Bism Allah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim; In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful

Introduction: The Definition of Islam

Islam is not a new religion, but the same truth that God revealed through all His prophets to every people. For a fifth of the world's population, Islam is both a religion and a complete way of life. Muslims follow a religion of peace, mercy and forgiveness, and the majority have nothing to do with the extremely grave events which have come to be associated with their faith.

The Arabic word "Islam" simply means "submission, surrender and obedience." As a religion, Islam stands for complete submission and obedience to Allah -and that is why it is called Islam. The other literal meaning of the word Islam is "Peace" and this signifies that one can achieve real peace of body and of mind only through submission and obedience to Allah. Such a life of obedience brings in peace of the heart and establishes real peace in society at large. Mohammedanism is thus a misnomer because it suggests that Muslims worship Muhammad rather than God. "Allah" is the Arabic name for God, which is used by Arab Muslims and Christians Alike.

Al-Qur'an, XIII: 28-29 : "Those who believe and whose hearts find rest in the thought of Allah - indeed it is in the thought of Allah alone that the heart of man really find rest - those who believe and act righteously, joy is for them, and a blissful home to return to."

Muslims believe in One, Unique, Incomparable God; in the Angels created by Him; in the prophets through whom His revelations were brought to mankind; in the Day of Judgement and individual accountability for actions; in God's complete authority over human destiny and in life after death. Muslims believe in a chain prophets starting with Adam and including Noah, Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Job, Moses, Aaron, David, Solomon, Elias, Jonah, John the Baptist, and Jesus, Peace be upon them. But God's final message to man, a reconfirmation of the eternal message and a summing-up of all that has gone before was revealed to the prophet Muhammad through Gabriel.

Who are the Muslims?

One billion people from a vast range of races, nationalities and cultures across the globe - from the southern Philippines to Nigeria are united by their common Islamic faith. About 18% live in the Arab world. The world's largest Muslim community is in Indonesia; substantial parts of Asia, and most of Africa are Muslim, while significant minorities are to be found in the Soviet Union, China, North and South America, and Europe.

Islam may seem exotic or even extreme in the modern world. Perhaps this is because religion does not dominate everyday life in the West today, whereas Muslims have religion always uppermost in their minds, and make no division between secular and sacred. They believe that the Divine Law, the Shari'a, should be taken very seriously, which is why issues related to religion are still important.

Do Islam and Christianity have different origins?

The answer is NO. Together with Judaism, they go back to the prophet and patriarch Abraham, and their three prophets are directly descended from his sons - Muhammad from the eldest, Ishmael, and Moses and Jesus from Isaac. Abraham established the settlement which today is the city of Makkah, and built the Ka'ba towards which all Muslims turn when they pray.

Among the reasons for the rapid and peaceful spread of Islam was the simplicity of its doctrine - Islam calls for faith in only One God worthy or worship. It also repeatedly instructs man to use his powers of intelligence and observation.

Within a few years, great civilizations and universities were flourishing, for according to the Prophet, 'seeking knowledge is an obligation for every Muslims man and woman'. The synthesis of Eastern and Western ideas and of new thought with old, brought about great advances in medicine, mathematics, physics, astronomy, geography, architecture, art, literature, and history. Many crucial systems such as algebra, the Arabic numeral, and also the concept of the zero (vital to the advancement of mathematics), were transmitted to medieval Europe from Islam. Sophisticated instruments which were to make possible the European voyages of discovery were developed, including the astrolabe, the quadrant and good navigational maps.

Many other questions that usually come up about Islam are does Islam tolerate other beliefs? What do Muslims think about Jesus? What does Islam say about war? What about Muslim women? How does Islam guarantee human rights? And some more other questions that are still being asked over and over again these days.

Islam tolerates other beliefs, it is one function of Islamic law to protect the privileged status of minorities, and this is why non-Muslim places of worship have flourished all over the Islamic world. History provides many examples of Muslim tolerance towards other faiths; when caliph Omar entered Jerusalem in the year 634, Islam granted freedom of worship to all religious communities in the city. Islamic law also permits non-Muslim minorities to set up their own courts, which implement family laws drawn up by the minorities themselves.

Muslims respect and revere Jesus and await his Second Coming. They consider him one of the greatest of God's messengers to mankind. A Muslim never refers to him simply as "Jesus" but always adds the phrase "upon him be peace". The Qur'an confirms his virgin birth (a chapter of the Qur'an is entitled "Mary"), and Mary is considered the purest woman in all creation. The Qur'an describes the Annunciation as follows:

"Behold!" the Angel said, "God has chosen you, and purified you, and chosen you above the women of all nations. O Mary, God gives you good news of a word from Him, whose name shall be the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, honored in this world and the Hereafter, and one of those brought near to God. He shall speak to the people from his cradle and in maturity, and shall be of the righteous."

