Let us take it to another step,
what is the aim of humanity? What is the purpose for which human beings
exist on earth, to what ends do they strive? What will occur to them if
they strive to those ends and what will occur to them if they did not strive to
those ends?
Since Islam is a religion which
sees itself as revelation from God and the truth, Muslims would feel that human
beings have a set purpose here on earth; that in everything of God’s creation
there is wisdom. There is nothing of God’s creation that does not have
any wisdom. There is nothing for sport or play and so therefore human
beings have a purpose, and that purpose has been elucidated for them in the
teaching of Islam. They were created to worship God. A verse from
the Quran says that God says that He has not created human beings except to
worship Him. So therefore, the essence of humanity is the same between
male and female, and they also share the same aim and that is to worship
God. And that is the most important issue in the Islamic culture and
civilization.
You know that the Islamic
culture and civilization is rooted in religious belief. American
civilization is rooted in what? In the writings of the founding fathers
of the United
States of America United States
The civilization of Islam - a
civilization which is 1400 years old - is one which is rooted in
religion. For a Muslim the greatest aim is to serve God, to worship God
alone, and that is what the word Muslim means.
Muslim is not a racial
description, it is not an ethnic category, Muslim means one who submits.
Islam means submitting to the will of God - the voluntary submission to God -
so Islam is a religion of submission. Therefore, in the most important
aspect of the Islamic religion, we find that men and women share in the same
aim and are expected to have the same responsibilities, in that men and women
are both required or obligated to testify that there is none worthy of worship
but Allah alone - God alone - and that Muhammad is His Messenger. Men and
women are both obligated to pray five times a day, which is the second pillar
of Islam. They are obligated to fast the month of Ramadan. They are
obligated to make pilgrimage to Makkah. They are obligated to give charity.
They are obligated to have the same beliefs. They are obligated to have
the same type of morality and the same type of code of conduct and behavior.
Men and women share these
essential ingredients of Islamic behavior, which define a Muslim from a non-Muslim.
And this is of extreme importance because it breaks from the tradition of
religions. For instance fifty years before the birth of the prophet
Muhammad, may the mercy and blessings of God be upon him, who was born around
560 CE, we find that there was a gathering of bishops in France to discuss
whether women possessed souls or not, and that, if they do possess souls, what
would be their purpose on earth? Was it to worship God? And if they
worshipped God, would they go to paradise? In the end it was decided
that, yes, women do possess souls - which was a break from previous tradition -
but that their purpose was not just to worship God, but also to serve men.
In Islam, however, the basis of
submission is not that women are submitting to men, but that men and women
together submit to God. So therefore, when you read the passages of the
Quran, it becomes very clear that the obedient from among both the believing
men and women receive paradise, which is the greatest aim and objective in a
Muslim’s life, and the basis of that civilization. Likewise, those who
are disobedient and who are renegades, and who do not want to worship God also
receive the same punishment whether they are male or female. This is why
throughout the Quran you find the wording addressed to both males and
females. The Arabic language like French has two types of verbs, one
representing the feminine and one the masculine. So in the Quran you’ll
find both categories of the human race, both sexes, being addressed. This
you find over and over and over. There is no need to now recite all these
passages, but they are there if anyone wants to know.
In summary we found three
bases: that they share the same humanity, that they have the same aim on this
earth, and also, they expect the same reward, which is the goal which they are
working for collectively as human beings. And this is a break as I said
from the previous religious traditions and also political and social
understanding prevalent among the philosophers before the coming of Islam.
And as a result of that, we find that Islam accorded women rights which perhaps
we take for granted now, but were given by God to men and women some 1400 years
ago. These rights like the right to own property, the right to dispose of
property according to their own wishes as long as they follow the laws of the
religion of Islam, which apply the same for men or women and the right to
certain what we would call now political rights, like the right to enter into a
treaty with combatant, are something very recent relatively speaking in the
West.
One of the rights given by
Islam in the time of the prophet Muhammad was that if a woman gives a treaty to
a combatant from a non-Muslim attacking force - her treaty would be considered
as was the case with a female companion of the prophet Muhammad. In the
Christian church these companions would be called disciples for instance, the
disciples of the Prophet Muhammad are the companions as they are called.
They were in the hundreds and thousands not just twelve as with Jesus Christ,
and there are both men and women amongst them. When the prophet Muhammad
came to Mecca, one of the women companions by the name of Umm Hani, who was an
inhabitant of Mecca and a believer in the Prophet Muhammad, accorded certain
relatives of hers protection that they would not be harmed. Her brother
who was one of the main companions of the Prophet Muhammad and married his
daughter, Ali b. Abi Talib, wanted to execute two of these men who were known
for harming the Muslims and fighting against them. So Umm Hani went to
the Prophet Muhammad and complained that she had accorded them protection and
the Prophet recognized her giving protection to those two individuals.
This is what we might call, in
the classification and terminology that we now use, a political right. In
the sense of according protection for another person during the state of war is
something which is relatively new in the West and was a known tradition in the
Islamic world 1400 years ago. Likewise, in terms of what we might call
public participation, there are certain acts of worship which are public acts
of worship in Islam, and there are certain acts of worship which are
private. One of the public acts is the pilgrimage, when men and women all
make pilgrimage, and this is one of the pillars of Islam. Likewise
another public act of worship is the two `Eid prayers which occur twice a year,
once after the pilgrimage and once after the pass of Ramadan. Men and
women both participate in that publicly. Likewise, we have a verse which
shows that the social contract between men and women is the same in
Islam. This verse might be translated as the following:
“And the believing men and women are,”
what we might translate as,
“awliyaa”
- the word in Arabic for
friends or allies or supporters of one another,
“they”
- meaning men and women -
“bid to that which is correct”
i.e. they commend that which is
correct,
“and they forbid that which is evil”
And this is a corrective
process in society, removing evil and commending that which is good. And
then
“they perform the prayer”,
both men and women,
“they pay the alms”,
or the charity to the poor,
“and they obey God and His Messenger.”
(Quran: 9:71)
And then God shows them the
reward and that they are those upon whom God will have mercy and God is
Almighty and All-Wise.