A Survey
Human intelligence having its limits, the universe seems difficult to interpret. Man can only guess at facts: he is in no position to comprehend them. The history of man’s struggle to come to grips with the baffling factors in his terrestrial and celestial environment has been recorded throughout the ages in the writings of sages, philosophers and men of religion, one more recent, and very commendable effort being a book by Sir James Jeans (1877-1946) which gives us prior warning in its very apt title—The Mysterious Universe—of just how impenetrable the secrets of the cosmos can be.
It was this mystery surrounding the universe which gave rise in ancient times to many stories, now called myths. On the basis of pure conjecture, man developed many suppositions which, in the course of time, became widespread beliefs, rooted in the human imagination.
We find that in every age man has had a set of beliefs which molded his thoughts and deeds. In ancient times this set of beliefs was entirely based on myths. It was not until the 7th century A.D. that there was any change in this pattern of thinking. Now importance was attached to facts instead of superstitions. A revolution indeed, and it was brought about by the advent of Islam.
Myths were developed to account for the cosmos. How did the gods bring heavens, earth, plants, beasts and men into existence? What is the divine origin of human institutions and of the ecumene? What divine process is responsible for prosperity or failure? To explain such basic questions etiological (origin or causal) myths were developed. For example, the attraction between man and woman (and the consequent institution of marriage) is explained by the myth that primeval man was one creature, subsequently divided into two parts, male and female, which are attracted to one another to regain their pristine unity. Aristophanes expresses this theory of sexual attraction in Plato’s Symposium. Genesis has the same theory in the familiar myth that a rib, taken out of Adam, was fashioned into Eve; and precisely because woman was taken out of man, man forsakes his father and mother to “cleave unto his wife” so that they become “one flesh” (Gen. 2:23-24).1
Here are two examples which illustrate, on the one hand, the difference between science (knowledge) and superstition, and on the other, how Islam was originally responsible for putting an end to the age of myth and superstition and heralding the new era of enlightenment.
One of the phenomena of nature in our world is the eclipse, sometimes the sun going into eclipse and at other times the moon. Today we have discovered the astronomical laws governing these phenomena but, in ancient times, man was ignorant of what these phenomena and their causes actually were. Strange and wonderful stories on the basis of conjecture were, therefore, concocted to bring them within the realm of human understanding. The Chinese account of the eclipse and its “remedy” is one of the more fanciful:
When an eclipse occurred, the Chinese thought that the sun was being swallowed by a huge dragon. The whole population joined in making as much noise as possible to scare it away. They always succeeded!2
Considering their “success,” it is little wonder that the Chinese used the same tactics with happy conviction on subsequent occasions. It is now common knowledge that the dates and durations of such eclipses are entirely calculable, just as the course of Halley’s comet was entirely predictable.
It was during this age of superstition that Islam appeared on the horizon to herald a new era of enlightenment. Its account of the solar eclipse was just one of the ideas which were totally at variance with the beliefs of the day, and which have subsequently been deemed quite in accordance with the findings of modern research. The Prophet Muhammad’s own explanation of the solar eclipse is worthy of note. It so happened that the death of his only son, Ibrahim, at the age of one and a half, coincided with a solar eclipse in the tenth year of the Hijra (January, 632 A.D.). The ancient belief still being prevalent that eclipses were caused by the death of an important person, some of the inhabitants of Medina began spreading the story that the eclipse was due to the death of the Prophet’s son. The Prophet, therefore, felt it necessary to gather his people together and explain the truth to them. This account of his is set forth in the Hadith of two writers of peerless authenticity, Muslim and Bukhari:
After praising and glorifying God, he said: “Eclipses of the sun and moon are not due to the death of any human being; they are just two signs given by God. When you observe an eclipse, you should pray to God, praise Him, ask for His mercy and blessings, and give something in charity.”3
He again stressed the fact that they were signs from God, had no connection with the life or death of any particular individual, and that, through them, God wished to convey to man His warnings. Therefore, when you see any such thing, remember God, fear Him, pray to Him and ask His forgiveness.4
Thus Islam put an end to myths and superstitions of this kind for the first time in human history. Another incident of this nature which took place during the time of the second Caliph, ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab, has been recorded in history as follows: “Ibn Luhai’a relates that, according to Qais ibn Hajjaj, when Egypt was conquered, its inhabitants went to ‘Amr ibn al-’As, the Amir (governor) of Egypt at that time, and told him that when, according to the local calendar, the month of Bauna came round, the river Nile had to be offered the customary sacrifice, without which it would not flow. It seemed that after the twelfth night of that month, they had to find a young girl who was a virgin and the only child of her parents, then they had to persuade her parents to give her in sacrifice, whereupon they dressed her in the finest clothes and jewels and cast her into the river Nile.”
‘Amr ibn al-’As told them that such practices were prohibited by Islam, which indeed had put an end to all idolatrous practices which had been prevalent prior to its advent.
The people of Egypt, therefore, refrained from making the sacrifice, and waited for the water to flow into the bed of the Nile, but the entire month of Bauna passed without the water making its appearance. They then decided to migrate.
At this point, ‘Amr ibn al-’As wrote to explain the entire situation to the Caliph, ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab. The latter replied that the action he had taken was correct, and, in his letter, he enclosed a note which he said should be thrown into the River Nile.
On receiving this letter, ‘Amr ibn al-’As opened the note and found these words written therein: “To the Nile, river of the Egyptians, from ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab, Chief of the Faithful and humble servant of God. If the flow of your waters is under your control then let your waters not flow. But if it was Almighty God who made your waters flow, then we pray to Him to make your water flow again.”
