The Islamic Sexual Morality Its Foundation - The Islamic Sexual Morality [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

The Islamic
Sexual Morality Its Foundation

B. DEFENDING THE
ISLAMIC VIEW

There are many
non-Muslim writers, especially of liberal and feminist ideology, who have
attacked the Islamic view of woman''s sexuality. Their criticism is mostly
based on some misconceived ideas about the Islamic sexual morality.
Basically there are two problems with these writers: either they study
Islam based on some Western social theories and models, or they are
ill-equipped to study the original Islamic sources. They rely mostly on
the work done on Islam by the Orientalists or the European travelers of
the past centuries. In some cases, books like Thousand and One
Nights and The Perfumed Garden are used to explain the Islamic
view on women''s sexuality! These books, at the most, reflect the Arab view
of female sexuality not the Islamic view. Therefore, these writings do not
even deserve refutation.

However, for our discussion I have
selected the work of an Arab feminist writer, Fatima Mernissi. The reason
for commenting on her work is that she is an Arab writer who had easy
excess to Islamic literature and hadith, in particular Ihyau
''Ulumi ''d-Din of the famous Sunni scholar Imam Abu Hamid al-Ghazali
(d. 1111 C.E.). Moreover, Mernissi''s book has been translated into various
European and Asian languages and is becoming popular as an insider''s
report!

1. MERNISSI''S VIEWS

Fatima Mernissi''s book, Beyond the Veil
subtitled as "Male-Female Dynamics in Modern Muslim Society," is a study
of the male-female relationship in the present Moroccan society. It is
important to bear in mind that the attitude of the Muslims of Morocco does
not necessarily represent Islam. However, Mernissi has discussed the
Islamic sexual morality in a chapter entitled as "The Muslim Concept of
Active Female Sexuality." The main part of her discussion centers on the
comparison between the views of Freud and Ghazali on female sexuality.
Mernissi has summarized her conclusion as follows:

The irony is that Muslim and European
theories come to the same conclusion: women are destructive to the
social order for Imam Ghazali because they are active, for Freud because
they are not.

Then she goes on to describe the negative
attitude of the Christian West and the positive attitude of Islam towards
sexuality in general. She writes:

Different social orders have integrated the
tensions between religion and sexuality in different ways. In the
Western Christian experience sexuality itself is attacked, degraded as
animality and condemned as anti-civilization. The individual is split
into two antithetical selves: the spirit and the flesh, the ego and the
id. The triumph of civilization implied the triumph of soul over flesh,
of ego over id, of the controlled over the uncontrolled, of spirit over
sex. Islam took a substantially different path. What is attacked and
debased is not sexuality but women, as the embodiment of destruction,
the symbol of disorder. The woman is fitna, the epitome of the
uncontrollable, a living representative of the dangers of sexuality and
its rampant disruptive potential...Sexuality per se is not a danger. On
the contrary it has three positive, vital functions... (Beyond the
Veil, p.44)

After describing the positive side of Islamic
sexual morality, Mernissi attacks the concept of female sexuality in Islam
as she has understood it from Ghazali''s writings:

According to Ghazali, the most precious gift
God gave humans is reason. Its best use is the search for
knowledge...But to be able to devote his energies to knowledge, man has
to reduce the tensions within and without his body, avoid being
distracted by external elements, and avoid indulging in earthly
pleasures. Women are dangerous distraction that must be used for the
specific purpose of providing the Muslim nation with offspring and
quenching the tensions of the sexual instinct. But in no way should
women be an object of emotional investment or the focus of attention.
which should be devoted to Allah alone in the form of knowledge-seeking,
meditation, and prayer. (Beyond the Veil, p.45)

The conclusion which this ardent Arab feminist
describes as the Islamic view can be summarized as follows: (a) Women are
considered sexually active in the Islamic view; (b) therefore, women are a
danger to the social order. (c) There should be no emotional investment in
women; that is, a man should have no love for his wife. (d) Why should
there be no love between husband and wife? Mernissi would answer that love
should be exclusively devoted to Allah. Now let us deal with each of these
premises and conclusions gradually and see whether or not they are based
on any reliable Islamic sources.

(A)WOMEN ARE CONSIDERED
SEXUALLY ACTIVE IN ISLAM

The
statement that in Islam women are considered sexually active, can mean two
different things: either they are more sexually active than men or they
are as sexually active as men. In the first sense, it would mean that
women have a stronger sex drive; and in the second sense, it would mean
that women are as normal as men in their sexuality. By looking at the
context of Mernissi''s writing, I would be justified in saying that she is
using this statement in the first sense, that is, women are more sexually
active than men.

In my study of the Qur''an and authentic
ahadith on this subject, I have not come across any statement which
says that women are more sexually active than men. I can say with
confidence that as far as Islam is concerned, there is no difference
between the sexuality of men and women. There are, however, certain
ahadith which can be used by Mernissi to prove that women are more
sexually active than men provided she decides to stick to one part of
those ahadith and ignore the other part! It is obvious that such
partial use of hadith is an unacceptable academic exercise.

