour, is taqwa. Whoever is upon taqwa of Allah is better with Allah and more excellent.
إِنَّ أَكْرَمَكُمْ عِندَ اللَّهِ أَتْقَاكُمْ
“Truly, the most honoured of you with Allah is the one with the most taqwa.” (al Hujurat: 13)
This is a truth that does not accept doubt or argument. Any woman who is stronger in iman and obedience to Allah is better and more excellent than rows of men with empty hearts, empty of iman and taqwa, lost in falsehood. (Amir ʿAbd al ʿAziz, False Accusations Against Islam and the Muslims, p. 84.)
Second, even though Islam makes clear that married life is built upon love, mercy, and comfort, it does not leave matters without structure. This ship must have a leader who directs it and manages it. Islam’s rule is that if 3 people travel, they must appoint one of them over themselves. (Reported by Abu Dawud, 3/36, no. 2608.) The leader carries more burden and responsibility, and gains the least from leadership. (Muhammad ʿAli al Bar, Women’s Work on the Scale, p. 47, al Dar al Suʿudiyyah, first edition, 1401 AH, 1981.)
Third, reality and human experience prove that leadership is necessary for every society, whether small or large. It is not wise, in Sharia or in man made systems, to leave any society without a head to return to in opinion, in disagreement, and in serious matters. Any society without such a centre will fall into chaos, conflict, and contradiction of desires. Then its unity breaks, its building blocks scatter, and the aims for which it was formed are lost. (Mahmud Shaltut, Islam, Creed and Sharia, pp. 157-158.)
Fourth, the family is the first building block of society, and it is the first institution in human life. It is first in being the starting point that affects all later stages, and first in importance because it builds and raises the human being, and the human being is the noblest creation in the Islamic understanding.
If financial, industrial, and commercial institutions, which are less valuable than the family, are normally entrusted only to the most capable people who specialised and trained for them, and who also have natural ability for management and leadership, then it is more fitting to apply this principle to the family, which produces the most valuable element in creation, the human being.
From here, the source claimed the reality is that the man’s qiwamah over the woman and the home does not harm the principle of equality between men and women. When Islam affirmed it as a right for the man, it relied on matters, among the most important are what follows.
Considering natural disposition and the abilities granted to each of the man and the woman
It is accepted from the beginning that both man and woman are from Allah’s creation, and Allah does not wrong anyone from His creation while preparing him for a specific role and granting him the abilities needed for it.
Allah created people male and female. Among the roles of the woman is to carry, give birth, breastfeed, and care for the child produced by the connection between her and the man. These are immense and serious roles, not light roles that can be done without deep bodily, emotional, and mental preparation rooted within the female.
So it is justice, according to the source, that the other side, the man, is charged with providing needs and providing protection for the female, so she may focus on her serious role, and so she is not made to carry, give birth, breastfeed, and care, then also work, struggle, and stay awake to protect herself and her child at the same time.
It is also justice that the man is granted bodily, nervous, mental, and emotional qualities that help him carry those roles, and that the woman is granted bodily, nervous, mental, and emotional qualities that help her carry her roles. Then the source quoted the Qur’an:
وَلَا يَظْلِمُ رَبُّكَ أَحَدًا
“And your Lord does not wrong anyone.” (al Kahf: 49)
(Sayyid Qutb, In the Shade of the Qur’an, 2/650.)
The source then claimed that the woman was granted qualities that match her role in life, and the man was granted qualities that qualify him to manage family affairs and direct them.
It quoted Dr ʿAli ʿAbd al Wahid Wafi as saying: “The reason Islam built upon the man managing the family is that the woman has fine feeling and strong emotion, and the emotional side dominates many sides of her inner life. Allah made her upon this so she may carry her basic role, motherhood and care, in the best way.
This role needs fine feeling, gentle emotion, and merciful tenderness more than it needs thinking, understanding, reflection, and deep consideration.
So emotional strength in the woman is a sign of her perfection and the perfection of her femininity, and is not a deficiency, as some people may think.
As for the man, he does not usually rush with feelings and emotion like the woman. Rather, the side of understanding and thinking dominates him.
Leadership and supervision need understanding and thinking more than they need feeling and emotion. So the qualities of leadership and supervision exist in the man by nature more than they exist in the woman.” (ʿAli ʿAbd al Wahid Wafi, Human Rights in Islam, p. 104. Also see: Yusuf al Qaradawi, The Status of Women in Islamic Life, pp. 30-31.)
Qiwamah
Perhaps this is what the noble Qur’an verse pointed to in Allah’s saying:
الرِّجَالُ قَوَّامُونَ عَلَى النِّسَاءِ بِمَا فَضَّلَ اللَّهُ بَعْضَهُمْ عَلَىٰ بَعْضٍ
“Men are caretakers over women because Allah has favoured some of them over others.” (al Nisa: 34)
The favouring of the man here is a necessary matter, arising from his created nature, which makes him more able than the woman to strive and struggle in the life of the universe. So it is not for anyone to object to this qiwamah, because doing so is an objection to Allah’s ruling, and all the qualities of man and woman are from Allah.
