Female
education and scholars in Islam
by
Sr Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood
‘O Lord, expand my knowledge, and make my task easy for me.’ (Surah 20:25-26).
Muslim doctrine teaches quite clearly that women are not in any way inferior beings to men, but were created originally from the same single soul.
‘O humanity! Have reverence for your Lord, the One who created you from a single soul (nafs) and from that soul He created its mate, and through them He spread countless men and women.’ (Surah 4:1).
Muslim women are granted equal, but different, rights in Islam as well as equal responsibilities. Allah gave women certain privileges, and some allowances are made for their physical difference, but both Muslim men and women are expected to ‘encourage the doing of what is right and forbid the doing of what is wrong’ (Surah 9:71) in all spheres of life, and to act as His viceregents in ensuring justice, freedom and equality for all.
Women have just the same duty as men to make themselves as educated and useful members of the community as possible. Seeking knowledge is the duty laid upon every Muslim.
One key verse of the Qur’an was the answer from Allah in direct response to his wife Umm Salamah, who asked him why the Qur’an revelations never specifically mentioned women.
‘For Muslim men and women, for believing men and women . . . for men and women who are patient and constant, who humble themselves, who give in charity, who fast, who guard their chastity, who engage in the praise of Allah – for them Allah has prepared forgiveness and a great reward.’ (Surah 33:35)
So let’s make clear that in Arabic, the word insan (man) means ‘a human being’, ‘person’, or ‘male and female’ without a particular gender, and every instruction given to Muslims in the Qur’an refers to both male and female believers alike unless it clearly specifies otherwise. They have been given the same religious duties and will be judged according to exactly the same criteria. If a verse is intended for men only or women only, this is made clear.
Muslim women were/are commanded by Allah to seek education from cradle to grave and from any source available. When Muslim women and girls are refused education (whether by Taliban or by parents trying to get you married off at an early age to a relative) this is the very opposite of what the Prophet taught. He appreciated forthright women who were not frightened to speak out, or discuss and debate matters. He appreciated women who were educated and had knowledge, who were also kind and compassionate, and hard-working and hospitable.
Some of the Prophet’s sayings
The Prophet said:
‘The search for
knowledge is a duty for every Muslim male and female.’
‘ A parent givesa child nothing better than
a good education." Tirmidhi 1284
‘Seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave.’
‘Seek knowledge,
even if you have to go as far as China.’
‘He who has a slave-girl and teaches her and improves her education and then sets her free and marries her, will get double reward.’ Bukhari 3.723.
One day he happened to pass by two groups of Muslims in the mosque and he commented: ‘Both groups were good, but one was superior to the other. One group was performing supplications and dhikr… but those who were acquiring the understanding of religion and its knowledge and were busy in teaching the ignorant, they were superior.’ Tirmidhi 92.
He also said: ‘The Muslim who is not a student or a teacher is valueless.’
And one specifically for parents: ‘Educate your children, for they live in a time different from yours.’
He said all these things about the education of females
just as much as males, at a time when he was married to three of the most
highly educated and clever ladies of his day - Aishah the daughter of Abu Bakr,
Hafsah the daughter of Umar, and Umm Salamah the daughter of Abu Umayyah, one
of his own cousins.
Moreover, these sayings all came from a man who had never
been to school or learned to read or write – he was never lucky enough to have
had those opportunities – but that does not mean he was a stupid man. On the
contrary, he was a brilliant man with a wonderful character and a keen brain,
and through Allah’s inspiration, he changed the world.
We
should not waste our allotted time
We don’t know why we are here on this earth, or how long we have got to remain here, or why we will be tested in the ways we will be. We may live to be 100 or we may die this afternoon – it is vital that we don’t waste our time. Our young women need a good education using modern methods, and tomorrow’s technology. We cannot assume that a Muslim girl is going to be ‘just’ a housewife. Most homes cannot afford that luxury any more. At the same time there is a desperate need for educated women - professional women to act as doctors, dentists, lawyers, judges, chemists, engineers, nurses, secretaries, teachers, policewomen, social workers, nurses, midwives, carers of the mentally ill, marriage counselors, politicians.
I do not know the exact figures, but in the UK, to educate a child from the age of five to the GCSE level costs around £30,000. Each. The top brains then go on to take AS and A levels, and the top 5-10% in the country get a place at university. The total cost of their education must be at least £80,000. Don’t waste it.
In some cultures Muslim females are not allowed to be taught by men, yet all the women of Madinah were taught by the Prophet himself, and other men – although there were also female teachers.
