Zakariyya Harnekar – Womanhood in the Quran
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I seek refuge with Allah from the accursed
Satan.
In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious,
the Most Merciful.
All praise is due to Allah, Lord of
the worlds.
And peace and blessings be upon His noble
Messenger, and upon all his family and companions.
O my Lord, open my heart and ease
my affair, and release my tongue from my
mouth, so that it may understand my speech.
O Allah, make our deeds pure for Your
Face, and do not make in them any
harm to others.
And peace and blessings be upon our Master,
our Prophet, and us, Muhammad, and upon all
his family and companions.
And all praise is due to Allah, Lord
of the worlds.
As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
كيف حالكم؟
كيف حالكم؟
كيف حالكم؟
كيف حالكم؟
كيف حالكم؟
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كيف حالكم؟
كيف حالكم؟
كيف حالكم؟
كيف حالكم؟
كيف حالكم؟
كيف حالكم؟
كيف حالكم؟
كيف حالكم؟
كيف حالكم؟
كيف حالكم؟
كيف حالكم؟
كيف حالكم؟
كيف حالكم؟
كيف حالكم؟
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كيف حالكم؟
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ك praise because he's perfect in and of
himself and grateful or gratitude an expression of
gratitude because in addition to him being perfect
and worthy of praise in and of himself,
he chooses to use his perfection to benefit
us in every moment and every time.
Thereafter, we send salawat and salam upon our
beloved Nabi Muhammad salallahu alayhi wasalam Allahumma salli
ala Sayyidina Muhammad wa ala ahli Sayyidina Muhammad
kama sallayta ala Sayyidina Ibrahim wa ala ahli
Sayyidina Ibrahim fil alameena innaka hamidun majeed We
send these prayers of blessings and peace and
salutations upon our beloved Nabi Muhammad salallahu alayhi
wasalam For it is through his every action
his every statement His every state his every
approval that Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala taught us
how to be in this life Such that
we can attain the best of this life
and the next it's not a compromise of
This life for the next life rather in
the way of Rasulullah salallahu alayhi wasalam We
find the best of this life and the
best of the next life Thereafter in thinking
about what to speak about To be honest
with you I didn't Actually have a lot
of mind space to dedicate to to my
topic today, and so I thought to Present
or speak about something that I recently researched
for a talk that I did in Durban
And I thought since it was beneficial there
I thought it would be beneficial for this
congregation as well, and it's a topic that
I think is extremely important and Perhaps one
that's not oft looked into and that is
womanhood in the Quran now.
You may be thinking.
Oh, there's mostly men in the masjid Why
womanhood in the Quran and I think these
conceptions?
that That we create around the message of
Islam is important for both males and females
It's important for a male to have the
right conception about womanhood in Islam and if
it's in Islam then it stems from the
Quran and similarly it's important for females to
have the same conception of men or manhood
in the Quran and in Islam and It
is in this understanding that we can create
a harmonious society but if we simply take
our narratives or our understandings of Womanhood and
manhood and gender roles and all of those
you know, whatever gender ideology Gender ideology exists
out there today then we will be waylaid
and ideas will be imposed upon us from
outside of our own paradigm and That's a
point that cannot be You know overstated we
live in a world wherein there is a
huge thought battle Some of the greatest battles
that that Muslims face in our time is
not material challenges Yes, of course, there are
material challenges that pervade our society.
We're one of the most unequal societies in
the world But in addition to that there
is a there is an extreme and Rabid
onslaught on truth and Ideas that inform our
understanding of the world and so it behooves
us to go back to the Quran and
to see What is it that Allah subhanahu
wa'ta'ala informs us of certain?
Seminal things in our time certain important matters
in our time so that our mind can
be framed correctly in relation to these important
questions and we can journey ahead as Allah
subhanahu wa'ta'ala intends for us rather than
via ideas that are imposed upon us Right
such that we perhaps take our idea of
womanhood from you know Femme feminism or we
take our idea of masculinity from the Red
Bull movement or whatever the case may be
rather we look to our sources the Quran
our book of guidance from Allah subhanahu wa'ta
'ala and we gain our understanding from them,
so the reason I chose to speak about
this topic in Durban in the first place
is that Oftentimes women do get the short
end of the stick in Islam and That
usually stems from wrong conceptions or a lack
of education around the actual Quranic narrative and
so This talk the paradigm or the framework
from which I want to approach this topic
is Womanhood in the Quran the paradigm or
the the framework is what is provided to
us by the Quran.