The second basis is the material side, which the verse also pointed to in Allah’s saying:
وَبِمَا أَنْفَقُوا مِنْ أَمْوَالِهِمْ
“And because they spend from their wealth.” (al Nisa: 34)
The man, as this verse states, is responsible in Islam’s system for spending on the family, and for seeking its provision outside the home, in food, drink, and clothing. He is the one who pays the dowry, prepares the home, and provides what it needs.
This duty placed upon the man, and the fact that he is naturally suited for it, can be sensed from the beginning of creation when Allah addressed Adam عليه السلام, warning him against Shaytan’s whispering:
فَلَا يُخْرِجَنَّكُمَا مِنَ الْجَنَّةِ فَتَشْقَىٰ
“So let him not drive you both out of Paradise, lest you suffer.” (Ta Ha: 117)
The verse gathered Adam and Hawwaʾ in the possibility of being driven out, then singled out Adam for the hardship and toil. This points to the responsibilities of qiwamah and its burdens.
The man is a shepherd, specialised in qiwamah, because Allah favoured him with the ability to carry its responsibilities and fulfil its duties.
The woman is a shepherd, specialised in motherhood and preparing the home, because Allah favoured her with the ability to carry that responsibility and what comes with it. “All of you are shepherds, and all of you are responsible for your flock.” (Part of a hadith whose reference was given earlier in this work.)
If the man is responsible for spending on the family, then it is his right to hold the leadership of the family, according to the accepted principle that gain is tied to burden. (See: ʿAmmarah Najib, The Ideal Family in the Light of the Qur’an and the Sunnah, p. 185.) Otherwise it is not justice at all that a person is required to spend on a group while being given no qiwamah over it and no supervision of its affairs. (See: ʿAli ʿAbd al Wahid Wafi, Human Rights in Islam, p. 103.)
It is also suitable to mention here that modern democracies were built upon this principle, and constitutions were built upon it in our age.
Their basis is that since citizens pay taxes and sustain the facilities of the state, they must have the right to supervise its affairs, monitor its authorities, and lay down what is suitable in legislation. Scholars of constitutional law summarise this by saying, “Whoever spends supervises,” or, “Whoever pays monitors.” (See: ʿAli ʿAbd al Wahid Wafi, Human Rights in Islam, p. 104.)
The third basis is the intellectual side. The wisdom within human societies requires that every society, whether small or large, has a caretaker who leads it and manages its affairs, protecting it from chaos, collision, and continual conflict. The family is one of those societies. It needs a caretaker, and the caretaker should possess the qualities of qiwamah in the best way.
People of thought, in the issue of qiwamah within the family, speak of several possibilities. The first is that the man is the caretaker of the family at all times. The second is that the woman is the caretaker of the family at all times. The third is that the man and woman share qiwamah equally. The fourth is that qiwamah is divided, either by alternating turns, or by splitting responsibilities so that each has a specific area. (See: ʿAbd al Rahman Hasan Habankah, The 3 Wings of Deception and Their Hidden Feathers, p. 599. Also see: al ʿAqqad, The Truths of Islam and the Falsehoods of Its Opponents, p. 129. Also see: ʿAbd al ʿAzim al Mutaʿni, Woman in the Age of the Message, p. 164.)
As for shared qiwamah, whether general, alternating, or divided by specialisation, it necessarily leads to disorder and conflict, and each side wanting dominance over the other, unless that happens by the willing choice of the one holding individual qiwamah, and by mutual understanding and affection between the spouses.
Human experience also confirmed the corruption of shared leadership. This is why responsibility is centred in one leader in every social system people have known, even if it carries the appearance of collective leadership, because the work of the leading group is closer to counsel than it is to actual authority. (See: ʿAbd al Rahman Hasan Habankah, The 3 Wings of Deception and Their Hidden Feathers, p. 600.)
As for assigning qiwamah to the woman instead of the man, this is a reversal of order. It contradicts what the woman’s natural disposition requires, and it necessarily leads to imbalance and deficiency in social life, because it reverses the nature of things. So only the first possibility remains, that the man is the caretaker within the family.
In addition, a man’s work outside the home broadens his horizon, gives him experience and knowledge, and expands his relationships and dealings with all levels of people.
This gives him insight into their ways of thinking and their ways of dealing, awareness of their plots and tricks, and the ability to distinguish the good doer from the wrong doer.
This is not usually present for the woman due to her role and the natural field of her activity. For this reason, the one who carries the responsibilities of the family must be at this level of experience, so he can avoid the difficulties that may face the family and surround it with care and safety until it completes its path in life. (See: al Waʿy al Islami magazine, p. 75, issue 388, Dhu al Hijjah 1418 AH, April 1998.)
