The Place of Women in Islam.

The Place of Women in Islam.(Allysa).By Ali Sina.There are two men in Islam that are indisputably the greatest in the annals of this religion. They are Imam al Ghazzali and Jalaleddin Rumi, both Persians. Let us see what they thought of women.Ghazzali is so highly revered amongst the majority of Muslim clerics that he is called Hojjatul Islam,” proof of Islam”. For many, his authority in religious matters is only second to the Prophet. In his The Revival of the Religious Sciences Ghazzali defines the position of women in Islam:

• She should stay at home and get on with her spinning
• She can go out only in emergencies.
• She must not be well-informed nor must she be communicative with her neighbors and only visit them when absolutely necessary.
• She should take care of her husband and respect him in his presence and his absence and seek to satisfy him in everything.
• She must not leave her house without his permission and if given his permission she must leave secretly.
• She should put on old clothes and take deserted streets and alleys, avoid markets, and make sure that a stranger does not hear her voice, her footsteps, smell her or recognize her.
• She must not speak to a friend of her husband even in need.
• Her sole worry should be her “al bud” (reproductive organs) her home as well as her prayers and her fast.
• If a friend of her husband calls when her husband is absent she must not open the door nor reply to him in order to safeguard her “al bud”.
• She should accept what her husband gives her as sufficient sexual needs at any moment.
• She should be clean and ready to satisfy her husband’s sexual needs at any moment.

The great theologian then warns all men to be careful of women for their “guile is immense and their mischief is noxious; they are immoral and mean spirited“.
Ghazzali states “It is a fact that all the trials, misfortunes and woes which befall men come from women“.
In his Book of Counsel for Kings, Ghazzali sums up things that a woman has to endure because of Eve’s misbehavior in the Garden of Eden:

“When Eve ate fruit which He had forbidden to her from the tree in Paradise, the Lord, be He praised, cursed women with eighteen punishments:

• menstruation;
• childbirth;
• separation from mother and father and marriage to a stranger;
• pregnancy;
• not having control over her own person;
• a lesser share in inheritance; (one half of the male as per the Quran)
• her liability to be divorced and inability to divorce;
• its being lawful for men to have four wives, but for a woman to have only one husband;
• the fact that she must stay secluded in the house;
• the fact that she must keep her head covered inside the house;
• the fact that two women’s testimony has to be set against the testimony of one man;
• the fact that she must not go out of the house unless accompanied by a near relative;
• the fact that men take part in Friday and feast day prayers and funerals while women do not;
• disqualification for ruler ship and judgeship;
• the fact that merit has one thousand components, only one of which is attributable to women, while 999 are attributable to men;
• the fact that if women are profligate they will be given twice as much torment as the rest of the community at the Resurrection Day;
• - the fact that if their husbands die they must observe a waiting period of four months and ten days before remarrying;

“Marriage is a form of slavery” says Ghazzali. “The woman is man’s slave and her duty therefore is absolute obedience to the husband in all that he asks of her person. A woman, who at the moment of death enjoys the full approval of her husband, will find her place in Paradise.”
He also wrote: “If you relax the woman’s leash a tiny bit, she will take you and bolt wildly…. Their deception is awesome and their wickedness is contagious; bad character and feeble mind are their predominant traits …”

What about Jalalleddin Rumi? If Gazzali is great among the clerics, Rumi is the greatest lighthouse for all the Muslims. Rumi was a genius poet. But he was also a Muslim. Let us see what this genius Muslim thinks of women.
He narrates a story of an Arab couple, where the woman, tired of poverty, complains to her husband to get off his butts, do some work and improve their lives.

The husband rebukes her for her covetousness. He engages in a series of logical fallacies verbalizing Rumi’s own views about wealth and worldly possessions. He says wealth and poverty will pass just as floods come and go and what difference does it make whether the flood is clear water or muddy? In this world, he argues, all sorts of animals live in comfort praising their Lord without bothering to go after work. Possession is like a hat, which is only needed by the bald. The wise man is like an eye. He can see better when it is naked and not covered by a veil. Only defects have to be covered. A man of God has no defects to cover. From mosquito to elephant, all creatures are provided by God. And we too must abandon all concerns and rely on God for our sustenance.He then reminds his wife of the Prophet’s saying that there is glory in poverty, and threatens to divorce her.

The wife, realizing that complaints don’t work and frightened of divorce, resorts to tricks. She sheds crocodile tears to fool her husband. Rumi says all tears shed by women are for deceiving men. She apologizes profusely and praises her husband’s kingly detachment. In these verses, the great sage masterfully depicts women as sly, cunning and manipulative creatures who can beguile the wisest of men.Finally, through tears and blandishments she softens her husband’s heart and convinces him to do her bidding, which eventually leads him to become greedy and forget God.

The greatest sage of the Muslim world, the biggest luminary that was ever born in Islam, is saying that men, though wise and strong, can be seduced and bested by women and swayed from the right path, (the path of laziness and poverty that leads to God) and can become her slave, go after worldly pursuits, (i.e., industry, production and wealth) and become deterred from God.Read the full story here.