The Truth about Islam's View of Women, Both In Itself and Compared to the Bible's View of Women

INTRODUCTION

That Islam teaches the oppression of women is probably the single most common misconception about our beautiful religion. Christian missionaries, in particular, are always going on about it. In this article I will show that Islam does not teach the oppression of women in any case whatsoever, and that it treats women much better than the Bible does.

THE KORAN, WHEN PROPERLY TRANSLATED, DOES NOT ENCOURAGE WIFE-BEATING IN ANY INSTANCE

As I’ve pointed out in the article on this page about whether Islam promotes peace, Koran 4:34 is typically mistranslated as encouraging husbands to beat their adulterous wives (as a last resort) whereas a more logical translation would be “desert them” rather than “beat them”. You can read the evidence for this at http://www.answering-christianity.com/beating_no.htm. “Desert” is obviously the proper translation because “scold, sleep in a separate bedroom, desert altogether” makes more sense as a logical sequence of resorts than “scold, sleep in a separate bedroom, beat,” since in the former case you’re going from leaving her bedroom and refusing to literally sleep with her to leaving her altogether and never sleeping with her again in any sense, whereas in the latter case there is no logical connection between refusing to sleep in the same room with somebody and beating them.

REGARDING THE HADITH SAYING THAT WOMEN WILL CONSTITUTE THE MAJORITY OF THE PEOPLE IN HELL

People who want to prove that Islam has and always has been a misogynist religion frequently point out this hadith:

Ibn Abbas reported that Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) said: I had a chance to look into the Paradise and I found that majority of the people was poor and I looked into the Fire and there I found the majority constituted by women.

(Sahih Muslim, Book 36, Number 6597)

What these people want you to believe is that this is proof that the blessed Muhammad believed and taught that women are inherently more evil than men. But there are three gaping holes in this conclusion:

1. The hadith are fallible, unlike the Koran, and so they are judged by the Koran, and there is nothing in the entire Koran suggesting that women are more evil than men or that the majority of the people in hell will be women. Since this hadith has no Koranic parallel or justification, it should be regarded as highly suspect. Even if this were not the case it would not necessarily an accurate reporting of what the Prophet (peace be on him) said, since the hadith are the fallible memories of humans, transmitted through oral tradition, and the Koran is the only source of universal and undeniable Islamic doctrine.

2. The hadith does not tell us how much of a majority this majority is supposed to be, or even that there is a large majority at all. As such, the majority in question could be as low as 51%, in which case it would be just a matter of circumstance (what some would call luck) that most of the people in hell will turn out to be women, and not by any means an indication that women are inherently more evil than men. (In fact, even if everyone in hell is a woman, it could still be because of coincidence and nothing more, although it would be a very large coincidence.) Ergo, the hadith proves nothing even if it is authentic and totally accurate.

3. We Muslims are not taught that there is any sort of original sin. Instead, we believe that people are born sinless (born Muslims in the sense of “submitters to God”), and are corrupted later on because of a combination of negative influence from other people and temptation in the form of “whispers” from evil djinni. As such, it would make no sense for women to be inherently more evil than men, since men and women alike are born sinless and become corrupted the same way.

REGARDING WOMEN BEING “A TILLAGE” FOR MEN

Another verse from our scriptures which anti-Islamic folk frequently point out as a verse that degrades women is this one from the Koran:

2:223 Your women are a tillage for you; so come unto your tillage as you wish, and forward for your souls....

In Islam we believe that the main purpose of the hadith is to help us understand and know how to apply the teachings of the Koran, and Sahih Bukhari, Volume 6, Book 60, Number 51 explains what this verse means:

Narrated Jabir: Jews used to say: “If one has sexual intercourse with his wife from the back, then she will deliver a squint-eyed child.” So this Verse was revealed:--“Your wives are a tilth unto you; so go to your tilth when or how you will.” (2:223)

It may be vulgar and it may be strange, but it is the explanation our scriptures give of that passage. In any case, to say that your wives are a tillage for you is to make a statement that can be interpreted in more than one way. Given the general attitude that the Koran holds about women (which I am proving piecemeal in this article), I would not interpret this verse as meaning that women should be subjugated to men sexually. Rather, a tillage is a cultivation of land, so a more rational interpretation of the verse (assuming that the hadith is wrong) would be that women were made to be the proverbial fertile earth which bears the produce of children whereas men were made to be the cultivators of that proverbial earth. In other words, there is nothing wrong with having as many children as you wish to have and can feed.