She said: "O my Lord! How shall I have a son when no man has touched me?" He said: "Even so; God creates what He will. When he decrees a thing. He says to it, "Be!" and it is.
(Qur'an, 3:42 - 7)

What does Islam say about war?

Like Christianity, Islam permits fighting in self-defense, in defense of religion, or on the part of those who have been expelled forcibly from their homes. It lays down strict rules of combat which include prohibitions against harming civilians and against destroying crops, trees, and livestock. As Muslims see it, injustice would be triumphant in the world if good men were not prepared to risk their lives in a righteous cause. The Qur'an says:

"Fight in the cause of God against those who fight you, but do not transgress limits. God does not love transgressors." (Qur'an, 2:190)

"If they seek peace, then seek you peace. And trust in god for He is the One that heareth and knoweth all things." (Qur'an, 8:61)

War, therefore, is the last resort, and is subject to the rigorous conditions laid down by the sacred law. The term Jihad literally means 'struggle', and Muslims believe that there are two kinds of Jihad. The other jihad is the inner struggle, which everyone wages against egotistic desires, for the sake of attaining inner peace.

Islam and Woman

Islam sees a woman, whether single or married, as an individual in her own right, with the right to own and dispose of her property and earnings. The role of women in Islam has been misunderstood in the West because of general ignorance of the Islamic system and way of life as a whole, and because of the distortions of the media. The East today is simmering with a fit of anger over the rights of woman and a demand in her behalf for a perfect equality with men. The most worth mentioning among the feverous champions of women's rights are those men and women who in the name of Islam rave most foolishly, some mischievously alleging that Islam has in all respects maintained a perfect equality between the sexes, while others, thanks to their ignorance of Islam or a negligence thereof, claim that Islam is an enemy of woman, for it degrades her and lowers her status holding her intellectually deficient and assigning her a position very much similar to that of animals. She is reduced to no more than a mere means of sensual gratification for man and a machine for the propagation of the human species; which is sufficient to show how obedient to man she is in the sight of Islam with the result that man dominates her and enjoys an all-round superiority over her.

As a fundamental principle of its system, Islam holds that woman is a human being; and she has a soul similar to that of men:

"O People! Be careful of (your duty to) your Lord, who created you from a single being and created its mate of the same kind and spread from these two many men and women"
(Qur'an, 4:I)

Therefore, men and women were quite equal to each other in their origin, their abode as well as in their place of return and were as such entitled to similar and equal rights. Islam gave her the right to life, to honour, and to property like men. She was a respectable being and it was not permissible for any one to find fault with her or backbite her. No one was also to spy on her or hold her in contempt due to her functions as a woman. These were the rights that both men and women enjoyed, there being no differentiation against either of them. The law laid down about these applied to men and women alike;

"O you who believe! Let not some men among you laugh at others: it may be that the latter are better than the former: nor let some women laugh at others, it may be that the latter are better than the formere: nor defame nor be sarcastic to each other, nor call each other by offensive nicknames." (Qur'an, 49:11).

"……and spy not on each other, nor speak ill of each othe rbehind their backs."
(Qur'an, 49:11).

"O you who believe! Do not enter houses other than your own houses until you have asked permission and saluted their inmates." (Qur'an, 24:27)

The Holy Prophet Muhammad said: "It is forbidden for a Muslim to take the life, honour and property of another Muslim". (Bukhari and Muslim).

Islam and Woman's Rights

Men and women are also equal in their rights to realize their material needs in the world including similar rights to hold property, and dispose of it as they should wish. They are free to mortgage it, to give it in lease, or donate it, sell or buy it or exploit it for his or her own benefit:

"Men shall have a share in what their parents and kinsmen leave; and women shall have a share in what their parents and kinsmen leave; whether it be little or much, they shall be legally entitled to a share." (Qur'an, 4:7)

We must pause here awhile to take a note of two important points concerning woman's right to hold property and use or exploit it at will. The legal systems of the "civilized" Europe till very recently did not give any of these rights to woman. She could exercise these rights only indirectly through a man, her husband, father or guardian. This means in other words that even after Islam had granted woman these rights, the women in Europe was deprived of them for more than eleven hundred years. And when she at last secured them she did not do so easily, nor could she during this hard struggle for her rights keep intact her innate character, honour and nobleness of person. She had rather to forego all of these virtues besides experiencing a gruesome chain of hard work, murders, privations and miseries in order to obtain what was no more than a mere portion of what Islam had already granted to women folk, not due to the pressure of some economic circumstances, or as a result of the inter-class conflict going on in the world. It was rather initiated by its desire to implement truth and justice, the two most cardinal facts of human life - in practice rather than in the world of dreams.

