Islam and Women's Rights
13 January 1991

The views recently voiced by the Menteri Besar of Kelantan, Haji Nik Aziz Nik Mat, concerning the position of women in Islam have prompted public debate, especially over their eligibility to serve as leaders of their society. We find those views disturbing and question the assumptions on which they rest. We challenge the grounds of Haji Nik Aziz's assertion that “Islam grants men greater ability to lead than women”. The belief that Islam allows only men to lead is a view that has no basis in either the Qur'an or Hadith. The Qur'an, in fact, extols the leadership of Bilqis, the ruler of Sheba (Al-Nami, 27:23-44).

Her qualities as a good leader were not measured by her capacity to fulfil the requirements of the office, her political skills, her independent judgment and the purity of her faith. The principle here is that those who are capable of providing wise and effective leadership should lead. If a woman is qualified and suited to fulfil a task, there is no Qur'anic injunction that prohibits her from any undertaking because of gender. In the Hadith literature, too, we find several examples of women leaders at the time of the Prophet.

Umm Waraqa bint Naulal was an imam appointed by the Prophet, Umm Salama’s advice was sought by the Prophet following the signing of the Treaty of Hudaybiya, and Al-Shifa’ bint Abdullah, was the chief inspector of the Medina market. These examples clearly show that the ability to lead is not gender restricted. So too, with even greater force does the example of 'Aisyah Siddiqa, the wife of Prophet Muhammad, a woman who led a Muslim army into battle, and who taught multitudes of Muslim men and women from throughout the growing world of Islam.

An arbiter in disputes among the Companions, she functioned like a mufti giving fatwa during the time of the Caliphs Abu Bakr, Umar and Osman, and continued to be a source of reference and inspiration to the next generation of Muslim leaders (Tabi'in). If Haji Nik Aziz's claim that Islam forbids women being leaders is indeed correct it is tantamount to saying that the Prophet; the rightly-guided Caliphs, the other Companions and the Tabi'in all erred in following the advice, teachings and leadership of women. According to Haji Nik Aziz the differences between women and men mean that: men are superior to women not only in physical strength, but also in their ability to make decisions;

- women are therefore better suited to “take care of children, cook, sew and take care of the home”
- women should not go out to work because “their morality will be undermined”; and,
- women are expressedly forbidden to work at night since opportunities for immoral behaviour will be created as men wait outside the factory gates to take them home.

These conclusions are fallacious. To Haji Nik Aziz, biological differences between women and men prove the inferiority of women. To say this is to deny the message of the Qur'an which places no difference in value on the creation of woman and man. The Qur'an states: “And of everything we have created pairs" (Al- Dhariyat, 51:49). In the creation of human beings, the male and the female make up the pair. This means that men and women are equally necessary, as an essential condition of their creation.

Neither one precedes nor does either have priority or superiority over the other. Those biological differences that do exist between them do not mean that women and men are of unequal value. In the sight of Allah, Muslim women and men are equal participants in all aspects of Islamic life. The Surah Al-Hujurat (49:13) states that within the pairs in which human-kind is created, the one to be most honoured is the most righteous, be it man or woman. The Qur'an further describes Muslim women and men as each other’s garments (Al-Baqarah 2:187) and each other's awliyya or protecting friends and guardians (Al-Tawbah 9:71).

Yet Haji Nik Aziz's views deny the equal status of women. Why should women be prevented from participating equally in the economic and social life of the community purely to safeguard the morality of society? Why should this burden be borne solely by women? Something must be wrong with a society and with the socialisation of men if it is believed that the solution to immorality lies in the control, segregation and confining of women.

An approach that is prepared to punish and deprive one half of the population (women) for the wrong that may be committed by the other half (men) is as reprehensible and odious as it is shallow and illogical. Haji Nik Aziz's approach is simply rooted in and exaggerates the necessary social consequences of the biological differences between women and men. Such a view, again has no basis in the Qur'an. In fact, in several verses in the Qur'an Allah specifically addresses both women and men, giving them equal roles and responsibilities in spiritual life and in the Islamic struggle and equal rewards and punishment for their actions.

The equal status of women and men in spiritual matters is not only recognised but insisted upon in the Qur'an; and in a tradition that refuses to separate the eternal from the everyday, how can this not also entail an equality of rights and obligations of women and men in temporal matters? A fundamental problem that continues to plague Muslim society is social oppression and exploitation, especially of women. In addition, Muslim women today are confronted with two contradictory demands: on the one hand, they are expected to participate fully in the country’s expanding social and economic life while, on the other, various forces claiming to represent traditional Islam insistently call upon them to withdraw from the mainstream of society.

Unable to resolve these contradictions faced by contemporary Muslim women, ulama like Haji Nik Aziz can only urge that women should retreat from wider society into the confines of the home, leaving public life to be the exclusive domain of men. Haji Nik Aziz’s approach to remedying the ills of society is most disappointing. Many among us, within the Muslim community and beyond had hoped that a new resurgent Islam would address the challenges and needs of contemporary society in a principled creative and intelligent fashion. Instead, narrow and lacking wisdom, the views of Haji Nik Aziz are unworthy of one of this nation's most noteworthy Islamic thinkers and leaders.

They also disappoint the hopes widely held in Malaysian society that those who see themselves in the vanguard of that resurgence might offer some leadership and vision commensurate with the challenges now confronting us.

Why is it so difficult for many of us to accept the universal truth, wisdom and beauty of the Qur'an that insistently enjoins justice and equality between women and men? If those ideals are to be realised what is needed is nothing less than a social reformation based on an enlightened understanding of Islam.

Sisters In Islam