‘Amr ibn al-’As duly complied with the Caliph’s injunction and cast the note into the river. The very next morning, the people saw with their own eyes that the waters had started to flow—by the will of God. In the course of a single night its level rose by 12 feet. Thus, God put an end to this inhuman custom of the Egyptians, and never again to this day has there been a repetition of it.5
A PRACTICAL NECESSITY
The myths and superstitions of ancient times had affected people’s thinking to the point where their approach to most things had become unrealistic. This was especially true of society’s determination to regard woman as inferior to man. But there was an additional reason for this flawed concept having evolved, and that was the failure to recognize the importance of the home as the basic unit which collectively constitutes society, the training ground for future generations, in short, the cohesive force without which society would cease to exist. Just as the strength of a building lies in the quality of its individual bricks, so does the strength of society depend upon the quality of its constituent families.
The work done within the home is, therefore, of prime importance. It may take greater gentleness and delicacy than responsibilities outside the home, which require greater vigor, superior physical strength and stronger nerves, but, for the survival and progress of human civilization, feminine qualities are just as essential as masculine qualities—which is why nature has cast man and woman in very different molds. Women are endowed by nature with more of the passive qualities in order to make them better suited to domesticity, while men are endowed with more of the active qualities which make them better qualified to shoulder responsibilities outside the home. This ensures a natural and effective complementarity in family life.
SUPERSTITIONS CONCERNING WOMEN
This downgrading of women, because they came to be identified with “inferior” tasks, resulted in their debasement in society. In the eyes of the law, women could not enjoy the same rights as men and, therefore, were not considered deserving of a share in family property. In practice, there was little distinction made between women and slaves. The opprobrium attaching to womanhood became so great that in certain tribes it led to female infanticide: it was considered humiliating to be the father of a female child.
Ancient legends which perpetuated these erroneous ideas grew out of the all-too-common human tendency to exalt the supposedly great and to deprecate the supposedly inferior. Woman then became not only inferior, but truly despicable in the eyes of society. These ideas, which spread with the legends, were quite false, but took root so firmly in the cultures of many nations, that they came to be universally accepted as the truth. We shall mention here two such stories.
The first is an ancient Greek tale which later gained currency in Europe. It concerns the very first woman, who was created out of earth by Hephaestus at the instance of Zeus, the king of the gods, and sent down into the world with a box containing all kinds of misery and evil. It was the intention of Zeus in so doing to set at naught the blessing of fire which Prometheus had bestowed upon mortals by stealing it from heaven. The story goes that from the moment the box was opened, the world has been plagued with wickedness and sorrow. This woman was given the name Pandora, a Greek word which originally meant “all-giving,” but which came to be synonymous with “giver of all evils.”
The second story has certain points of similarity. It too concerns the first woman, Eve, and having already become famous among Jews, was even incorporated into the Bible, which meant, of course, that it was later accepted by Christians too. The Bible version as told in the second chapter of the book of Genesis is as follows:
7. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
8. And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.
9. And out of the ground made the Lord grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
15. And the Lord God took the man, and put him in the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
16. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
17. But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
18. And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
21. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
22. And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from the man, made he a woman and brought her unto the man.6
Chapter 3 tells the story of the fall of man.
1. Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
2. And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
3. But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
4. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
5. For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
6. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
7. And the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
8. And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.
9. And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?
10. And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.
11. And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?
12. And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.
13. And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.
14. And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
15. And I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
16. Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
17. And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
18. Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
19. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
20. And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.
21. Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothes them.
22. And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
23. Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.
24. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.7
This story, enshrined as it is in the pages of the Bible, would have us believe that the cause of Adam’s expulsion from a life of comfort and happiness and his subsequent trials and tribulations was Eve’s having yielded to temptation, and that this was how the first man came to bear the burden of Original Sin which according to Christianity was to be shared by the entire human race.
This story has no basis whatsoever in fact, but it had such a strong hold over the popular imagination that it spread not only amongst the Jews and Christians, but amongst almost all the nations of the world. In becoming a part of language and literature, it managed to reach every class of people.
Just as the Quran has rectified many distortions of the accounts of the Bible, so has it also refuted this distorted account of Adam and Eve. The following passage from the Quran puts the incident in its true perspective:
To Adam He said: “Oh Adam! Dwell with your wife in Paradise, and eat from whatever you please; but never approach this tree or you shall both become transgressors.”
But the devil tempted them, so that he might reveal to them that which had been hidden from them of their shame. He said: “Your Lord has forbidden you to approach this tree only to prevent you from becoming angels or immortals.” Then he swore to them that he would give them friendly counsel.
Thus he cunningly seduced them. And when they had eaten of the tree, their shame became visible to them, and they both covered themselves with leaves of the garden.
Their Lord called out to them, saying: “Did I not forbid you to approach that tree, and did I not warn you that the devil was your sworn enemy?”
They replied: “Lord, we have wronged ourselves. Pardon us and have mercy on us, or we shall surely be among the lost.”
He said: “Go hence, and may your descendants be enemies to each other. The earth will for a while provides your sustenance and dwelling-place. There you shall live and there you shall die, and thence you shall be raised to life.”8
In the above-quoted passage the dual form of the verb in Arabic has been used throughout, so that it is made abundantly clear that for every transgression both Adam and Eve have been held equally responsible. Thus it becomes quite evident that Satan tempted them together, both fell into his trap, both ate the forbidden fruit and both were equally held responsible and both suffered equally in
consequence. This surely demonstrates that they were on an equal footing in the eyes of God.
