Hamza Yusuf – Men And Women – Part 2
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Now if you look at another verse in the Quran, when Allah subhana wa tada says, Well, why wouldn't
the women have the same identity begins with women because men forget that what?
Literally, the Dalai Lama said what a woman.
And men have the same rights that they have in responsibility, but he said women because men often forget that we are actually spiritually equal before Allah subhana wa Tada, we are spiritually equal. There is not spiritual superiority to a male or a female, that both of them have spiritual equality before God and then it becomes who does better deeds. If a woman does better deed, she's better than the man if if the man does better, he's better than the one it's as simple as that. And that's something that a lot tends to know. And we have to be careful about that. And that's why, when Allah subhana wa Donna says that he says Ben Maru,
this is with my role in all those good things that we're meant to do, we are meant to make sure that males and females respect each other. And then almost have a handle with Donna says, whatever the journey
and this is where all the problem comes. One of the things about the Quran is the Koran is a book, it is studied without
and without, without, without an understanding of and that's why what did the prophets realize that I'm saying? When he asked if an eye bass he made the dropper, even a bass Aloma to deal with all I give him understanding and the religion and teach him how to interpret the flow. Now, even at best was asked about this verse. And what did he say he said, it is not as
it is the degree of giving up your rights. What it was originally at 18 datia. What that means is men have a degree over women in that
men are told by our law to give all of your rights to them, but don't demand all of your rights from them.
That is the understanding of them.
And even our best is somebody that said, he
said, resiliently come out worship wants it as a unity. I love to prepare myself by hygiene and presentation in the same way I love my wife to do that. For me. There's men that expect their wife to look beautiful, and then they're walking around, unfortunately, now with the three day grows, and instead of having a nice beard and and then expecting also women to maintain the house in a certain way that basically serves the men.
And the point of Ivanova is is no I like to do for my wife the same things I like her to do for me. And that creates this parity in the home. But whatever my boss is saying, If push comes to shove, I'm the one that gets pushed. And she's the one that shows
you see if push comes to shove. I mean, that's something we forget. And this is why in the in the hadith of saying that Omar Abdullah, I know when the man came to complain about his wife, to say no more, say no more of the law. No, he came up to the door and he knocked. And then he heard the wife
scream I've seen almost said something to him. And he thought he's in a bad situation as I am. And he started to leave and say no more of them or open the door. And he said to this man, what did you want? He said nothing. He said, I'm sure that could be later on as you by law, you came to my house, tell me what you came for. He said, I came to complain about my wife. But I saw that you you have the same problem. So I figured I might as well go home
and say the whole model said this is my wife having his zoji or zoji zoji is if it's understood that you use the masculine which is also an interesting point when you don't need to differentiate, you use the masculine form because males and females are ultimately language the differentiation is about clarity of thought It is not about preference. And that's why when you say a pregnant woman you say a hammam you don't say honey that because only women get pregnant. So you don't need to say honey to tune. It's understood when I say he handed that she's pregnant. You don't need to use the feminine and that's another thing that Muslims forget and that's why in the Quran whenever the
masculine is used
It is understood that the feminine is implied. And this is something I was in a philosophy class at the university. And the professor demanded that we use non bias sexual language. And I asked him what that meant. And he said that you say he, she or she, he, or you give equal amount of GIS to your she's in the paper. I just said to him, why do we need to do that? And he said, because it's bias language. And I said, Well, what about the genetic code? He said, Well, you know, there's a language. And this is a true story. I said this in class, I said, well, you look at the genetic code, a male has x&y. In other words, a male contains the female and the male chromosomes, but the
woman only contains the female chromosomes.
So the masculine therefore contains the male and the female, but the feminine only contains the feminine. So I said, is nature being biased in its genetic coding? Should we splice all of our genes, so that it all We equalize it all. And that's the type of reductionist madness that we go into when we try to do this, that languages are very logical. And so in the Arabic language, if you say, there's a group there, and there's one man and 30, women, you would use the masculine.
