Islam and Women
Islamic Expansion
Topics
• 1) Different interpretations/translations of the
Koran on Women
• 2) Expansion of Islam: Holy War?
• 3) Place of Islam in India
• 4) Role of Sufism in the acceptance of Islam in
India
– Rumi’s Path of Universal Love
1) Women in Islam: God treats women
equally with men
• “The lord responded to them: I never fail to
reward any worker among you for any work
you do, be you male or female, you are equal
to one another.” Qur’an 3, 195
Adaptations to Earlier Civilizations
• “[Certain scholars] argue that tribal, nomadic
Arabia treated women with relative equality,
but the neighboring empires with their
settled, urban civilizations, veiled women and
kept them home under male domination. The
Arabs adopted these practices.
The Quran is more liberal
• “In effect, this group of scholars is also saying
that the more liberal Quranic rules regarding
women were reinterpreted after contact with
societies outside Arabia. Whatever the rules
of the Quran, in practice gender relations
varied widely in different parts of the world of
Islam.” (Spodek 353)
Contrary text?
• “Men have authority over women because
God has made the one superior to the other,
and because they spend their wealth to
maintain them. Good women are obedient.
They guard their unseen parts because God
has guarded them. As for those from whom
you fear disobedience, admonish them and
send them to beds apart and beat them. Then
if they obey you, take no further action
against them. God is high, supreme.” Koran
4:34, Spodek, 346.
Translations of the Qur’an
• Spodek: A.J. Arburry or N.J. Dawood, trans:
“Men have authority over women because
God has made the one superior to the other,
and because they spend their wealth to
maintain them.”
• Ahmed Ali trans, in series Sacred Writings, vol.
3, ed. by Jaroslav Pelikan: “Men are the
support (qawwam) of women as God gives
some more means than others, and because
they spend of their wealth (to provide for
them).”
Qawwam: Rule over or Care for?
• “. . . does not mean lord and master, but
provider of food and necessities of life, and
through its form qaim, to take care of . . .”
Obedience – to whom?
• Spodek citation: “Good women are obedient.
They guard their unseen parts because God
has guarded them.”
• Ali: “So women who are virtuous are obedient
to God and guard the hidden as God has
guarded it.”
• “qanitat only means devoted or obedient to
God, as in 2:116, 16:120, 33:35, etc.”
Admonish or Persuade?
• S: “As for those from whom you fear
disobedience, admonish them…”
• A: “As for women you feel are averse, talk to
them suasively;
• “Nushuz: Apart from rising up, ill treatment, it
also means aversion to an act, and has been
used in this sense here as in 4:128 for men’s
aversion… Raghib in his Al-Mufridat fi Gharib
al-Qur’an . . . [says fa-’izu] means talk to them
so persuasively as to melt their hearts.”
Beat or Sleep with?
• S: “and send them to beds apart and beat
them.”
• A: “then leave them alone in bed (without
molesting them) and go to bed with them
(when they are willing).”
Daraba: strike or have intercourse?
• Ali: “Raghib points out that daraba metaphorically
means to have intercourse . . . It cannot be taken
here to mean “to strike them (women). This view is
strengthened by the Prophet’s authentic hadith
found in a number of authorities, including Bukhari
and Muslim: ‘Could any of you beat your wife as he
would a slave, and then lie with her in the evening?’
There are other traditions in Abu Da’ud, Nasa’i, Ibn
Majah, Ahmad bin Hanbal and others, to the effect
that he forbade the beating of any woman, saying:
“Never beat God’s handmaidens.”
Final reconciliation
• S: “Then if they obey you, take no further
action against them. God is high, supreme.”
• A: “If they open out to you, do not seek an
excuse for blaming them. Surely God is
sublime and great.”
Rights of women
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Divorce
Inheritance
Veiling
Polygamy
Public life in early ummah
Hijacking by patriarchy
Karen Armstrong, Islam, p. 15-16
2) Extent of Islamic Expansion
• See map p. 350, 355
• In 1453 Byzantine Empire falls to Muslim Turks
• By 1500: Islamic states in Arabia, Persia, India,
Indonesia, Turkey, Greece and Balkans, Egypt,
North Africa, Sahara, East Africa, Spain
Beginning of Islamic Expansion
• 1) Successful unification Arab tribes
establishes peace between them, and a united
power of herding people naturally trained in
war.
• 2) Traditional raids to the north are now more
successful, and provoke the responses of the
Byzantine and Sassanid (Persian) empires.
Collapse of Persian empire
• 3) “the Sassanid Empire collapsed almost
immediately…. Meeting little opposition, Arab
armies swept across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan,
and central Asia.” (349)
Why was there little opposition?
• “For centuries the Arabs had tried to raid the
richer settled lands beyond the peninsula; the
difference was that this time they had
encountered a power vacuum. Persia and
Byzantium had both been engaged for
decades in a long and debilitating series of
wars with one another. Both were exhausted.”
(Armstrong, 30)
Recall previous history
• 1) Recall Gilgamesh: the people cry out
against their hard ruler, and the god sends the
animal man (herder) Enkidu.
• 2) Recall easy victory of “Cyrus the shepherd”
(herder) after terrible wars of Assyria and
Babylon.
• Greater freedom, tolerance of religion of one
God for all (Zoroastrianism)
History repeats itself
• 3) Once again, the people of old Mesopotamia
are subject to terrible wars by their rulers.
• Now it is the herders from the south—the
Muslim Arabs—who fill a void created by war,
and bring about peace.
• with a religion of one God for all peoples, and
respect of religious differences (among
monotheists).