For example, in one such hadith, Asbagh bin Nubatah quotes
Imam ''Ali as follows: "Almighty God has created the sexual desire in ten
parts; then He gave nine parts to women and one to men. " If the
hadith had ended here, Mernissi would be right in her claim, but
the hadith goes on: "And if the Almighty God had not given the
women equal parts of shyness, then each man would have nine women related
to him." (Wasa''il, vol. 14, p.40) In other words, Allah has given
the women greater part of sexual desire but He has also neutralized it by
giving equal parts of shyness to them. Seen as a whole, this and other
similar ahadith do not support the claim that in Islam women are
more sexually active then men. As for the question that why did Allah give
more sexual desire to women and then neutralize it with shyness, I shall
inshaAllah deal with it in the chapter on sexual technique. So how
has Mernissi arrived at her conclusion? While contrasting the views of
Freud and Ghazali on passive and active sexuality of women, Fatima
Mernissi has studied the view of both writers on the process of human
reproduction. First she quotes Freud as follows: "The male sex cell is
actively mobile and searches out the female and the latter, the ovum, is
immobile and waits passively..." (Beyond the Veil, p. 36, quoting
Freud''s New Introductory Lectures, p. 144) This proves to Mernissi
that in Freud''s view, woman is sexually passive. Then she contrasts this
with Ghazali''s view by quoting him as follows, "The child is not created
from man''s sperm alone, but from the union of a sperm from the male with a
ovum from the female...and in any case the ovum of the female is a
determinant factor in the process of coagulation." (Beyond the
Veil, p. 37) This proves to Mernissi that in Ghazali''s view, woman is
sexually active.

I doubt whether Ghazali would agree with the
conclusion which Mernissi draws from his last sentence. Moreover, even if
Ghazali meant such a thing, then it cannot be substantiated from the
original sources of Islam, the Qur''an and the sunnah. We have a
clear hadith which refutes such a connotation to the process of
reproduction. Once the Prophet was asked, "O Muhammad! Why is that in some
cases the child resembles his paternal uncles and has no resemblance
whatsoever to his maternal uncles, and in some cases he resembles his
maternal uncles and has no resemblance whatsoever to his paternal uncles?"
The Prophet said, "Whosoever''s water-drop [i.e., sperm or ovum] overwhelms
that of his or her partner, the child will resemble that
person."(At-Tabrasi, al-Ihtijaj, vol. 1, p. 48 For a similar
hadith in Sunni sources, see Ibn Qayyim, Tibyan, p. 334-5.
Also see an interesting study on birth control among the Muslims, Sex
and Society in Islam by B.F. Musallam.) In other words, if the wife''s
ovum overwhelms the sperm of her husband, then the child will resemble the
mother or the maternal uncles; and if the husband''s sperm overwhelms the
ovum of his wife, then the child will resemble the father or the paternal
uncles. This hadith makes it quite clear that male and female play equal
role in reproduction; sometimes, the male sperm overwhelms the female ovum
and at other times the female ovum overwhelms the male sperm.

Then
she quotes Ghazali''s statement about the pattern of ejaculation of sexes
as follows, "...The woman''s ejaculation is a much slower process and
during that process her sexual desire grows stronger and to withdraw from
her before she reaches her pleasure is harmful to her." (Beyond the
Veil, p. 38) By this statement, Mernissi wants to prove that in Islam
woman is considered sexually more active than man. When I read this
statement for the first time, I said to myself that this can not be true
at all times: sometimes the male ejaculates first and at other times the
female ejaculates first. And I was surprised that Ghazali would say such a
thing. So I checked the Arabic statement of Ghazali and noticed that while
translating the above quotation, Mernissi has conveniently left out the
word "rubbama" which means "sometimes". (Al-Ghazali, Ihya,
vol. 2, p. 148) So the correct statement of Ghazali is that "The woman''s
ejaculation sometimes is a much slower process..." With this correction,
Mernissi''s argument loses its legs.

(B) WOMEN ARE A DANGER
TO THE SOCIAL ORDER.

The
outcome of the above premise of Mernissi is as follows: Since Islam
considers women as sexually more active, therefore, it considers them to
be a danger to the social order.

After quoting Ghazali that, "The
virtue of the woman is a man''s duty. And the man should increase or
decrease sexual intercourse with the woman according to her needs so as to
secure her virtue," Mernissi comments, "The Ghazalian theory directly
links the security of the social order to that of the woman''s virtue, and
thus to the satisfaction of her sexual needs. Social order is secured when
the women limits herself to her husband and does not create fitna,
or chaos, by enticing other men to illicit intercourse." (Beyond the
Veil, p. 39, Ihya, vol. 2, p. 148)

Firstly, by looking
at Ghazali''s statement, I see nothing which would seem to indicate that in
his view women are a danger to the social order. It simply describes one
of the basic rights of conjugal relationship that the husband should not
be a self-centered and selfish person, rather he should also think about
the feelings of his wife. There is no indication at all that unsatisfied
Muslim women in general would necessarily go out and commit adultery.

