| Posted By Ahmed
Yahya Fagge* June 11, 2008
Part 1
Introduction
Part 2
The Inheritance of Women Before and After the
Advent of Islam
Women Under The Indian Civilization
Women Under Chinese Civilization
Women under Greek Civilization
Women Under The Roman Civilization
Women In Early Christianity
The Position of Women in Europe
Women In The Post – industrial Europe
Part 3
Feminist Movement and The Tragedy of Western
Women
The Inheritance of Women under Jewish Laws
Part 4
The Inheritance Of Women In the Western World
past and Present
The Inheritance of Women in The Jahiliyya period
Introduction
One of
the unique features of Islam is that words are matched with
action. When Islam preaches kindness and tenderness towards
the poor, Zakat is made compulsory in order to translate
that preaching into actual reality.
When equality is advocated Islam makes As-salah (prayer)
mandatory so that the strong and the weak, the affluent and
the indigent, the leader and the led stand
shoulder-to-shoulder, practicalising the dictum. Similarly
when Islam calls for fair treatment towards women and their
right to inheritance, female heirs are stated and their
respective shares spelt out. Words, therefore, are in all
these instances, matched with action. No system on earth can
compete with Islam on this.
Liberal
democracy and other world systems are never known to have
accorded women any dignified status, let alone putting into
practice what they preach in theory. For example, under
liberal democracy, freedom of religion is advocated but in
actual reality a particular religion i. e. materialism, is
enforced on all, completely negating what is being preached
theoretically. Similarly right to basic necessities of life
is trumpeted while practically monopoly, profiteering and
hoarding are sanctioned.
As this world is sometimes funny a system which is saint in
theorizing but devil in practice is now attacking Islam.
Products or rather advocates and novices of the former, who
are the liberal democrats, allege that Islam has been unjust
to the woman as if they have always been fair to her. While
Islam has given her a share of inheritance and deny it to
the cats and the dogs they give it to puppies and kittens
and disinherit the woman.
This argument over who gives women what and who doesn’t has
now become preponderant in most academic discussions at
various local and international fora.
It has now become a fashion and an exercise of freedom of
opinion to deliberately criticize and attack Islam and all
its values, alleging that it violates one kid of human right
or the other. The present world order allows every riff-raff
to dump his refuse on Islam.
Somebody from a community which sees nothing wrong in
burning a woman on her husband’s death1 can
attack the Islamic system of divorce for what he claims as
downgrading woman. An adherent of a religion which regards
woman as “a necessary evil, a desirable calamity, a deadly
fascinator and a painted ill”2 is at liberty to
cry wolf whenever Islam calls for separation of the sexes. A
citizen of a country which only recently granted woman
financial independence about 1400 years after Islam has
decreed her the same3 freely condemns the Islamic
system of polygamy even though, as admitted by one scholar:
Their monogamy with a blended mass of prostitution is mostly
hypocrisy and more degrading than a limited polygamy and
deliberately fails to look at what lies behind it (their
monogamy) in the west – the frightful degradation of women
who are thrown into the streets when their first protectors,
weary of them, no longer give them any assistance4
In the same vein, when we come to the local level, somebody
from a community where woman’s inheritance of a very meager
portion is subject to her being of a good behavior5
and another from a tribe which excludes all female blood
relatives, including mother, grand mother, sister, etc. from
inheriting6 can ironically shout all jumbo-mambo
on the Islamic system of inheritance as it relates to
women.
Feminist movements, under various names, are shouting at the
top of their voices that there is no justice in allotting a
woman half of what is allotted to a man as decreed by Islam
in the distribution of inheritance, overlooking either
knowingly or unknowingly, the many favours which Islam
confers on women in inheritance the similar of which man
does not enjoy. It is unfortunate that some of our women
seem to be substantially carried away and influenced by this
propaganda.
Most of our women, and our men also, who are educated or,
preferably, who are instructed in the western way appeared
to have put their trust and confidence in liberalism and
liberal democracy as their emancipator and abode of comfort
and peace. Some of them even go to the extent of trying to
harmonise Islamic teachings with liberalism. Tracing the
origin of liberalism Ali Shari’ati observes:
Western liberalism perceives itself as the principal heir of
the philosophy and culture of historical liberalism,
envisioned as a continuous flow of culture and thought
flowing from ancient Greece and reaching its relative
perfection in present day Europe.
Western humanism rests firmly on the foundation of that
mythological perspective unique to ancient Greece, where
between heaven and earth (the world of the gods and the
world of men), competitiveness, opposition and even a sort
of jealousy obtain, and the gods are anti-human forces whose
every inclination and striving is to rule tyrannically
overhumanity and discourage it from attaining
self-awareness, independence, freedom and sovereignty over
nature. Any human who sets foot upon any of these paths has
perpetrated a great sin-has risen in rebellion against the
gods- and is condemned to the most severe tortures and
punishments in their after life. Humanity, we may say, is
constantly seeking its liberation from this captivity. It
strives to attain independence through the acquisition of
divine powers, in order to free its destiny from the grasp
of the god;s omnipotence and bring it within reach of its
own freewill and choice7.
In most of the international and local fora and media
agencies nowadays the muslim woman is intentionally made an
object of ridicule and caricatures; that as far as her
person is concerned she is, according to her religion, half
of a man economically actualized in inheritance where she
gets half the share of a man as her share of inheritance.
Continued...
Part 1
Introduction
Part 2
The Inheritance of Women Before and After the
Advent of Islam
Women Under The Indian Civilization
Women Under Chinese Civilization
Women under Greek Civilization
Women Under The Roman Civilization
Women In Early Christianity
The Position of Women in Europe
Women In The Post – industrial Europe
Part 3
Feminist Movement and The Tragedy of Western
Women
The Inheritance of Women under Jewish Laws
Part 4
The Inheritance Of Women In the Western World
past and Present
The Inheritance of Women in The Jahiliyya period
*Ahmad Yahya Fagge writes from Department
Of Islamic Studies Federal College Of
Education, Kano |