The Position Of Women In Islam

There she goes; that poor woman all covered on a scorching day, I’m sure she doesn’t own a single thing, do you think her husband beats her daily? They really oppress their women, what a life she leads, she has no status…

I don’t need your pity or your bug-eyed stares; come stand in my Hijaab and see the status my Allah has given me.

Once Hazrat Asma Bint Yazeed (radiallahu anha) came to the Prophet when he was sitting with his companions, she said: “O Messenger of Allah,  I am sent by a group of women and we all share the same view and have the same concern. Allah has sent you to both men and women. We believe in you and follow you. Yet we, women, have to stay at home. We are the object of men’s desire and we bear their children. Nevertheless, men have privileges, such as the obligatory Friday prayer, attending funerals and going on Jihad expeditions. When they leave for Jihad, we look after their property and we rear their children. “O Rasulullah, do we have a share of reward for doing so?”The Prophet  turned to the men and said: “Have you ever heard a more eloquent woman putting a case concerning her faith?” They said: “We never thought that a woman can be so expressive.” The Prophet said to her: “Asma, go and tell women that when any of you is a goodly wife, giving her husband a pleasant life and cutting out friction, she earns a reward equal to all that you have mentioned of men’s reward.”

In Islam males and females are equally important. They are created differently to fulfil different purposes. Just as the head has importance, so too the body has importance. Both cannot be equated to each other; however they are complementary to each other.

The biased thinking of some regarding woman is strange and mind puzzling! If a woman had to remain at home and serve her husband and children she is ignorant and old fashioned. However if this same woman becomes an air hostess and serves hundreds of people who look at her with desire , she is now a modern and educated woman. If a woman remains at home and does the house keeping for her parents, brothers and sisters and other family members, she is living the life of a prisoner. Yet if she becomes a sales girl at a shop and with her smile entices customers to buy, or she works in some office and bears the harassment of her superiors and male colleagues, she is free, independent, and respectable? When she sits in her home for Iddah with honour she is oppressed, but when she confines herself on an Island with many other males on the show ‘Survivor’ the world looks at her with respect.

Sheikh Zulfiqar(Hafidhahullah)explains status of a woman as follows: ‘Allah  has not created a women from the head of a man to be above him, nor has he created a woman from beneath man so she can be trampled upon and oppressed, rather Allah created women from the side of man to be equal to him, under him, to be protected by him ,close to his heart and to be loved by him.’