3) Hinduism and Islam
• On surface: thousands of gods
• Muslim conquerors are tempted to say: “idol
worshipers”
• But the Brahmin theologians explain: all are
expressions of the one God called “Brahman”
but this is the same as Allah
• Muslims conclude: Hindus are also
monotheists
Unity in Diversity
• Hindu Trinity, gods, avatars are diverse
expressions of unity of Brahman
• Hinduism acquires dhimmi (protected) status
• Gandhi, a Hindu: Both the Koran and the
Bhagavad-Gita are the inspired word of God
Islam’s role in India
• Recall: geography of India
– role of caste system in the weakness of India’s
political culture
– Islamic culture is state-centered
• Muslims save India from Mongols
– Ala-ud-Din 1297-1306
– taxes rich Brahmins to build strong army
– A Hindu warrior caste ruler could not do this
– He stops Mongol army at Khyber pass
The Islamic State in India
• Next enduring empire after Guptas (320-540
CE): Muslim Moghul Empire: 1526 – 1857 CE
– After 1000 years of disunity
• Reasons for success
– Political nature of Islamic religion
– Tolerance of Hindu practices by the first Moghul
ruler, Akbar
– Openness or niche in Indian society for a more
effective ruling group
Hindu solutions and problems
• Muslims are assimilated into caste system as another
caste
• Tolerance: Muhammad seen as another expression
(avatar) of the divine, like Jesus, Krishna, Buddha
• Problems
– of Hindu immanence v. Muslim transcendence??
– Unity of Atman (the true self within) with Brahman ??
– Reincarnation??
• Solution? Sufi form of Islam
4) Main forms of Islam
• Sunni: adapts to preexisting political systems
of conquered states
• Shiite: demands spiritual leadership by a
descendent of Muhammad’s son-in-law Ali
• Sufis: mystical movement emphasizing unity
of the worshipper with God
– Major exponent: Al-Ghazzali (1058-1111):
“renewer of Islam.” (Spodek 364)
The most popular poet in the US today
• 13th century Sufi Muslim poet, Rumi (1207-73
-- Afghanistan)
– Film “Hideous Kinky” (1998, Kate Winslet)
• See photo of Whirling Dervishes, Spodek 363
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqhNPY88
2kE
Become a Sea
“Every form you see draws its origin from the unseen
divine world. So if the form vanishes, what does it
matter? Its origin was from the Eternal. Do not grieve
that every form you see, every mystical truth you
hear will one day vanish. The Fountain is always
gushing water. Neither Fountain nor water will ever
stop flowing, so why mourn? Your spirit is a fountain;
river after river flow from it, put all mourning out of
your mind forever and keep on drinking from the
water. Do not be afraid. The water is limitless.” -Rumi
Bhagavad-Gita
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
I am the fresh taste of the water; I
The silver of the moon, the gold o’ the sun,
The word of worship in the Veds, the thrill
That passeth in the ether, and the strength
Of man’s shed seed. I am the good sweet smell
Of the moistened earth, I am the fire’s red light,
The vital air moving in all which moves,
The holiness of hallowed souls, the root
Undying, whence hath sprung whatever is . . .
Stage After Stage
• “In the beginning, when man was nonexistent, God
brought him into existence. Then God took him
through stage after stage– from sheer existence into
the inanimate world, from there into the vegetable
world, from the vegetable world into that of the
animal, from the animal to the human, from the
human to the angelic world, and so on and on
forever. Why did God manifest all these amazing
transformations? So we can all be certain that He has
many further stages each more exalted than the
other. You will certainly traverse stage after stage.” -Rumi
Do not be afraid
• Recall Jesus: consider the lilies, prodigal son
• Rumi: you are part of an infinite ocean -- go
with it, into it
• Allah, the Infinite, is the Ocean in which we
exist and can merge ourselves through love
• We undergo transformation: stage after stage
-- don’t be afraid of change
• Recall Buddhism: dependent origination of
Nagarjuna
Yesterday at dawn
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Yesterday at dawn
My friend said, How long
Will this unconsciousness go on?
You fill yourself with
The sharp pain of love
Rather than its fulfillment.
I said, “But I can’t get to you!
You are the whole dark night,
And I am a single candle.
My life is upside down
Because of you.”
The friend replied
• I am
• Your deepest being.
• Quit talking about wanting me!
• I said, “Then what is this
• Restlessness?”
• The friend:
• Does a drop
• Stay still in the ocean?
• Move with the Entirety,
• And with the tiniest particular.
• Be the moisture in an oyster
• That helps to form one pearl.
Unity of Mystical Teachings
•
•
•
•
•
Chinese Taoists
Jewish Kaballah
Hindu Yogis – Kundalini, Moksha
Buddhist Nirvana--Enlightenment
Muslim Sufi mystics – Rumi’s Path of Love
Christian mystics -• (Gnostic) Gospel of Philip:
– The one who truly knows is “no longer a Christian,
but a Christ.”
• Meister Eckhart (1260-1328 CE)
– “The eye with which God sees me is the eye with
which I see him: my eye and his eye are the
same.”
– “If God did not exist nor would I; if I did not exist
nor would he.”
Absolute Beauty
• “He who has been instructed thus far in the things of
love, and who has learned to see the beautiful in due
order and succession, when he comes toward the
end will suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous
beauty . . . -- a nature which in the first place is
everlasting, not growing and decaying, or waxing and
waning; secondly, not fair in one point of view and
foul in another, … but beauty absolute, separate,
simple, and everlasting, which without diminution
and without increase, or any change, is imparted to
the ever-growing and perishing beauties of all other
things.”
– Diotema to Socrates, in Plato’s Symposium
37
Basic lessons of mystics
• Moral message is only preliminary -- not the core
teaching of religion
• Human beings are capable of much more than
ordinary joys and sorrows: bliss of existence
• Need to “Awaken” to our true nature and
possibilities
• = transformation of the personality, mental and
physical abilities
• Not in the next life, but here and now