Even before his death, some men were even being taught by intellectual women such as Umm Waraqah, Umm Darda, Shifa bint Abdullah, Umm Atiyyah, Umm Darda, and the Prophet’s beloved Aishah, despite her youth. The Prophet’s daughter Fatimah, and in the next generation his grand-daughter Zaynab were reported to have moved congregations to tears with their moving and fiery sermons.
Since Islam's earliest days, and in every period in Muslim history, there have been numerous outstanding female scholars, on whose testimony and sound judgment a good part of the edifice of Islam depended. All the compilers of hadith traditions from the earliest period received many of them from women shuyukh: and when these works had been compiled, the women traditionists themselves mastered them, and delivered lectures to large classes of pupils.
Aishah’s time with the Prophet started when she was very young, but sometimes Muslims forget that she lived on after his death for another 40 years, and became famous as a scholar and jurist, consulted by even the most learned of people, including the Caliphs Umar and Uthman. Many people, when they had any doubt about a hadith, would ask her for clarification. (Muslim 374 gives one example). She could be sharp and down-to-earth in reprimanding companions who quoted things wrongly. In one famous example, those who tried to flatter the Prophet’s (pbuh) memory by suggesting that he possessed the power to foresee future events were told by her that the Qur’an taught nothing of the sort, but rather that: ‘None of the creatures in the heavens and upon earth knows anything about the future, except Allah the Almighty.’ (27.5).
Aishah not only possessed great knowledge but took an active part in education and social reform. As a teacher she had a clear and persuasive manner of speech and it was said of her: ‘I have heard speeches of Abu Bakr and Umar, Uthman and Ali and the Khulafa up to this day, but I have not heard speech more persuasive and more beautiful from the mouth of any person than from the mouth of Aishah.’ She advised one over-enthusiastic preacher: ‘Promise me three things, or I will be hard on you. Be brief and direct in whatever you say. Don’t use fancy language – the Master and his Companions did not do this. Don’t make people fed up with the Book of Allah. Don’t inflict sermons on people – give a sermon when people really want one.’
In the period of the Successors and
afterwards women held important positions as traditionists.
Umm Darda (d. 81/700) was regarded by some of her contemporary leading
male traditionists as superior to all the other traditionists of the period,
including the celebrated masters of hadith like al-Hasan al-Basri and Ibn
Sirin.
Aishah b. Sa’d b. Abi Waqqas, (the daughter of the Prophet’s cousin) was very learned in Islamic sciences to the point that the famous jurists Hakim ibn Utaybah and Imam Malik, founder of the Maliki school of law were her pupils.
Zaynab bt Abu Salamah. When Prophet married the widowed Umm Salamah, she was carrying her fourth child, who the Prophet brought up and named Zaynab. She grew up to be an expert in jurisprudence of whom it was said, ‘She was a theologian of greater status than others of her contemporaries.’
Amongst Amrah bint Abdu’r Rahman’s notable students was her nephew Abu Bakr ibn Hazm, the celebrated judge of Medina, who was ordered by the caliph to write down all the traditions known on her authority. Imam Malik said that Amrah would correct the mistakes he, the Chief Judge of Madinah, would make.
A great Sufi lady was Sayyida Nafisah, the great grand-daughter of the Prophet’s grandson Hasan. She was renowned for her piety, asceticism, night vigils and prayers. After her marriage to Ishaq ibn Ja'far As-Sadiq, they moved to Cairo where she taught classes and was soon well-known as a great scholar, famous not only where prayer, fasting and her numerous pilgrimages were concerned, but also because of her friendly, open and gentle manner. A large number of pupils came to her from different places to learn from her. The scholar Imam Shafi, the founder of another famous School of Law, was among her brilliant students. He thought so much of her that he stated in his will that he wanted his funeral procession to pass by her home - and when it did so, she prayed the funeral prayer. She was respected and loved far beyond the circles of scholars and students. When she died at the age of 63 years, a huge crowd assembled from everywhere and persuaded her husband not to have her buried back home in Madinah but right there among them.
It is not often realized that the great scholar and jurist Abu Hanifa took his kunya name not from his son but from his daughter Hanifa. On one occasion they were puzzling over the correct sexuality of a person who had characteristics of both genders. She suggested that a decision should be made according to where the urine came from, and if it flowed from a place other than a penis the person was female, and only otherwise male.
