What does Islam offer women?
“For Kameelah Wilkerson, it was an incident at a public bathroom at one of the holy sites that struck her. As the lines of people waiting grew, men barged into the women’s toilets and drove out the women. What surprised Wilkerson, born and raised in Los Angeles, was that the women said nothing.
“I was saying, ‘Ladies, why y’all sitting there, move over and take your space!’” said Wilkerson. “I just wanted to bum rush over there and tell them (the men), ‘Move back on the other side.’”
- Hadeel al-Shalachi, AP story 2009
The Hajj is an annual event, and this year (according to the Islamic calendar based on the crescent moon) it will happen in mid-November. Over two million Muslims will journey to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. As they enter the Holy Sanctuary of the Sacred Mosque that houses the Kaaba, they must walk with their right foot first. As they pass through the gate, they must recite the Talbiyah, repeating “Here I am, Oh Allah…you have no partner.” Other necessary rituals may include anything from a symbolic jog in the desert in memory of Hagar (the mother of Ishmael) to walking counter-clockwise over designated areas to animal sacrifice.
They will have traveled from France, England, Indonesia, or, like Kameelah Wilkerson, from California and the U.S.A. Many will come from Iran, Somalia, Australia, and Tajikistan—indeed, these pilgrims travel from around the globe to bow at the base of a black, cube-shaped building and pray, hoping to please their god.
If you’re like me, you’re thinking, “This sounds very Old Testament.” And if you’re like Wilkerson, you’re a little confused at the place of women in Islam.
While at Mecca, Wilkerson was astonished at how passive her fellow pilgrims were - how could they let the men walk all over their rights like that!?! What she did not understand is that those women come from conservative Islamic societies where they can be beaten if they do not submit, or lose their salvation if they do not obey.
"Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has given the one more than the other, and because they support them from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient, and guard in [the husband's] absence what Allah would have them guard. As to those women on whose part you fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, [first] admonish them, [next] refuse to share their beds, [and last] beat them." (surah 4:34*)
Although Muhammad remained monogamous for twenty-five years (he was married to the widow Khadija), afterwards the Prophet married eleven women (including a nine-year-old and his daughter-in-law) and took two others as concubines. He said, "Be kind to women sprung from your rib," but counted wife-beating as a necessary discipline, not a domestic crime. Keep in mind that he is the man that all Muslim men are supposed to emulate.
"Women shall have rights similar to the rights against them, according to what is equitable; but men have a degree over them, and Allah is Exalted in Power."
(surah 2:228)
A degree over them? How? Intellectually? Spiritually? Economically? The text is ambiguous. However, the Qur'an says explicitly that a man may take more than one wife, yet it prohibits a woman from having more than one husband. Men may divorce women, but the Qur'an gives no such rights to women.
Nowhere in the Bible does God ever command polygamy, nor does he say that Adam was created superior to Eve. Husbands are commanded to "love their wives as Christ loved the Church and laid down his life for her." In my next post I'm going to bring the contrast between what the Qur'an teaches about women and what the Bible teaches on women into sharper focus.
*some translators use the phrase "beat them lightly," although according to Ergun and Emir Caner the text does not anywhere indicate such translation.