Is Woman Equal To Man Or Not? pdf download

Is Woman Equal To Man Or Not – Book Sample

IS WOMAN EQUAL TO MAN OR NOT

The author says: Last week we heard the talk of Sister Yasmeen Shaikh about the status of women in Islam, and equality between the sexes. Considering the pointsYasmeen has raised, I will need three or four weeks until the next scheduled speaker, to comment and elaborate on those points and that is what I am going to do.

Before talking about equality between males and females, and how I look at it in terms of the Qur’anic verses and the Prophetic sayings and traditions, equality needs to be defined first.

 If we are talking about equality in physical capabilities, then there is no equality. And no one can deny that.

 If we are talking about the nature of a woman and the nature of a man, we say, no, they are not equal.

A woman delivers children, while a man cannot deliver children, so they are not equal in that respect.

With respect to emotions and the psychology of woman and man, can we say they are equal?

 They are not. The psychologists of nowadays describe the man as playing an instrumental role

Imam’s new policy: “We are going to change the system of our lectures here [September 1995]. At least once a month, it is hoped, there will be a speaker from the community.” Sister Yasmeen Shaikh was the first speaker.

and that needs power, toughness and other special characteristics for the person who will perform that role.

And the role, which is assigned to the woman, by the psychologists and sociologists, is the expressive role.

That is a role which a man sometimes fails to do.

It is based upon emotions, upon softness and closeness, and these characteristics confer the ability to rear children, and the woman is vouchsafed a special reward for that by Islam.

So, in this respect, there is no equality between a man and a woman, because each one is assigned a role based upon their capability and special characteristics,

although, this does not mean that there are no tough women – tougher than men – and, sometimes, there are soft men, who nearly look like women.

So what is equality and how do we define it? Equality between males and females is in the affairs of daily life, in the area of work, in rights of salary, in the daily dealings of life between a man and a woman in the house – that is equality.

As a result, Islam calls marriage “life partnership”.

Partnership means that these two people agreed to certain terms in a civil contract. See, mistakenly, sometimes, we look at marriage as a religious contract.

 It is not a religious contract. It is a civil contract. Whatever the man and the woman agree to in that contract will