Karima al-Marwaziyya (d. 463/1070) was considered the best authority on the Sahih of
al-Bukhari in her own time. Abu Dharr of Herat, one of the leading scholars of
the period, attached such great importance to her authority that he advised his
students to study the Sahih under no one else, because of the quality of
her scholarship.
Fatima bint Muhammad (d.539/1144) received the proud title
of Musnida Isfahan (the great hadith authority of Isfahan).
Shuhda 'the Writer' (d.574/1178) was a famous calligrapher and a traditionist
of great repute ... Her lectures were attended by large crowds of students; and
on account of her great reputation, some people even falsely claimed to have
been her disciples.
Sitt al-Wuzara, an expert in Islamic law,
and delivered public lectures in Damascus and Egypt.
The famous Qur'anic commentator al-Suyuti
studied with Hajar bint Muhammad.
In fourteenth century, Zaynab bint Ahmad
(d.740/1339) used to deliver public lectures in Damascus, one of her students
being the great traveler Ibn Battuta.
Shaykha Atimah al-Fudayliya founded a public library in Makkah, and she
taught and gave certificates to many eminent traditionists.
These devout women came from the most diverse
backgrounds, indicating that neither class nor gender were obstacles to rising
through the ranks of Islamic scholarship. For example, Abida, who
started life as a slave, was a female scholar in Madinah. She was given by her
master to Habib Dahhun, the great traditionist of Spain, when he visited
Madinah on this way to the Hajj. Dahhun was so impressed by her learning that
he freed her, married her, and took her to Andalusia. It is said that she
related ten thousand traditions on the authority of her Medinan teachers.
These days, luckily for us, we have computers
and the internet to look things up in a flash!
Zaynab bint Sulayman (d. 142/759), by contrast, was a princess by
birth, her father being a cousin of the founder of the Abbasid dynasty, who
served as governor of Basra, Oman and Bahrayn during the caliphate of
al-Mansur. She had the reputation of one of the most distinguished women
scholars of the time, and counted many important men among her pupils.
Honoured tradition of female scholars teaching men as well as women
There were hardly any notable men during those centuries who did not receive teaching from women scholars, and the environment was not a segregated one. Furthermore, it was not just one or a few isolated cases but it was an honored tradition that in many places has been forgotten and neglected in more recent centuries. Worse, many Muslims have become vehemently opposed to it as tribalism and pre-Islamic desires for prestige have surfaced again.
While it was quite possible for a woman, in the early days, to stand up in the mosque and criticise Caliph Umar publicly over a political decision, the view that women (especially those from influential classes in society) were supposed to keep out of public life increasingly gained the upper hand (and, at the same time, the rulers themselves screened themselves against the public and its criticism). This was very far from the practice of the Companions of Madinah.
The age that immediately preceded the colonial age was characterized by stagnation in social development and moral degeneration. There was a considerable gap between the corrupt rulers (who followed personal ambitions rather than ethical values) and the masses that were exposed to the pressures of taxation and military service and had hardly any space left for values other than mere survival. Social reality was too far away from the ideals of Qur'an and Sunnah. Women were hardly mentioned at all. Women from influential and educated families disappeared from public life into a doubtful private sphere while the women from poor families shared their brothers' fate of ignorance, cultural alienation and exploitation.
Whatever they learned in the way of ‘Islam’ was no help to them since it was really a distortion of Islam, more of an official ideology that served the preservation of the status quo and excluded any critical questioning that might come up. In face of this alienation from real Islamic values, it is no surprise that, in the beginning of the 20th century, Muslim women started to struggle for their rights, demanding equal chances in education, the abolition of abuses and protection against legal discrimination, with the same voice as their Western sisters. Tragically enough, many were not even aware that, according to Qur'an and Sunnah, these were their legitimate rights in Islam anyway. What makes it worse is that so-called ‘scholars’ tried and still try to deny them these rights in the name of their distorted Islam.
Today, in many places, Muslim women can find they
are not welcome in public life in Islamic society, or even at the mosque, let
alone being part of Islam’s valued pool of educators, experts and mentors. The
existing conditions are a clear perversion of Islamic teachings and guidance,
and the absence of women scholars has also caused a great imbalance in Islamic
discourse and law.
Certainly some Muslim women live in societies that do not stretch to education for girls, but happily, many Muslim women are also among the most highly qualified professionals in the world.
