الدرة

الدكتور محمد سعيد رمضان البوطي

Actual State in the Western Society

I am going to talk about the woman’s duties and rights in the balance of the Islamic Law, regardless of the reality of the Islamic societies, which differ one from the other in the extent to which they adhere to the verdicts of the Islamic Law.

First; in the Holy Qur’an, Allah addresses men and women equally, both with the honorable address and the human value in which they participate, when He says, for example: “Whoever works righteous, whether male or female, while he (or she) is a true believer, verily to him We will give a good life” [Al-Nahl 16:97],

 and “Verily, the Muslims, men and women, the believers, men and women, the men and the women who are obedient (to Allah), the men and women who are truthful, the men and the women who are patient, the men and the women who are humble (before their Lord – Allah), the men and the women who give alms (i.e. Zakat ), the men and women who fast (within and without Ramadan), the men and women who guard their chastity and the men and women who remember Allah much with their hearts and tongues, Allah has prepared for them forgiveness and a great reward (i.e. Paradise).” [Al-Ahzab 33:35].

Second; The Qur’an imposes what the Islamic Law calls ‘The mutual responsibility undertaken by the man and the woman Thus it makes the man responsible for looking after the woman, and makes the woman responsible for looking after the man when it says:

 “The believers, men and women, are Awliya’ (helpers, protectors and supporters) of each other, they enjoin what is right and forbid what is evil”. [Al-Tawbah 9:71]

Third; Islam decides a wide spectrum of duties imposed on both men and women as it decides a wide spectrum of rights enjoyed by both sexes. But what might be the source of the duties which go abreast with both? What is the source of the rights given to both of them?

In reply, I say: The source of the duties that the man and the woman bear is their servitude to Allah, The Great and The Almighty, and their being absolutely possessed by Him, and since the attribute of servitude never varies in the male and the female, the duties that Allah demanded from both were also exactly the same. Should we review the commissions that Allah imposes on His servants, the veracity of what I say will appear clearly. We may meet a few cases excepted from this general rule, where there are duties in which men and women are not equal, but when we meditate on them, we find that masculinity and femininity have nothing to do with them.Other factors, certainly, should be playing another role, exactly as those which appear between the men themselves and result in variation in the duties among them.

Whereas the source of the rights granted to the man and the woman is represented in the sense of humanity they assimilate, and since the sense of humanity is the same in men and women and never varies, no man will be higher in rank than a woman, or a woman higher than a man, because the rights Allah endowed upon each of them are alike. Should there be cases beyond this rule, they are certainly not attributed to the quality of masculinity and femininity. They are really attributed to contingents requiring such difference, a point which will be clear enough through the examples I am going to mention.

It is necessary, when laying such comparison, to inquire about the source of the woman’s duties and rights in the Western societies. The reply that we clearly discern from the witnessed reality she lives in is that the source of the duties going abreast with her lie in the material interests, whereas the source of her rights lie in her femininity.

One of the outcomes of the dominion of the material interests which represent the source of the woman’s duties resulted in the appearance of various sorts of despotism and injustice, most of which befell the woman because she is commissioned by the dominion of this material stimulus to sustain herself no matter whether she be a girl in her parents’ house or a wife under the shelter of her husband as long as she is strong enough to practice any work and earn her living by herself!..

Accordingly, what was the consequence the West has realized from surrendering to this source?

There have been two results: First;it annihilated the family as a whole when it destroyed its most essential component, because the family only relieves and survives through the feeling of solidarity which flows among the hearts of its members, and is represented in the husband’s responsibility for the wife and the parents’ responsibility for the children, a feeling which was condemned to death by the philosophy of realism which made every individual responsible only for his/her own self. Second; the West, thereby, exposed the woman’s femininity to destruction because she has been forcibly thrust to work. She has not gone to work optionally for making more money. A condition that caused her to be deprived of the opportunity of choosing a job that fits her and accords with her femininity. Should she be fortunate, she would attain an easy job, otherwise she would approve of any other work when she finds no better.

In such an environment, and under the dominion of such necessity, the differences between men’s and women’s labors certainly disappear. Therefore