On this basis, leaving the reins of the home in the hand of the woman is placing matters outside their proper place, or placing a burden upon a weaker shoulder. (See: Muhammad al Ghazali (d. 1416 AH), This Is Our Religion, p. 136, Dar al Kutub al Islamiyyah, 3rd edition, 1395 AH, 1975.)
It should also be stated that the man’s qiwamah over the woman does not mean giving the man a right of oppression or tyranny, nor does it mean that the woman is lesser, or that her dignity is reduced, or her personality is diminished. Rather, it is a merciful qiwamah, built upon love and mercy, and upon carrying responsibility and duties to bring good and benefit to the woman in all her situations.
If she is not married, the sign of qiwamah and supervision is the protection of her guardian and his providing what she needs in spending, so she is not forced into humiliating work that does not suit her or harms her in her present or her future.
When the time of her marriage comes, and she is mature and sensible, she chooses the husband she wants with free choice, while her guardian shares counsel and advice with her.
It is not permissible for him to force her to marry someone she does not accept. After marriage, qiwamah transfers to the husband. This qiwamah does not reduce anything of her personality or her legal capacity. It does not remove her name or her family name. Rather, after marriage she remains holding it, and holding all her rights. (See: ʿAli ʿAbd al Wahid Wafi, Human Rights in Islam, pp. 705–706. Also see: Muhammad al Ghazali (d. 1416 AH), Women’s Issues Between Stagnant and Imported Traditions, pp. 155 and 166.)
So Islam’s legislation of the man’s qiwamah over the woman does not diminish her humanity and does not waste any of her rights, as the enemies of Islam and those deceived by them claim. Rather, it is duty before it is honour. Islam made it a right of the man because he is suited for it and naturally able to fulfil its burdens.
Divorce
Missionary and orientalist influence in this age focused its attack upon the issue of divorce in order to criticise Islam’s view of the family system, even though it is, in truth, among Islam’s merits and virtues.
It is truly regrettable that some Muslims spread this, speaking about divorce as though it is a problem of the family and society, speaking in a way that contains a hidden criticism of Islam and its Sharia.
What they raised about divorce can be limited to the following claims.
They say that divorce should not exist at all, as in other religions, and that married life should remain between the spouses, and nothing should separate them except death.
They say that if divorce must exist, then the woman must be made equal to the man in it, so she can enact it whenever she wants, just as he can enact it whenever he wants.
They claim that Islam’s divorce system contains clear injustice against the woman, because the man can end married life whenever he wants, so the woman lives under threat with him, and she cannot escape his grip, as though she were an enslaved woman who lives the life of slaves unless her owner “chooses” to be generous.
They also say that the man’s freedom in divorce should be restricted, so it only occurs by a judicial ruling, which they call “restricting divorce.” (See: ʿAbd al ʿAzim al Mutaʿni, Woman in the Age of the Message, p. 178. Also see: Muhammad Qutb, Doubts About Islam, pp. 132–133. Also see: Yusuf al Qaradawi (d. 1444 AH), Features of the Muslim Society We Seek, p. 342. Also see: ʿAbd al Nasir al ʿAttar, The Family and Personal Status Law, pp. 97–98.)
This is an accurate picture of what the orientalists and their followers spread about divorce. They were not correct in what they said. It is the way of those who oppose Allah and His Messenger ﷺ.
Now, Allah willing, their doubts about divorce will be dismantled.
Reply to the Claim That Divorce Should Not Exist
Stability of married life is among the greatest aims Islam seeks. Because of this, the marriage contract is a firm contract and a heavy covenant. Allah ties by it a man and a woman, and each becomes a spouse to the other after each had been a single person in number, yet in reality a pair, because each represents the other and carries within himself the other’s pains and hopes.
It is a bond Allah established upon tranquillity and mercy, and He made it among His signs in the universe, like the creation of the human being from dust, the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the differences of languages and colours. The Qur’an described the strength of this bond between spouses by saying:
هُنَّ لِبَاسٌ لَكُمْ وَأَنْتُمْ لِبَاسٌ لَهُنَّ
“They are clothing for you, and you are clothing for them.” (al Baqarah: 187)
In this expression are powerful meanings of concealment, protection, adornment, and warmth, each one giving them to the other. (See: Yusuf al Qaradawi (d. 1444 AH), Contemporary Fatwas, 2/361.)
This firm bond, whose threads were woven after searching, effort, acquaintance, proposal, dowry, marriage, and public announcement, is not something a wise Sharia like Islam would treat lightly, dissolving it for the smallest claim from the man or the smallest claim from the woman.
Islam is satisfied that it spends many efforts to repair a home that is near collapse, so that no small hope remains after them. This occurs as follows.
First, Islam called each spouse to feel responsibility toward the other before Allah. He knows the goodness of their conduct and their deviation. Islam made each one a shepherd and responsible.
