Woman Between Islam and Western Society
5. Position of Woman in the Islamic Shari‘ah
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Prophet. Nowhere in the Hadith is it stated that
woman was made from a crooked rib, this being an
ancient biblical version of God’s creation of human
life. The word “rib” was used by the Prophet in a
purely metaphorical sense and his actual words
were: “Woman is like a rib, if you try to straighten
her out, she will break, so treat her kindly.”
The
Encyclopaedia Britannica
states: “With respect to
personality traits, men are characterized by greater
aggressiveness, dominance and achievement
motivation, women by greater dependency, a
stronger social orientation and the tendency to be
more easily discouraged by failure than men”
(19/907).
Presumably the Prophet, with his great
understanding of human nature, had a fine intuitive
grasp of the fundamental, biological and
psychological differences between men and women,
particularly the latter’s fragility and passivity —
and, for this reason, found it necessary to admonish
lesser men to treat their wives kindly.
I fail to see how “the degradation of women” can
ensue from such an injunction. It would be fitting,
