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_001.jpg) Islam has elevated the status of women in Islam. Many,
upon hearing this, might assume it to be an oxymoron because the prevalent idea
- at least in the West - is that Islam does not elevate the status of women,
but that Islam oppresses and suppresses women. In relation to this, it must be
said that today, there are basically two world views. These two views are
often in conflict - not only on the personal level where individual human
beings are making choices, but also on the international level in terms of the
debate over the authenticity and correctness of these two world views.
The first world view is the Western liberal view. A
view which claims to draw its roots from the Judeo-Christian tradition that
probably, upon investigation, is more well rooted in the ideas that appeared
after the reformation; ideas that are rooted in secularism and the world view
that appeared thereafter during the ‘era of enlightenment’.
The second view is that of the Muslims - the Islamic
world view, and this view says that its roots and ideas lie in the revelation
given by God (or Allah in Arabic) to Prophet Muhammad, may the mercy and
blessings of God be upon him. Those who proclaim this view say that it can be
used by humanity during all ages and times, and that its relevance and benefit
is not restricted to a certain period of time, geographic area or certain race of
human beings. Likewise, the adherents of the first view, that of Western
secularism and the liberal tradition, believe that their world view, ideas,
culture and civilization are the best for humanity. An American author of
Japanese decent (Francis Fukuyama) wrote a book entitled, “The End of Time”. In
this book he basically put forth the theory that human development in terms of
its ideas has concluded with this final period of liberal secular thought and
nothing more will come to humanity. However in his book he adds that that the
only part of the world which has not adopted this secular human view is the
Islamic world and proposes that there will be a conflict in terms of this
ideology in the Islamic world.
With that brief introduction, one of the topics of
contention between these two world views, that of the secular liberal view in
the West and the Islamic tradition, concerns women. What is the position and
status of women? How are women looked at? Are women elevated in one culture
and oppressed in another?
The Western view is that women are elevated only in the
West and that they are getting more and more rights with the passage of time,
while their sisters - they say - in the Islamic world are still being
suppressed. The Muslims who they encounter say that in actuality it is the
Islamic system that provides the true freedoms for men and women alike, and
women in the West as well as men, are deceived into an idea of freedom which
really doesn’t exist.
How women are understood in Islam cannot be properly
understood - and this is more significant, I feel - unless one understands
exactly what we might call the philosophical basis or ideological understanding
- since this is really a theological concept.
First, let’s review how exactly women were thought of
and understood in the western tradition, to compare and contrast perspectives.
We know that the western tradition sees itself as the intellectual inheritors
of the Greek tradition that existed before Prophet Jesus Christ, peace be upon
him, and so therefore many of the intellectual traditions of the West are found
to some degree in the writings of the early Greek philosophers like Aristotle,
Plato, etc.
How did they view women? What were the ideas of
Aristotle and Plato regarding women? When one reviews the works of these early
Greek philosophers, he finds that they had very disparaging views of women. Aristotle
in his writings argued that women were not full human beings and that the
nature of woman was not that of a full human person. As a result, women were
by nature deficient, not to be trusted and to be looked down upon. In fact,
writings describe that the free women in many aspects of the Greek society -
except for the very few women of the elite classes - had positions no better
than animals and slaves.
This Aristotelian view of women was later carried on
into the early Christian tradition of the Catholic Church. Saint Thomas of
Aquinas in his writings proposed that women were the trap of Satan. The issue
of Adam and Eve added a dimension to the earlier Greek ideas of Aristotle;
women were the cause of the downfall of man and therefore were Satan’s trap and
should be looked at with caution and weariness because they caused the first
downfall of humanity and all thus evil precedes from women. This type of
thought was persistent within the writings of the Church fathers throughout the
Middle Ages. In their writings we find this theme proposed in one aspect or
another. However, after the Protestant reformation Europe decided to free
itself from the shackles and chains of the Catholic Church. Ideas which have
been entitled as the Age of Enlightenment or thought of as such, caused them to
feel that they needed to free themselves from many of these ideas. Some of
these ideas were scientific in nature that the earth goes around the sun,
instead of the sun going around the earth; theological in nature, as in the
writings of Martin Luther; and also social in nature, like the position of
women in society. However, the writers of the Enlightenment still carried this
basic theme that was not much of a switch - women where not full human beings.
French writers during the revolution, like Rousseau, Voltaire and others,
looked at women as a burden that needed to be taken care of. Due to this Rousseau
in his book “Emile”, proposed a different form of education for women based
upon the fact that women were unable to understand what men were able to
understand.
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