Which is not to say that the one man is preferred over No, is that it's inclusive of both. Whereas with the female, you go to the female only, and that's the name of the Quran. And so we should reject this kind of attempt at creating a type of semantic madness that a lot of people are falling into. I mean, unfortunately, the British have really resisted that. It's something that's very peculiar to the United States, the British have resisted because they don't feel like rewriting their language. They have a lot of literature, and they just they don't feel that it's necessary to do that. say, No, I said, This is my xos.
She keeps my house, she raises my children. She takes care of me, shouldn't I have patience is nice and patience with her. In other words, that's the whole point. Try doing her job.
And that's what my wife always says. She says, just take the boys for five hours.
We have four boys, and she said it just take them for five hours, that's all.
And then then we can talk.
In other words, don't think that this is an easy job, looking after these boys. And that's what we as men have to realize this is the spiritual advantage. There's a disadvantage in the material. But there is a advantage in the spiritual and we prefer the spiritual over the material. And that is why if you set up the track, the man is getting that headstart, because he's spiritually disadvantaged. Because a woman who's taking care of her children, and her house has the mythos of a mojej piece of beauty now.
That's according to the Habib, the woman came to the brothers, we score coffee, but that out of and I'm sorry, if she came, it's insightful hottie. And she began to speak. And the women and this is was from their intelligence. They chose the most eloquent of all the women they had to go. She was an official delegate, sent to speak on behalf of the women of Medina. And when she gave her hookah the proposal I sent him Look, and he said, What do you think of this woman? They said, some hamama we didn't even have that realization, because women in that society did not give Kosovo. And so what they were so impressed with was her ability to speak in front of an audience of strangers, because
that is what oration is, is your speaking. And it takes a type of courage that many people are intimidated by. And that's why in this culture, they say that public speaking is a greater fear than dead for some people, just actually getting in front. So here's a woman who got up front and she she gave her hookah and the product looked at his men to tell them, what do you think? In other words, watch out. You know, don't think that you've got this advantage that women can bring forward. Those who are capable of speaking with the forcefulness and power. And when she finished. The promise online is that I'm said to her because what she said was, we stay at home we tend our children, we
do all these things, but the men they have sometimes they go out to be law and
fight in defending Islam and doing these things and, and it would seem they get much better awards. And we do because we read the Quran and there's all these verses saying how the mu j gets all these rewards. So the province allies and looked at her and he said a woman who is taking care of her children and her home has the station and the reward of a man in jihads piece of beaten down.
Which means that if you're at home
with your wife,
she is getting a reward that is equivalent to a man who is out in battle.
And you're sitting there saying, Get my tea
if you knew the
beginning.
So we have to recognize that that is one of the myths that needs to be removed. And I am saying this as an advocate. Because I've looked at the Muslim community, and I believe in all truthfulness, I believe that our women are oppressed. I believe that. And I think that we as Muslim men need to deal with this fact. And the reason for that is we are going to lose our women, we are going to lose our women to the forces out there that are telling them there are threads that are making them feel oppressed. Only their idea of oppression is not the same as our idea.
They think it's oppressed to be wearing a hijab. And we believe it's oppressed, to be presented in a world in which men have passions that they are less capable of controlling than women. And you put them in a situation in which they are compromised, it is men's weakness
that the hijab was given. It is men's weakness that's from our own spiritual shortcoming could have been settled by Eva, the man was created we do look in the idea that it said inshallah, and the province will it set him said that the nature of a woman is that her her passion is actually greater. But the modesty that Allah has put into her in her FIFA nature
prevents her from doing what many men will do without the same constraints.
And this is also from them. And that's why the danger of facade is always comes on the side of the woman as the temptress. And that is because men by their nature are weak. And therefore, the onus was put on both the male and the female, the onus is on the male to lower the gaze minneota monopsony him tell the believers to lower their gaze, but it was also put on the women young moved on and decided
that they should also lower their gaze. And then you know, for Giovanna, and they should protect their private part from allowing these type of situations, and then also that they should not expose their Xena. Right what I have been as in Italy, not Mamma Mia, they should not expose the Zener except what manifests from it by the nature of their forms. In other words, women that are large breasted, they can't hide that in a hijab. So there are certain things that they're not able to cover, and they're not taking responsibility for that. But they're told to dress modestly, to protect the men, as well as protecting the women. And so that is there. So this culture wants to say
no, take home all of your clothes. Who are you taking your clothes off for, for the eyes of strange men. Now, one of the things about vision, vision is occupations.
