A Scientific Interpretation of Human Status in the Qur'an
By
Abdulsalam Ajetunmobi
In the assignment of rights and duties to human being, Islam regards a man to be
a male human being, and a woman as a female human being. They are both human
beings, both gifted with reason and conscience; both responsible for their
actions, both entitled to the freedom essential to their duties and
responsibilities in the society, and are both capable of the noblest thoughts
and deeds. As human beings they are on equality as to their powers, the
differences in individuals resulting from surroundings and circumstances of
birth and spiritual growth.
However, from the point of view of reason, coherence and logicality, one may
need to go beyond the conceptualisations of the above anecdotes by further
ascertaining whether the interpretation of the Islamic rulings on human rights
is compatible with the biological constitutions of male and female human beings.
As a foundational question to this effort, can our knowledge of science provide
an authentic voice for the epistemological interpretations of man-woman
relationships in Islamic juridical texts? Or, to put it in another way, what is
the validity of the critics' claim that Islamic law advocates the position in
which a woman is somehow legally silenced, morally separated and religiously
veiled? Where violations of women's rights are perceived by the public, who
should be held responsible - Islam or male bias? In an attempt at addressing
these questions, I would shortly be popularising here some scientific findings
that are linked to religious epistemology in respect of male-female relations.
Now, the Articles that make up the Declaration of Human Rights, as adopted by
the Convention for the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women
(CEDAW), a human right body describes discrimination against women as "any
distinction, exclusion, or restriction made on the basis of sex which has the
effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment, or
exercise by women, irrespective of their marital status, as a basis of equality
with men and women, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in political,
economic, social, cultural, civil or any other fields." But prior to this
Declaration, Islam has emancipated women and has given the World the basic
prescriptions for the respect and value of all human beings irrespective of
class, colour or creed. These instructions as contained in the Holy Qur'an
remain as relevant today as they were at the time that the Book was revealed.
Perhaps I should also point out that though I do not lay claim to be a qualified
jurisprudent (mujtahid) of Islamic legal discourse, but research indicates that
of the four basic components that constitute the Islamic legal studies namely,
(a) the usul: fundamental sources that provide paradigm cases and the
general principles that are behind them; (b) the furu`: present instances
for which legal decisions are being sought in the light of paradigm cases
provided in the fundamental sources; (c) the mawdu`at:
"objects" or "situations" that determine the status of
present instances and the ordinances that could be based on them to decide
whether it is an obligatory act, a recommended act, or an act permitted at
discretion, and so on and (d) the ahkam: ordinances that specify the
religious practice, only the matters of religious ordinances (i.e.) requires
following a juridical authority.
The presumption is that a proficient individual could undertake issues relating
to the first three components (i.e. a, b and c above) on his own provided that
the determination of the state or contextual situation of these components is a
rational process and is opened to all who possess sound reasoning. Nonetheless,
since the present research effort will be based on scientific observations
rather than religious ordinances, I have no qualms about expressing my views.
To begin with, in science, every human being starts life by the intermingling of
two single-celled beings; one of them is produced by a mother and remains quiet,
waiting to be found; the other, produced by the father, is in every way fitted
to move and finds its mate. As far as sex is concerned, the whole rest of the
human body is nothing but a complicated arrangement to assure these single cells
meeting and to nourish them when they have met. So from the early stage in life,
there is an equal share in the fact of conception, though one cell (of male)
goes out courting and the other (of female) waited to be courted.
Further, the sex organs, testis in the male, ovary in the female, each produce
two quite different products: one is the purely sexual product, sperm- and
egg-cell respectively, the other is a secretion which is poured into the
blood-stream and carried into every part of the body, and has different effects
according as it comes from a testis or an ovary. This secretion influences all
the cells in the body and induces them to develop into male or female
characteristics such as shapes, sizes, colours, functions, as the case may be.