In the authentic hadith, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: “All of you are shepherds, and all of you are responsible for your flock. The man is a shepherd over his family and responsible for his flock, and the woman is a shepherd in her husband’s home and responsible for her flock.” (Part of a hadith whose reference was given earlier in this work.)
Second, Islam made divorce disliked and urged the Muslims to avoid it as much as possible. The Prophet ﷺ said: “The most hated of the permissible matters to Allah is divorce.” (Reported by Abu Dawud, 2/255. Reported by Ibn Majah, 1/650.)
Third, Islam warned each spouse against Shaytan’s entry points into this matter, and his attempts, and the attempts of his soldiers, to separate a person from his spouse. So the believer is alert and does not fall behind small matters, trivial mistakes, and minor sins. Allah said:
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا لَا تَتَّبِعُوا خُطُوَاتِ الشَّيْطَانِ وَمَنْ يَتَّبِعْ خُطُوَاتِ الشَّيْطَانِ فَإِنَّهُ يَأْمُرُ بِالْفَحْشَاءِ وَالْمُنْكَرِ وَلَوْلَا فَضْلُ اللَّهِ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَتُهُ مَا زَكَىٰ مِنْكُمْ مِنْ أَحَدٍ أَبَدًا وَلَٰكِنَّ اللَّهَ يُزَكِّي مَنْ يَشَاءُ وَاللَّهُ سَمِيعٌ عَلِيمٌ
“O you who believe, do not follow the steps of Shaytan. Whoever follows the steps of Shaytan, then he commands indecency and wrongdoing. If not for Allah’s favour upon you and His mercy, none of you would ever be purified. But Allah purifies whom He wills, and Allah is All Hearing, All Knowing.” (al Nur: 21)
The Prophet ﷺ also said: “Iblis places his throne upon the water, then sends out his detachments. The closest of them to him in rank is the one who causes the greatest trial. One of them comes and says, ‘I did such and such,’ and he says, ‘You did nothing.’ Then another comes and says, ‘I did not leave him until I separated him from his wife.’ He draws him close and says, ‘Yes, you.’” (Reported by Muslim, 4/2167.)
It is no surprise that the Qur’an treated separating a person from his spouse as among the works of sorcerers and disbelievers, as Allah said:
وَمَا يُعَلِّمَانِ مِنْ أَحَدٍ حَتَّىٰ يَقُولَا إِنَّمَا نَحْنُ فِتْنَةٌ فَلَا تَكْفُرْ فَيَتَعَلَّمُونَ مِنْهُمَا مَا يُفَرِّقُونَ بِهِ بَيْنَ الْمَرْءِ وَزَوْجِهِ
“They did not teach anyone until they said, ‘We are only a trial, so do not disbelieve.’ Yet they learned from them what they use to separate a man from his wife.” (al Baqarah: 102)
Fourth, Islam affirms that divorce is not a valid direction for reasons that can be treated, or matters that can change later, or matters that do not, by their nature, prevent stable married life. Even matters connected to a husband’s feelings toward his wife, or dislike of some of her qualities, are not treated by Islam as reasons for divorce.
Islam sees that spouses should not think of divorce merely because feelings change, because feelings change and shift, and huge matters tied to the family’s structure should not be built upon them. A person may hate today and love later. A husband may dislike one trait and be pleased by another. Allah said:
وَعَاشِرُوهُنَّ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ فَإِنْ كَرِهْتُمُوهُنَّ فَعَسَىٰ أَنْ تَكْرَهُوا شَيْئًا وَيَجْعَلَ اللَّهُ فِيهِ خَيْرًا كَثِيرًا
“Live with them in kindness. If you dislike them, then perhaps you dislike something while Allah places in it much good.” (al Nisa: 19)
The Prophet ﷺ said: “No believing man should hate a believing woman. If he dislikes one trait in her, he will be pleased with another.” (Reported by Muslim 1468b) (See: The Ideal Family in the Light of the Qur’an and the Sunnah, p. 250 and after it. Also see: Mustafa al Sibaʿi (d. 1384 AH), Woman Between Fiqh and Law, p. 123 and after it.)
Fifth, Islam orders the spouses, when fear or dislike appears, to work to remove it by bringing back mercy and harmony. Allah said:
وَإِنِ امْرَأَةٌ خَافَتْ مِنْ بَعْلِهَا نُشُوزًا أَوْ إِعْرَاضًا فَلَا جُنَاحَ عَلَيْهِمَا أَنْ يُصْلِحَا بَيْنَهُمَا صُلْحًا وَالصُّلْحُ خَيْرٌ
“If a woman fears from her husband ill treatment or turning away, then there is no blame upon them to reconcile between themselves by reconciliation, and reconciliation is best.” (al Nisa: 128)
Sixth, Islam requires that if the spouses cannot fix matters between themselves, they present their case to a family council. The husband chooses a representative from his family, and the wife chooses a representative from her family.