CELIBACY
Celibacy has existed in some form or another throughout man’s religious history and has appeared in virtually all the major religious traditions of the world.9
It is true that prior to Islam, in almost every religion, celibacy was considered to be the highest criterion of piety, the fundamental reason for this being the inferior status of women. There were periods in the history of certain countries when women were considered almost sub-human and a source of sin. Those who associated with them were, therefore, regarded as being inferior. By contrast, those who lived a life of celibacy had an aura of sanctity about them and basked in the esteem of society.
The basic function of celibacy was to establish the internal wholeness and spiritual self-sufficiency of the truly religious person, so that he might become a living symbol of sacredness and purity. It was meant to prove to him that the ultimate reality was beyond his physical needs, so that he in turn might demonstrate to others that fulfillment may be achieved by total dependence upon what is sacred. Throughout the history of primitive religions, priests have been forbidden sexual activity, and abstinence there from has been regarded as ritual purification. Religious literature has perpetuated such notions about celibacy with the objective of enhancing the moral and spiritual advancement of the religiously inclined. The exemplary perfection attained in this way was supposed to make it possible to induce certain altered states of mystical consciousness which gave one direct experience of the spiritual absolute. Those who wished to attain this state or perform certain special religious services were required to make a vow of celibacy in the presence of another.
Celibacy probably derives originally from taboos of sexual power as being a rival to religious power, and of sexuality as being a polluting factor, especially in situations where sanctity was all-important. The Romans, for example, adhered to the dictum of ascetic philosophers and priests that the ideal teacher should be unmarried. For women too, virginity and celibacy have been considered to be assets in the attainment of spiritual goals. The ideal held up before them was that they should remain unmarried throughout their lives, and pass into the next world in the same virgin state.
Take, for example, what must be the fate of women living in Jain communities. The monastic groups of Jainism being marked by the greatest austerity, all Jain monks are to avoid even looking at women, for, according to a Jain source, “they are to monks what a cat is to a chicken.”10 Buddhism and allied religions take a very similar view.11
Prophet Muhammad, upon whom be peace, was the first of the historical personalities to refute these fallacies in word and deed: celibacy was shown to be no genuine symbol of spirituality. He showed that true spirituality meant remaining in the midst of the family and adhering to the limits prescribed by God. Woman was then clearly seen to be a good in life and not an evil.
Not only did the Prophet break the tradition of celibacy, but he repeatedly encouraged his Companions to do so as well. In order to show that celibacy and sanctity did not go hand in hand, he went so far as to say “woman and perfume has been endeared to me,”12 thus breaking with an age-old tradition. In ancient times, the notion of a man of religion having relations with a woman was so abhorred that, if the Prophet had not spoken out forcefully on this issue, people would have continued to revere the tradition of celibacy under the influence of the past.
Research carried out in modem times has proved that the concept of celibacy is wholly unnatural and unrealistic. In comparison, Islamic ideology is perfectly natural and in accordance with reality. On this subject the Noble Laureate, Dr. Alexis Carrel, has this to say:
The sexual glands have other functions than that of impelling man to the gesture which, in primitive life, perpetuated the race. They also intensify all physiological, mental, and spiritual activities. No eunuch has ever become a great philosopher, a great scientist, or even a great criminal. Testicles and ovaries possess functions of overwhelming importance.13
Far from considering marriage with a woman to be a shameful act, Islam, which is basically a realistic religion, considers it praiseworthy for a man to marry a woman. This is a clear indication that the teachings of Islam are wholesomely consistent with modern scientific findings and in complete consonance with nature.
ORDER OF NATURE
Sculpture is an ancient form of art. There is, no doubt, an obvious resemblance between living beings and statues, but if someone were to presume that the concerns of human beings were the same as those of statues and began to study man under the heading of sculpture, what would be the outcome? This method of study would certainly lead to strange conclusions. A carved image has no need of food and drink; therefore, the student of sculpture would naturally assume that arrangements to this effect were not necessary for man either. He would proceed to the assumption that if a statue can be locked inside a room for any length of time, so could a man be put inside a locked room for years without anyone having to worry about him.
During the time of the former President of Egypt, Jamal Abdun Nasir, an ancient statue of Abu Simbel, 20 meters high and firmly fixed in the rocks, had to be removed from its place to make way for the construction of a huge dam. This work, undertaken between 1964 and 1966, necessitated the use of special machines which could cut the statue into several pieces so that they could be shifted to a safer place, and then reassembled. Now, on this parallel, the student who views man as a statue, can also, as part of some scheme, start chopping up the human body.
Of course, there is no sculptor in this world who would do such a thing. But in another department, that of education, such experts have come into being in modern times as are experimenting with man as if he were a statue and doing everything to him that could be done to a statue. This branch of knowledge is called “anthropology.” This field of study began at the turn of the 19th century. In the light of data collected on external information regarding the conditions of ancient man, his beliefs, customs, traditions, certain conclusions about human beings in general were arrived at.
Religion naturally came within this field of study, necessitating the collection of information on the religions practised by different tribes and communities. Thus, a list of the customs which went under the name of religion was produced.
A natural outcome of this method of study was that religion came
to be regarded as a social phenomenon. That is to say, religion was presented as something which had evolved out of the influences of human myths, customs and social conditions. Religion is essentially a divine truth (a commandment of God), but thanks to the anthropologists’ particular method of study, it has been reduced to a mere artifact of historical accretion.
