3. WOMANHOOD IN ISLAM

3. Womanhood in Islam ~ 39 ~ Creator of the heavens and the earth: He has made for you spouses of your own kind, and the cattle He has also created in pairs.36 From a perusal of these verses, one can see that the same word has been used for the spouses of ordinary human beings as was used for Adam’s spouse in the verse quoted above. Just as Eve was created from Adam’s nafs, so other women have also been created from the same nafs — or kind — as their male counterparts. Clearly there is no question, in these other verses, of inferring that every female spouse has been created from the body of the male. There is no alternative but to take the word nafs, occurring in these verses, as meaning ‘kind.’ God has created for you spouses of your own kind, the Qur’an is telling us, in order that they may provide you with true companionship in your journey through life. To summarize, women and men are from the same species. Biologically speaking, women have not been extracted from the bodies of their male counterparts. God fashioned them according to His Will, just as He fashioned men in accordance with