They meet like a family court, examine the causes of dispute, and try to repair matters with what they can. If the spouses truly want to end the conflict and return matters to stability, the 2 arbiters will succeed. This is what the Qur’an spoke about by saying:
وَإِنْ خِفْتُمْ شِقَاقَ بَيْنِهِمَا فَابْعَثُوا حَكَمًا مِنْ أَهْلِهِ وَحَكَمًا مِنْ أَهْلِهَا إِنْ يُرِيدَا إِصْلَاحًا يُوَفِّقِ اللَّهُ بَيْنَهُمَا
“If you fear a breach between them, then send an arbiter from his family and an arbiter from her family. If they both intend reconciliation, Allah will grant harmony between them.” (al Nisa: 35)
If separation becomes unavoidable, and all paths of reconciliation fail, then divorce is the bitter medicine when no other cure remains. The Qur’an said:
وَإِنْ يَتَفَرَّقَا يُغْنِ اللَّهُ كُلًّا مِنْ سَعَتِهِ وَكَانَ اللَّهُ وَاسِعًا حَكِيمًا
“If they separate, Allah will enrich each of them from His vastness, and Allah is All Encompassing, All Wise.” (al Nisa: 130)
It is not sound, by logic or natural disposition, to force an endless partnership upon 2 partners when neither is at ease with the other and neither trusts the other. Forcing such a life by the power of law is a harsh punishment. It is worse than life imprisonment. It is a hell that cannot be borne.
One of the wise said: “Among the greatest calamities is to live with one who neither agrees with you nor leaves you.”
Al Mutanabbi (d. 354 AH) said:
ومن نكد الدنيا على الحر أن يرى
عدوا له ما من صداقته بد
“Among the hardships of the universe for a free person is to see an enemy who cannot be avoided, even in friendship.”
If this is said about a companion a person meets only days in a week or hours in a day, then what about a wife who is the companion of his home, the partner at his side, and the partner of his lifetime. (See: Yusuf al Qaradawi, Features of the Muslim Society We Seek, pp. 342–343.)
So Islam did not close its eyes, while aiming at permanence in marriage, to the nature of people and the experience of nations.
What should a husband do if he meets a foolish wife who does not uphold the covenant and honour of marriage, and only brings what spoils life and exhausts the nerves. What should she do if she meets a husband like that. What should the husband of a woman who is insane or severely ill do. What should she do if she finds him like that.
What if the natures of the spouses clash completely, or severe dislike enters the heart of one, or both, and all human means fail to treat it. Can the home be a home while one side, or both sides, hates the other. Does this not lead to crime, where the husband takes a lover to satisfy desire, and the rejected wife takes the same path. Do children benefit from such a gloomy atmosphere covered by clouds. This and similar tragedies are known well within Catholic countries that did not adopt the permissibility of divorce. (See: Muhammad Qutb, Doubts About Islam, p. 132. Also see: Mahmud Shaltut, Islam, Creed and Sharia. Also see: al Bahi al Khuli, Islam and the Contemporary Issues of Women, pp. 121–122.)
At the same time, when Islam made divorce permissible, it did not make it merely a word the husband throws, causing permanent separation with no return. Rather, Islam took a path that protects from haste and rushing, preserving married life.
Among what Islam set in this is what follows.
First, Islam placed upon divorce, financially and socially, serious consequences, and because of it placed heavy burdens upon the husband. These consequences and burdens push him to control himself and reflect before divorce. (See: ʿAli ʿAbd al Wahid Wafi, Human Rights in Islam, p. 126. Also see: Muhammad Khalaf Allah, Islamic Culture and Contemporary Life, p. 518.)
Second, Islam states that divorce should occur in a period of purity in which intercourse did not occur. The wisdom is that purity is the period in which desire for the woman is at its full. A man does not divorce his wife when his desire is full except when separation is truly needed. This points to a serious situation that requires divorce. Allah said:
يَا أَيُّهَا النَّبِيُّ إِذَا طَلَّقْتُمُ النِّسَاءَ فَطَلِّقُوهُنَّ لِعِدَّتِهِنَّ
“O Prophet, when you divorce women, then divorce them for their waiting period.” (al Talaq: 1)
This verse shows that there is a specific time for divorce, and that the husband is not to divorce whenever he wants, except that his wife is in a state of purity from menstruation, and intercourse did not occur in that purity.
The wisdom in this timing is delaying divorce after the moment the soul turns to it. The surge may calm, if it was sudden, and the souls may return to harmony. It also confirms pregnancy or the absence of pregnancy before divorce.
This is the first attempt to mend the crack in the family structure, and to push the axe away from it. This does not mean divorce does not occur outside this period. It occurs when he divorces. But it becomes disliked to Allah and displeasing to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. This ruling is enough in the conscience of the believer to stop him until the time comes, and Allah decrees what He wills in this matter.”
This divorce is treated as revocable, so the husband may return his wife during her waiting period. The waiting period is long. For the non pregnant woman it reaches 3 cycles, meaning about 3 months. For the pregnant woman it lasts the full pregnancy.
