Dowry

explained her difficulties to him. The Prophet later came to her house and asked why she had really come. Then Fatimah said, “O Prophet of God, both of my hands have boils on them. I have to keep grinding and kneading the flour, so I wanted a servant.” The Prophet replied, “Whatever God has decreed, that you will receive. And I will tell you something better than that. That is, when you go to bed, glorify God 33 times and proclaim His glory 33 times and praise him 34 times. This makes full one hundred. Such action on your part is better than that of having a servant.”5 In spite of these events having been faithfully recorded, there are still many people who seek to justify the giving of huge dowries by citing the example of the Prophet’s gifts to Fatimah. But, would anyone of this number advise a daughter with blistered hands to forget about having a servant and praise God instead? Would anyone of them, on hearing her bewail her lot because of difficulties with in­ laws, advise her simply to turn to God? By any standard of consistency, that is exactly what they ought to do. If any misguided scoffer were to allege that Islam was an imperfect religion in that it failed to lay down guidelines for every eventuality in our lives, all Muslims would be up in arms against him. But, in practice, Muslims themselves make the same assertion, if tacitly, whenever they accept the ways of other religions as being more practicable than those of Islam. Certainly, in the case of dowry, Muslims have unashamedly adopted a Hindu custom. Similarly, other rites performed during Muslim marriages have been derived from the customs of other nations. If Muslims suppose that just taking a pride in Islam is the sole prerequisite for their being honored in the court of God, they will eventually have to do penance for having entertained such a grave misconception. They would do well to reflect upon how the Jews took enormous pride in the shari’ah of the Mosa, without this, however, preventing them from being cursed by the Almighty. MAHR — THE DOWER Islam has successfully maintained an even balance in society between men and women by giving its unequivocal endorsement to a practical division of labor, whereby women are placed in charge of the internal arrangement of the household, while men are responsible for its financing. The home is thus organized on the pattern of a microcosmic estate, with the man in a position of authority. The Qur’an is specific on this issue: Men are the protectors and maintainers of women because God has made some of them to excel others and because they support them from their means. All the righteous women are the truly devout ones, who guard the intimacy which God has (ordained to be) guarded.6 For largely biological reasons, women are well adapted to domestic pursuits while men, for similar reasons, are better suited to work outside the home. These physical and mental differences between men and women are, in practice, what underlay Islam’s division of