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| the man-woman relationship |
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| se7en |
| 01/12/03 at 05:26:37 |
| as salaamu alaykum wa rahmatAllah, This is an excerpt from Tariq Ramadan's [url=http://store.yahoo.com/astrolabe/biwc.html]Islam, the West, and the Challenges of Modernity[/url] that I thought was *awesome*. Let me know what you guys think. [color=indigo] The Man - Woman Relationship pp. 251 - 257 Much has been said about the Muslim world's confinement vis-a-vis sexuality and what this covers both at the personal and social levels. On this issue, it has often relied upon considerations relating to the status of women - whose sexuality is seen as being limited to following the way which will make of them mothers - female circumcision and the imposition of the veil and everything that is in keeping with it. This picture does not offer a blooming horizon; for it suggests that if there is any pleasure at all, then it seems to be reserved for men. We do not deny that today's Muslim societies are not models of balance and well-being. Profound, ancestral links with the pre-Islamic tradition or simply local patriarchy does produce discrimination towards women. Their fundamental rights are suppressed, their education limited, the veil is sometimes imposed upon them and their role is circumscribed to the expression of maternity and housewifery. Some theologians rely on a very literalist and restrictive interpretation in order to justify this state of affairs; others balance their criticism, preferring the status quo rather than an evolution of the Western kind. Yet, the question remains: do contemporary Muslim societies present the real face of Islamic teaching on relations between men and women and their respective rights? We have in part already raised the question when we mentioned the important movement of intellectual women who are today calling for a liberation *within* and *by* Islam. These women have gone back to an interpretation of sources and want to achieve that which is, deep down, a re-appropriation of the elements of their culture extracted from traditional inteferences that have nourished alienation. For there exists in Islam, effectively, a profound concept of balance in the relation between a man and a woman which is, in the first instance, nourished by all the dimensions of being: the spirit, body, love, marriage, sexuality, social presence, etc. The West, however, has hurriedly stopped at the "visible" expression of the submission of woman in the Muslim universe: the veil, in the end, did not but confirm what the West already knew. However, the significance of the veil is that whilst it is an Islamic obligation, it is nonetheless one which cannot be coerced upon anyone, for it is not a 'sign' of religious adherence. The West's very reductionist interpretation acts like a screen to an understanding of the Muslim cultural universe. The veil should, however, rather be seen as a concrete expression of a dimension that is more fundamental in the man-woman relationship. The veil at the social level is a manifestation of the spiritual and sacred dimension of being. The gaze that a man must cast down, the hair that a woman must hide, the body both have to protect and preserve, boil down to a Faith that takes its source in decency. It is about expressing, in our social life, that we are not a body, that our worth is not in our forms and that our dignity lies in respect of our being and not in the visibility of our appeals and seductions. Such are the rules Muslim culture teaches in the proximity of the sacred. The Prophet (peace be upon him) reminds of this:[i] "There is certainly, among that which people have understood from the first prophecies (the following message): 'If you do not feel any shame, then do as you please.'" [/i] In contrast to the evolution of a Western-like liberation, this reference to decency is still very much alive in Muslim countries and it has remained a concrete expression of the call to meaning. Does this, however, mean that the exactness of decency kills love and sexuality? Certainly not, but the general concept offered by the Muslim universe gives a peculiar shape to their factuality. Islam has never acted in a way as to amputate from the human being an element of his intimacy or constitution. In Islam there is no idea of culpability in the life of the body or of any celibacy that brings one close to God. Man and woman, in their link with the Creator, are made to love, to love one another and also in order to live their sexuality. The life of the heart and body inserts them in the total harmony of creation: love, sexuality, and pleasure are never detached from the meaning of life. A love without respect to being, a sexuality without love, a pleasure nourished by the sole attraction of desire or pleasure, these are as many expressions to a life that is far off from Islamic culture, and one which testifies a rupture with spirituality and transcendence. The achievement of this balance between love, sexuality and acknowledged pleasure passes, according to the teaching of Islam, through marriage. For man as it is for woman, it is a question of offering the other that which is protected from others. In this sense, any society has it upon itself to give to each of its members the possibility to live the blossoming of their being through marriage. We have reported above the words of the Prophet (peace be upon him) which assimilated the sexual act to the sacrality of a charity when it is conducted within the bounds of a licit marriage. In the profound understanding of this teaching, there are many scholars who have tackled, without vexation, the question of the body and sexuality following the Prophet (peace be upon him) and that of his Companions who conveyed clearly that it was a question of life and there existed indeed on the subject an Islamic art of living. The writings of Ibn Hazm (10th century), Ghazali (eleventh-twelfth centuries), and more clearly Suyuti (fifteenth-sixteenth centuries), to cite but a few, abound with bold analyses and commentaries on love, sexuality, and pleasure. Love and sexual life is hence nourished, oriented and achieved within a more total concept that gives it both meaning and harmony. Before God, and while respecting the limits and balances, it is possible and even recommended to live life fully. The sacred allows life and life gives birth to the sacred, if only life is made to be a remembrance of God and rights. The words of Salman to Abu al-Darda were verified by the Prophet (peace be upon him): [i] "You have duties towards God, you have duties towards your own self as you have duties towards your wife: give to each their due." [/i] On another occasion, the Prophet (peace be upon him) himself said to Amr ibn al-Aas: [i]"Your body certainly has rights on you, your eyes certainly have rights on you, your wife certainly has rights on you and your guest certainly has rights on you." [/i] Holding faith and