Thus a man is a human individual who produces sperm-cells and who is influenced
throughout his physical being by a secretion which induces all the cells of his
body to become suitable servants to those sperm-cells: a woman is a human being
who produces egg-cells and who is influenced throughout her physical being by a
secretion which induces all the cells of her body to become suitable servants to
those egg-cells.
More medical evidence however indicates that there are about five criteria for
assessing the sexual condition of an individual. These are (i) Chromosomal (ii)
Gonadal (i.e. presence or absence of testes or ovaries) (iii) Genital (including
internal sex organs) (iv) Psychological and (v) Hormonal factors (or secondary
sexual characteristics (such as distribution of hair, breast development,
physique etc which are thought to reflect the balance between the male and
female sex hormones in the body). These five criteria would, for the moment, be
referred to as primary sexual differences.
So a person with male chromosomes (XY), male gonads (testes), male sex organ
(external genitalia), psychologically capable of performing the essential roles
typical of male being and with male sexual characteristics is a man. Similarly,
a person with female chromosomes (XX), female gonads (ovaries), female sex organ
(reduced genitalia), psychologically capable of performing the roles of a female
being and with female sexual characteristic is a woman. It is worth noting
however that in some cases these factors may not be congruent in an individual,
male or female. For example, there may be cases of developmental abnormalities
where these criteria are at variance with each other or there may be a
deliberate operative intervention as in transsexuals. However our focus, for the
purpose of this write-up is on is the idea that the biological sexual
constitution of an individual is fixed at birth (at the latest) and that this
cannot be changed, either by the natural development of organs of the opposite
sex, or by medical means. The idea of transsexualism or transvestism has no
impact on the subject matter because the operative intervention by transsexuals
does not change the true sex from birth. And since the law knows only two sexes,
male and female, every individual must be assigned to one or the other sex. We
must therefore have regard to only the essentially heterosexual character of the
man-woman relationship which is called marriage.
On the aspects of secondary sexual differences between man and woman - that is,
the bodily difference of height, weight, muscular development, shape, blood
pressure, temperature, and so forth - these differences are not altogether due
to different social habits, as some women activists would like us to believe,
but also to deep-rooted biological causes arising out of the very nature of male
and female. Indeed, we can see evidence of this fact, which would help us to
realize its importance in birds: not only do the feathers of birds change when a
scientific experiment upsets the chemical balance of the ductless glands, but in
normal life, changes in the sexual organs produce changes elsewhere in the body.
As for human, when a woman conceives, changes take place in her breasts to
prepare them for their use in due course; when she gives birth to the child, the
breasts at once begin to flow with milk. So a change in one part of the body has
produced the most elaborate changes in other remote parts of the body.
So from above, the whole body is controlled by sex; that a man is not a neuter
being with some male sex-cells added, and a woman is not a neuter being with
some female sex-cells added, but that a man is masculine and a woman feminine to
their finger-tips. In addition, the cause and the effect of sex is not confined
to the sexual organs, but is distributed throughout the body; it not merely the
secretion of the ovaries which gives a woman a womanly body, but that secretion
mixed with several other secretions coming from a group of little organs called
the ductless glands. These glands together pour into the blood-stream, a special
mixture, a mass of chemicals, which varies in every individual. It is the sum
total of all these chemicals which determines the sexual make-up of the body;
the most important of them, the ones which actually make a person male or
female, are the ones from the sexual organs, but the others are able to modify
their effect and to reduce the maleness or the femaleness to less than a 100 per
cent. So, if a man and a woman are given the same life and the same habits, they
will still differ widely in the use they make of that habit and the value they
put on its various details, because of their innate chemical differences.
Viewing from above, it is not surprising to note therefore why Islam has always
emphasised that one sex can never replace the other in its assignment in the
micro society called family as well as the larger society of the human race. The
rights and duties of each sex are therefore tailored towards each sex fulfilling
its own essence in life. Men and women's common origin qualifies them both for
common human rights. Their peculiarities determine their peculiar duties and the
corresponding rights. As they both have in common the human rights, men must
have rights, which are peculiar to their nature in addition to role in the
society and so do women rights corresponding to their nature in the society.