Secondly, if unsatisfied women become a danger to the social order
just because there is a possibility that they might commit adultery, then
this possibility is in no way confined to women even unsatisfied men could
commit adultery! If Islam had considered women as a danger to the social
order on this account, then it must also do so with men! And in stretching
this argument to its logical conclusion, one would have to say that Islam
considers men and women a danger to the social order. You see the
absurdity of this line of thought. If all men and women are a danger to
the social order, then whose ''social order'' are we talking about?!

(C)
THERE SHOULD BE NO EMOTIONAL INVESTMENT IN WOMEN.

The second part of Mernissi''s contention is
that in Islam men are not supposed to be emotionally attached to their
wives; love between husband and wife is not encouraged or tolerated. Apart
from what we quoted from Mernissi on this issue at the beginning of this
discussion, she has talked on this issue, in a passing manner, at other
places also. For instance, after quoting an interview with a Moroccan
woman about her first husband by an arranged marriage (which has nothing
to do with Islam), Mernissi writes, "Does love between man and wife
threaten something vital in the Muslim order?...Heterosexual involvement,
real love between husband and wife, is the danger that must be overcome."
(Beyond the Veil, p.113) In another place, she says, "And it
appears to me that the breakdown of sexual segregation permits the
emergence of what the Muslim order condemns as a deadly enemy of
civilization: love between men and women in general, and between husband
and wife in particular. " (Beyond the Veil, p. 107)

Mernissi could not have been more further from the truth than in
these contentions! Instead of going to the original sources of Islam, she
has based her conclusion on the way a certain ethnic group of Muslims
behave in their personal life. Now let us see if what she says is
according to the original sources of Islam or not.

The Qur''an
says, "And among His signs is that He has created for you spouses from
among yourselves so that you may live in tranquility with them; and He has
created love (muhabbah) and mercy between you. Verily in that are
signs for those who reflect."(30: 21 ) How can Mernissi say that Islam
considers love between husband and wife a deadly enemy of civilization
while the God of Islam counts it as a sign of His creation and glory? Imam
Ja''far as-Sadiq says, "Loving (hubb) women is among the traditions
of the prophets." (Wasa''ilu ''sh-Shi''ah, vol. 14, p.9) The same Imam
quotes the Prophet as follows, "The statement of a husband to his wife
that ''I love you'' (inniuhibbuki) will not leave her heart ever."
(Wasa''ilu ''sh-Shi''ah, p. 10)

There are three interesting
ahadith in which Imam Ja''far as-Sadiq has described the love for
women as a sign and cause of increase in faith. He says, "I do not think
that a person''s faith can increase positively unless his love for women
has increased. "( Wasa''ilu ''sh-Shi''ah, p. 9) In another
hadith, he says, "Whenever a person''s love for women increases, his
faith increases in quality." Wasa''ilu ''sh-Shi''ah, p.11) In a third
hadith he relates the love for women to the love for Ahlu''l-bayt which is
an important teaching of the Qur''an. He says "Whosoever''s love for us
increases, his love for women must also increase." (Wasa''ilu
''sh-Shi''ah, p. 11) I do not think that there is any further need to
prove that Mernissi''s accusation against Islam is baseless.

(D)
LOVE SHOULD BE EXCLUSIVELY DEVOTED TO ALLAH.

If asked that why does Islam consider love for
women as a deadly enemy of civilization and a danger to the social order,
Mernissi would answer that emotional investment or the focus of attention
"should be devoted to Allah alone in the form of knowledge-seeking,
meditation, and prayer." This is what she describes as Ghazali''s view.
(Beyond the Veil, p.45) In other words, Mernissi is saying that
Islam, like Christianity, considers love for God and love for woman as two
antipathetic phenomena. However, to be fair to Mernissi, I must say that
this is a misconception from which even a scholar like Ghazali is not
immune.

Although I have already quoted in detail the Islamic view
which believes that love for women is not inharmonious with spiritual
wayfaring, I intend to discuss this issue in the light of what Ghazali,
with his Sufi tendencies, has to say.

2. AL-GHAZALI''S VIEWS

In his discussions on marriage in Ihyau ''Ulumi
''d-Din, Abu Hamid al-Ghazali has a section on "Encouragement for
Marriage" (at-targhibfi ''n-nikah). In this section he has quoted
some sayings of the Prophet about virtue of marriage. Then he has a
section on "Discouragement from Marriage" (at-targhib ''ani ''n-nikah).
In this section, apart from the sayings of some mystics (Sufis),
Ghazali has quoted three hadith: two from the Prophet and one from
Imam ''Ali. Interestingly, the third hadith is not even relevant to
the issue; it is more relevant to family planning it talks about having
fewer wives and children! Moreover, all three ahadith are
classified by the scholars of hadith as weak (da''if). (See
the editor''s footnote in Ihya'', vol. 2, p. 101 and also in
al-Kashani, Tahzibu ''l-Ihya, vol. 3, p. 57)

Then Ghazali goes on to discuss about the
"benefits and harms of marriage. " Before scrutinizing the ''harms of
marriage,'' I wish to comment on two ''ahadith'' of the Prophet which
Ghazali has quoted from his Sunni sources and which Mernissi has also used
in her book.