I'm not taking from any Modern ideology or
anything like that to try and inform this
topic rather The idea was to look into
the ayat of the Quran and the Quran's
treatment of women as You know like as
a category and also And And also female
personalities in the stories that the Quran tells
So to have a type of ta'seel
if you want to to look at the
matter in an original way by looking at
the Quran so This was something new to
me.
I never you know looked into this topic
very much before I Done some research into
the idea of masculinity and manhood in the
Quran because of the spaces that I find
myself in and the Audiences, but this is
a bit of a new topic for me
And I came to find in the narrations
in the hadith That pertain to the verses
that speak about this topic that the idea
of women feeling Lesser or lesser represented in
the Quran is not a new one It's
something that existed even amongst the sahabiyat even
amongst the wives of Rasool Allahi Sallallahu alayhi
wasallam, and I'll mention some of those narrations
a little bit later, so it's not necessary
that if we find Muslim females in our
time feeling underrepresented or you know lesser addressed
that we should take this as a Necessarily
bad thing.
It's something that existed even with the wives
of Rasool Allahi Sallallahu alayhi wasallam and Before
getting into the Quranic narrative of the Quran
I think there's an important point to understand
in relation to the Quran statement of this
topic One is that the Quran was revealed
in a specific context and that context was
the context of Jahiliyyah in the Arab world
and there Were other civilizations around it The
primary civilizations were the Roman civilization and the
Persian civilization But there was also an Indian
civilization a Hindu religion that they had existed
for a long time Buddhist traditions etc amongst
others and what we find is that in
all of those contexts In all of those
contexts women were looked down upon to a
great degree To the extent that in some
traditions The question one of the big questions
was do women even have a soul?
Do they even possess a a soul or
are they simply like other animals?
That are created for the service of men
There were There were practices that existed in
some Hindu societies if a male Passes away,
then his wife is cremated with him And
They were There were discussions about whether women
had the right of ownership of assets of
property and these you know span like I
said the the Christian tradition at the time
the Roman tradition and the the Hindu tradition
and Even in the Arab society to which
the Quran was revealed children female children were
being born alive What you're saying they were
they were buried alive yes Right simply on
account of the fact that they were Little
girl babies, and I don't know how that
was possible because I don't know if you
see a little baby You have to be
somewhat heartless to do any harm to them
so Those are like the type of prejudice
prejudices that existed in the society at large
In relation to women and so the Quran
was revealed in this context into a society
And the world that had all of these
prejudices, but when we look into the Quran
we find that the Quran Yes in instances
it speaks to some of those things Allah
subhanallah mentions how the Polytheists they lament when
they are when they have a girl child
But they attribute to Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala
daughters and the Quran Laments how these people
Would bury their daughters alive and they will
be asked be a them in cookie that
Allah will ask these children on the day
of Table for what sin were you were
you killed?
but really the Quran doesn't really ever treat
the topic of males and females as you
know as a topic that Requires the scrutiny
that other civilizations were giving to it.
It's as if the Quran simply treats males
and females as Complementary in say in some
senses and equal in other senses from the
girl from the get-go Despite it being
revealed into a society with these prejudices and
a world with these prejudices the Quran treats
them as complementary and in some cases equal
From the get-go and I think that's
very important because the Quran was a book
that was revealed not necessarily to change everything
that existed But in relation to this topic
the Quran was somewhat revolutionary in that it
ignored all of those discussions and Just address
males and females as equals in some sense
and complementary in others And I think that's
very important about the narrative of the Quran
in relation to the topic of women So
like I said how I looked at the
topic in my research was looking at Allah
subhanahu wa'ta'ala having addresses to females in
general like using female pronouns general female pronouns
in the Quran and the second thing that
I looked into was when the Quran when
the Quran narrated stories of female personalities, right
and so When we look at The general
ayat that speak to matters that pertain to
women not stories of of females because you
know I have some remarks to make about
that a little bit later, but matters that
pertain to women then we find that the
Quran treats them as Similar or equal in
some senses and different in other senses right
But oftentimes the differences when the Quran treats
them Then by and large it comes down
to matters of fiqh not matters of virtue
matters of fiqh not matters of virtue and
anybody that objectively reads the Quran will recognize
that at times Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala Mentioned
certain laws for males and certain laws Perhaps
additional for females or perhaps not mentioning a
law for male but mentions a law for
a female So anybody that looks into the
Quran objectively will recognize that that in relation
