Woman Between Islam and Western Society
5. Position of Woman in the Islamic Shari‘ah
~ 267 ~
“Women are akin to a rib and should be treated
with due consideration.” There is another tradition
which explains what this means. “A woman is like a
rib,” said the Prophet, “if you try to straighten it, it
will break.”
38
This saying of the Prophet Muhammad, related in
the
Sahih
of both Bukhari and Muslim — the most
authentic collections of traditions — makes it
clear that women are like ribs; they are not
actually created from ribs. The allusion is
figurative not literal. Light is also cast on the
meaning of the metaphor. Ribs break when one
tries to straighten them. So it is with women.
Rather than try to straighten them, it is better to
let them be.
“Women have been created from ribs,” and
“Women are like ribs,” are just two different ways
of saying the same thing. There is a difference in the
mode of expression of the two statements, but there
is no difference in meaning. It is common in every
language for metaphors to be expressed directly,
without the use of the words “like” or “as.” For
instance, if one wishes to pay tribute to a person’s