The first hadith is as follows:

The Prophet said, "When the woman comes
towards you, it is Satan who is approaching you. When one of you sees a
woman and he feels attracted to her, he should hurry to his wife. With
her, it would be the same as with the other one." (Ihya'', vol. 2,
p. 110, Beyond the Veil, p. 42)

After quoting this hadith, Mernissi
adds the comments of Imam Muslim that "She resembles Satan in his
irresistible power over the individual."

While discussing the
issue of forgery or interpolation in hadith, our ''ulama'' say
that one source of forgery was the mystics and the so-called pious mullahs
who imported the idea of celibacy and monasticism from without Islam into
the hadith literature. And since the evilness of woman is a main
component of Christian monasticism, similar ideas also crept into the
hadith literatureeither in form of total forgery or in form of
interpolation. When I read the above ''hadith'', I suspected it to be
an interpolation, especially its opening sentence. My suspicion was
confirmed when I started to look for a similar hadith in the Shi''ah
sources. The Shi''ah sources narrate a similar hadith as follows:

The Prophet said, "When one of you sees a beautiful woman, he
should go to his wife. Because what is with her [i.e., wife] is same as
what is with the other one." (Wasa''il, vol. 14, p. 72-73) The same
hadith is also recorded with a slight difference: The Prophet said,
"O Men ! Verily the act of seeing [a beautiful woman] is from Satan,
therefore whoever finds this inclination in him should go to his wife."
(Wasa''il, vol. 14, p. 73)

The hadith narrated from
Sunni sources equates the woman to Satan, whereas in the Shi''ah sources
there is no such implication at all. On the contrary, in the

second
version of the hadith found in the Shi''ah sources, it is the man''s
sight which is related to the temptation by Satan! If we have to choose
between the sources of the Prophet''s sunnah, then we have no choice but to
accept the version given by the Imams of Ahlu''l-bayt, the family of the
Prophet. After all, no one could have known the Prophet better than the
Ahlu''l-bayt. In our view, Imam Ghazali, Imam Muslim and Mernissi are all
wrong in their attempt to equate woman with the Satan. The hadith they
have quoted has been interpolated, most probably, by the mystics to
encourage monasticism which they have imported from Christianity.

The second hadith is as follows: The Prophet said, "Do not
go to the women whose husbands are absent. Because Satan will get in your
bodies as blood rushes through your flesh. (Ihya'', vol. 2, p. 110;
Beyond the Veil, p. 42)

First of all, I was not able to
find a similar hadith in the Shi''ah sources. This, plus its
content, casts doubt on the authenticity of the hadith. Secondly,
the source of this so-called hadith is Sahih at-Tirmidhi.
And I am surprised how Ghazali and Mernissi could use this
hadith while their source, Imam at-Tirmidhi, himself comments that
"This is a strange hadith!'''' (haza hadithun gharib.) Thirdly, even
if the hadith is accepted, it does not prove what Mernissi wants
from it: "The married woman whose husband is absent is a particular threat
to men." Because the hadith equates the men, and not the women,
with Satan. Actually, the woman in this hadith emerge as the victim
of men who have been overwhelmed by the Satan!

Now
let us return to the work of Ghazali in which he is describing the harms
of marriage. Ghazali names three things as the harms of marriage and we
shall discuss each of them separately:

The First Harm:

"The first and greatest harm [of marriage]
is ''the inability to gain lawful livelihood.'' This is something which is
not easy for everyone especially during these times bearing in mind that
livelihood is necessary. Therefore, the marriage will be a cause for
obtaining the food by unlawful means, and in this is man''s perdition and
also that of his family. Whereas a single person is free from these
problems. . . " (Ihya'', vol. 2, p. 117)

Then he goes on to quote the mystics on this
issue whose statements are of no value to us unless they are based on the
Qur''an and the sunnah. They praise celibacy under the influence of
monasticism which has been condemned by the Prophet and the Qur''an.

The logical conclusion of what Ghazali and other mystics say is
that ''if you are rich, it is okay to marry; but if you are poor, you
should not marry otherwise you will end up seeking provision from unlawful
means!'' This statement is totally against the Qur''anic view which says,
"Marry the spouseless among you. . . if they are poor, God will enrich
them of His bounty."(24:32) "Do not kill your children because of
(fear of poverty We will provide for you and them."(6: 152) The
Prophet said, "Whoever refrains from marriage because of fear of poverty,
he has indeed thought badly of God." (Wasa''il, vol. 14, p. 24) I do
not know how a person can gain spiritual upliftment by thinking negatively
about God''s promise!

