Men are the protectors of women Friday, 29 April 2011 02:51

By Sheikh Salman Al Oadah

What does it mean that men are “protectors and maintainers” of women? To answer this question, let us first look at the Arabic word that we are translating as “protectors and maintainers”. This word is “qawwamun” the plural of “qawwam”.

This word – qawwam – in turn, is an emphatic form of the word “qayyim”, which means a person who manages the affairs of others. The qayyim of a people is the one who governs their affairs and steers their course. Likewise, the qayyim of a woman is either her husband or her guardian – the one who has to look after her and ensure that her needs are met.

When Allah says: “Men are the qawwamun of women…” it means – and Allah knows best – that men are held liable for handling the affairs of women and are responsible for the women under their care. A husband, therefore, has the responsibility of taking care of his wife, protecting her, defending her honour, and fulfilling her needs regarding her religion and her worldly life. It does not mean – as all too many people have falsely assumed – that he has the right to behave obstinately towards her, compel her, subject her to his will, suppress her individuality, and thus heinously negate her identity.

His status as protector and maintainer is pure responsibility, pure liability, and not so much a position of authority. It requires from him that he uses his good sense, thinks carefully about what he does, and exercises patience. It means that he cannot be hasty and offhanded in his decisions. It does not mean that he can disregard his wife’s opinions and belittle her good person.

Why does Islam make men the protectors and maintainers of women?

The verse gives us two reasons why men are given this burden to shoulder. Allah says: “…because of what Allah has preferred one with over the other…” and “…because of what they spend to support them from their wealth.”

A problem arises when it is said that men have a preference to women. Then we see all those organisations, establishments, and activists who call to women’s equality stirring into motion, jumping up ready to fight over this point, and going off on all kinds of tangents in their thinking. Rather, they should pause long enough to properly understand what it means when Allah says: “…because of what Allah has preferred one with over the other …” This proper understanding can only be had in the light of the Quran and Sunnah and their sound application.

Those who go overboard in asserting the rights of women and claim that the woman in Islam is oppressed and that Islam does not do her justice are driven to the point where they transgress against the very texts of the Quran and Sunnah. In the name of “equality”, they demand absolute uniformity in matters of inheritance, in governance, and in everything else wherein a distinction between the sexes is made, sometimes taking matters so far that it is the men who have to chase after the hope of equality with women.

This brings us back to the question of what the verse is saying. Is it indicating that there is some inherent preference of men over women, something that is built into their very natures? The scholars of Quranic commentary have taken two approaches to this matter.

The first approach is to refer the matter of the verse back to the natural makeup of men and women, with respect to their intellects, their different manners of thinking, and their natural strengths. They found that men, by nature, are more hot-blooded, tending more towards strength and severity, while women’s natures are cooler, tending more towards gentleness and weakness.

The second approach is to look at it from a legal angle – that Allah has imposed upon men to pay dowries to the women they wish to marry and has made men liable to spend on women and provide for them. This is the preference that men have over them. Likewise, Allah has placed prophecy with men only, as there has never been a woman prophet. In the same way, Allah has made the offices of supreme political authority and the obligations of jihad the exclusive domain of men.

The issue of testimony is also brought up in this regard, for Allah says: “And bring to witness two witnesses from among your men. And if there are not two men available, then a man and two women from those whom you accept as witnesses – so that if one of them errs, the other can remind her.” (Al Baqarah: 282)

Others using this approach have cited certain acts of worship, like the fact that the Friday prayer and congregational prayers are prescribed only for men and not made compulsory on women.

The fact that men can have four wives while women cannot have more than one husband, or the fact that men have the exclusive option of immediate divorce have also been advanced as an interpretations. With respect to both of these approaches, there are two observations that we can make: The first is that the followers of both approaches agree on a preference of men over woman on the basis of Allah’s words: “…because of what they spend to support them from their wealth.”

The second is that the opinions of the commentators regarding whether or not the preferentiality refers to the natures of men and women is all based on their discretionary opinions (ijtihad) with respect to their understanding of the verse. In any event, it would be fair to say that Allah has indeed singled out men for certain distinctions – prophethood, supreme political office, jihad, and military service, among other things – and this is because men have a nature different than that of women. This is a conclusion that all reasonable people would have to agree upon. The obligation imposed upon men by Islam to protect and maintain women should be seen in the context of the difference in their natural makeup and that the purpose for this is to secure the best interests of women.

Allah’s laws always accord with nature and take into consideration the unique gifts that Allah has bestowed upon each half that makes up the human whole – the man and the woman, so that those gifts can be employed to their maximum effectiveness.

To be continued

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