There is a huge need for highly educated Muslim women. These days many homes cannot afford the luxury of a housewife. Parents may think of their male offspring as future breadwinners, but ignore the fact that all too often men are unemployed and the females are the breadwinners. Make sure you persuade your parents that there is a desperate need for Muslim women to acquire a good education using modern methods, and tomorrow's technology, and to achieve useful qualifications.
Educated Muslim women are a necessity. It is highly preferable in Islam for women to be treated by female nurses and doctors, dentists and midwives, and taught by female teachers, and counselled by female lawyers – therefore Muslim women need to train up. Muslim women’s services are needed – as tailors, bakers, librarians, chemists, engineers, nurses, secretaries, teachers, police, those who work with the mentally ill, marriage counsellors, ambulance drivers, doctors, dentists, midwives, lawyers and so on. One has only to think of the Indian Muslim women who fled Idi Amin’s Uganda who now staff our National Health Service and private elite clinics.
Muslim parents need to value and treasure their academic and determined Muslim daughters, even if they do not take up a profession but become wives of intelligent sons. As it happens, the education of females has been amazingly successful – in the UK girls are beating the boys in every field, which has now become highly noticeable at GCSE level, and has even reached the dimensions of being a problem. So ladies, don’t train up at great expense to be a doctor, teacher, lawyer, expert in any field, and then throw it all away.
Muslim men need to treasure educated women as wives, and appreciate the value of these women who have perhaps passed the traditionally accepted age for marriage by concentrating on their qualifications, and will not really wish to settle for the cooking, washing up and lots of babies. I once asked a class how many of the boys expected their spouses to stay at home looking after them and doing housework for them and raising their children. They nearly all put their hands up. Unfortunately for them, very few of the girls expected they would be doing that!
In the past, men interpreted the Qur’anic verses and the hadiths that described women's rights. Now Muslim women worldwide are seizing opportunities to look deep into the spirit of the Qur’an and find there the gender justice that was the original intent of the revelation. By gaining knowledge they are also gaining in influence and authority. Hundreds of women's groups have sprung up all over the world.
It requires courage and conviction for
religious leaders to question and possibly oppose entrenched traditional
positions and accuse them of being based on wrong conclusions. But for those
who care that the spirit of Islam should be honoured in practice, this is necessary
and worth any risks in order to enable women to achieve liberation through
Islam as originally intended.
Many of its leading lights are actually men,
distinguished Islamic scholars such as Hussein Muhammad in Indonesia, whose
high status gives them particular credibility.
These are the major problem areas that cry out to be addressed:
· Marriage and divorce laws that reinforce the
image of the rights of the husband superseding those of the wife, and prevent
women from getting fair treatment.
· Violence against women in the home, community, and as a consequence of warfare, which is claimed by some to be allowed by Islam - when it is not.
· Abuse of practices that affect women negatively, like polygamy and temporary marriage, when applied out of context and without abiding by Islamic restrictions.
· Excluding women from religious activities such as attendance in the mosque.
· Failure to promote the importance of a woman's contribution to society beyond child-bearing, and lack of awareness of the importance of men giving a good example within the family, sharing household responsiblities and child-rearing.
· Failure to enable women to take advantage of rights of property ownership, dowries and inheritance as outlined by Islam.
· Subjecting women to harassment, intimidation or discrimination, especially as regards rights to have friends, leave the house, go to work, mix in society, and not be obliged to wear certain forms of clothing.
‘And thus does their Lord answer their prayer: I shall not lose sight of the work of any of you, be it man or woman: You are members, one of another.’ (Surah 3:195).
There is a disputed hadith which reports that when
the Prophet was informed that the Persians had crowned a daughter of Khusrau as
their ruler, he said: ‘A people with a female ruler will never be successful.’
(Bukhari 5.709). Many traditional Muslim societies have been unwilling to allow
women to rule for this reason, and
some have even forbidden them from working in the government, despite
the verses in the Qur’an about Queen Bilkis of Sheba (Saba’), who was
interviewed by the Prophet Sulayman and not asked to relinquish her rule.
Many of the women who have broken the glass ceiling and made it to the rank of female president or prime minister have been Muslim women.
Islamic feminists argue that women may be heads of state, leaders of congregational prayer, judges, and so on. Of the world’s female prime ministers, we have seen Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan (the first woman prime minister of a Muslim country), Khaleda Zia in Bangladesh, and Tansu Ciller in Turkey. Megawati Sukarnoputri is the female head of Indonesia, which has the largest Muslim population in the world. Iran has had a female vice-president and there are proportions of seats reserved for women in the parliaments of Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, UAE and others.