The Islamic
Sexual Morality (I)Its Foundation

B. DEFENDING THE
ISLAMIC VIEW

There are many
non-Muslim writers, especially of liberal and feminist ideology, who have
attacked the Islamic view of woman''s sexuality. Their criticism is mostly
based on some misconceived ideas about the Islamic sexual morality.
Basically there are two problems with these writers: either they study
Islam based on some Western social theories and models, or they are
ill-equipped to study the original Islamic sources. They rely mostly on
the work done on Islam by the Orientalists or the European travelers of
the past centuries. In some cases, books like Thousand and One
Nights and The Perfumed Garden are used to explain the Islamic
view on women''s sexuality! These books, at the most, reflect the Arab view
of female sexuality not the Islamic view. Therefore, these writings do not
even deserve refutation.

However, for our discussion I have
selected the work of an Arab feminist writer, Fatima Mernissi. The reason
for commenting on her work is that she is an Arab writer who had easy
excess to Islamic literature and hadith, in particular Ihyau
''Ulumi ''d-Din of the famous Sunni scholar Imam Abu Hamid al-Ghazali
(d. 1111 C.E.). Moreover, Mernissi''s book has been translated into various
European and Asian languages and is becoming popular as an insider''s
report!

1. MERNISSI''S VIEWS

Fatima Mernissi''s book, Beyond the Veil
subtitled as "Male-Female Dynamics in Modern Muslim Society," is a study
of the male-female relationship in the present Moroccan society. It is
important to bear in mind that the attitude of the Muslims of Morocco does
not necessarily represent Islam. However, Mernissi has discussed the
Islamic sexual morality in a chapter entitled as "The Muslim Concept of
Active Female Sexuality." The main part of her discussion centers on the
comparison between the views of Freud and Ghazali on female sexuality.
Mernissi has summarized her conclusion as follows:

The irony is that Muslim and European
theories come to the same conclusion: women are destructive to the
social order for Imam Ghazali because they are active, for Freud because
they are not.

Then she goes on to describe the negative
attitude of the Christian West and the positive attitude of Islam towards
sexuality in general. She writes:

Different social orders have integrated the
tensions between religion and sexuality in different ways. In the
Western Christian experience sexuality itself is attacked, degraded as
animality and condemned as anti-civilization. The individual is split
into two antithetical selves: the spirit and the flesh, the ego and the
id. The triumph of civilization implied the triumph of soul over flesh,
of ego over id, of the controlled over the uncontrolled, of spirit over
sex. Islam took a substantially different path. What is attacked and
debased is not sexuality but women, as the embodiment of destruction,
the symbol of disorder. The woman is fitna, the epitome of the
uncontrollable, a living representative of the dangers of sexuality and
its rampant disruptive potential...Sexuality per se is not a danger. On
the contrary it has three positive, vital functions... (Beyond the
Veil, p.44)

After describing the positive side of Islamic
sexual morality, Mernissi attacks the concept of female sexuality in Islam
as she has understood it from Ghazali''s writings:

According to Ghazali, the most precious gift
God gave humans is reason. Its best use is the search for
knowledge...But to be able to devote his energies to knowledge, man has
to reduce the tensions within and without his body, avoid being
distracted by external elements, and avoid indulging in earthly
pleasures. Women are dangerous distraction that must be used for the
specific purpose of providing the Muslim nation with offspring and
quenching the tensions of the sexual instinct. But in no way should
women be an object of emotional investment or the focus of attention.
which should be devoted to Allah alone in the form of knowledge-seeking,
meditation, and prayer. (Beyond the Veil, p.45)

The conclusion which this ardent Arab feminist
describes as the Islamic view can be summarized as follows: (a) Women are
considered sexually active in the Islamic view; (b) therefore, women are a
danger to the social order. (c) There should be no emotional investment in
women; that is, a man should have no love for his wife. (d) Why should
there be no love between husband and wife? Mernissi would answer that love
should be exclusively devoted to Allah. Now let us deal with each of these
premises and conclusions gradually and see whether or not they are based
on any reliable Islamic sources.

(A)WOMEN ARE CONSIDERED
SEXUALLY ACTIVE IN ISLAM

The
statement that in Islam women are considered sexually active, can mean two
different things: either they are more sexually active than men or they
are as sexually active as men. In the first sense, it would mean that
women have a stronger sex drive; and in the second sense, it would mean
that women are as normal as men in their sexuality. By looking at the
context of Mernissi''s writing, I would be justified in saying that she is
using this statement in the first sense, that is, women are more sexually
active than men.

In my study of the Qur''an and authentic
ahadith on this subject, I have not come across any statement which
says that women are more sexually active than men. I can say with
confidence that as far as Islam is concerned, there is no difference
between the sexuality of men and women. There are, however, certain
ahadith which can be used by Mernissi to prove that women are more
sexually active than men provided she decides to stick to one part of
those ahadith and ignore the other part! It is obvious that such
partial use of hadith is an unacceptable academic exercise.