In buttress my points further, let us consider body metabolism, The way in which
a living thing lives is summed up in the term metabolism; metabolism is,
briefly, the taking in by living matter of outside material, and the changing of
it into energy. Every single cell in the body is engaged in this task almost
unceasingly: chemical substances are absorbed and changed into useful energy,
and the waste products are thrown out of the system along special channels. The
rate of metabolism can be measured in various ways, and such things as the
heart-beat, respiration, and temperature are all gauges of how the process is
being carried on; from them it is found that there are constant sex distinctions
in metabolism.
The sex difference in metabolism is summed up by fact that the female stores up
energy longer than the male - that is, the period between taking in the outside
matter and giving out the energy produced from it is longer - and hence women
tend to store fat rather than muscle. Muscle is always the result largely of use
and action; a man who exercises his arms, for instance, will be more muscular
than another. Here it is evident that apart from the effects of work and
education that are brought to bear on a man and a woman, there is a sex
difference due to different rates of metabolism. Clearly then, no amount of
gymnastics will therefore make women on an average as muscular as men.
On that state of facts, there is a more important result of sex difference in
metabolism. For example, one of the functions of the human body is to extract
from its food calcium salts with which to build up tissues; and to allow the
unused residue to pass out of the body. During childhood in both sexes these
salts are extracted and used to make bone; at puberty they begin to be needed
for the reproduction system; and since puberty begins at an earlier age with
girls, girls have less calcium to use for making bones than boys, and are
lighter in consequence. But women need far more calcium than men, and especially
when they are pregnant, for they need a great deal to build up the skeleton of
the unborn child. And again, when the child is born, the calcium is used to help
the breasts produce milk.
Two interesting results follow these facts: first, women need to have more
calcium salts than men; second, they sometimes require far more calcium than at
other times. The latter result brings about a periodical unevenness in a woman's
metabolism: she is sometimes producing more calcium and at other times less. The
extra calcium, which cannot normally be used by a woman, is passed out of her
body every month (during menstruation); thus she is forced by her nature to be
less steady, more changeable than man.
With respect to the above enumerated biological facts that are naturally being
brought to bear on the outlook of the two sexes (i.e. male and female), albeit
in different versions, Islam, since its implantation in the world by the
Almighty God, has maintained that women are entitled to certain privileges,
exemptions and a degree of additional care, which stem from their natural
functions and spheres of activities. In Islam, the rights of women, children,
and other dependents were protected against the male head of the family, who, on
the average, was stronger than a woman and more independent, since he is free of
pregnancy and immediate care of children. The marital rules, according to the
religion, encourage individual responsibility by strengthening the nuclear
family while the law at the same time also protects male prerogative on the
grounds that men were required to support the household; whereas women were
protected primarily by their families. The equality of women in the
Islamic law has carried with it an important financial independence. Muslim
women could own property which could not be touched by any male relative,
including her husband who is required to support her from his own funds. Also,
women have a personal status which might allow them to begin their own business.
It is pertinent to mention however that there is almost a fortiori
argument derived from the Qur'an 2:283 and fortified by some traditions which is
sometimes used by some people to support the implied inherent inequality of
sexes. But taking full account of the concerns and conditions peculiar to female
life, it is not difficult for one to discern the underlying concern for justice
being a factor in that passage especially when one takes into account stringent
requirements to establish evidence for accusation against anyone in Islamic
society. And on a close appraisal of the verse one can only find how
inappropriate and inaccurate to evoke the passage with a view to communicating
the inferiority of a woman's evidence as compared to man's, in paradigm cases.