THE REASON FOR THE WOMAN INHERITING HALF OF WHAT THE MAN INHERITS

Christians and other non-Muslims with an anti-Islamic agenda are constantly pointing out Koran 4:11, which gives the woman the right to only half of the inheritance of the man. The reason for this rule could not be simpler: men are the providers of the family in an Islamic families (which is in accordance with men’s nature and instincts, being the hunter-gatherers on an evolutionary level whereas women are the preparers and primary child-raisers). As such it is the men who need money for necessities, to provide for the family, whereas whatever money a woman has, she is free to spend on whatever she wants. It’s all free spending money; she needs none of it.

TWO WOMEN TO ONE MAN

People making anti-Islamic claims also make a big deal out of this Koranic rule regarding the making of a business transaction:

2:282 ...Call in to witness two witnesses, men; or if the two be not men, then one man and two women, such witnesses as you approve of, that if one of the two women errs the other will remind her....

The reason for this is the same reason for the verse I just discussed: in an Islamic society, women are not the workers and people who deal in business, and for good (natural) reason. Because of this, they will typically not know and understand as much about the business transaction taking place as a man would. As such, this verse does not imply that women are less intelligent than men, but only that they (in a society where these Koranic laws are carried out) will not naturally be businesswomen and as such would be expected to lack a certain amount of comprehension in the subject.

ISLAM DOES NOT REQUIRE WOMEN TO WEAR VEILS

The ridiculous business of women having to wear veils comes from a ridiculous interpretation of this verse from the Koran:

24:31 And say to the believing women, that they cast down their eyes and guard their private parts, and reveal not their adornment save such as is outward; and let them cast their veils over their bosoms, and not reveal their adornment save to [certain people like family members]....

Anyone with half a brain can tell that this verse is about dressing modestly. The veil goes over the bosom, not the face. In other words, the woman keeps her bosom covered. From what I’ve heard, a more proper translation of the term rendered “veil” here is the hijab that Islamic women traditionally wear in most societies rather than a veil, be it over the face or anywhere else. These hijab are head-and-shoulder-coverings which do not cover the face at all, and they are worn out of tradition instead of compulsion, as they were modest clothing used at the time and place in which the Koran was revealed.

THE REAL TRUTH ABOUT WOMEN IN THE BIBLE AND IN THE KORAN

The Koran repeatedly complains about the hypocrisy involved with the people of seventh century Arabia attributing daughters to God while preferring sons for themselves. The Koran says that women are to have equitable rights but that their husbands are a (mere) degree above them (2:228), as men, in a proper Islamic relationship and especially in an Islamic society, are the providers of their wives (4:34). The Koran granted women divorce and inheritance rights in the 600’s that they did not get in America until the 1900’s. Read surah 65 to see just how kindly men are to treat their wives and just how fair the divorce rights of women are in Islam.

Christians comparing the what the Bible and the Koran say about women usually pair up one of the Koranic passages explained above with this verse from the Bible:

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. (Ephesians 5:25)

They conveniently leave out the verses preceding this one. The context left out says:

Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands. (Ephesians 5:22-24)

Tell me which you would rather be: a degree below your husband in the sense that he is your provider but still treated with equitable rights, or subject to your husband in the same way that you are subject to God, and as such subject to him in absolutely everything? I think it is clear and undeniable which book here treats women more fairly. And by the way, as long as we’re on the subject, here are some more things St. Paul said about women’s rights:

The women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as even the law says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. (1 Corinthians 14:34-35)

Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet woman will be saved through bearing children, if she continues in faith and love and holiness, with modesty. (1 Timothy 2:11-15)

And along those same lines, this is what God said to Eve in the Bible’s version of the story of what happened in the Garden of Eden:

To the woman [God] said, “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” (Genesis 3:16)

That the husband actually rules over the wife according to the Bible is further confirmed by the fact that in the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20, wives are listed as property along with slaves, farm animals and even houses. The Koran’s version of the Ten Commandments (6:151-152) do not do such a horrible thing, and in the Koran’s version of the story of what happened in the garden of Eden (7:19-25), the woman is not a primary transgressor who is doomed to total subjugation, but rather the man and the woman sin together and are blamed equally.

No, there is simply no getting around it: the Koran teaches exactly the opposite of the oppression of women, and on top of that is much fairer and more equitable to women than the Bible is.