For example, in one such hadith, Asbagh bin Nubatah quotes
Imam ''Ali as follows: "Almighty God has created the sexual desire in ten
parts; then He gave nine parts to women and one to men. " If the
hadith had ended here, Mernissi would be right in her claim, but
the hadith goes on: "And if the Almighty God had not given the
women equal parts of shyness, then each man would have nine women related
to him." (Wasa''il, vol. 14, p.40) In other words, Allah has given
the women greater part of sexual desire but He has also neutralized it by
giving equal parts of shyness to them. Seen as a whole, this and other
similar ahadith do not support the claim that in Islam women are
more sexually active then men. As for the question that why did Allah give
more sexual desire to women and then neutralize it with shyness, I shall
inshaAllah deal with it in the chapter on sexual technique. So how
has Mernissi arrived at her conclusion? While contrasting the views of
Freud and Ghazali on passive and active sexuality of women, Fatima
Mernissi has studied the view of both writers on the process of human
reproduction. First she quotes Freud as follows: "The male sex cell is
actively mobile and searches out the female and the latter, the ovum, is
immobile and waits passively..." (Beyond the Veil, p. 36, quoting
Freud''s New Introductory Lectures, p. 144) This proves to Mernissi
that in Freud''s view, woman is sexually passive. Then she contrasts this
with Ghazali''s view by quoting him as follows, "The child is not created
from man''s sperm alone, but from the union of a sperm from the male with a
ovum from the female...and in any case the ovum of the female is a
determinant factor in the process of coagulation." (Beyond the
Veil, p. 37) This proves to Mernissi that in Ghazali''s view, woman is
sexually active.

I doubt whether Ghazali would agree with the
conclusion which Mernissi draws from his last sentence. Moreover, even if
Ghazali meant such a thing, then it cannot be substantiated from the
original sources of Islam, the Qur''an and the sunnah. We have a
clear hadith which refutes such a connotation to the process of
reproduction. Once the Prophet was asked, "O Muhammad! Why is that in some
cases the child resembles his paternal uncles and has no resemblance
whatsoever to his maternal uncles, and in some cases he resembles his
maternal uncles and has no resemblance whatsoever to his paternal uncles?"
The Prophet said, "Whosoever''s water-drop [i.e., sperm or ovum] overwhelms
that of his or her partner, the child will resemble that
person."(At-Tabrasi, al-Ihtijaj, vol. 1, p. 48 For a similar
hadith in Sunni sources, see Ibn Qayyim, Tibyan, p. 334-5.
Also see an interesting study on birth control among the Muslims, Sex
and Society in Islam by B.F. Musallam.) In other words, if the wife''s
ovum overwhelms the sperm of her husband, then the child will resemble the
mother or the maternal uncles; and if the husband''s sperm overwhelms the
ovum of his wife, then the child will resemble the father or the paternal
uncles. This hadith makes it quite clear that male and female play equal
role in reproduction; sometimes, the male sperm overwhelms the female ovum
and at other times the female ovum overwhelms the male sperm.

Then
she quotes Ghazali''s statement about the pattern of ejaculation of sexes
as follows, "...The woman''s ejaculation is a much slower process and
during that process her sexual desire grows stronger and to withdraw from
her before she reaches her pleasure is harmful to her." (Beyond the
Veil, p. 38) By this statement, Mernissi wants to prove that in Islam
woman is considered sexually more active than man. When I read this
statement for the first time, I said to myself that this can not be true
at all times: sometimes the male ejaculates first and at other times the
female ejaculates first. And I was surprised that Ghazali would say such a
thing. So I checked the Arabic statement of Ghazali and noticed that while
translating the above quotation, Mernissi has conveniently left out the
word "rubbama" which means "sometimes". (Al-Ghazali, Ihya,
vol. 2, p. 148) So the correct statement of Ghazali is that "The woman''s
ejaculation sometimes is a much slower process..." With this correction,
Mernissi''s argument loses its legs.

(B) WOMEN ARE A DANGER
TO THE SOCIAL ORDER.

The
outcome of the above premise of Mernissi is as follows: Since Islam
considers women as sexually more active, therefore, it considers them to
be a danger to the social order.

After quoting Ghazali that, "The
virtue of the woman is a man''s duty. And the man should increase or
decrease sexual intercourse with the woman according to her needs so as to
secure her virtue," Mernissi comments, "The Ghazalian theory directly
links the security of the social order to that of the woman''s virtue, and
thus to the satisfaction of her sexual needs. Social order is secured when
the women limits herself to her husband and does not create fitna,
or chaos, by enticing other men to illicit intercourse." (Beyond the
Veil, p. 39, Ihya, vol. 2, p. 148)

Firstly, by looking
at Ghazali''s statement, I see nothing which would seem to indicate that in
his view women are a danger to the social order. It simply describes one
of the basic rights of conjugal relationship that the husband should not
be a self-centered and selfish person, rather he should also think about
the feelings of his wife. There is no indication at all that unsatisfied
Muslim women in general would necessarily go out and commit adultery.