In fact, the Islamic teaching of segregation is also understood not in the
context of any male superiority but something designed by God to establish the
sanctity of the home; to create greater trust between man and wife; bring
temperance to basic human urges; and, to harness and discipline them so that,
instead of being released as powerful demons in the society, they play a
constructive role just as harnessed forces play a role in nature. Segregation in
Islam is not about an imposition of restriction on female members of the Muslim
society from fully participating in all spheres of human activities. It is a
measure to protect the sanctity of female chastity and the honour of women in
society so that the dangers of violating these objectives are minimised.
Also, there is a total equality and there is no difference whatsoever between
the fundamental human rights of women and men (2:229). And in terms of men
having a degree of advantage over women, it is deduced, that "the verse
only refers to an advantage that the breadwinner has over his dependents. As
such, the guardian is better qualified to exert moral pressure on the wards to
continue to remain on the right path. And as far as basic human rights are
concerned, it does not in any way refer to women being unequal or to men's
superiority over women.
A small digression: While I was writing this article, my attention was drawn to
an editorial comment in last Sunday Guardian newspaper (08/09/02) entitled
"Pregnancy, NYSC and The Bank" where the paper's famous commentator
and columnist, Dr. Reuben Abati highlighted the disillusionment of Nigerian
working class women who have sought to combine family constraints with work. He
specifically cited a government agency (NYSC) and some corporate institutions
(The Banks) as responsible for this disenchantment. Analysing his view, he
explained that the NYSC's announcement a fortnight ago banning married women
from participating in national service could only be interpreted to mean
"gender discrimination more than anything else." To him, this measure
was "another expression of the kind of widespread de-centring of the
Nigerian female that further reinforces the phallocentric (a symbol of male
superiority or dominance), patriarchal assumptions that dictate male-female
relations in the Nigerian society."
And remarking further, he maintained that "Many of our banks are closet
family agencies. They ask female staff to sign undertakings not to get pregnant,
for a period of time. They tie promotion at work to the number of times a female
staff has been pregnant. They speak of productivity. But they do not talk about
the labour rights of the affected staff. The people who impose these rules
ironically also have wives at home. They have children too. But they don't want
their female staff getting pregnant and asking for maternity leave. Some banks
have cancelled early closing for nursing mothers. In certain places, you have to
notify the bank if you want to get pregnant, and a silly supervising official
reserves the pleasure to approve or not. Work is an attractive value in society.
But in the name of work and its rewards, certain institutions in society are
being destroyed."
Returning to the subject matter, it would appear from the remarks made by Dr.
Abati above that our socio-economic system is oblivious of the sexual
differences between men and women. But apart from this, the correct meaning of
equality of rights for men and women, to me, has not been fully comprehended by
many. The word equality means parity, it does not connote identicalness.
Identicalness means selfsameness or exactly the same. Take for instance the case
of a wealthy man who wants to bequeath his properties to, say his four children.
For him to be just and equitable to these children, he must allocate the
property on the basis of individual talents so that a person with a talent for
say estate management is not allocated something that would be at variance with
what his is talented in. In effect, identicalness of rights, ipso facto, becomes
irrelevant in a situation where, biologically, male and female are built
differently. No surprising then that Islam acknowledges equality of rights as
opposed to identicalness of rights. Accordingly, it proposes correspondingly
different roles for men and women because of constitutional differences between
the two sexes. Is it not true that only women can give birth to children? Is it
not they alone who can go through more than nine months of nourishing the seed
of human generation for the future?
It is the women who can look after babes, at least during the early period of
infancy and childhood, as no man ever could. And because of the long and
extremely intimate blood relationships with their offspring, it is the women who
have far more powerful psychological bonding with the children. Therefore, a
woman must be kept free, as far as possible, from the responsibility of earning
bread for the family. In principle, that responsibility must fall on the
shoulders of men. But, there is no reason why women should be debarred from
playing their part in turning the wheel of economy provided that they find
themselves free to do so i.e. without neglecting their prime responsibility of
human reproduction, family care and concomitant involvements. This is exactly
what Islam proposes as evident from the scientific analysis above. And, if
social and economic systems we now adopt ignore this constitutional difference
between man and woman and the corresponding difference in the role of the two
sexes in society, then such a socio-economic system is bound to fail to produce
a state of healthy equilibrium.