The greatest harm done to religion by this method of study is that in modern times it has been shorn of its credibility, and reduced to insignificance, whereas, as the commandment of God’s religion it had an unassailable authenticity, because it possessed divine credibility in its own right. Every religious statement was accepted as the ultimate statement of a superior being and, as such, worthy of being adhered to. Conversely, when religion is regarded merely as a social phenomenon, all its credibility is dissipated. This can be compared to relegating the science of chemistry to the position of alchemy, or to equating astronomy with astrology.
The fact is that this method of study, when applied to religion, is totally wrong. It turns a reality into a non-reality. It is to accord human status to something which is essentially divine. To understand the reality of religion let us peruse this verse of the Quran: “Are they seeking a religion other than God’s when every soul in heaven and earth has submitted to Him, willingly or by compulsion? To Him they shall all return.”14
According to this verse, the religion which God desires man to adopt in his daily living is the same divine law which God has imposed upon the entire universe. Religion is the name of this same universal law.
THE LAW OF BALANCE
Now let us examine this divine law. In the words of the Quran it is the law of balance: “He raised the heaven on high and set the balance, that you might not transgress the balance. Give just weight and full measure.”15
The universe is not composed of just one item. It is rather a collection of highly disparate elements. Besides this, each and every one of its components is in motion. Not a single constituent, from the minutest atom to the most gigantic galaxy, can ever for a second remain static. For the precise functioning of this infinitely complex assemblage of moving components, limits in space and time had to be applied so that the different parts did not come into conflict with each other. God, therefore—besides creating all these things—established a systematic balance between them. This principle is known as the “Law of Nature.”
Similarly, in the human world—also a vast assemblage of disparate individuals—everyone is in motion. And in order that each should continue on his life’s journey without colliding with his fellow men, it was likewise necessary to establish boundaries, both moral and physical, for all human beings without exception: a balance had to be struck so that there should be no clash between individuals or societies. It is, indeed, this law of nature which has been revealed to humanity through the medium of the prophets. God’s will on this subject is recorded in the Quran: “We have sent our Messengers with clear signs and brought down with them scriptures and the scales of justice so that men might deal with fairness.”16
That is to say that God sent a balance of justice in the form of a book through His prophets. This book was supported by arguments and evidence so that people could believe in its authenticity and would not hesitate to order their lives according to this balance, that is, the just law. While the law of balance is inherent in the rest of creation, for man, it has been provided externally through the revelations of this divine book.
THE BANEFUL EFFECTS OF DEVIATION
Any deviation from the divine balance established by God leads to chaos and confusion. It is, therefore, laid down in the Quran that no changes should be made in the balance God has created by means of His laws of reform.17
One example of universal balance is the fixity of the distance between the sun and earth (about 90 million miles). This distance is extremely balanced, ensuring a whole range of temperatures on earth which is favorable to the continuance of the human species. If this balance were upset in any way, it would result in all kinds of disasters. For instance, if the distance between the sun and the earth were reduced by half, temperatures would rise to such extremes, that everything and everyone on the surface of the earth would be reduced to ashes. There would be no possibility of life existing in any form whatsoever.
The same applies to the girth of our planet. Its present circumference is about 25,000 miles, but if this were reduced by half, the pull of its gravity would be so weakened that we should all go flying off into space. If, on the contrary, the circumference were doubled, the effect of gravity would be so overwhelming that all growth would cease. Man would be reduced to the size of a mouse and a mouse would be little bigger than an ant.
The unparalleled balance that exists on earth is aptly illustrated by the strange example of the insects which, unlike human beings, do not possess lungs, but breathe through tubes. When insects grow large the tubes cannot grow in ratio to the increasing size of the body of the insect. Hence there never has been an insect more than a few inches long with a slightly longer wing spread. Because of the mechanism of their structure and their method of breathing, there never could be an insect of great size. This limit in their growth held all insects in check and prevented them from dominating the world. If this physical check had not been provided, man could not exist. Imagine a man meeting a hornet as big as a lion or a spider equally large.18
Of course, the notion of order in the world has periodically been called into question. A certain western writer has suggested that the gravitational pull of the earth is far greater than is absolutely essential, hence the difficulty one experiences in carrying even a weight of ten kilos. Had it been less, he points out, we should have been able to walk about, carrying a weight with ease. But this objection is
ill-founded. It is entirely due to gravity having the pull that it does, that our homes remain firmly fixed to the ground. Had it been less, they would have flown about like kites, and civilization, as we know it would hardly have been possible.
It is fortunate that the order of the universe is not in the hands of men. If it were, we should experience intermittent tampering with the immutable laws of nature. Gravity would wax and wane, the earth would move nearer to or further from the sun and, on the pretext that nature had been cruel to insects in fixing the size of their breathing tubes, the said creatures would be encouraged to grow to elephantine proportions, thus filling the whole earth with them. None of these developments would, however, be encouraging to the human species!
