Woman in Islamic Shari‘ah
3. Womanhood in Islam
~ 50 ~
So far as a woman’s being like a rib is concerned,
mention of this is made only to support fair
treatment of women rather than the reverse. It has
been clarified above that this was only an example.
In view of the particular psychology of women, it
was cited to show that if she was subjected to rough
treatment, it would go against her nature and
would result in perversion rather than reform.
In this saying of the Prophet the likening of woman
to the rib was a simple metaphor. The
misunderstanding arose because of the biblical
statement brought in to explain it. While this saying
had nothing to do with the biblical conception of
woman, what has been said in the above
hadith
is a
natural fact which has often been expressed in
different ways, as in the words of Matthew Arnold:
“With women the heart argues, not the mind.”
SUMMARY
God “created man’s mate from the same soul”
means simply that women are of the same species
as men. God created them that way so that there
should be harmony between the two sexes. If men
and women had been derived from different species