to matters of fiqh the Quran at times
differentiates between males and females in relation to
certain laws But generally you will find that
in the Quran it does not distinguish between
males and females in relation to virtue the
only thing that you might ascribe to virtue
is when the Quran speaks about prophets and
Conveying the message and then you will find
that all of the narrations of human beings
who are charged by Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala
With conveying the message to the broader society
that those are all stories of males in
the Quran but as for matters of you
know purity of heart as for matters of
wisdom of strength of courage of bravery of
Intellect of all of those things the Quran
makes no distinction between males and females in
fact The stories in the Quran that exist
about females Don't only exist for males to
derive this or females to derive lessons from
they exist there for males and females equally
to derive lesson from just as the stories
of the Example the the perseverance or the
sabr of males exists for both males and
females to take lesson from It's not as
if the stories of females in the Quran
are for females and the stories of males
in the Quran are for males No All
of the stories in the Quran exists for
everybody to take lesson from But in relation
to fiqh like I said there are differences
So general verses that use masculine and feminine
pronouns you'll find in surat al-tawbah Allah
subhanahu wa'ta'ala mentions Different groups of people
and yeah in this surah specifically and you
know I had to start with this one,
but Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala is talking about
hypocrites, and then he says وَالْمُنَافِقُونَ وَالْمُنَافِقَةُ بَعْضُهُمْ
مِّنْ بَعْضٍ The male hypocrites and the female
hypocrites.
They are from each other and a few
verses later Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala says وَالْمُؤْمِنُونَ
وَالْمُؤْمِنَاتُ بَعْضُهُمْ أَوْلِيَاءٌ The believing males and the
believing females they are They are protectors Protectors
is not really an apt word to translate
the word awliya, but they are friends helpers
and protectors of each other And so it
juxtaposes these two things Against each other hypocrisy
and belief but it's specific make specific address
to both males and females and I think
this is important in terms of the narrative
of the Quran because oftentimes when you when
you start from a solid foundation When you
start from a like a state of brokenness
if you take somebody for example who is
in a state of illness They have an
illness Then what you do is you usually
treat them in an abnormal way They have
to take medicine that they're not usually gonna
drink or they have to eat a certain
diet That they wouldn't that wouldn't normally be
healthy, right?
Maybe they have to exclude certain things from
the diet or include certain things in their
diet But you're not treating them in a
normal way And so the Quran doesn't start
from from that point of abnormality and therefore
the Quran doesn't treat You know The idea
of womanhood in the Quran with kid gloves
such that the Quran only speaks good about
females because it's driven by a certain narrative
The Quran treats the topic From a place
of purity of knowledge and wisdom and Therefore
the Quran speaks like it speaks about good
males and bad males Virtuous males and an
unvirtuous males the Quran so to speaks about
virtuous females and unvirtuous females and good women
and bad women Because the Quran doesn't start
from the premise of this prejudice and that's
extremely You know that's telling in terms of
how we should look at the subject we
should not look at a Sikh society To
take our conceptions from rather we should go
to the pure Quran To get our conceptions
there from and that will give us a
more balanced view of the world Time is
flying subhanallah, but So I'll just run through
for example in certain matters of fiqh, right?
You will find that the Quran gives certain
rights to The male and not the female
and the Quran gives certain places of resort
to the female and not the male For
example in terms of the one that stands
out to most people's minds is inheritance in
inheritance a male gets There's the one I
don't have listed here, but it's coming to
my mind now But in inheritance Allah subhanahu
wa'ta'ala mentions لِلذَّكَرِ مِثْلُ حَضِّ الْأُنثَيَيَنِ Right
for a male child that is double that
of a of a female for a son
is double that of a of a daughter
But again, usually that comes back down to
the fact that in most circumstances the male
is responsible financially for For a greater portion
of society than the females are in terms
of how they are Assigned those duties by
Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala However, if one looks
at inheritance law holistically you'll find that there's
many cases where that's not necessarily a consideration
and then The male and female receive equal.
For example, if a person dies, they have
children, but they also have their mother and
their father Normally the mother and the father
will get exactly the same amount So the
male and female counterpart get the same amount
both of them get the sixth You don't
say no because the father is a man.
You must get double that of the mother.
It doesn't work like that, right?
so The Quran takes into account all of
these nuances and the responsibilities that should exist
in a holistic society Similarly in a marriage
it is the responsibility of the male to
make nafaka of his wife and his children
And it's not this it's not the responsibility
of the wife to make nafaka of her
husband to spend, you know on her husband
She doesn't have that financial responsibility.