You can occupy something that is not yours with your sight. You see, touch, if I touch this, there's a type of occupation that occurs. My body has occupied this physical space. The same occurs with the eye. If I look at a woman,
my eye can occupy her body. And a lot of saying that is not your property. And therefore she's found
his private property.
And the sign is that
that is a private property do not enter.
That's what when you see that sign, you're supposed to
Respect,
then, you know,
that when a law says that they should put the jellybeans right on, it is because that is more appropriate that they should be known and not harm.
So the whole point of the hijab is to protect a woman's private space, because that space is not the right of a man to trespass against.
And so unfortunately, one of the things about foolish people is if they have big houses, see, this is one of the beauties of his song. If you go to Muslim cultures, do you know how Muslim houses were made? They were made by making them outwardly ugly.
And inwardly beautiful. You go too fast, and you walk around fast. And fast is one of the ugliest cities you'll ever see. As you walk down the street, all the houses look like they're about to fall apart.
You step into the door of those houses, and suddenly you're in a garden. It's all tiled. It's all beautiful. Why do you think the Muslims did that, because they knew the power of envy in the world, they knew the power of evil, they knew the power of putting out the blessings that Allah has given you, and showing them off. Because once you do that, you create a situation
where there are bad people out there that are going to harm you. They can harm you just by their eyes, by looking within the at something that Allah has given you. And that is why if Allah has made you beautiful part of the modesty of that gift is not to display that beauty in any arrogant way.
And if Allah Subhana was Allah has made you wealthy, it is not to flaunt that wealth. This does not mean that a wealthy man wears rags. But the point is, a wealthy man should not be doing ostentatious displays of wealth,
like jewelry all over see women in traditional Muslim culture, they don't wear their jewelry, outside, they cover that up that jewelry is for their friends, it's for their families, for their husbands is for themselves.
Because they're allowing you into their private space, and they trust because you're a friend, you're not going to have mal intent. When you look at them,
you'll appreciate something. And that's one of the gifts when somebody comes into your house, if I have a guest, I show them my manuscripts, I have manuscripts, I have a poem that was written several 100 years ago, it by hand, I have a first edition of your sales, Koran, these are some of the most precious things that I have, when somebody comes in my house, I like to show them those things as a way of honoring them as well, just saying, This is the most precious thing I have. And I want to share that with you. And that's a very human thing to do to want to share what is precious with those that are close to you. But you have to be aware of showing what is precious to those who you
don't know, because there's the good, the bad, and the ugly. There's different types of people out there. And so that is what this is all about. It's about protection and protecting women. And so that's what I'm saying about houses, that in the Muslim world, the Muslims do not display their houses from the outward, they displayed them from the inward and that is what a woman does. She's like that house. Her beauty is interiorized. And she allows into that beautiful space, the ones that she chooses, that are permissible, and also from her family members, their friends from amongst women, and then the male mahato. Those are the people that she trusts. And it allows him to that
private space. So in this culture, the idea is if you've got it, flaunt it,
some of the most miserable people in this culture. And if you do studies and I know, psychiatrists that worked with bulimia and anorexia and these problems that are often related to women, and she told me that some of the most severe cases that she'd ever seen were from models, professional models, which were very beautiful women. All they were told since they were little is how beautiful they were. And one of the things they do in Mauritania with the children, they say you're so ugly, you're ugly.
They do very sweetly. But they don't like the idea of always telling children how beautiful they are to create a type of conceit. But obviously I wouldn't advise saying you're so ugly. I mean, they seem to survive and psychologically but
A lot of people are devastated by that.