By : Yasir Saeed Alvi

Abstract

Islamic feminists emphasize Islam’s inherent gender equality and social justice, grounding their interpretations in the religion’s foundational principles. They continue to present their understanding of Islamic teachings without deviating from core tenets, challenging patriarchal readings of women’s rights within Islam. This article will explore the concept of gender justice while critically examining existing fiqh on conjugality, drawing on the arguments of Islamic feminist scholars. In doing so, it will clarify the distinction between fiqh and Shari’ah, focusing on the role of human interpretation in shaping religious understanding. This analysis will serve as the foundation for further critique of interpretations that overly emphasize human elements in Shari’ah. The article aims to highlight the feminist dimensions of Islamic law and briefly address the impact of patriarchal control over the faith.

Introduction

The Shari’ah, as the bedrock of Islamic jurisprudence, has often been co-opted by patriarchal structures, leading to distorted interpretations of conjugal relationships and gender roles. These androcentric readings have undermined Islam’s foundational principles of equity, justice, and mutual respect. Islamic feminists, through the rigorous application of Ijtihad—the process of critical reasoning and reinterpretation—endeavour to disentangle patriarchal biases from the sacred texts. By revisiting the Qur’an and Hadith, they uncover Islam’s inherently egalitarian ethos, particularly in matters of conjugality, asserting a vision of marriage grounded in reciprocity, compassion, and the balanced distribution of rights and responsibilities.

Feminist Interventions in Shari’ah Conceptions of Conjugality 

Riffat Hassan argues in her article titled “Muslim Women and Post-Patriarchal Islam” that some scholars particularly make mention of Hadith or tradition, with regard to the entitlements of women in Islam, that is hard to trust “as generally they are inauthentic, unsupported and one-sided”. One such mention is of a Hadith reported by Imam Ahmad with regards to conjugal rights that mentions the Prophet having said: “It is not right for any human being to prostrate to another; if it were right for one human being to prostrate to another, I would have commanded women to prostrate to their husbands because of the great rights that they have over them. By the One in Whose hand is my soul, if a man were covered from head to foot with weeping sores oozing pus, and his wife were to come to him and lick his sores (to clean them), this would not fulfil the rights he has over her.”. The correct view, utilising Ijtihad, regarding this narration is that it is dha’eef or weak and can therefore, not be associated with the Prophet whatsoever, it is to be noted that the genuineness of any Hadith is determined by its chain of narration or simply how it came down from the Prophet. In this case, the chain of narration is substantially weak and even the language used is strange and illegitimate enough to be rejected by almost all scholars. This Hadith is so unbecoming of divine revelation and the Prophet’s language that it can be categorised as Munkar or rejected by the critics for the reason that the repulsive language it uses is legitimately alien to the Sunn’ah of the Prophet, who used the most well-thought of and gentle words to provide explanations especially when it came to the subject of the rights of women in Islam. All of this has been ignored to give popularity to this narration by various scholars, particularly male scholars of influence. This has come to project the worst possible understanding of the faith that too on the basis of such weak and unfounded narrations. 

With respect to the question of conjugal rights, it has been argued that the husband has more rights than the wife which is a fundamentally flawed understanding of the granting of rights and privileges in Islam. Looking at this with the modern day understanding of rights leads to unsound conclusions, rather the Qur’anic understanding has been that whoever is given privileges has also been commanded with mandatory responsibilities by the creator as against those privileges. Therefore, even if this argument about men having more rights in contrast to women is accepted, it will mean that they have more duties to fulfil than the wife, giving greater ease to women as against men, which clearly puts women at a more privileged position than men. From this it does not at all follow that Islam regards women to be incapable of performing the same burden of duties, it must be noted that the fundamental source of Islam, the Qur’an, provides for only a single root of the difference between men and women i.e. a females capability to give birth. Islam lays down the understanding that males and females are truly equal, however, biologically different with respect to the domain of procreation. In order to further provide clarity on the intent of the Qur’an, it is imperative to note that it furnishes the principle of tawwazun or balancing the duties in a conjugal relationship. This has been summed up exceptionally well by Margot Badran who wrote,

