Woman Between Islam and Western Society
5. Position of Woman in the Islamic Shari‘ah
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destructiveness. Each of us would have become
permanently tainted by hatred and the desire for
revenge.
It was really my mother’s single-mindedness in
remaining patient that altered the entire course of
our lives. She taught us that it would be wrong to
fight against those who deprived us of our rights,
and inculcated in us the belief that the only course
for us to adopt was to improve our lot in life by dint
of sheer hard work. She encouraged us to turn our
eyes away from what had been denied us and,
instead, to give our full attention to that which we
still enjoyed, namely, our God-given existence.
Today, my evaluation of this attitude is a rational,
conscious process, but in our youth, our positive
mental adaptation to negative circumstances was,
as it were, an unconscious process stimulated by
my mother’s training. This capacity for detachment
having become a permanent trait in all of us, we
were able to steer clear of confrontations, and chose
instead a course of action which should be free of
disputes. We three brothers may all have followed
different paths, but our basic attitude remained