Nevertheless, human beings choose their path - allegiance or opposition - and it
is sufficient punishment for those who oppose that they draw further and further
away from the light of truth. Islam has taught that the faculty of discretion is
granted to man by God with a specific purpose - to decide whether he should
allow himself to follow his instinctive desires like animals, or whether he
should refrain from following a course of action in certain situations. For
instance, a lion's natural instinct will tell it to go and kill an animal for
the satisfaction of his hunger but the ability to determine that the animal
should be killed in the least painful manner is beyond its creative limitations.
However man has been given the option to follow his instinctive desires or to
refuse to act according to their dictates. And as the food habits in the animal
kingdom are specifically programmed and individual's variation of taste and
value play little role in their overall behaviour, man has a wide of options and
choices in the field of eating habits.
In ending this piece, I like to make one other observation. The picture I have
painted of human status in this article, though relying on the perspectives of
Islam, is not the total picture we often see outside. History of women
throughout the ages has been made painful by one set of errors largely through
male bias. But, as far as the legal-ethical sources of Islam are concerned, the
religion plays no part in the perpetuation of these errors. They are culture
rather than religious. But this may not necessarily be the case in another
religion. However, as Islam is certainly not on notice, a question could still
be generated: Should Islam, as a belief system, be defined and judged by its
practitioners or should its practitioners be defined and judged by a normative
standard provided by the revelational sources on which the religious belief
system is constructed?" We need not belabour ourselves for an answer; it is
obviously contained in this presentation. However progress must be made in some
areas. There must be a constant review of the progress in the personal status of
Muslim women in the Muslim world. And for any meaningful progress in the
inter-human relationships, the status of a Muslim woman in modern society must
now be redefined. But this redefinition must be dependent upon Muslim women's
participation in the legal-ethical deliberations concerning matters whose
situational aspects can be determined only by women themselves. Without women
participation in legal-ethical deliberations, women' rights will always be
conducted by medieval-minded Ulemas (doctors of religion) who would rather treat
the subject as absent.
And as a concluding remark, it is evident that biological factors play a
prominent and dominant role in explaining the circumstances of our human
thoughts and behaviours. But our refusal to acknowledge our human nature can
only distort our public discourse and our day-to-day lives. The dogma that human
nature does not exit is having a corrupting influence on the society. Human
nature clearly exits - at least from the scientific evidence enumerated above.
The denial of human nature exercising its influence as between men and women is
just not corrupting world opinions and intellectualism, but is also doing harm
to the lives of many people. But as I said earlier, human being chooses his own
path. Every individual will be punished or rewarded depending on the path one
has chosen. It is vital to note however that an award is merited only when there
is an option of choice. When there is no option, the question of award does not
come up. And, where there are options there arises the need for legislating a
code of conduct in the areas of rights, obligations, proprieties, improprieties.
Therefore to make the right choice man stands in need of guidance from God his
Creator.
Certainly, it is not when a woman begins to covet the duties and
responsibilities of a man, or when a man decides to usurp a female' rights and
obligations in the society that the status of a woman or a man can be
respectively enhanced. Many feminists who suggest that their less physical
prowess or strength is the product of education and environment and in no way
part of their nature are not conversant with the real facts. With proper
training, could women compete on equality with men in physical ways of winning
their daily bread? Clearly there are limits. If we believe in the existence of
these limits (please read over again), logically it follows that the guidance on
what a man or a woman should do or what a man or a woman should not do must also
come from the person who sets these limits i.e. God, through His revealed
guidance.
Jazakum-Ullah (God Bless You)
Abdulsalam Ajetunmobi
London, UK