 “In the context of the conjugal relationship when a woman is involved in childbearing and nursing (which only women can do), the husband is given responsibility to provide material support, which is seen as a balancing of labour. The Qur’an does not lay out specific roles but instead affirms the notion of the mutuality of the conjugal relationship: that spouses are protectors of each other, or mutual helpers. It is patriarchal thinking that specifies and imposes roles, and does so in a social order that places males above females in a complex hierarchical power grid, justifying this in the name of Islam. The designation of specific roles in the family and society is simply the product of social or cultural construction. To use biology as a pivot for human inequality in family and society is as absurd as it is un-Qur’anic.” 

There is a widely accepted misinterpretation with relation to the sphere of sexual intercourse in a conjugal relationship or marriage under the Shari’ah i.e. the husband has a “right” to sexual intercourse or that it is the duty of the wife to “serve” her husband to the extent that she cannot deny sexual intercourse, therefore, suggesting affirmation for marital rape. This is an incorrect analysis of sexual relations among spouses in Islam, which provides for a mutual right to sexual intercourse and not only that of the husband (as a product of solemnisation of marriage between spouses). It is to be noted as against this misconception that Islam actually forbids any use of force or coercion under fiqh in general and even otherwise with respect to sexual intercourse, Surah Al-Baqarah in the Qur’an when speaking of the rights of sexual intercourse during fasting, lays down the principle of reciprocity or Mubadalah as an essential component which clearly signals towards the need for the act to be mutually consented to or what it calls reciprocal. It further reads that the wife is the clothing of the husband and the husband is the clothing of the wife which also stems from the same principle. Therefore, to say that Islam condones marital rape is to deviate from the implicit condemnation of the evil act. Islam mandates spouses, especially husbands, to treat their spouse with dignity, respect and kindness and any sort of oppression, violence or intimidation has no place in a conjugal relationship provided for by Islam.

 Amina Wadud in her book titled “Qur’an and woman: Rereading the sacred text from a woman’s perspective” argues against a popular misconception with regards to the latter part of Surah An-Nisa which discusses the state of turmoil in a marital relationship and provides for three steps to make an attempt to resolve or remedy the said turmoil. The first two steps are fairly self explanatory- to seek mutual consultations and if that does not work out, sleep in separate beds, while it is the third step that has been gravely misinterpreted i.e. the one involving scourge or beating the wife (to discipline her). Wadud has extensively argued that the term scourge has been mistranslated, since daraba the Arabic term which has two meanings, one is “to strike” which has been wrongly equated to the act of striking the wife, when the other and rather better-fitting meaning of daraba in this context is to “strike out” or “to leave”. The reason why the second meaning fits better is based on two fundamental concepts of Islam, of not hurting another person and treating wives with kindness and empathy. The Prophet’s commandment of forbiddance of cruelty cannot coherently follow from the patriarchal translation of the word. Additionally, the understanding that Islam provides for divorce as the ultimate resort is also to be kept in mind while concluding Wadud’s translation to be the correct one, since it simply says that the three steps are to firstly look for mutual consultations if that fails, then they may sleep in separate beds and lastly, if the initial two do not work out either, then they may leave each other i.e. seek divorce.

Conclusion

This piece of research grants admission to the fact that the patriarchal interpretations of the Shari’ah stand in open conflict with the Islamic ideals of gender justice and equality of the sexes. The reckless demonisation of Islamic feminist scholars is in contravention to the remedy of Ijtihad and is therefore a disservice to their exceptional work in exploring the feminist ideals of Islam contributing to the development and transformation of fiqh. The literature produced by the scholars has come to protest the hegemony of male-centred interpretations by registering their versions giving light to the inherent feminist nature of Islam. Therefore, reading such work enables the development of Islamic logic and rationale in the most affirming sense paving the way for a truly equitable social order.

About the Author

Yasir Saeed Alvi is a Political Science Major from University of Delhi and is reading law at Jindal Global Law School, O.P. Jindal Global University, India. His interest areas consist of Criminal Jurisprudence, Law and Marginalisation, Real Estate Law, Constitutional Law and Gender Studies.

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