Luckily, man cannot effect such changes in the universe, since he has no power over its ordering. But he is free to act as he wills in his own world, and the result has been chaos on a grand scale. The extremes to which he has gone are thus referred to in the Quran: “Evil appears on land and sea as a result of the (evil) which men’s hands have done.”19
WOMAN VERSUS MAN
In view of the divine law of balance, let us consider the relationship between man and woman. According to divine law, this relationship was set up on the principle of the division of labor, i.e. it is the responsibility of the man to carry out tasks outside the home, while the woman takes charge of tasks within the home. The Quran states that “men are the protectors and maintainers of women.”20
This does not make a man a woman’s superior, or her master. This only means that in running a home and bringing up a family, it is for the man, with his more active capabilities, to earn a living, deal with all official matters, and, when called upon, defend his country. A man is by nature more suited to such tasks, and that is why it is in the nature of things that they should be his responsibilities and not woman’s. The word qawwam in the above verse, is an intensive form of qa’im meaning, “one who is responsible for or takes care of a thing or a person.” Thus, the use of this word is indicative of the wisdom of the division of labor rather than the superiority of man over woman. It should be conceded that if the woman finds herself in a position of responsibility in running the home, it is because her more passive nature, her talent for household tasks, her gentleness and affection all fit her admirably for domesticity, to which she is certainly better adapted than her male counterpart.
Since time immemorial life had been equably systemized by this division of labor. Earning a living had most often meant hunting, farming, fishing, working in orchards, transporting merchandise for barter or trading, all tasks physically difficult to perform, and, therefore, better and more easily done by men. While men were thus engaged, it was simply more practical for women to stay at home and manage the household. But with the advent of the industrial revolution, conditions were created which tended to break up this natural order, for now jobs came into existence which, to some extent, were suitable for women, and, since tradition in western countries did not require women to segregate themselves from men and live in seclusion, they came out of their homes and began working in offices and factories. Gradually, the traditional pattern of living began to change. Men were no longer the sole breadwinners: women had begun to share that responsibility. With economic independence came the realization in women that they should “break out of the shackles forged for them by men” to make new and independent lives for themselves. This trend in thinking eventually paved the way for the women’s liberation movement. Since feminism was given its first impetus by the industrial revolution, “women’s lib” began in those countries where industrialization had first made its appearance. The first noteworthy book to demand equal rights for women was published in London in 1792. Authored by Mary Wollstonecraft, it was entitled, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. The industrial revolution came later to America and that is why the women’s liberation movement did not begin there until the nineteenth century. With the progress of the industrial revolution, women’s liberation gained momentum, reaching its zenith in the 20th century.
The upholders of this movement maintained that the cause of
the difference existing between men and women in societies with ancient traditions lay not in nature but in a man-made social framework. Their contention was that a woman could do anything that a man could do, but that outdated social customs prevented her from coming into her own. They held that, once given the opportunity to demonstrate her capabilities, a woman would be able to work shoulder to shoulder with men in every walk of life. In no respect would she lag behind.
This movement is now over two hundred years old and, in modem developed countries, it has been so successful that neither the law nor tradition now places the slightest obstacle in the path of women who wish to step into the shoes of men. Yet women still lag far behind men, there being very few instances of their having actually placed themselves on an equal footing with them.
Encyclopaedia Britannica has this to say on the subject of women in modern society:
In the economic sphere women who work outside the home are heavily concentrated in the lowest paying work and that having the lowest status. Women also earn less than men in the same kinds of jobs. The median pay of women workers in the U.S. was 60 percent that of men in 1982. In Japan the percentage of average pay was 55. Politically, women are greatly underrepresented in national and local government and in political parties.21
Today the social boundaries set by time-honored conventions have broken down, and all countries now have laws favoring equality of the sexes. Yet modern woman still finds herself on a lower rung than man, not having been able to achieve equal status in any of the economically or professionally important areas of modern living. This state of affairs would appear to indicate that, contrary to the women’s libbers’ way of thinking, social conditioning cannot be blamed for the centuries-old difference in the status of men and women. If this had been so, surely by the end of the 20th century women would have been enjoying an equal status with men. Obviously, we must search for the reasons elsewhere.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN
In every period of history—even today in western developed countries—women have remained subordinate to men. The western upholders of the so-called women’s lib movement are still saying that this is not a natural division and that the difference should be attributed to artificial social conditioning. Recent research, however, has discredited this supposition.
We reproduce below a report on this issue published in Daily Express:
“It is a rough old world for women, as the feminists never cease to remind us. They blame centuries of social conditioning—a kind of conspiracy whereby men all over the world somehow contrive to keep women in a subordinate role. A much simpler, and more probable explanation is that universal male dominance stems not from social oppression but fundamental differences between the sexes.” This is the view put forward by Professor Steven Goldberg of New York in his book, The Inevitability of Patriarchy, which has earned him some shrill abuse from feminists in America (“Fascist Pig” and “Male Sadist” are two of the milder epithets), and has upset a few here, too, since he arrived to launch the British publication. “The feminists hate me,” Goldberg told me cheerfully, “I like to think their intense wrath stems from my inherent rightness. Putting it simply, I believe that the universality of male dominance in all societies cannot be explained by social conditioning.”
But it can be explained by the male hormone testosterone which “programmes” the infant male for a life of greater aggression and dominance while he is still in the womb. That’s why little boys are clearly more aggressive than little girls even before they’ve had a chance to be socially conditioned. And in later life, same dominance means that men are far more ready to sacrifice holidays, health and family for the sake of their career. In truth the feminist case is none too strong. If it really were true that male dominance was due to social conditioning rather than innate male qualities, then surely somewhere in the world at some time a society would have evolved in which women were dominant. None has. And even in societies like those behind the Iron Curtain which boast of sexual equality, one sex is obviously “more equal” than the other. You can see it in Russia’s 62 strong council of ministers. Not one is a Woman.
After a lifetime spent researching the diverse societies of the world that expert woman anthropologist, Margaret Mead, who is commonly thought to be on the feminist side, has declared: “All the claims so glibly made about societies ruled by women are nonsense. We have no reason to believe that they ever existed ... Men have always been the leaders in public affairs and the final authorities at home.”