Islam also gave the husband, even after divorce, a long opportunity to reconsider and return his wife if there is a path to preserve married life. To make return easier, Islam states that return does not need formal procedures. It occurs by marital intimacy, or by words such as “I have taken back my wife,” or words similar to it.
To increase the causes of return and the reasons for preserving the marriage, Islam obligated the husband not to expel his divorced wife from the marital home during her waiting period. Allah said:
يَا أَيُّهَا النَّبِيُّ إِذَا طَلَّقْتُمُ النِّسَاءَ فَطَلِّقُوهُنَّ لِعِدَّتِهِنَّ وَأَحْصُوا الْعِدَّةَ وَاتَّقُوا اللَّهَ رَبَّكُمْ لَا تُخْرِجُوهُنَّ مِنْ بُيُوتِهِنَّ وَلَا يَخْرُجْنَ إِلَّا أَنْ يَأْتِينَ بِفَاحِشَةٍ مُبَيِّنَةٍ
“O Prophet, when you divorce women, then divorce them for their waiting period, and count the waiting period, and fear Allah, your Lord. Do not expel them from their homes, and they should not leave, unless they commit a clear indecency.” (al Talaq: 1)
The wisdom of keeping the divorced woman in the husband’s home is to leave space for return, and to awaken feelings of affection and memories of shared life, so that he sees her daily and she does not leave his mind. He reflects morning and evening, tastes the bitterness of distance, and experiences the serious inner effects upon himself, upon his child, upon his home, and upon his life, including the loss of good service, a gentle hand, and a sweet spirit. He then recalculates everything, not within a day, week, or month, but across about 3 months. (See:al Qurṭubi’s Tafsir, 10/6633. Also see: Munir al Ghudban, To You, O Muslim Girl, p. 71.)
If the waiting period ends and the husband does not return her, then she leaves the marital home. If the husband later wants to return her to his marriage bond, and she agrees, then he may take her back, but with a new dowry and a new contract.
If he returns her and then later seeks divorce again, he must follow the same rules, and Islam gives him in the second time the same opportunities for return and repair as it gave in the first time.
If he divorces the third time upon the manner described, this shows that life between them is not possible. In this situation she leaves his home, and she does her waiting period in her family’s home. She is not lawful for him after that until she marries another husband with a real marriage, then the second husband separates from her by death or a valid divorce.
The wisdom is that her marrying another man and then returning to the first husband is extremely heavy upon the soul of both spouses, and noble souls dislike it. So Islam tied permissibility of return after the third divorce to marriage to another man and then separation, so that the husband avoids reaching the third divorce. He does not do it unless he has truly lost hope of living with her, because he knows what comes after it and his soul dislikes it. (See: Mustafa al Sibaʿi, Woman Between Fiqh and Law, p. 126.)
Allah said:
الطَّلَاقُ مَرَّتَانِ فَإِمْسَاكٌ بِمَعْرُوفٍ أَوْ تَسْرِيحٌ بِإِحْسَانٍ وَلَا يَحِلُّ لَكُمْ أَنْ تَأْخُذُوا مِمَّا آتَيْتُمُوهُنَّ شَيْئًا إِلَّا أَنْ يَخَافَا أَلَّا يُقِيمَا حُدُودَ اللَّهِ فَإِنْ خِفْتُمْ أَلَّا يُقِيمَا حُدُودَ اللَّهِ فَلَا جُنَاحَ عَلَيْهِمَا فِيمَا افْتَدَتْ بِهِ تِلْكَ حُدُودُ اللَّهِ فَلَا تَعْتَدُوهَا فَإِنْ طَلَّقَهَا فَلَا تَحِلُّ لَهُ مِنْ بَعْدُ حَتَّىٰ تَنْكِحَ زَوْجًا غَيْرَهُ فَإِنْ طَلَّقَهَا فَلَا جُنَاحَ عَلَيْهِمَا أَنْ يَتَرَاجَعَا إِنْ ظَنَّا أَنْ يُقِيمَا حُدُودَ اللَّهِ وَتِلْكَ حُدُودُ اللَّهِ يُبَيِّنُهَا لِقَوْمٍ يَعْلَمُونَ
“Divorce is 2 times. Then either retention in kindness or release with excellence. It is not lawful for you to take anything from what you gave them, unless both fear that they will not uphold Allah’s limits. If you fear they will not uphold Allah’s limits, then there is no blame upon them regarding what she gives up to free herself. Those are Allah’s limits, so do not transgress them.
Whoever transgresses Allah’s limits, then those are the wrongdoers. Then if he divorces her, she is not lawful for him after that until she marries another husband. If he divorces her, then there is no blame upon them to return to each other if they think they will uphold Allah’s limits. Those are Allah’s limits. He makes them clear for a people who know.” (al Baqarah: 229–230)
From what came before, the following becomes clear.
Islam was extremely keen to fulfil the aims of marriage by every way, and it did not leave a way of harmony without mentioning it. It took a middle path between suffocating restriction and hateful looseness.