Similarly these differences in how the Quran addresses
hijab and divorce amongst other things However, when
the Quran speaks about virtue even in general
terms not speaking about female personalities, but when
the Quran speaks about You know virtues then
you will find that at times women are
single out for virtue Right.
The topic may be addressing both males and
females But Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala singles out
the female for praise.
For example when Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala says
be dutiful to your parents Right, وَبِالْوَالِدَيْنِ إِحْسَانًا
in all of the places where Allah mentions
that we should be dutiful to our parents
The only Allah says be dutiful to your
parents then almost in telling you why you
should be dutiful to them Allah says your
mother carried you with difficulty upon difficulty right
or in a state of uneasiness upon states
of uneasiness in one verse Allah subhanahu wa'ta
'ala used the word وَقُرْحًا in the other
verse Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala used وَهْنًا in
states of weakness upon weakness So Allah's telling
you be dutiful to both your mother and
your father But the only praise Allah gives
us to the mother and it's almost as
if be dutiful to your father by extension
right because he's You know Also perhaps spending
on your mother and looking after etc But
the Quran singles out for praising.
Sometimes the Quran mentions them equally in terms
of virtue For example in the verse where
Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala speaks You know, we
created from us for us spouses لِتَسْكُنُوا أَزْوَاجًا
وَمِنْ آيَتِيَنْ خَلَقَ لَكُم مِّنْ أَنفُسِكُمْ أَزْوَاجًا لِتَسْكُنُوا
إِلَيْهَا وَجَعَلَ بَيْنَكُم مَّوَدَّةً وَرَحْمَةً Some ulama say
that the word زوج can refer to a
husband and a wife equally The word زوج
though it's a masculine word can refer to
the husband and the wife equally And so
the سُكُون or the tranquility that one derives
from the partner The male must derive it
from his wife and the female must derive
it from the husband as well and so
the Quran mentions them equally in terms of
that virtue and then Like I said before
there is no case of virtue where in
the Quran treats the female as inferior.
In fact If we look at the verse
Okay, there's one slide that I had but
it requires a little bit of explanation If
you look at two surahs surah al-shams
and surah al-layl, we know them In
the one Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says
وَالْلَيْلِ إِذَا يَخْشَاهَا وَالنَّهَارِ إِذَا تَجَلَّى وَمَا خَلَقَتْ
ذَكَرَ وَالْأُنْثَى Yeah, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
is speaking about the خَلْق The physical creation
and Allah makes a distinction between male and
female But in surah al-shams, Allah says
وَالْشَمْسِ وَضُحَاهَا وَالْقَمَلِ إِذَا تَلَاهَا وَالنَّهَارِ إِذَا جَلَّهَا
وَالْلَيْلِ إِذَا يَخْشَاهَا وَالسَّمَاءِ وَمَا بَنَهَا وَالْأَرْضِ وَمَا
طَحَاهَا وَنَفْسِ وَمَا سَوَّاهَا In this surah, it's
almost as if the oaths are equal There's
a congruence between the oaths that are taken
in surah al-layl and surah al-shams
But when it's speaking about the physical Allah
mentions He just mentions He doesn't mention female
souls and male souls He just mentions By
the soul and the one who apportioned it
and created it So Allah doesn't make on
that level Sheikh Sha'rawi, he points us
out that on that level Allah doesn't make
a distinction But in relation to the physical
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala draws a distinction
Similarly in the Quran, if you look at
the treatment of some words, this is just
one example The word umm is mentioned in
the Quran 19 times and the word ab
is mentioned in the Quran 117 times However,
in some of the usages of, I think
about in two of the usages of the
word umm, it's not referring to a mother
Like for example, ummuhu hawiya, it's referring to
a place of return In terms of its
treatment like that, the Quran also treats them
fairly equally And I think I'll end on
this point This idea of equality or equality
in virtue between males and females, rather than
equality in terms of fiqh Because equality requires
sameness And I already mentioned if the Quran
recognizes physical difference, then it should take that
into account when creating its laws Otherwise, it
would be treating two dissimilar things in the
same way The same, which in and of
itself is generally a type of oppression So
any type of law requires categories in which
to operate Otherwise, it cannot create just laws
But in terms of virtue, they're the same
So in Suratul Ahzab, verse number 35, some
of the wives of Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam
According to An-Nasai and Ahmed, they narrate
that Umm Salama came to Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi
wasallam And she said, What's the matter with
us women that we are not mentioned in
the Quran like the males are mentioned?