Secondly, if unsatisfied women become a danger to the social order
just because there is a possibility that they might commit adultery, then
this possibility is in no way confined to women even unsatisfied men could
commit adultery! If Islam had considered women as a danger to the social
order on this account, then it must also do so with men! And in stretching
this argument to its logical conclusion, one would have to say that Islam
considers men and women a danger to the social order. You see the
absurdity of this line of thought. If all men and women are a danger to
the social order, then whose ''social order'' are we talking about?!

(C)
THERE SHOULD BE NO EMOTIONAL INVESTMENT IN WOMEN.

The second part of Mernissi''s contention is
that in Islam men are not supposed to be emotionally attached to their
wives; love between husband and wife is not encouraged or tolerated. Apart
from what we quoted from Mernissi on this issue at the beginning of this
discussion, she has talked on this issue, in a passing manner, at other
places also. For instance, after quoting an interview with a Moroccan
woman about her first husband by an arranged marriage (which has nothing
to do with Islam), Mernissi writes, "Does love between man and wife
threaten something vital in the Muslim order?...Heterosexual involvement,
real love between husband and wife, is the danger that must be overcome."
(Beyond the Veil, p.113) In another place, she says, "And it
appears to me that the breakdown of sexual segregation permits the
emergence of what the Muslim order condemns as a deadly enemy of
civilization: love between men and women in general, and between husband
and wife in particular. " (Beyond the Veil, p. 107)

Mernissi could not have been more further from the truth than in
these contentions! Instead of going to the original sources of Islam, she
has based her conclusion on the way a certain ethnic group of Muslims
behave in their personal life. Now let us see if what she says is
according to the original sources of Islam or not.

The Qur''an
says, "And among His signs is that He has created for you spouses from
among yourselves so that you may live in tranquility with them; and He has
created love (muhabbah) and mercy between you. Verily in that are
signs for those who reflect."(30: 21 ) How can Mernissi say that Islam
considers love between husband and wife a deadly enemy of civilization
while the God of Islam counts it as a sign of His creation and glory? Imam
Ja''far as-Sadiq says, "Loving (hubb) women is among the traditions
of the prophets." (Wasa''ilu ''sh-Shi''ah, vol. 14, p.9) The same Imam
quotes the Prophet as follows, "The statement of a husband to his wife
that ''I love you'' (inniuhibbuki) will not leave her heart ever."
(Wasa''ilu ''sh-Shi''ah, p. 10)

There are three interesting
ahadith in which Imam Ja''far as-Sadiq has described the love for
women as a sign and cause of increase in faith. He says, "I do not think
that a person''s faith can increase positively unless his love for women
has increased. "( Wasa''ilu ''sh-Shi''ah, p. 9) In another
hadith, he says, "Whenever a person''s love for women increases, his
faith increases in quality." Wasa''ilu ''sh-Shi''ah, p.11) In a third
hadith he relates the love for women to the love for Ahlu''l-bayt which is
an important teaching of the Qur''an. He says "Whosoever''s love for us
increases, his love for women must also increase." (Wasa''ilu
''sh-Shi''ah, p. 11) I do not think that there is any further need to
prove that Mernissi''s accusation against Islam is baseless.

(D)
LOVE SHOULD BE EXCLUSIVELY DEVOTED TO ALLAH.

If asked that why does Islam consider love for
women as a deadly enemy of civilization and a danger to the social order,
Mernissi would answer that emotional investment or the focus of attention
"should be devoted to Allah alone in the form of knowledge-seeking,
meditation, and prayer." This is what she describes as Ghazali''s view.
(Beyond the Veil, p.45) In other words, Mernissi is saying that
Islam, like Christianity, considers love for God and love for woman as two
antipathetic phenomena. However, to be fair to Mernissi, I must say that
this is a misconception from which even a scholar like Ghazali is not
immune.

Although I have already quoted in detail the Islamic view
which believes that love for women is not inharmonious with spiritual
wayfaring, I intend to discuss this issue in the light of what Ghazali,
with his Sufi tendencies, has to say.

2. AL-GHAZALI''S VIEWS

In his discussions on marriage in Ihyau ''Ulumi
''d-Din, Abu Hamid al-Ghazali has a section on "Encouragement for
Marriage" (at-targhibfi ''n-nikah). In this section he has quoted
some sayings of the Prophet about virtue of marriage. Then he has a
section on "Discouragement from Marriage" (at-targhib ''ani ''n-nikah).
In this section, apart from the sayings of some mystics (Sufis),
Ghazali has quoted three hadith: two from the Prophet and one from
Imam ''Ali. Interestingly, the third hadith is not even relevant to
the issue; it is more relevant to family planning it talks about having
fewer wives and children! Moreover, all three ahadith are
classified by the scholars of hadith as weak (da''if). (See
the editor''s footnote in Ihya'', vol. 2, p. 101 and also in
al-Kashani, Tahzibu ''l-Ihya, vol. 3, p. 57)

Then Ghazali goes on to discuss about the
"benefits and harms of marriage. " Before scrutinizing the ''harms of
marriage,'' I wish to comment on two ''ahadith'' of the Prophet which
Ghazali has quoted from his Sunni sources and which Mernissi has also used
in her book.