Does that mean that men are better than women? Professor Goldberg wags a warning finger. “Not better, but different.” The male brain works differently from the female brain. In I.Q. tests with men and women of similar intelligence levels, the men tend to score higher on logical and deductive problems, though the women will generally do better in verbal skills.
Unquestionably women have greater emotional awareness even before they have children. Little girls are commonly more thoughtful and sensitive to parental moods than little boys.
Professor Goldberg’s proposition is quite simply, that they are much less likely to get to the top—and all because of testosterone. The masculinization of the brain by this hormone has been demonstrated conclusively by experiments on female rats and other mammals. “And we have now found the same thing with human beings,” says Goldberg. The professor concludes: “The central fact is that men and women are different from each other from the gene to the thought to the act. These differences flow from the biological natures of man and woman.”
Women who deny their natures and covet a state of second rate manhood are forever condemned to argue against their own juices. The experience of men is that there are few women who can out-fight them and few who can out-argue them, but when a woman uses feminine means she can deal with any man as an equal. In this and every other society men look to women for gentleness, kindness and love. The basic male motivation is protection of women and children. The feminist cannot have it both ways: If she wishes to sacrifice all this, all that she will get in return is the right to meet men on male terms. She will lose.22
FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE
Nobel Laureate Dr. Alexis Carrel (1873-1944) has discussed this issue great perception. After enumerating the biological facts which crucial to the issue, he sums up the profundity of the difference between men and women:
The differences existing between man and woman do not come from the particular form of the sexual organs, the presence of the uterus, from gestation, or from the mode of education. They are of a more fundamental nature. They are caused by the very structure of the tissues and by the impregnation of the entire organism with specific chemical substances secreted by the ovary. Ignorance of these fundamental facts has led promoters of feminism to believe that both sexes should have the same education, the same powers and the same responsibilities. In reality woman differs profoundly from man. Every one of the cells of her body bears the mark of her sex. The same is true of her organs and, above all, of her nervous system. Physiological laws are as inexorable as those of the sidereal world. They cannot be replaced by human wishes. We are obliged to accept them just as they are. Women should develop their aptitudes in accordance with their own nature, without trying to imitate the males. Their part in the progress of civilization is higher than that of men. They should not abandon their specific functions.23
Another article, “Why Women Are Second Rate,” which appeared in the Illustrated Weekly of India on April 2, 1978, stresses the findings of professor H.J. Eysenck, the inventor of Intelligence Quotient (I.Q.) tests: “As an ardent supporter of equal opportunities for women, I am constantly nagged by doubts about their creative ability. How is it that women have produced so few writers, poets, composers, artists of top calibre? How is it that even in professions which are traditionally regarded as theirs, e.g. cooking and dress designing, men beat them to the second place. All the famous chefs and dressmakers (even women’s wear) are men. Hitherto I had accepted the sociologist’s point of view that it was tradition and environment that militated against them. Somehow the sociological answer did not carry total conviction and I felt there was more than environment and lack of opportunity behind women’s second-ratedness.”
Professor H.J. Eysenck who pronounced that the black and brown races had a lower I.Q. than the white, has now proclaimed the same about women. Their genes make them what they are: from the time of conception their feminineness is programmed as in a computer. It is not, as sociologists maintain, tradition or environment which makes a female child play with dolls while her brother plays with toy soldiers, but her biological constitution. Even within the womb, the female develops a broader pelvis than the male. The broader the pelvis, the more feminine will its possessor be, says Eysenck. Males with broad pelvises tend to be feminine, passive, even homosexual. Females with narrow pelvises tend to be masculine, aggressive, even lesbian. Random sampling amongst your own acquaintances will confirm some of Eysenck’s postulates. “Eysenck had earlier brought the wrath of the champions of racial equality on his head. Now women’s libbers are out for his scalp with their rolling pins.”24
THE HELPLESSNESS OF WOMAN
In an attempt to provide women with an equal status, modern civilization has, in fact, only managed to provide her a permanently unequal status. In whatever sector of the western economy a woman may be working, she is considered second rate as compared to a man. Even to achieve this second-rate position, a woman has to pay a certain price. She must willy-nilly become the plaything of men, allowing herself to be subjected to masculine cruelty and lasciviousness. The following is an extract about a report on American working women:
They sound like experiences in a Delhi bus. Lewd gestures, offensive language, attacks on your person—the American workplace is for its women workers what public transport is for women in Delhi. A bank teller, Michelle Vinson, suffered physical abuse and alleged rape by the bank’s vice-president Sidney Taylor for four years until finally, assisted by a women’s organisation, she went to court. The district court rejected her appeal, largely because she had remained silent for four years and had not used the bank’s complaint procedure to ask for help. It held that any relationship between the two was voluntary. The higher court of appeal rejected every finding of the district court and the matter finally found its way to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court of the United States ruled that sexual harassment is a direct infringement of a woman’s right to employment. It creates a hostile and abusive work environment in which she may be forced to leave her job or in which she cannot function to her full potential, even if such unwelcome sexual demands are not directly linked to concrete employment benefits. In other words, the court ruled that it violates U.S. civil laws against sex discrimination in the workplace.
Sexual harassment of working women is endemic, said the friends-of-the-court brief filed by numerous women’s organisations for this case. In the last five years, about half the American female working force has suffered this type of harassment at work. This does not just happen to women in factories or at blue collar workplaces. Within the fibreglass, multi-storied skyscrapers, the American office is not as pleasant for its women secretaries, lawyers, and other professionals as its air-conditioned, carpeted and muted decor makes it appear.