Divorce in Islam is like a painful surgery. A sensible person bears the pain of the wound to preserve the rest of the body. Doctors amputate a limb to preserve the whole person.
Islam’s divorce system preserves the rights and dignity of both spouses, as is always the case in Islam’s repair of social life.
Islam did not make divorce a tool for play. The Prophet ﷺ said: “Do not divorce women due to suspicion in temperament. Allah does not love men who keep tasting, nor women who keep tasting.” (Reported by al Haythami, 4/335.)
After all this, is it right for anyone to say, “Why did Islam legislate divorce?”
Reply to the Claim That the Woman Must Hold Divorce Like the Man
What those who claim to support women push, that a woman should be like a man in issuing divorce whenever she wants, is a kind of empty thinking. If matters became as they claim, married relations would, in reality, face collapse and ruin.
Women, even if some have intelligence and virtue, often face angry emotional surges that remove sound judgment, and the mind hides behind heavy clouds. In those situations, it is not safe that she might issue a reckless decision that destroys everything.
They are, as the Messenger ﷺ said, “ungrateful to husbands and ungrateful to good treatment. If one of you does good to her for a lifetime, then she sees something from him, she says, ‘I have never seen any good from you at all.’” (Reported by Muslim, 2/626.)
If matters were as they claim, the husband might leave his home while he is still her husband, then return to find he is no longer her husband because she divorced herself. Is this what short sighted callers to her “liberation” want. (See: ʿAbd al ʿAzim al Mutaʿni, Woman in the Age of the Message, p. 184.)
In addition, the family is a structure whose primary responsibility is upon the man. He works to establish it. He chose his wife from among many women. He spent on its establishment from his effort and wealth what he did not spend elsewhere.
He spent a part of his lifetime protecting it and caring for it. A person like this finds it extremely heavy to destroy the family. He thinks again and again if his soul suggests divorce. He would need to begin a new path of life, effort, and time. So he is extremely keen for the family’s safety, and he does not destroy it except due to overpowering reasons and crushing necessity, making him accept those losses, like a sick person accepting amputation to preserve the whole body.
This differs from the woman if she divorces herself. Another man may propose to her, give her a dowry, and establish a home. She is not obligated in Sharia to spend a single coin upon establishing the marital home. So divorce, whenever she wants, does not frighten her.
For this reason, the wisdom of Islamic legislation tied divorce to the husband’s will, preserving rights and protecting the family from loss and ruin. (See: Yusuf al Qaradawi (d. 1444 AH), Features of the Muslim Society We Seek, p. 347. Also see: ʿAbd al ʿAzim al Mutaʿni, Woman in the Age of the Message, p. 185. Also see: Islamic Culture and Contemporary Life, p. 518.)
So the woman does not lose financially through divorce. The one who loses is the man, who paid the dowry and spends on the home. If the woman were given the right of divorce, it would become easy for her to enact it whenever she argues with the husband, especially because she is quick to react and quick to anger, and in her anger may not care about outcomes.
So placing divorce in the man’s hand matches his financial duties toward the wife, home, and children.
It should also be mentioned that when Islam gave the man the right of divorce, within the circumstances that require it, Islam also gave the woman an equal right to separate from her husband. This right is what the jurists call “khulʿ.” (Khulʿ is defined by the jurists as the man separating from his wife in return for compensation he receives. It is also called ransom, because the woman frees herself by what she gives to her husband. See: al Sayyid Sabiq, Fiqh al Sunnah, 2/437.)
If married life becomes harmful, and the dislike is from the woman’s side, then Islam permitted her to end the marriage by khulʿ, by returning what she took from the husband by reason of marriage, so he ends the bond with her.
Ibn Kathir (d. 774 AH) said regarding Allah’s verse: “If the spouses clash, and the woman does not fulfil the husband’s rights, and she dislikes him and cannot live with him, then she may free herself from him by returning what he gave her, and there is no blame upon her in giving it, and no blame upon him in taking it.” (See: Ibn Kathir, Tafsir, 1/272.)
Islam also warned women from rushing into requesting divorce or khulʿ without a valid reason. The Prophet ﷺ said: “Any woman who asks her husband for divorce without a valid harm, the scent of Paradise is forbidden for her.” (Reported by Ahmad, 5/277.)
The husband taking compensation from the woman in khulʿ is justice, because he gave the dowry, bore the costs of marriage, and spent upon her, while she is the one asking to separate. So it is fairness that she returns what she took. (See: al Sayyid Sabiq, Fiqh al Sunnah, 2/437.)
It was reported that the wife of Thabit ibn Qays ibn Shammās came to the Prophet ﷺ and said: “O Messenger of Allah, I do not criticise Thabit for his character or his religion, but I dislike falling into ingratitude in Islam.” The Prophet ﷺ said: “Will you return his garden to him?” She said: “Yes.” The Prophet ﷺ said: “Take the garden, and divorce her with 1 divorce.” (Reported by al Bukhari, 9/480.)