The future of Islamic feminism in Iraq will
depend on such women as Salama al-Khafaji, a dentist turned politician who is
also a devout Shi’ite. After losing her son in an ambush, Khafaji was rated the
most popular female politician in Iraq in a survey conducted in June 2005 (and
was ranked the 11th most popular politician overall).
In fact, all
the functions of an Imam such as religious education, and spiritual and social
counselling, have always been open to Muslim women, but they are not allowed to
lead men in prayers. Three of the
four Sunni schools, as well as many Shia, agree that a woman may lead a
females-only congregation, although the Maliki school does not allow even this.
In the Hanbali madhdhab, women are allowed
to lead mixed congregations in the optional tarawih prayers in Ramadan
if there is no man knowledgeable in the Qur'an present, they are senior women
not young, and they are well-versed in the Qur’an. However, they are to stand
behind the men, in the women's rows, rather than in front.
The Prophet’s Companion usually cited as a
precedent for a female Imam is Umm Waraqah. ‘The Prophet used to visit
her in her own home; he appointed a mu’adhin for her, and ordered her to
lead the members of her household (in Salah).’ (Abu Dawud). Since Umm
Waraqah’s household included men, this hadith is used by supporters of the
claim that women can lead men in prayer; some even suggest that the word
translated as ‘house’ (dar) should be taken to refer to her whole area
(else, they reason, why appoint a mu’adhin?) However, most scholars
regard this as an invalid deduction, or that this privilege was given only to
Umm Waraqah and was not applicable to others.
Several hadiths report that the Prophet’s wives Aishah and Umm Salamah led
congregations of women. In 2,000 in Iran, a previous ban on women leading a
woman-only congregation was reversed. The female Imam stands in the middle of
the front row of the congregation, instead of alone in front of it.
The Hui people of China have a tradition of mosques solely for women, and women have been trained as imams in order to serve them. In recent years, efforts have been made to establish similar mosques in India and Iran. Everywhere that women are obliged to pray in separate rooms or buildings from the men, this has virtually created separate mosques for them in which they may soon have their own leaders rather than follow an Imam they cannot see, who leads from the other side of a sutrah or barrier that divides them from the congregation.
The modern moves to allow women imams began in
South Africa. For about two years, a congregation met every Friday for the Jumu'ah
prayer and every night in Ramadan for the tarawih prayer in a building
owned by the Muslim Youth Movement of South Africa (MYM).The khutbah was
delivered by either a male or female khatib and the imams for the prayer
also included men and women. One of the prime movers behind this congregation
was Muslim women's rights activist, Shamima Shaykh (1960–1998).
In 1994 Amina Wadud became the first woman
in South Africa to actually deliver the Friday khutbah in a mosque, and
in early 2005, now a professor of Islamic Studies at Virginia Commonwealth
University, USA, she led a congregation in Friday prayer in New York, sponsored
by the Muslim Women's Freedom Tour.
The Assembly of Muslim Jurists in America
responded by issuing a fatwa that their prayers were null and void.
Supporters of the event insisted that, to the contrary, it was a long overdue
change; Khaled Abou el-Fadl (professor of Islamic Studies at University of
California) said that ‘What the fundamentalists are worried about is that
there's going to be a ripple effect not just in the US but all over the Muslim
world. The women who are learned and frustrated that they cannot be the imam
are going to see that someone got the guts to break ranks and do it.’
Feminists are calling for re-evaluation of attitudes and practices that, although done in the name of Islam, are actually the results of strong cultural influence, some even contrary to the basic messages found in Qur’an and sunnah. They seek to revive the equality bestowed on women in the early years of Islam by rereading the Qur’an, putting the verses in context, and disentangling them from tribal practices.
Many Muslims now realize that they must establish proper academic Muslim schools in the West, but it is an uphill struggle; there is no tradition of them, and there is active resistance to them as it is feared they will become breeding-grounds for militancy and extremism. But according to OFSTED there were 118 in January 2005, many with excellent academic success. Notable Islamic schools include Manchester Islamic High School for Girls, the Islamia Girls Secondary School in Brent (London – opened in 1989 and financed by Yusuf Islam, the former pop star Cat Stevens – which topped the exam league in Brent two years running), the Zakaria Girls School (Batley), Feversham College, and many more. The Leicester Islamic Academy achieved a 100% success rate in A* to C passes at GCSE.
How will it all develop? Who knows? We can only ask
that Allah will guide us all, and lead us along the straight path as only
He knows best. Amin.