About 42 percent of federally employed women were harassed in their jobs, stated a recent two-year survey done by the Official Merits Protection Board. Another 60 percent of the members of the American Federation of State, Country and Municipal Employees said that sexual harassment was a frequent problem for them. And between 1981 and 1985, the number of such complaints to the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission, established to monitor employment practices, shot up by 70 percent. The complaints vary from the physical violence of rape and assault to the insidious harassment of unwanted pushing and touching, persistent sexual demands, offensive sexual comments, constant conversations containing sexual innuendoes and coarse language.
The offender usually makes his moves swiftly and silently, when there are not witnesses around. He is usually confident that fear, embarrassment, and often the Hopelessness of the situation will keep the victim from making public complaints. And when complaints are made, he can use every defence that this grey area of social attitudes and innuendoes provides. When it is so hard for a rape victim to prove she has been violated, one can imagine how much harder it is for a victim of the less dramatic forms of violence to prove her case.
In such instances, if the offenders are their supervisors, women who resist or complain find themselves burdened with an increased workload, scathing work evaluation, unwarranted reprimands and sheer hostility. So many quit their jobs rather than go to court. When neither alternative seems feasible, they give in, quietly.25
This is the condition of the American female worker, in spite of laws having been passed assigning equal status to both sexes. There are even laws prohibiting harassment of women workers by men, but this has not prevented women being victimized by unprincipled male colleagues and superiors. Their helplessness stems from the fact that they have already left their parents and husbands and need to work for a living. If they left their offices as well, there would be nowhere left for them to go. If the factory or office were not last in the line of social and economic refuges for women, many workplaces would find their female task force becoming rapidly depleted.
The state of women workers in western offices is no mere accident, so that legislation can do little to improve the situation. It is such a serious and complex matter that no rule or regulation can effectively deal with it. If we hold that a bird and a bull are equal and bring them into a field to fight a duel on an equal footing, as a result of which the bird gets crushed, can we then stop this cruelty by imposing laws to this effect? Can there be a law to prevent a bird from being trampled on when it encounters a bull?
It has to be conceded that nature has cast men in the stronger and women in the weaker and more delicate mold. This accounts for nature making different demands upon men and women, resulting in a convenient division of labor. Any alteration in the division of labor is a deviation from nature: the solution to the ensuing problems lies only in a reversion to nature. They can never be solved while continuing on the path of rebellion from nature.
A flower, for instance, finds a prestigious position for itself as part of a bouquet, but if the same flower is placed under a rock, it will get crushed beyond all recognition. The same is true of a woman. In her own natural setting—the home—she is in a position of honour and prestige, and all her qualities shine forth as a result. But the moment she steps out of it to enter a crassly competitive world, she descends from the pedestal on which her family has placed her, and sinks deep into the mire of masculine oppression. Instead of her feminine talents coming into play quite naturally within the domestic framework, and bringing joy to herself and to her nearest and dearest ones, they become the object of the lustful exploitation of total strangers, and sources of frustration and stultification to the woman herself. The humiliations of the office, the shop and the factory are no fair exchange for the honor of family life. Outside the home, a woman feels constantly under siege.
There is no doubt that nature has cast men in the stronger, and women in the weaker mold. This accounts for nature making different demands upon men and women, resulting in a convenient division of labor. Any divergence from this pattern only creates problems in the home, especially for children. Many solutions have been sought to these problems, but the only effective way of setting matters right is to return to the order established by nature.
THE CURSE OF AIDS
AIDS, the most terrible scourge of modern times, has proved how fatal it is to deviate from nature. The high-risk groups are promiscuous homosexuals, bisexual men, intravenous drug-abusers and those having multiple sexual partners. Its highest incidence is among male homosexuals. For such people, AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) is the ultimate in divine retribution. With the defence mechanisms of the body rendered completely useless, the AIDS victim has as little hope of recovery as malaria victims used to have before the advent of modern therapeutics. AIDS renders medication ineffective, fevers do not respond even to injections and the body’s acceptance of food is almost nil. The victim becomes weak, his joints ache and he is in a constant state of depression. What is worse is that AIDS victims have become social outcasts. Even their gifts are not acceptable for fear of contagion from them. They find themselves deserted by friends of both sexes and when they travel, hotel servants and call girls are afraid to approach them. Now a stage has come when the department of health in America has had to issue strict orders to doctors to carry out tests on blood taken from blood banks for transfusion, as this has been found to be a source of infection. During the year 1985-86, there were in America nearly 50,000 AIDS patients who were not direct victims of AIDS but who had contracted the disease due to contacts with such patients. Here is a report based on 1986 statistics:
AIDS IN AMERICA: The dreaded AIDS disease and related diseases are far more prevalent in the U.S. than is generally realised, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. The paper said the number of Americans who suffer from AIDS is 21,000 and nearly half of them are expected to die. About 100,000 to 200,000 have AIDS-related diseases including lymphadenopathy, thrombocytopemia, condidiasis, diarrhoea, fever, hairy leukoplakia, dementia, neuropathy and Hodgkins.26
Here is another report, this time of a conference held in the first week of July 1986 in Paris:
According to experts participating in a conference on AIDS held in Paris last week, there will be 300,000 new cases of AIDS in 1991 alone if the virus spreads in the rest of the world as it has in the U.S. In the U.S., 74,000 new AIDS cases are forecast for the same year. It was estimated that by then more than a quarter of a million Americans would have caught the disease and 179,000 would have died. The U.S. hospital bill for AIDS for 1991 is forecast to be $ 8 billion. At present, France is the worst affected European country and had recorded about 700 cases by the first quarter of this year. West Germany is next with 457, Britain third with 340 and Italy fourth with 219.27
In a society where homosexuality had come out into the open, AIDS had to be meted out as a kind of punishment to stem this massive upsurge of gross unnaturalness. Having now discovered that AIDS is contracted through sexual promiscuity in general and homosexual practices in particular, would-be sexual partners are beginning to flee from one another.