living love is tantamount to respecting balances and, within the bounds of decency, accepting everything in our constitution. The man-woman relationship partakes of this profound comprehension. Both are equal, absolutely equal before God and they carry, each one in the same way, the responsibility of their being before the Creator. On the familial and social planes, this equality is achieved in complementarity: forming a couple, giving life to a family, offering an education which requires the participation of two beings who do not confuse their equality with resemblance. A man is not a woman, just as fundamentally, profoundly and intimately a father is not a mother. All the teachings of Islam remind us of this right of children upon their parents which is finding in the family a harmony of sensitivities. The notion of complementarity should not, however, justify on the social level, discriminations. There is an equality of fact in work and social participation (from the moment that this choice has been made) which is inalienable. Admittedly, Islam fixes priorities: the familial equilibrium, being present around the children and their education takes precedence over financial considerations and personal professional success. A person should participate in the creation of a sound familial atmosphere, but it remains that the nucleus of the family is created around the mother. This is a priority, but it does not hinder, according to circumstances, the adjustments that Islam acknowledges and accepts. Thus, if a couple makes the choice of the social engagement of the woman, this should be respected: not least with equality of wages to equal qualifications and competencies, trade-union rights, the possibility of promotion, etc. The facts on these points do not suffer from sexist concessions. We can, hence, see how the Islamic teaching stresses the notions of harmony and balance. It is before anything else a total concept which influences all the levels of the man-woman relationship. To extract a domain and then criticize it out of its context is unfair; just as it is unfair to justify, in the name of a virtual ideal, concrete and daily discriminations. Muslim culture is based on decency and a respect for bodies; along with the limits, it conveys finalities and gives an existential sense to love, marriage, sexuality and desire. All these dimensions of human intimacy are part of a total vision of life which is linked to transcendence: they are 'charities' and 'prayers' when they are inscribed within the way. One understands that this universe is of meaning, that this system of values cannot be found in the kind of evolution borrowed from the West. The dislocation of the familial tissue, families that are increasingly broken (single-parent families, the ever-increasing divorce rate), the reign of a sexuality turned toward sole pleasure but which is often empty of meaning and respect, and the sale of bodies. The West, here also, seems to be losing control over its future. At 14 or 15, youth have often seen, known and experienced it all. Everything goes so fast, just as their loves, and then they get bored. The universe often appears to them without limits: everything seems permitted in their eyes because very few adults have taken the responsibility to fix rules. This fact is so widespread that it has become a normal thing just as it seemed normal to whistle at, in an unworthy fashion, Abbot Pierre when he asserted, during a campaign against AIDS, that the 'best prevention is faithfulness'. The West is not reducible to this picture, but it would, however, be hypocritical not to admit that we are living under the reign of new cults of money, sex, and pleasure in general. All the women who, in the course of this century fought a just struggle for the liberation of women and who wanted to achieve recognition of their private and social rights, equality of wages, the right of divorce, etc., would not in general identify with the actual drifts as they have materialized. A great number of people are fighting so as not to confuse the rights of woman with the image of woman that is advertised and whose body has become a trade and market product. Such a liberation is a deception and the Western model certainly carries within it alienations which leave little to be envied, this despite real progress in the matter of rights. Today the superpowers and great commercial societies, in the name of liberalism, are inundating our planet with images and vogues a la Western. Show business stars, models and their private lives are reported in Kuwait, as they are reported in Rio, and Dakar. It is a question of cultural aggression, but the effects of which in terms of identity-based tension and feeling of rejection are not always taken into account. Admittedly, seduction is present, but this gives rise, in concomitance, to a very negative perception and a will of demarcation that sometimes takes violent paces. Such kind of representations from the West cannot but create ruptures between civilizations. And even if there is a share of the caricature, it remains no less true in the eyes of innumerable traditional cultures, especially Islam, that the Western horizon does not seem to propose, in the facts, great projects of meaning, value and hope. So much is said about love, affection and emancipation - to the point even of hiring experts to explain what these mean - that 'one feels in all this,' as Rimbaud says, 'that something is missing.' The Islamic concept of man, love, and sexuality prevents the Muslim world from following the track of this model of Westernisation. Resistance is almost natural: the path of a different modernity is in the course of seeing daylight. [/color] |
| 01/12/03 at 06:10:28 |
| se7en |
| Re: the man-woman relationship |
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| deenb4dunya |
| 01/12/03 at 17:47:49 |
| Very enlightening....Jazaakillaahu Khayran He has a mashallah beautiful way of discussing that which is not often brought up. Deen :-) |
| Re: the man-woman relationship |
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| AyeshaZ |
| 01/13/03 at 00:09:22 |
Asalamu Alykum, JazakaAllah kharyan for the excerpt.... Subhan'Allah I was talking to my sister about marriage, equality , feminism and stuff today and we always talk about the point of how young boys and girls who have illicit relations outside the bound of marriage, when the same couple wants to get married, its frowned upon. how hypocrital?? (Not that I am pro get your kids married when can't even spell their name) but somehow if God is mentioned well there you go its suddenly a taboo. The rights and responsibilties of Marriage is something essential for *to be* married couples and everyone ofcourse to go over and over again. The achievement of this balance between love, sexuality and acknowledged pleasure passes, according to the teaching of Islam, through marriage. wasalamu alykum |
| 01/13/03 at 00:21:27 |
| AyeshaZ |
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