Woman between Islam and Western Society

infant stops sucking a bottle and looks up when someone comes into the room; a male pays no attention to the visitor. Scientific researchers almost unanimously agree that hormones help determine how people feel and act. Thus the male-female differences are entirely genetic in nature. The passivity found in women is due to the particular nature of the female hormones. Differences between male and female hormones exist from birth: they are not acquired later, as would be the case if they stemmed from differences in environment. The tenets of Islam are based wholly on nature. This is because Islam is the religion of nature. The laws Islam requires us to follow are, in fact, our own instinctive human requirements expressed in legal terms. And the teachings of Islam with respect to women are no exception. They too are based on nature. Modern, psychological, biological and anatomical research proves women to be more passive than men. This is the way their Maker has fashioned them. The nature of their womanhood, the special part they have to play in society, demand that they should be just as they have been made — that is, relatively delicate as compared to men. It is this fact of nature on which Islamic teachings have been based. Because of women’s delicate constitution, Islam teaches men to be gentle with them. That way they will not lose heart or become too despondent to perform their special duties in life. Women are not like iron and steel ribs: they are fragile and delicate. It is best to let them be, in their natural state. If one treats them as though they were tough metal, one will only break them. REMARK OF THE CHIEF JUSTICE Giving his verdict in the Muhammad Ahmad-Shah Bano case, Mr. Y.V. Chandra Chud, Chief Justice of the Indian Supreme Court, has written a special note in which he says: Some questions which arise under the ordinary civil and criminal law are of a far-reaching significance to large segments of society which have been traditionally subjected to unjust treatment. Women are one such segment. “Na stree swatantramarhati” (The woman does not deserve independence), said Manu, the law giver. And, it is alleged that the “fatal point in Islam is the degradation of woman.” To the Prophet is ascribed the statement, hopefully wrongly, that “woman was made from a crooked rib, and if you try to bend it straight, it will break; therefore treat your wives kindly.”41 I would like to make it clear that the phrase in this passage, “hopefully wrongly,” does not mean that this saying has been wrongly attributed to the Prophet. It means rather that although the Prophet said that woman is born of a “crooked rib,” those who want to establish equality between man and woman should take heart, as this saying of the Prophet was contrary to the fact. This phrase of the Chief Justice is meant to deny the statement itself and not the attribution.