And then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala revealed
this verse According to Tirmidhi and Tabarani, they
say that another lady by the name of
Umm Ammara al-Ansariyya She came to Rasulullah
sallallahu alaihi wasallam and said, I don't see
the women mentioned much in the Quran Or
mentioned at all in the Quran Similarly, it's
narrated by Ibn Jarir and Al-Wahidi That
some women came to the wives of Rasulullah
sallallahu alaihi wasallam and they complained and they
said that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has
mentioned the males in the Quran But we
are not mentioned at all And they said,
and if we had virtue and if we
were good as well, then we would have
been mentioned And in relation to that, this
verse was revealed Ibn Ashur says that this
verse of the Quran, verse number 35 of
Surah Al-Ahzab Is the verse that establishes
that in general, when the Quran refers to
the Muslims and the believers Even if just
by the masculine form, the address refers to
both males and females Even whether you want
to use a construct of analogy, whatever the
case may be Or just look at the
pronouns and say that in the Arabic language,
the masculine pronoun can include the females He
says that this ayah establishes the principle that
when the Quran makes an address That it
in general refers to both males and females
Unless there is some specifier that indicates that
it only applies to males or it only
applies to females As opposed to other religions
that existed prior For example, Ibn Ashur mentions
the example of the Tawrah Where the laws
would only apply to the male unless there
is no way of understanding it except as
applying to females Rather in the Quran, it
applies equally to males and females except where
there is a specifier that indicates otherwise And
what verse is this?
Allah says وَالْمُتَصَدِّقِينَ
وَالْمُتَصَدِّقَاتَ وَالصَّائِمِينَ وَالصَّائِمَاتَ وَالْحَافِظِينَ فُرُوجَهُمْ
وَالْحَافِظَاتَ وَالذَّاكِرِينَ اللَّهَ كَثِيرًا وَالذَّاكِرَاتَ أَعَدَّ
اللَّهُ لَهُمْ مَغْفِرَةً وَأَجْرًا عَظِيمًا You can hear
already, even if you didn't understand the Arabic,
but you can hear in this verse there
is a type of itnab Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala is like going at lengths to
make a point Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
is like spelling out everything, at times the
Quran is very brief, but here Allah is
spelling out everything to make a point And
what is Allah saying?
Allah is mentioning like listing a whole plethora
of virtues And Allah is saying the submitting
males and the submitting females and the believing
males and the believing females And the devout
males and the devout females and the truthful
males and the truthful females And the patient
and perseverant males and the patient and perseverant
females and the humble males and the humble
females, and the charitable males and the charitable
females, and the fasting males and the fasting
females, and the chaste males or the males
who preserve their chastity, and the females who
preserve their chastity, and the males who remember
Allah in abundance, and the females who remember
Allah in abundance, Allah has prepared for all
of them forgiveness and a great reward.
And so the itnab in this verse, the
going, you know, the spelling everything out in
this verse, it serves the purpose of establishing
a principle that in general the Qur'an
treats, in terms of virtue, males and females
equally.
Then in relation to the stories of the
Qur'an, we don't have time to get
into that now, but what I can tell
you is Allah mentions all types of females
in the Qur'an, just like Allah mentions
all types of males in the Qur'an.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala highlights in
males and females both virtues of bravery, intellect,
wisdom, just as Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
highlights in them aiding in sin and ignorance
and all types of other bad things.
But there's a slide in there that mentions
some of the stories of the females, you
can check it out later.
But for now, I think we will end
there.
وَاجْزَاكُمْ لَهُ خِرًا وَآخِرُوا دَوَانًا الحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ
الْعَالَمِينَ May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala make
us a harmonious society, a complementary society, a
society that doesn't look to use our advantages
that we may have over others to oppress
them, just like whether it be male or
female, rather we should use our strengths to
aid each other, and we should cover for
each other's weaknesses.
And it's only in that way that the
Ummah can be unified and the Ummah can
actually be strong.
If we have a Ummah that's constantly trying
to destroy itself, whether it be males destroying
females and vice versa, or it being different
groups destroying each other, the Ummah will never
be strong.
May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala guide us.
وَاجْزَاكُمْ لَهُ خِرًا وَآخِرُوا دَوَانًا الحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ
الْعَالَمِينَ As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.