Research in zoology has brought to light the “green monkey,” a native of the jungles of Africa. Of all the known species of monkey, this is the only one which indulges in homosexual practices and suffers from a disease similar to AIDS. Perhaps God created it with its perversions and afflictions in order to provide a salutary lesson for mankind. But all such lessons have been swept away by the wave of permissiveness which is carrying all before it in the western world of today. A glaring example is provided by San Francisco:
AIDS is sweeping San Francisco, the city known as the ‘gay capital of the world,’ according to medical statistics published on Wednesday. Of the 520 new cases of AIDS recorded in the first six months of the year, more than two out of three—67 per cent—proved to be fatal. This compared with the previous record of 58 per cent fatalities last year.28
Now AIDS victims are being fled from as plague victims used ‘to be in the old days. Localities which used to be the happy hunting grounds of “gays” now wear a deserted look. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, homosexuality had been practised in western countries long before the recent spate of publicity given to it, but it had not been studied scientifically until early in the 20th century. It was only after World War II that there was any proper collection of data on the subject. A.C. Kinsey, who conducted a large-scale, systematic appraisal of the incidence and social correlates of homosexuality (1948,1953), found that 37 percent of all U.S. males, and 13 percent of all U.S. females had at least one overt homosexual experience with orgasm. In other western countries, the facts largely corresponded with these figures.
In most countries, there are no laws against homosexuality perse, almost all of them having repealed the laws against homosexual activities between “consenting adults in private,” and, whereas homosexuals used to be denoted by a term loaded with opprobrium—sodomites—they are now referred to by the newly coined expression, “gay,” which would appear to lend a harmless aspect of lively cheerfulness to their activities. Society now only draws the line at an adult having homosexual relations with a minor or with an unwilling partner by force. It appears to have forgotten that it was exactly this practice which led to the destruction of the Prophet Lot’s compatriots. In Britain, in addition to having been legalized in 1967, it has ‘progressed’ to the point of attaining a legal status similar to that of marriage. Denmark has also followed suit:
Denmark has granted homosexual and lesbian couples the same rights of inheritance as married couples, reports Reuter. The Danish parliament on Friday voted by 78 votes to 62 in favour of a law granting inheritance rights to couples who can prove they are living together. The new inheritance rights will also apply to brothers and sisters who share a home.29
In modem times, it is the concept of unlimited freedom which has led to the acceptance of homosexuality and the breakdown of the traditional institution of marriage. A clever phrase has even been coined to denote the sexual relations established between man and man and woman and woman: sexual preference. But the consequences of this deviation from the natural order have been nothing short of evil. In truth, there is only one right path for man to follow and that is the natural order shown to us by the prophets of God. No one who deviates from this path can hope to be spared from its evil consequences.
The West has had to pay a doubly high price for its transgressions. By exposing the delicate female sex to the strong male world, it has permanently lowered their status. What Dr. Louise F. Montgomery has said about the status of women in the publishing world is true also of American women in all spheres of life: Women in the United States remain in the lower ranks in the newspaper hierarchy. Even in TV news programmes, the leaders who influence Americans are males.30 An even greater harm done by deviation from nature has been the fatal degeneration arising from the innumerable evils of widespread sexual promiscuity in the developed world.
Notes
1. Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. 12 pp. 919-920.
2. Ian Nicolson, Astronomy, 1978.
3. AI-Bukhari, Sahih, Abwab al-Kusuf, (Fath al-Bari, 2/424).
4. Ibid., 2/437.
5. Ibn Kathir, Al-Bidayah wa an-Nihayah (Beirut, 1932), 7/111.
6. Bible, Genesis, 2:7-22.
7. Bible, Genesis, 3:1-24.
8. The Quran, 7:19-25.
9. Encyclopaedia Britannica (1984), vol. 3, p. 1040.
10. Ibid., vol. 3, pp. 1040-42.
11. Ibid., vol. 16, p. 599.
12. An-Nasa’i, Sunan, Kitab ‘Ishrah an-Nisa’, 7/61.
13. Alexis Carrel, Man, The Unknown (London,1984), p. 91.
14. The Quran, 3:83.
15. The Quran, 55:7-9.
16. The Quran, 57:25.
17. The Quran, 7:85.
18. Alexis Carrel, Man, The Unknown, pp. 79-80.
19. The Quran, 30:41.
20. The Quran, 4:34.
21. Encyclopaedia Britannica (1984), vol. X, p.732.
22. Daily Express (London), July 4, 1977.
23. Alexis Carrel, Man, The Unknown (New York, 1949), p. 91.
24. Illustrated Weekly of India (Bombay), April 2, 1978.
25. Indian Express (New Delhi), August 3, 1986.
26. The Times of India (New Delhi), June I, 1986.
27. Ibid., July 5, 1986.
28. Ibid., July 4, 1986.
29. Ibid., June I, 1986.
30. The Hindustan Times (New Delhi), August 23, 1986.