In the second place, we must also take note of the fact that communism in particular and the West in general holds that human life is synonymous to man's economic existence. Therefore, they say that so long as woman didn't hold any right to ownership or exploit freely what she possessed she had no independent existence at all and that she attained a human status only after she came to have an independent economic existence, that is when she at last came to possess the right to hold property directly and not through man was free to use or enjoy it, as she thought fit.

Even though the fact that we don't agree to such a narrow view of human life and its degradation to a pure economic existence we do however agree in principle with these people - the communists and the western thinkers - that a sound economic standing does affect human feelings and the growth of self consciousness in human beings. Islam occupies a unique position in that it recognized an independent economic of woman and gave her the right to own, use and enjoy it in her own right without any intermediary trustee or mediator. Not only this but in the most important problem of her life i.e. marriage, as well her independent status was established. She could not be given in marriage without her agreement; no marriage was valid unless she agreed to it. The Holy Prophet says:

"No widow should be married without consulting her; and no virgin be married without her agreement, and her agreement is her silence." (Bukhari and Muslim)

Even after the marriage ceremony if she declared that she did not agree to it, the marriage is dissolved.

Before Islam woman had to adopt a round about and crooked course to free herself of her husband who held her in a state of perfect subservience, for neither the law of the land nor the common law gave her the right to leave her husband by securing a separation. Islam gave her this right in clear and unequivocal terms which she could exercise whenever she had a mind to. Not content with this, Islam even went a step further giving her the right to propose her marriage to any man she liked to marry. The European woman obtained this right only in the eighteenth century and still it was hailed there as a very great victory for woman against the centuries old traditions of the past.

Islam and Woman's Education

Again it was Islam that at a period when the entire world was lost in ignorance and darkness stressed the importance of knowledge for mankind, not as a special privilege of a particular class but as an essential and unavoidable need for each and every man. Islam made it obligatory upon Muslims, man or woman, to acquire knowledge as a necessary condition to their being true believers in God and Islam. It also goes to the credit of Islam that it was the first religion that acknowledging a separate and independent human status of woman impressed upon her that she could not achieve perfection without knowledge.

Acquisition of knowledge was as great a duty of woman as of man, for Islam wanted the women-folk to develop their rational faculties along with their physical ones and therefore rise to higher planes of spiritual existence, while on the other hand Europe didn't even recognize any such right for woman till very recently and did in the end grant it to her only when compelled by the pressure of economic circumstances.

What we have said above is sufficient to confute the allegation that Islam accords woman only a secondary status or that she is treated as subservient to ma or that her role in life is in the eyes of Islam, of no importance at all. For if it had been so, Islam would not have attached so great importance to the acquisition of knowledge for woman. That it did so goes to prove that Islam acknowledges an honourable and noble status for woman in life - in the eyes of God as well as society.

How are man and woman different in front of Islam?

But after acknowledging a perfectly equal status as human beings for both men and women, and treating them as equals; entitled to equal rights, Islam does however differentiate between man and woman with regard to their special functions in life, a step that has given rise to a great hue and cry by some women organizations supported by certain writers, "reformers" and young men.

Before we consider the points on which Islam differentiates between the sexes, let us first tackle the basic problem from physiological, biological and psychological standpoints. After that we will take up the Islamic viewpoint.

Do men and women belong in one and the same sex or are they two distinct sexes? Have they got similar functions in life or are their functions separate and distinct as man and woman? This is in fact the problematic point; the root of the problem. If the women conferences, their supporters, the writers, the reformers and the young men mean to say that there is no difference whatsoever in the physical and intuitional equipment of man and woman as well as in their biological of man and woman as well as in their biological functions in life, then we have nothing to say to them. But if they acknowledge that a difference does exist between man and woman and their respective functions, we may yet fruitfully discuss the problem together.

The fundamental difference in the functions and objectives of man and woman we find that they have so come to differ from each other in characters as well as in structure that each is equipped with what it can suitably accomplish its respective primary functions.

We always hear nowadays, all this empty talk about an absolute equality between and woman. And how can it come true. The demand for equality between man and woman as human beings is a natural and reasonable demand. Man and woman are two equally important component parts of a whole humanity, proceeding from the one and the same progenitor (biologically related ancestor). But so far as the demand for treating them as equals in their functions in life and the modes of their actual performance is concerned, can that ever be possible? That is simply impossible even if all women around the world should wish it, hold conferences and pass resolutions to that effect. These conferences and their resolutions cannot alter the innate characters of men and women, nor can they in any way transform their functions making me share those of women in conception, birth and suckling and vice versa.