The first hadith is as follows:

The Prophet said, "When the woman comes
towards you, it is Satan who is approaching you. When one of you sees a
woman and he feels attracted to her, he should hurry to his wife. With
her, it would be the same as with the other one." (Ihya'', vol. 2,
p. 110, Beyond the Veil, p. 42)

After quoting this hadith, Mernissi
adds the comments of Imam Muslim that "She resembles Satan in his
irresistible power over the individual."

While discussing the
issue of forgery or interpolation in hadith, our ''ulama'' say
that one source of forgery was the mystics and the so-called pious mullahs
who imported the idea of celibacy and monasticism from without Islam into
the hadith literature. And since the evilness of woman is a main
component of Christian monasticism, similar ideas also crept into the
hadith literatureeither in form of total forgery or in form of
interpolation. When I read the above ''hadith'', I suspected it to be
an interpolation, especially its opening sentence. My suspicion was
confirmed when I started to look for a similar hadith in the Shi''ah
sources. The Shi''ah sources narrate a similar hadith as follows:

The Prophet said, "When one of you sees a beautiful woman, he
should go to his wife. Because what is with her [i.e., wife] is same as
what is with the other one." (Wasa''il, vol. 14, p. 72-73) The same
hadith is also recorded with a slight difference: The Prophet said,
"O Men ! Verily the act of seeing [a beautiful woman] is from Satan,
therefore whoever finds this inclination in him should go to his wife."
(Wasa''il, vol. 14, p. 73)

The hadith narrated from
Sunni sources equates the woman to Satan, whereas in the Shi''ah sources
there is no such implication at all. On the contrary, in the

second
version of the hadith found in the Shi''ah sources, it is the man''s
sight which is related to the temptation by Satan! If we have to choose
between the sources of the Prophet''s sunnah, then we have no choice but to
accept the version given by the Imams of Ahlu''l-bayt, the family of the
Prophet. After all, no one could have known the Prophet better than the
Ahlu''l-bayt. In our view, Imam Ghazali, Imam Muslim and Mernissi are all
wrong in their attempt to equate woman with the Satan. The hadith they
have quoted has been interpolated, most probably, by the mystics to
encourage monasticism which they have imported from Christianity.

The second hadith is as follows: The Prophet said, "Do not
go to the women whose husbands are absent. Because Satan will get in your
bodies as blood rushes through your flesh. (Ihya'', vol. 2, p. 110;
Beyond the Veil, p. 42)

First of all, I was not able to
find a similar hadith in the Shi''ah sources. This, plus its
content, casts doubt on the authenticity of the hadith. Secondly,
the source of this so-called hadith is Sahih at-Tirmidhi.
And I am surprised how Ghazali and Mernissi could use this
hadith while their source, Imam at-Tirmidhi, himself comments that
"This is a strange hadith!'''' (haza hadithun gharib.) Thirdly, even
if the hadith is accepted, it does not prove what Mernissi wants
from it: "The married woman whose husband is absent is a particular threat
to men." Because the hadith equates the men, and not the women,
with Satan. Actually, the woman in this hadith emerge as the victim
of men who have been overwhelmed by the Satan!

Now
let us return to the work of Ghazali in which he is describing the harms
of marriage. Ghazali names three things as the harms of marriage and we
shall discuss each of them separately:

The First Harm:

"The first and greatest harm [of marriage]
is ''the inability to gain lawful livelihood.'' This is something which is
not easy for everyone especially during these times bearing in mind that
livelihood is necessary. Therefore, the marriage will be a cause for
obtaining the food by unlawful means, and in this is man''s perdition and
also that of his family. Whereas a single person is free from these
problems. . . " (Ihya'', vol. 2, p. 117)

Then he goes on to quote the mystics on this
issue whose statements are of no value to us unless they are based on the
Qur''an and the sunnah. They praise celibacy under the influence of
monasticism which has been condemned by the Prophet and the Qur''an.

The logical conclusion of what Ghazali and other mystics say is
that ''if you are rich, it is okay to marry; but if you are poor, you
should not marry otherwise you will end up seeking provision from unlawful
means!'' This statement is totally against the Qur''anic view which says,
"Marry the spouseless among you. . . if they are poor, God will enrich
them of His bounty."(24:32) "Do not kill your children because of
(fear of poverty We will provide for you and them."(6: 152) The
Prophet said, "Whoever refrains from marriage because of fear of poverty,
he has indeed thought badly of God." (Wasa''il, vol. 14, p. 24) I do
not know how a person can gain spiritual upliftment by thinking negatively
about God''s promise!