KARACHI, Aug 29: Religious scholar Dr Riffat Hassan has underlined the need for working out a new strategy to get the government to abolish anti-women laws.
Speaking at a seminar organized by the Oxford University Press on Thursday, Dr Hassan dilated upon the three widely held theological assumptions. She said: “The first assumption is that God’s primary creation was Adam, and woman was created from his ribs and is, therefore, secondary. The second assumption is that though woman is secondary she got Adam thrown out of Heaven. The third assumption is that not only was woman created from Adam, she was created for him.”
She said these theological assumptions were, first and foremost, developed by the Christian tradition and then used by the Jewish and Muslim traditions. She said these assumptions were drawn from the chapter of the Bible titled “Genesis”.
“‘The ‘rib theory’ is a re-emergence of the Genesis theory. In the Quran there is no mention of rib etc. There are six Hadiths about it — three each from Sahi Bokhari and Sahi Muslim. According to the laws of interpretation, a law enunciated by the Quran cannot be reversed by any number of Hadiths. Why this principle is not applied to the ‘rib theory’?” she wondered.
She remarked that how this idea travelled from Genesis to Hadith was another story, adding that no research had been done by anybody in this area.
Dr Hassan noted that there were two groups of women who were very visible and vocal. “One group consists of religious extremists and the other comprises anti-religion extremists. While the former had a very narrow understanding of the Quran, the latter maintains that Islam and human rights are incompatible.”
She added that there was a silent majority which did not subscribe to either position. “This silent majority want deen as well as duniya. They want to be modern, successful and educated. How do you mobilize these people?” she said.
Dr Hassan said that both types of extremists were enormously wealthy. They, she added, both received a lot of funding, at times, from the same source.
She said: “Most of us have grown up believing that the Quran is the complete code of life. We believe that it is an encyclodpaedia. We think that we can find a verse about all the issues under the sun. I think that this is not the right way of reading the Quran.”
She added that over and over again she was asked to explain the meaning of one verse or another. “It cannot be done this way. It is only by understanding the ethics of the religion that we can understand the verses of the Quran.”
Dr Riffat Hassan said people should beware of certain non-religious extremists, including the NGOs and feminist organizations, preaching human rights and women rights while depicting Islam as a cruel religion, adds PPI.
Targeting the discriminatory attitude towards women in most Muslim countries, she deplored that women were discouraged from getting educated, fearing that they would become westernized. Contrary to that, she added, education among males was being promoted so that they become modern.
Criticizing the “process of Islamization” in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, she said a few women started their struggle against discriminatory laws and punishments introduced then, but it failed to bear fruit.
She said Muslim women were unaware of the rights enshrined in the Shariat for them, saying that Islam was the only means of women empowerment.
She said Islam wants its followers to establish a just society, based on social justice (Adl) and compassionate justice (Ehsan).
She further claimed that women, being equal to men in the eyes of God, were allowed to carry out all types of Jihad (struggle), including that with swords.
Dr Hassan suggested that an international conference of scholars from Islamic countries discuss and find ways to resolve women’s issues.