Man, on the other hand, has to engage in the struggle of life going on in the outside world. Man doesn't need passionate emotional nature for the performance of his functions in life. Emotions prove harmful rather than helpful in pursuance of his duties, for they are characterized with inconsistency that causes them change rapidly and into mutually quite contradictory states of mind. They are unable to pursue a course of action for long. The objects attracting them ever change. Such an ever-changing emotional character is suitable for motherhood that has got to deal with mutually opposed and changing situations. But they are not helpful for man whose work demands of him constancy and steadfastness for long periods of time. Rather it is his intellectual character that proves helpful to him in a practical life where he has to challenge against so many adverse forces. He has therefore more efficiency in planning, in carefully revising the situation and taking note of all the possible consequences of his scheme before actually translating it into action. The intellect moves slowly but steadily, for quickness and rapidity of action are not expected of it as against the passionate emotions that led colour to the whole existence of woman. What is however expected of intellect is that it should show a most proper way to achieve its end be it the hunting of a beast, inventing of an instrument, laying down the foundations of a new system of economy, setting up a new form of government, kindling a war, or making peace. All these activities of man depend upon his intellectual ability. Emotions creeping in cannot but spoil them.

This does not however mean that man and woman are fundamentally and irreconcilably different from each other. Nor does it imply that all the members of a sex lack all the potentialities necessary for the functions which the members of the opposite sex alone by nature are fit to perform.

The two sexes are thus found mixed up, as if it were, in a medley. If you find a woman who is capable of ruling, dispensing justice, lifting heavy burdens and fighting in wars and if you come across a man who can cook, do household chores or has got very tender motherly feelings for children or is very fickle emotionally and is visited by shifting moods, then you must remember that it is all natural. There is nothing unnatural about it. It is the logical result of the fact that each sex has in itself the germ of both sexes. But this doesn't at all prove what these misguided westerners and the discordant easterners would have us believe. The real problem stated briefly rather is: can all these extra-functions that a woman is called upon to perform substitute for her real and natural function? Does she in the presence of these no longer feel the desire for a home, children and a family? Above all does she no longer feel the need for a male partner for the gratification of her sex instinct?

Finally, let us take up two outstanding situations in which Islam differentiates between man and woman: the distribution on in heritance; and the headship of the family. Both subjects will be discussed further in another article because it will take a lot of pages and we don't want to bore you who have read until this paragraph. We will also discuss woman's right toward ill treatment of man before Islam.

Islam puts woman in a very high and noble position and regard so much that "When a man enquired of the Holy Prophet Muhammad: "Who has the first claim to may good treatment? The Prophet said "Your mother." The man said "and then who? The Prophet said: "Then your mother." The man asked "And then?" again the Prophet replied: "Then your mother!" The man once again asked "And then?" The prophet said: "Then your father!" (Muslim and Bukhari)

Conclusion

What then is all the uproar about equality today about? Is there any right or facility that Islam has not already given her so that woman still feel constrained to launched a campaign to win them through means such as suffrage and representation in parliament? Let us see:

· She demands an equal human status. But Islam has already given this to her in theory as well as in practice before law.
· She wants economic independence and the right to participate in social life directly. Well, Islam was the first religion that gave her the right.
· She wants the right to education? Islam not only recognizes it but makes the acquisition of it obligatory on her as well.
· Does she want the right not to be given the marriage without her permission? Islam has given her this right as well as the right to arrange her own marriage.
· Does she demand that she should be treated kindly and fairly while performing her functions within the house? And that she should have the right to ask for a separation from her husband if he should fail to treat her in a just and fair manner? Islam does give her all these rights and makes it incumbent upon men to safeguard them.
· Also does she want the right to go and work outside? Islam recognizes this right of hers too.

And if woman in Islamic countries is generally going backward with neither respect nor any grace. She lives a life similar to that of animals; her whole existence is but another name for mean earthly desires; she suffers privations more than she ever tastes of happiness; she is made to surrender more than she is given; and seldom rises above the level of purely impulsive existence.

Who is responsible for this state of affairs? Does Islam or its teachings have anything to do with it? We will bring the problems up in another article too. So, keep log in to www.infonature.org, the only informative and educative website that will tell you the truth without badmouthing one side to another.

CREDITS/SOURCES:
By Renee Guay (Volunteer of InfoNature.Org)