Conclusion
If it were put to a writer that he could the better serve humanity by stepping out of his study and jumping into the boxing ring, he would surely retort that there is more to solving the problems of the world than just punching people on the nose. He would, indeed, point out that the intellectual can best operate in his own chosen sphere, and that it is not physical brashness which counts in this “life, but the sharpening of awareness.
Imagine a reversal of the social structure which entailed a surgeon working in a butcher’s shop, a teacher sitting on the roadside selling vegetables, or a microbiologist digging ditches. In each case, the change of workplace and role would render useless and irrelevant the innate and acquired skills, the knowledge and the moral excellence of these highly qualified, highly experienced professionals. Their competence and effectiveness would, moreover, be eroded by the sense of frustration and disorientation engendered by surroundings which clearly degraded them.
In luring women out of their natural sphere—the home and the bosom of the family—“emancipation” has pitchforked women into the same humiliating situation as our imaginary professionals. Once out of their homes, they find themselves forced, in uncongenial surroundings, to play unfamiliar roles for which neither training nor biology has fitted them. They are even worse off than our surgeon, teacher and microbiologist, for they have not only to contend with the professional hostility of their male counterparts but must constantly be on their guard against being exploited and debased. In the meanwhile, their valuable domestic skills, innate material instincts and fine moral acuity become submerged and nullified in the treadmill of their daily working existence.
True progress for women cannot be achieved by encouraging them to make their entry into every field of life. A better approach would be to increase their knowledge, skills, alertness and awareness in the sphere to which they already belong. The more a woman is endowed with these qualities, the more effective will be the part she plays in all the activities of daily living. The woman who is intellectually aroused can perform the greatest of services, whereas, if she is left ignorant and untutored, she will never—even if she is brought to the forefront of things—be able to play a role of any significance.
There have been many women in history who never emerged from their homes, but who exerted a great influence upon the outside world. A notable example is Nur Jahan, a widow taken to wife by the Mughal Emperor, Jehangir, in 1611. Although according to time-honored custom, Nur Jahan lived almost exclusively in the palace, all historians are agreed that she exerted a strong influence, through Jehangir, far and beyond the palace walls. This is not to say that she never committed blunders. She did, the greatest of which was her conspiracy to have her own son-in-law, Shaharyar (married to the daughter of her deceased husband), succeed Jehangir, who, on the contrary, wished Prince Khurram (Shah Jahan), the ablest of his three sons, to be his successor. This was a plot which led to great strife and bloodshed, but, leaving this aside, the example of Nur Jahan certainly shows to what extent a capable woman can influence the affairs of the outside world. We reproduce here what historians have to say of her:
Nur Jahan enjoyed great influence and authority and became a power behind the throne. Nur Jahan exercised a strong influence on her husband and looked after him with unparalleled care and devotion. Under her influence Jehangir restrained himself from excessive drinking. She relieved him of much of the drudgery of administrative routine and anxiety. She enhanced the splendor of the Mughal court and ably seconded the efforts of her husband in patronizing learning and art and disbursing charity.1
HISTORIC FEAT
The allegation that woman cannot perform great services when confined to the home is, therefore, clearly refuted by Islamic history. Housework is also undoubtedly great work, but the work which concerns the outside world, and which is generally accepted as great work, can also certainly be performed by women, without passing beyond the threshold of their own homes.
An outstanding instance of the power wielded by Muslim women is their conversion of the Tartars (Mongol), who laid waste the world of Islam in the thirteenth century Hijra. Having been the direct enemies of Islam, the Tartars accepted its tenets and proclaimed themselves its guardians. ‘Ghazan Khan (reigned 1295-1304) was able to embrace Islam amid general acceptance by his army, and his successors were all Muslims. Within less than 40 years, after Hulagu’s terrible invasion, his descendants had become patrons of Muslim culture.2
How this miraculous conversion took place is explained by Professor T.W. Arnold:
It is interesting to note that the propagation of Islam has not been the work of men only, but that Muslim women have also taken their part in this pious task. Several of the Mongol princes owed their conversion to the influence of a Muslim wife, and the same was probably the case with many of the pagan Turks when they had carried their raids into Muhammadan countries.3
After the Tatars had slaughtered the male Muslims on a massive scale, they took the women captive and brought them into their homes as mistresses and wives. From within the Tartar homes, these Muslim women were to play a crucial role, for, filled as they were with the zeal and fervor of Islam, they burned with the desire to serve its cause, and set about converting their capturers with a large measure of success. Those Tartars who were not immediately converted by their womenfolk at least softened to such a degree in their attitude towards Islam that when they came into contact with Muslims elsewhere in the world, they were very easily converted. This was thanks to the preliminary seeds having been sown within their very own homes.
The first Tartar ruler who converted to Islam was Barka Khan, who ruled from 1256 to 1267. It appears that his mother was a Muslim and had trained him in the ways of Islam from early childhood. His formal conversion came just after his coronation, when he had a conclusive discussion on Islam with a Muslim merchant. Ghazan Khan’s brother, Aljai, whose wife was a Muslim, succeeded him in 1304. It is said that it was his wife’s persuasion which brought about his conversion. Indeed, most of the Tartar chiefs and military men converted in the same way. Indeed, their Muslim wives and mothers so impressed upon their minds the greatness of Islam, that the whole course of Islamic history was thereby changed.
The influence of Muslim women is in no way diminished for its being in the more mundane settings of the modern world, for although, physically, they remain within the domestic sphere, mentally they go with their husbands wherever life’s exigencies may take them. In so doing, they share both their hearts and their minds. The relationship of every wife to her husband is of great depth: it is she who is his chief adviser and sharer in his joys and sorrows. Thus, she is associated at every moment with all his thinking, all his activities. Where the household tasks are concerned, her involvement is direct: so far as external tasks are concerned, she exercises over them a kind of benevolent remote control.
A woman’s work relates, albeit indirectly, to all of life’s activates. While the importance of a woman’s role in life is at all events comparable to that of a man, it should be borne in mind that this role will always be the more effectively performed by those women who are keener in their awareness.
It is a little understood fact that the role a woman plays does not depend upon her physical environment, but rather on the degree to which her intellect has been cultivated. The importance accorded to the male sphere of action as opposed to the female sphere, rather than to the type and quality of the actions performed therein, has been given undue emphasis, thus attaching to a woman’s domain an unwarranted stigma of inferiority. It is to combat this acquired sense of inferiority that so many women feel the necessity to emerge from their homes and to take up the cudgels in the world of commerce and industry, science and technology, law and medicine. It is regrettable that they do not stop to consider that, though they are the weaker sex, as a matter of biology they are the strength of the stronger sex. Therein lies the secret of woman’s power.
Notes
1. Encyclopaedia Britannica (1984), Vol. 9, p. 383.
2. Encyclopaedia Britannica (1984), Vol. 9, p. 993.
3. T.W. Arnold, The Preachings of Islam (1976), p. 415.