Thabit ibn Qays ibn Shammās was the spokesman of the Ansar, and it is also said, the spokesman of the Messenger ﷺ. He witnessed Uhud and what came after it, and he was killed as a martyr at al Yamamah in the caliphate of Abu Bakr. (See: Ibn ʿAbd al Barr, al Istiʿab, 1/200.)
Her meaning was that she did not want separation because of bad character or weakness of religion, but she disliked him due to his appearance, and she feared that this dislike would push her to fall short in what she owes him. Her phrase “ingratitude” here refers to ingratitude toward the husband. (See: al Sayyid Sabiq, Fiqh al Sunnah, 2/438.)
Islam also gave the woman the right to end married life and request separation in several cases, among them the following.
If the husband is infertile. It is reported that ʿUmar ibn al Khattab told a man who married while infertile: “Did you tell her that you are infertile?” He said: “No.” He said: “Go and tell her, then give her the choice.” (See: Zad al Maʿad, 4/43.)
Separation due to sexual incapacity or severe defects that prevent marital relations. In such cases, the woman may raise her matter to the court, and the court rules separation to remove harm, because there is no harming and no returning harm in Islam. (See: Badran Abu al ʿAynayn Badran, Marriage and Divorce in Sharia and Law, p. 336.)
Inability, or refusal, to spend upon the wife. If the husband refuses to spend upon his wife, she may request the judge to divorce her, and the judge divorces her from him by force to remove injustice and harm. Some imams even permitted separation from a husband who is unable to spend, because Sharia does not obligate her to endure hunger with him unless she herself accepts that out of loyalty and noble character. Allah said:
وَلَا تُمْسِكُوهُنَّ ضِرَارًا لِتَعْتَدُوا
“Do not keep them to harm them, so that you transgress.” (al Baqarah: 231)
(See: Yusuf al Qaradawi, Contemporary Fatwas, 2/112. Also see: al Sayyid Faraj, Separation Between Spouses and Their Rulings in the Madhhab of Ahl al Sunnah, p. 275.)
If the husband is sentenced to prison for a long period, or for life.
In all these cases, the wife may raise her matter to the court and request separation due to harm.
So Islam opens for the woman several paths to free herself from the harshness and unjust control of some husbands.
Reply to the Claim That Divorce Must Be Through Court Only
The picture those who claim to support women imagine, that divorce must only be through court and tied to the judge, as in Western systems, is compounded ignorance. Its harms became clear, and its lack of benefit became clear.
Its harms include exposing marital secrets before the court and lawyers. Some secrets may be shameful, and it is better for the people to conceal them. Imagine a man who suspects his wife’s behaviour and goes to court seeking divorce for that reason. How many scandals would spread. How far would they spread among relatives, friends, neighbours, and newspapers that treat such matters as a business. (See: Mustafa al Sibaʿi (d. 1384 AH), Woman Between Fiqh and Law, p. 128. Also see: Yusuf al Qaradawi (d. 1444 AH), The Status of Women in Islamic Life, p. 112.)
As for its lack of benefit, whoever follows divorce cases in Western courts sees that court intervention is often only a form. It is rare that a man or woman requests divorce and is refused. Many actresses even announce their wish to divorce and marry others before they go to court, and courts quickly approve. In some Western countries, courts do not rule divorce unless adultery is proven.
Many spouses then agree between themselves to accuse one another so they can separate, forging reports and testimony. Which is better and more fitting for dignity: divorce without scandals, or divorce only after scandals. (See: Mustafa al Sibaʿi, Woman Between Fiqh and Law, p. 129.)
Even though the West made divorce through court, divorce did not decrease for them, and courts could not stop a man or woman who wants divorce.
In addition, divorce has a Sharia effect, which is that marital relations become forbidden if divorce was issued clearly by the husband, or in indirect words while intending separation. This effect does not depend upon the judge’s ruling. Other effects follow it, and their documentation by the registrar, or a ruling confirming them, is more protective of rights.
If the husband issues a Sharia valid divorce and the judge does not accept it, the judge’s refusal does not change the reality that it occurred in Sharia, because the one holding the marriage bond issued it and intended it, making what was lawful become unlawful. The only safe judicial divorce is when the judge divorces due to a proven harm upon the wife.
The danger is that a judge refuses a valid final divorce issued by the husband, because refusing it makes the unlawful lawful. Then what is the benefit of forcing the husband into a life he has become tired of and hates. Does this not push him to mistreat the wife and increase conflict.
This is not the straight path that Islamic Sharia laid down regarding divorce.
So the claims of Islam’s enemies and those who move in their orbit, accusing Islam’s Sharia of injustice against women, are merely fallen illusions without proof and without a decisive argument. (See: ʿAbd al ʿAzim al Mutaʿni, Woman in the Age of the Message, p. 186.)
